Dear Tam

Thanks for your comment on my morning post wishing me a good day today. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.

During my first period class I caught a kid cheating. So disappointing.

Then second period I discovered that someone—one of my students I assume—cut the cord of my my electric pencil sharpener. Like right cut right through the cord and cut off the plug. So that there’s no way of fixing it. There’s also not even a snowball’s chance in hell that I will spend another penny of my own money buying something anything for my classroom—never mind another 20 bucks replacing this luxury item that I purchased years ago. Let them stand there and crank away at the old school sharpener that hangs on the wall.

By third period I thought I should have stayed home. I thought my head was going to explode—more from my migraine than anything else, although I admit it was getting harder not to write a huge note on my white board: TO THE A**HOLE WHO CUT THE PLUG OFF MY PENCIL SHARPENER: F**K YOU! and to stay grounded in the understanding that not all my students are disrespectful this way. A majority are not, and I could probably name the few, the 8 or 10, who would do something like that….but even that’s depressing. Back when we were student-teaching ages and ages hence before that path diverged in the woods (haha, I don’t know why I decided to quote Frost there), do you remember having to deal with ANYTHING like that?

Oh my god, that just totally reminded me of that time Erika—remember her? I wonder what ever happened to her?—was in the office with her hippie sling bag smoldering. She had put her cigarette behind her back when someone came in the bathroom to haul her to the office and she didn’t know that her purse caught on fire. Well, not fire, but on smoke. And then as she sat on the bench waiting for the assistant principal, the secretary—Mary was her name, right?—saw the plume coming from the bag that was at her feet. Oh my. That was funny stuff. Did we ever laugh “our backs off” as you used to say. Oh, man!

Anyway…where was I?...

I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m home now, and I appears I’m [ahem] on the mend. Thanks for the laughs. And the continued support.

Love you!

Joanne