The Perfect Kid

I have the PERFECT kid in my class this year. I had him last year, too, and that's when I realized that he was an amazing kid. I naturally hand picked him to be in my homeroom for this year when I moved up to a grade 8 homeroom. I didn't have the pleasure of having in my homeroom when I taught grade 7 last year, so I figured it was only appropriate that I have him this year.

I normally refer to the kid as DF because those are his initials. I don't call him that to his face. When speaking with him directly, I call him by his lovely given name. It is in referring to him out of his company that I call him DF. Normally the context is something like this, "My god, once our DF graduates on to the high school, who the hell will take his place?"

He's perfect. He's super duper smart and hard working, he's nice to the other kids, he's as handsome as they come, he's sooo nice to the other kids, he's athletic and he is completely unassuming and modest about all that he has going for him.

Today he asked me if he could stay after school to work with his partner on their Power Point presentation. Naturally I said he could. He then asked me if he could ask one of the girls in the 8th grade class to come and help him with the finer aspects of power point. He isn't the most gifted computer person. (I guess everybody, even DF, has their weaknesses.) The great thing was that he asked the girl who is probably the most academically limited kid in the class (but she's pretty good with Power Point) if she could help him. Naturally the girl was totally flattered to be asked by the by far smartest kid in the class, for her help. She was glowing.

They were with me until almost 5:00 this evening and I had a great time with them.

But here's the thing....

DF's parents are extremely young, maybe even younger than me. They are divorced and they are bitterly angry at each other. They spend a majority of their time with the kids trash talking each other. DF has spoken with me at length about how this stresses him out and really hurts him.

Yesterday was one such day. DF came to school very late and parked himself in the therapy chair next to my desk to talk with me about what was going on. It was pretty heavy.

He is usually so pleasant, but yesterday he was pretty out of sorts. When he went to lunch, he seemed particularly disjointed.

Anyway, our lunch period is just under 30 minutes. With about 5 minutes remaining in the lunch shift, I went across the hall to use the faculty restroom in the main office. The sight that greeted me upon entrance to the office shocked me. There was my perfect DF sitting in the "I'm in trouble and waiting to be busted by the principal chair." I literally rubbed my eyes and tried to refocus. I simply could not believe that DF, of all kids, would be sitting there.

When he saw me in a state of shock, he looked so totally embarrassed. He spilled the beans and told me that he had been loud in the cafeteria and when the janitor told him to knock it off, he totally lost touch with his normal perfect DF self and told the guy, "Get the fuck out of my face."

I was SHOCKED!! He immediately apologized for repeating the thing to me, but quickly added that he knows he can talk to me about stuff like that. Before I could say anything to him, he totally started beating himself up. "I cant' believe I lost control of myself like that. I was so rude to the janitor. This is totally unacceptable. Even if I'm upset I just can't speak to people that way...." All the perfect DF stuff.

I sat there quiet for a moment, looking for the right thing to say to the fallen-from-grace DF. Finally he broke the silence with, "Well, Ms. B., so much for the DF pedestal, right?"

I wasn't even aware of his awareness of the fact that I have him on a total pedestal. But I didn't miss the opportunity. I said, "Nope, no way." I explained that although he had totally screwed up, he could at least take credit for totally owning what he did, realizing that it was dead wrong, and resigning himself to the trouble that was about to come his way.

When the principal showed up, she was equally shocked by what she heard. She let DF off the hook because she knows he is the perfect kid who even handles his imperfections the perfect way. She spoke at length with him about what happened, but she understood that he had just been stressed out and that he was mature enough to take responsibility for what he did.

Today, he came to school with a lengthy apology note to the janitor, (and this kid is an amazing writer) complete with his father's and mother's phone numbers just in case the janitor wanted to call his parents and speak to them about what had happened.

Even the janitor said, "Christ, I almost feel like apologizing to the kid!"

Anyway, I'm just saying that there are a lot of complaints forthcoming from me about the increasingly difficult job teaching has become. But then you get a kid like DF. And it is all worth it. Of course, I know this is THE one DF I will really have in my career. Sure, there will be good kids in the future. Lots of them. But there'll only ever be on DF, and he's in my class for anther 5 months. I'm going to enjoy it while I can!

The Skinny on Skinny Jeans

I'm not a big fan of the skinny jean. I guess they're OK on skinny 15 year-old girls, two demographics into which I can safely say I do not fall. My real beef with skinny jeans lies in their popularity among young (and sometimes not-so-young) men. It seems to be a budding fashion phenomenon among the sort of college age, hip, trendy, artistic/musician set. I wonder what's going on with that.

There are two things that bother me about these jeans:

1. They are SO "skinny" that I often find myself wondering just how the christ the wearer managed to get his foot in through the leg opening.

2. They seem to have cross-breeded with their seeming incompatible opposite, the baggy jean. The situation becomes awkward because these jeans are so freaking tight, and so what they lack in "bagginess" they make up for in "sagginess." The ass is so low on these things, and the excess material, which in the typical gangsta baggy jeans would just fall around the shoe and hit the floor, is just stuck there around the skin tight foot opening. I can only direct your attention to the picture at the top of the page.

This is nothing new. it has been going on for a long time. All of the trendy young things at the Apple Store this summer were wearing these things. I just didn't understand. I was hoping it would be a short-lived thing, but apparently it has some staying power. Sadly.

Anyway, I'm just saying...

Question of the Week

On Fridays, my students get to answer a "question of the week." They enjoy it because each week, we pick one student's question, (usually an open-ended, imagined scenario type of thing), and we go to the computer lab where they bang out a quick, paragraph-long response. We then take the answers and hang them on the "question of the week" bulletin board in the 7th and 8th grade hallway. It is a great discussion prompter. I always join the students in answering the question, and like them, I post my reply in the hallway.

So, this week's question was posed by Dilpreet, and it it was, "If you could spend the day with any five people, past or present, famous or non-famous, who would they be."

Fun question.

I had my 5 people pretty quickly.






Naturally Bono was on my top 5. He's interesting, motivated, artistic, and brilliant. If I got annoyed listening to his "save the world" spiel, I could always just ask him to lapse into song for a moment or two. Plus, say what you will...maybe he's pretentious, and maybe he has a god complex. He's certainly teenie, tiny, short. But the guy is sexy.





Naturally my hero, Bill Clinton, had to factor into the equation somewhere. As far as I'm concerned, this guy is still the president. Ok, he's still MY president. I don't acknowledge the current administration. George W. Who? Anyway, I LOVES me some Bill Clinton. Make no mistakes, I have no desire to shag the guy, but I do think he's pretty amazing. You should pick up his book, "Giving" if you haven't already. Honestly, it will inspire you to want to be a better human being. Bill could be in the process of becoming a stronger former president than he was a sitting president. Naw, though, the guy is great not matter what. He could write a fortune cookie and I'd call it an oeuvre of genius!





I NEED to meet Erik Larson, author of the mind-blowing Devil in the White City. I won't take much of his time, though, because he MUST get back to writing the next book to blow my mind!! I plan on telling him simply to cast aside all of his other daily obligations (taking the kids to school, feeding the pets, shopping, cleaning the house, etc) and promptly set about hiring somebody to do all these things for him so that he may devote every waking moment to penning his next chef-d'oeuvre.



Naturally I have to meet Samuel L. Jackson so that we can discuss how I'd like him to portray me when he plays me in the movie Hollywood will eventually make of my riveting life. We need to make sure he nails the role. Besides, just being seen with SLJ has to boost my street cred because he's just so DAMN COOL!!




Last but not least, my boy, Jon Bon Jovi. Look at the picture and then ask yourself if you really need me to spell out why I want to spend some time with this cool drink of water.

Shut Up, Already!

I very stupidly asked for the book Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver for Christmas. My fabulous in-laws went right out and bought it for me. I was delighted to receive it and anxious to start reading it.

If you're not familiar with the book, it is a non-fiction work by Kingsolver in which she details her family's quest to eat nothing but locally grown or raised food for an entire year. Sounded like an interesting premise. I thought it might be informative, humorous, and even full of some great recipe ideas for fresh fruits and vegetables. I thought it might be enlightening, or at the very least, entertaining.

But here's the ugly truth of the matter.

All this broad does is freakin' preach about how as Americans we're fat, lazy, overindulged and inconsiderate of the environment. All this might be true, but haven't we heard this all before in so many books, films, songs, documentaries? Does there really need to be another work detailing the sloth of Americans? Does she think she's sharing groundbreaking truths with us? Does she think her book is so revolutionary?

Let me shed some light of my own on this situation...

We've seen, heard, and read it all before.

The annoying thing is that Kingsolver starts off by talking about how much fuel is required to ship out-of-season goods clear across the world. True, I'm sure. The problem is that I'm now on page 75 of the book and this is all she seems to discuss. Well, this and the fact that her family is so perfect and that we are all inadequate and unworthy of life because we don't live just like they do. Honestly, I thought I might be inspired by this book. In fact, I'm just totally turned off because this woman is such a self-righteous asshole. The worst thing is that the woman doesn't just come across as an utter stuck up asshole herself, but rather she drags her entire family in on the act. The stupid husbad, Steven L. Hopp, has these little "factual essays" that appear at random intervals throughout the book. He focuses on, surprise, surprise, the fact that we waste billions of barrels of oil shipping foods around the world. But I haven't shared the worst part of this book yet....

Even worse than the jackass husband getting involved, is the fact that the daughter, 18 year-old self-righteous asshole in training, Camille, has little missives throughout the book as well. In her missives, she basically unabashedly pats herself on the back for eating only free-range meats and locally grown produce. She paints herself as the wonder of her college class and makes it sound as if all her classmates are worshipping at her feet because she eats fresh veggies.

Puh-leez, people!! When I was in college, nobody looked twice if anybody ate a salad. In fact, it was pretty commonplace. Things must be pretty different now than they were when I was in college.

If my writing has not convinced you that these people are assholes, just take a look at the photograph that they willingly put on the back of their book. Need I say more? A pictures speaks a thousand words, doesn't it?




My favorite parts of the book involve the author telling stories about how friends have served out-of-season fruits and vegetables at dinner parties. Kingsolver completely berates and insults these people, basically equating their choice to serve these foods with their singlehandedly destroying the planet. She insults their intelligence, their hospitality, and their friendship to make her self-righteous points.

Screw that. I hope these people read her book, feel rightfully insulted, and drop this bitch like a hot locally-grown, free range, organic potato.

It is not often that I don't finish a book. But this is one that will be relegated to the "holding up the short end of the couch" pile. I just can't be preached at by this arrogant, pompous asshole and her family any longer.

Before and After

Sephen and I treated ourselves to the luxury of hiring a cleaning woman to come and give our apartment a nice, thorough, once (or twice) over!

We were both so busy all week, and were hardly ever in the apartment. It seemed we were only around long enough to create a mess, but not to clean it up.

So, we hired two Brazilian women and they did a fabulous job.

Note: NEVER hire a cleaning person from a company like "Merry Maids" or any of those horrible places. They treat their employees like crap. I have no guilt about hiring these women. They run an independent business, and they are free to set their own rates, which they then pocket fully.

Anyway, here's a study of our bathroom, before and after! Can you guess which is which?

I Know I'm Not Perfect, But At Least I Don't....

Sometimes I feel kind of bitchy about judging people and jumping to conclusions about people whom I've never even spoken with.

Then I see how some people behave in public and I think to myself, "Jesus, if he's not embarrassed to do that in front of perfect strangers, should I really be ashamed about being judgmental." I think not.

Below is a list of the things I've seen people do in the recent past. I will list the the offensive behavior and, in some cases, reveal the offender(s.)

So, the theme of my list is this:

I KNOW I'M NOT PERFECT, BUT AT LEAST I DON'T........

Clip my fingernails on vehicles of public transportation. Is this not just completely vial? Disgusting? Offensive in the purest sense of the word? Revolting? I think so too. And yet, I've seen it many times. Why just today I saw it twice. A woman on the bus decided to bust out the clippers today, and to round out my experience, a woman on the train did the same during my evening commute. Jesus Christ, this is just nasty. I waste no opportunity to give an absolutely seething glare to anybody engaged in this atrocious act. Sometimes I become tempted to put my iPod on and drown out the noise, but then I think better of it. I always opt to keep my five senses fully tuned in so as to avoid being hit by errant nail clippings. I'm still waiting for some asshole to start clipping their toenails on the bus. I'm sorry, but the nasty look will be cast aside in favor of the, "You've got to put those nasty ass hamhocks away" comment!

Thrust my arm viciously in front of somebody at the check-in counter at the gym and reach for a towel. The next time I'm tempted to do something silly like say, "Excuse me, pardon my reach," I think I'll just knock some poor unsuspecting gym member over with my arm-come-deadly-weapon.

Throw a colleague's photocopy job off the copier in the middle of its processing in order to make my own copies. Yeah...somebody did this to me at work today.

Ask somebody if they're waiting to get to the milk stand at Starbucks only to ascertain an answer of "yes" but proceed to push ahead of them anyway.

Send annoying political emails to people whose views I know to be completely divergent with my own, and then get offended if they respond negatively or with an opposing viewpoint.

Spit. Ever.

Smoke.

Smoke directly in the doorway of a public building.

SCREAM down my cellphone on public transportation. (Have you ever noticed that the assholes speaking on the cellphone nearby when you're in public never appear to be engaged in a two-sided conversation, but rather a lengthy and emotional monologue, prompting them to speak loudly without pause and seemingly without any feedback or reason to pause from the person on the other end?)

I don't drive, but if I did, I WOULD USE MY FREAKING TURN SIGNALS SO THAT PEDESTRIANS WOULD KNOW WHEN THEY COULD CROSS THE FREAKIN STREET!!!!

Turn colleauges into the principal.

Talk ceaselessly about football.

Go tanning and try to pawn off my leathery orange skin as "natural."

Snap gum. Ever!

Say "axe" instead of "ask" or "liberry" instead of "library."

I Thought It Was Supposed to be CELEBRITY Apprentice!

I know my readers look forward to my early-in-the-season commentary on each individual contestant in the Donald Trump Show. I am sorry I have kept you waiting for so long. I admit that I should have gotten on with this much sooner!

I don't know, I guess I just don't feel all that motivated to take pen to paper (or in this case, finger to keyboard) to scribe a lengthy missive about a thus far lackluster season of the Trump Show. I am trying to muster up my normal "Donald Trump Show" enthusiasm, and I'm tuning in each week (even giving up Grey's Anatomy....which I can watch on Friday online anyway), but I feel like I'm just going through the motions. In place of my usual excitement is a feeling of utter confusion. I thought this was being touted as the Celebrity Apprentice. I thought I might actually recognize a few of the contestants, but I'm at a loss as to even begin to attempt to recognize these slobs. Of course there are a few I know. How could I not, for example, know Gene Simmons or Elaine from Taxi? Jesus, if I were to plead ignorance about those two, you could easily surmise that I had spent the past 34 years under a rock. More about Simmons and Elaine from Taxi later. First, let me launch into my commentary by addressing the overrated nobodies and has-beens that are trying to lay claim to celebrity status on this show.



Let's talk about this woman, Jennie Finch. She is supposedly some Olympic gold medalist in softball or something. That's all well and good, but I haven't even heard this woman utter a syllable throughout the first two episodes. I wish I could comment on something more substantial about this woman's intelligence, stupidity, talent...whatever. But so far, she's given me nothing to work with. Ok, she does have nice hair, but Gene Simmons, who has led his team to victory twice thus far, has certainly gone above and beyond to prove that good hair is not a prerequisite to a task victory. So, I'm keeping my eye on Jennie. I'll give her one more episode in which to say something, before declaring her formally dead from the neck up...except for the hair, of course.



This bopo, Piers Morgan is the biggest mystery to me. WHO THE HELL IS THIS CHUMP? I've never seen him. Never heard his name uttered or muttered by anybody of any importance. Never even heard of the show in which he allegedly has some kind of role. He's a judge on "America's Got Talent." I can only draw the conclusion that it must be some asinine reality talent show or some such. The funny thing is that this dude is a total talentless ass clown, so I see the humor and irony in his thinking that he is in any kind of position to judge anybody's ability. Not to mention, he seems like an arrogant asshole. I can't wait for this jerk to get canned.



Once again, let me reprise the question, "Who the hell is this person?" in connection with Nely Galan. One more lip enhancement procedure and this broad's not even going to be able to open up her mouth to speak. Hmmm.....let me try to find her plastic surgeon's name and number so I can book the appointment myself. I would be quite happy with this fool off the show. She was absolutely moronic to call Carol Alt into the board room with her last episode. Alt was just plodding along doing whatever she was told to do, while Elaine from Taxi was busying herself with mucking up the entire project. And this Nely clown doesn't even bring Elaine from Taxi back into the boardroom with her. Stupid! I give her two more weeks TOPS!



Tito Ortiz. Another big question mark for me. Ultimate fighter. What the hell does that mean? So, not only do I have non clue who this fool is, but I haven't the slightest idea as to what ultimate fighting is...or how/why somebody can get "famous" doing it. He's another one that just doesn't seem to have much going on between the ears.



Onto Trace Adkins. All I can do is shrug my shoulders on that one. Again, no freakin' clue. I guess he's some country singer or something. He seems like he might actually not be a complete moron, so I'm holding out some hope for him.

And onto the rest of the slobs whom I didn't have enough room to post pictures of...

Carol Alt is kind of so attractive that she's scary, or so scary that she's attractive. I haven't quite figured it out yet, but I'm working on it. She has already been to the boardroom twice (albeit under bogus circumstances last time), so I don't see a long sojourn on the Apprentice for old Carol. Besides, eventually she's going to get exhausted trying to support her massive head of hair and she'll need a break from the pressures of the tasks.

Stephen Baldwin. Hi...can we say OBNOXIOUS. I am dying for this asshole to do something stupid and get canned so I don't have to listen to him anymore! The thing that I'm hoping for is that when his group loses eventually, some major responsibility might get pinned on him because he's such a bossy little creep.

Nadia Comaneci. Thank god this broad was already canned. Talk about dead weight. I guess she was such a great gymnast because there was nothing in her head to weigh her down and prohibit her from doing all her jumps and flips.

Tiffany Fallon. Here's somebody who actually seemed kind of normal. I guess that's why Trump had to can her. Ratings, ratings, ratings!

Elaine Nardo from Taxi: This broad doesn't look too bad, to be honest with you. She kind of shit the bed in the last task, and she also seems a bit pushy. She might just find herself on the chopping block soon. Too bad because she's one of the people I can actually stomach for more than 3 seconds in a row.

Lenox Lewis: Is this guy just going to be the perfect jerk to boss around or what? It seems like he could open up a can of whoop-ass and tell his teammates who's boss. Instead, he does everything they tell him to and never protests. From degrading himself to selling photos of himself with hotdog stand customers, to blindly obeying his orders to act in the Animal Shelter commercial, this clown is his team's bitch!

Omorosa: I think somebody should tell Trump he made a mistake and put Omorosa on the women's team.

Vincent Pastore: Never heard of the guy. I know he was on the Sopranos, but I was not an HBO subscriber, remember. Totally obnoxious.

Gene Simmons: In reading Simmon's biography, I was surprised. He is multi-lingual and seems to have quite the head on his shoulders. Too bad he's using it to cultivate that particular hair style, but hey, whatever. I think the guy seems totally arrogant, but he is rather funny to watch.

That's my early impression of this season.

What do you think? Any early predictions?

Fall Into the Gap

Are any of you Gap shoppers? I have been known to pick up an item of clothing or two there in my day. I've been in lots of Gap stores, both stateside and abroad. One thing that I have noticed to be true of every single Gap store is the extreme dust bunny situation in the fitting rooms. I'm not joking or exaggerating, either. If I weren't so cheap and excited about deeply discounted clothing, I would be too grossed out to stick around and try stuff on.




I got into UMass Boston's graduate program. Still waiting on Harvard's decision. I'll keep you posted. Fingers crossed.

The Numbers Are In

I just got my official GRE scores in the mail.

Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Let's go with the bad. The really bad.

On the analytical writing section, I only got 4.5 out of 6. I thought I had done better. Perhaps I allowed myself a bit of arrogance in thinking that I was a better writer than I really am. In the official results, they list not only your score, but also the percentage of test takers who did worse than you on that particular session. Only 54% of the test takers did worse than me on the analytical writing. That means that I'm only in the top 46%. Not so great, right?

For the bad news, I scored a 390 out of 800 on the math. Jesus! Only TEWLVE percent of test takers did worse than me. That CAN'T be good, right? I mean, I'm not a numbers person, but that's just sad....even for me. The real kicker is that, not being a numbers person, I wasn't sure how to read the test results. I asked a guy on my building elevator (a freakin' CPA, mind you) to help me figure out the results. He looked embarrassed, like he didn't want to reveal the truly abysmal nature of the scores. I told him to just let me have it, straight up. I also assured him that I was expecting horrific results and asked him to consider the fact that I had to ask a complete stranger to overlook my results to tell me what the hell they mean. This is when he revealed the ghastly truth, that only 12 percent of test takers did worse than me. I'm enough of a math person to realize that this means 88% did better.

But here's the good news...

I received a 650% out of 800, and that put me in a position of having scored better than 89% of test takers. That's ok, right?

Please tell me it's OK!!

A couple of other random thoughts....





I am really glad that Reesie weighed in on my Trump posts from her new home of Florida. I am just glad that she didn't mention the Florida weather. Although, if she's going to do it, this would be a good time. Boston is a very pleasant 50% right now. And as I can see, we're heading up to 60% tomorrow.



So we tried to get through the double header debate on Saturday night. I made it through the entire Republican debate, but admittedly I got rather tired somewhere through the Democrat one. Too bad, too, because that is the one that I would have preferred to see in its entirety. Instead, I retired to my boudoir to watch several installments of Sex and the City. You can thank Lauren if I end up voting for the wrong candidate and screw up the country!!!

I think the brawl between Clinton and Obama is getting pretty intense. When I went to bed last night, they were in a statistical dead heat in the NH primary. I awoke this morning to find him 10 percentage points ahead in the polls. I went to bed rather late last night, too, as I was on the floor on a heating pad with my AGAIN busted back. Yeah, I'm on the prednisone treatment again!!! Anyway, I was pretty surprised, not necessarily to find that Obama was ahead, but that they gained this new information overnight. Who the hell is calling people in the middle of the night to ask them whom they're voting for? Jesus, if I got a polling call in the middle of the night, I'd go remove my name from the voting list and take a permanent vacation from the democratic process. I value my sleep above all else!



And finally, just thought I would tell y'all that Stephen and I finally bought ourselves the external hard drive that my parents gave us the money for for Christmas. We picked out a Western Digital 500 GB "My book" hard drive. I have already backed up my music and photo libraries and I'm feeling pretty good about that!!!

You're Fired!

The Trumpster is at it again! He has started off this newest season of The Donald Trump Show (aka the Celebrity Apprentice) by canning somebody who, in this blogger's humble opinion, should not have been canned at all.

Former Playboy Playmate of the year, Tiffany Fallon, was canned after failing to enlist Hugh Heffener's help in a charity hot dog hawking event. Fallon claims she didn't get Hef on the horn because she was waiting to get him to help in a bigger event later in the series. This proved to be a fatal mistake on two points. The first and most obvious mistake she made was not emphasizing the fact that Omorosa specifically told her not to exploit her celebrity in order to win the competition. She next mistake was not pulling out all the big guns immediately, as Trump himself seems ever ready to do.





I'm convinced that if Tiffany had been more emphatic in blaming Omorosa for her failure to fully exploit her celebrity, Omorosa would have been canned.

I think, though, that Trump is very savvy indeed. He knows that the last season of the show tanked in the ratings and he obviously knows this season is do or die. (I'm not sure that the celeb thing will help bail out the show, but I give Trump a wink for his pluck in trying again.) He knows that everybody freaking hates Omorosa, but that we all LOVE to hate her. If he canned her too early in the season, before we even know who the hell the other washups are, we might not tune in.

Honestly some British guy was trying to put Omorosa down by telling her that "nobody even knows who you are." Obviously he thinks that he's more famous than she is. Sadly (and this really is a sad state of affairs), Omorosa is an asshole, but everybody knows who she is. I have no idea who the British chump is.

Anyway, I almost fell over when I saw Elaine from Taxi on the show. I had no idea she was still kicking. And what is Gene Simmons doing on the show? I mean, really. I'm really shocked that he deigned to compete in a show so obviously stocked with minor D list celebs.

I guess its all about the greenbacks.