You're Seriously Not Going to Believe This

Seriously.

Most Wednesdays we have staff meetings. I, however, could not attend because I had morning duty (yes, I said "duty"). This one week-long responsibility keeps me from meeting my kids outside in the morning and escorting them up to my classroom. During weeks like this, by the time I get to my room, my kids are already there waiting to be let in.

Today, H. supposedly pushed R. on the stairs, and he fell and hit his head. On the way to my room (after morning duty), I encountered R. being brought to the office by another boy. At least I thought they were going to the office. The other boy informs me that, no, they're going to the gym teacher. "Uh, why?" I asked. The boy explains that they already went to the office and they told him to take him to the gym teacher. "Uh, why?" I asked. "Because that's where they told me to go." (Wow, school really does prepare you for the real world!)

Now let me back up a sec. You may be wondering why they didn't go to the nurse's office. Remember the nurse's office in elementary school? It was always pristine and smelled like rubbing alcohol. She always had cots for you to lay down on when you didn't feel well? Yeah, this is CPS, people. There is no nurse's office. We have a nurse 2 days a week. I'm not kidding. So when somebody is sick or hurt, they get sent to the counselor's office (who, by the way, doesn't counsel. Again, I'm not kidding, but that's a whole other blog entry). If the "counselor" is not there, the kids go to the main office.

Aaaanyway, after 5 minutes R. comes back from the gym teacher (sans ice pack or anything) with the other boy who informs me that the gym teacher said to tell me that if R. seems sleepy later, I should let him sleep since he hit his head. Uh, isn't this contrary to everything you've ever heard about head injuries? Aren't you NOT supposed to let the person sleep? I'm reeaaaalllly hoping that the kid heard wrong and that this was not the true advice of the one person apparently doling out medical advice to 700+ students.

Later on, I found out that the staff meeting that I missed was about sending kids down to the office when they're hurt or sick. "Great!" I thought to myself before hearing the rest. "I really hope they work this system out so the gym teacher isn't the acting nurse on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays." Yeah, what They've decided to do is not allow us to send any sick or hurt kids to any office anymore! They gave everybody first aid boxes and now we're on our own. I'm hoping this is more misinformation and isn't actually true, but I didn't have time to find out today. I'll let you know what happens.

Countdown: 34 days. Hopefully nobody gets something hard to diagnose within that time.

True Dat

Wow, my rate of posting has really slowed down. Maybe it's because I'm so tiiiiiiired all the time! And busy. The 2nd quarter ends today and the end of the quarter is always a crazy time. At least there's no school tomorrow (for the kids anyway). Hopefully I can get some work done!

Actually, this is not likely as we have to spend the first half of the day at another school for a completely unorganized Professional Development (PD) session. The reason I know it's gonna be a mess is because a couple of weeks ago, I volunteered to do presentation at this thing. However, I received NO information about it. Nobody was able to tell me anything about it, such as what the topic was, who my audience was, how long it was supposed to be, etc. FINALLY, I got an email yesterday answering all my questions. Yesterday. The presentation was supposed to be tomorrow. Yeah, I pulled out. There's no way I'm going to prepare something in one day. Fuck that.

Something funny that happened today to lighten the mood:

One of my kids, who is the oldest child in her family said to me, "Ms. M, after you have your baby, you shouldn't have anymore." Another one of my kids who is also the oldest child piped in, "True dat! True dat!" Well, at least I thought it was funny.

All Over the Place, but Not Getting Anywhere

You know it's bad when you're driving home and you are debating if it's safe to rest your eyes for just 1 second. (Just so you know, it's NOT a good idea). From the moment I woke up today, I was off. And when I found a penny on my way to the car, I knew I was going to have a really lucky day or I was totally in for it. (It was the latter). I went through the motions and somehow got to work by 7:30. I then had from 7:30 until almost 9:00 to prepare for my day, but I couldn't manage to do it in a cohesive way. I was all over the place. I prepared for the morning, but then got totally engrossed in 2 projects (at the same time, no less, to make it even less efficient). To make matters worse, neither project even needed to be done today! The bell rang to signify the start of the school day and I hadn't even used the bathroom yet! Hmmmm....doing things that don't even need to be done or using the bathroom before you can't use it for several hours. Apparently I had made my choice.

Now since I've come home, I've had 2 things to do before I leave to go somewhere at 7:00: grade math tests and do laundry. Do you think I've done either one of them? Nooooooo. It's because I'm brain dead.

Because of this affliction, I've delegated some responsibilities of remembering things to my students. I tell them things like, "Remind me after lunch to...". This backfired on me today, though, when my kids asked me, "What were we supposed to remind you to do?" It's spreading!

Very Special

This may be TMI, but I did not pee today from between 8:30 and 3:00. I did not voluntarily put myself through this torture. I couldn't pee because I had no break at all today. Okay, I did have 20 minutes for lunch, but in my defense, I had to take care of an attendance problem and eat, so I actually didn't have time! Sad, I know. Once specials start, I will have at at least 40 minutes to pee all I want. (Specials are "special classes" such as gym, art, computers, etc. These are sometimes called "preps," short for "preparation periods")

At my last school, specials started on day one. At this school, we can't manage to get them started until the second week! So imagine my surprise when last Friday, the AP stated we would get our prep schedules emailed to us by Tuesday morning and that they would start on the first day...yeah, right. Well, today, I was doing my thing (y'know, teaching and NOT peeing) when at about 12:30, the AP makes an all-call on the intercom reminding everybody that specials have started today and to please be on time! Uh, excuse me? The day's half over and you're telling me this now? Is there a schedule? What do I have today? Wouldn't this information have been handy for me to have, say, ohhhh, 4 HOURS AGO?? Grrrrr.

I took my kids out to recess at about 12:45. I stopped at my mailbox on the way to get my prep schedule. NO SCHEDULE! On our way back from recess, I asked a couple teachers if they got their schedule. NO SCHEDULES! When I returned to the classroom, I checked my email to see if it was emailed to me. NO SCHEDULE! So great, specials start today, but nobody has a frickin' schedule!

After school (and after peeing...thank god), I went to the office. My schedule was finally there! My kids had computers today. They, of course, missed it because nobody told us we had computers today, not even the computer teacher! (In all fairness, she probably didn't know, either). I'm happy now because I get TWO preps tomorrow! Nevermind that they're both scheduled for the same time.

And I thought I was tired!

As you learned yesterday, today was the first day of school. I am officially exhausted. We had no breaks today (despite the fact that we were assured that our prep schedule would be emailed to us by this morning...ha!). I even had to eat lunch with my kids (as well as guess what time we even HAVE lunch) because my school can't manage to get it together enough to get gather enough people to supervise the lunchroom. Whatever...my school's disorganization is a whole different entry (and perhaps a whole different blog)!

All teachers know that the first day of school is more annoying than anything. The kids don't know what's what yet, so you have to explain absolutely EVERYTHING, from how to line up without causing injury, to how to pass papers down a row so that everybody gets exactly one, to how to walk in the hallway without alerting the entire building that you're there. These are probably things that civilians take for granted that people know how to do. But people only know how to do these things because their fourth grade teacher taught them to do so. It is no fun teaching this mundane stuff. It seems simple enough, but nine year-olds want to test how you're going to react when they start walking down the hall flapping their arms. Like I said, NO FUN! (Well, except for them. Flapping your arms while walking IS fun! Try it tomorrow at work!)

After school, even though I was VERY tired, I had to go to the main office downtown to hand in some paperwork so I can move up the payscale now that I've finished my Master's Degree. I knew going on the first day of school was going to suuuuck because about a gazillion new-hires were going to be there getting their paperwork submitted, their fingerprints and id photos taken, and generally running through the series of flaming hoops the Board makes us all run through. I finally found the building, which has oh so conveniently moved to the west side of the city, and joined the line in which I was probably 20th. The line barely seemed to be moving at all even though it had a sign that said "Express Drop Off." Twenty minutes later, I'm about halfway through the line and feeling even more tired than I was only 20 minutes ago. I was so tired that I wished that I could sleep standing up and take a little cat nap. At this point I hear deep breathing behind me. I turn around and see that the guy behind me IS asleep standing up!!! His eyes were closed, his chin was to his chest, he was slightly swaying back and forth, and he was SLEEPING! Poor guy. He looked like a new-hire and with this being the first day of school, I'm sure he had a hell of a day.