I Love My 8th Grade Homeroom

Last year I had a 7th grade homeroom. When the two 8th grade homeroom teachers retired, I jumped at the chance to take an 8th grade homeroom. I Love 8th graders.

Anyway, last year, the kids were chatting. They were talking about who would play them in a movie of their lives. They asked me who would play me, and I wasted no time in telling them that I surely believed that Samuel L. Jackson would be the most obvious choice. At this, they were delighted.

They have been teasing me about it ever since. Now, as an 8th grade homeroom teacher, I have many of the same kids that I had last year. They still laugh about that. They call me Sameuel sometimes, or Mrs. Jackson. We all laugh.

The school district updated our employee ID cards last week, and never took our old ones away. So, I took my old one and doctored it up a little bit with a picture of Samuel. I just left it on my neck chain and let the kids notice it on their own.

Not long into the morning homeroom period, one of the girls noticed it and made a big deal out of it. The kids all started laughing.

This kid, let's call him James, didn't even seem to notice. But James isn't the swiftest kid in the pack.

James is in my 3rd period English class. About halfway through the lesson, when I was standing in front of his desk, he started looking intently at my ID tag. He asked, "Ms. B., did you get a new ID photo?" I said, "Why yes, I did. What do you think of it?"

He looked at it a moment longer and said, "Well, not to be rude, but you look sort of older in it."

The whole room stopped breathing. Here was this kid, serious as a heart attack, telling me that the only thing noticably different about the photo of Samuel L. Jackson was the fact that I looked older. Granted, Samuel is quite a bit older than me. That said, shouldn't the student have found it more remarkable that I was suddenly a bald African-American man with a beard???

Welcome to my job.

Then, later, during "silent reading" (I use quotes because this is often the loudest period of the day), I noticed a science book lying around on my counter top. I have been trying to crack the whip against errant school materials lately, so I wasted no time asking the owner of the book to step forward. All the kids were quick to point out that they had their own books.

I passed the book to my favorite student of all times and asked him to look inside to find the name of the owner and return the book. He shyly said, "Ms. B., I can't tell you whose book this is." But there was something lurking behind his shy demeanor. "What do you mean, you can't?" I asked. "Is there no name in it."

"Well," he said, "there is, but I can't say."

"What?"

I took the book from the kid, and prepared to announce the owner's name out loud. I was on the verge of shouting it out. But just before I did, I noticed that under the "Issued to" line was the name "Your Ass."

Lovely. Apparently the book was issued to "Your Ass" this year.

I looked at the student. He looked at me. We both just BURST OUT LAUGHING.

come on.

Naturally the kids were all curious as to what we were laughing at. We were right on the verge of going to lunch. I knew the kid would fill them in down in the cafeteria, so I let it go at that.

It was a funny day at work.

And The Winner Is....

Ladies and Gentlemen, the simple truth of the matter is that I HATE the academy awards. I hate them for several reasons. Don't worry, I'll go into detail so as not to leave you in the dark.

Here are my reasons:

1. Fucking Jack Nicholson. I HATE that bastard. I mean, I really, really hate him. He is completely overrated and pompous, arrogant and jackassy. (yeah, I'm making up words now, what of it?) You might be asking why I associate Nicholson with the awards. Just stop and think about it. Watch the show for five minutes and you will realize that they pan in on this jerk in his front-row audience seat constantly. It drives me nuts. And he's always sitting there looking so smug. To top it all off, some idiot "star" has to get up there every year and feign humility in the face of receiving an award with the "amazing" Jack Nicholson looking on. It grows tiresome, really.

2. While I'm on the topic of feigned humility....
It drives me absolutely bonkers when the winner of whatever category (usually best actress, but it can be anything), has to get up and start weeping and pretending to be unworthy of even having been nominated in the same category as the other self-congratulatory asshole co-nominees. Usually its some young actress weeping over the fact that she could even be considered in the same category as some old broad like Judy Dench or some crap.

3. The acceptance speeches. Jesus, do these people even listen to themselves? Or are they contented with making us listen/suffer through their speeches?

4. The annual Cate Blanchett starring as the queen in some movie or the other. Seriously, that bitch is playing some queen (past, present, midieval, whatever) every single year.

5. Stupid host jokes.

6. The fact that the show takes 8 hours to complete.

7. The worst thing of all is the stupid lifetime acheivement award. They get some Hollywood denizen to stand up there and blow steam about some complete washup for hours on end. Then everybody stands up in thunderous applause, once again feigning humility in the presence of whatever boob is being honored.

8. The post-broadcast fashion wrap up shows.

CRAP!!

Gotts go watch the show so I have something to bitch about.

February Vacation

Once again, I'm blogging from a PC, so there will be no picture today.

I am in the tail end of my February vacation. I cannot believe that it is already Thursday afternoon. Where has the time gone?

Nothing terribly interesting has been going on this week. I moved into my friends' house yesterday for ten days to take care of their cats and dog. I am no stranger to this gig. I have put in several tours of animal care for these peeps over the past couple of years. It is always nice to be around here because they live close to my gym and a bunch of neat coffee shops and stuff. I enjoy it. Plus, they have laundry right in the basement and there's no competing with laundry-jacking jackass neighbors! Lovely.

Other than some recent gym drama, I have nothing to report. But I will report on the gym drama.

I take a step aerobics class every saturday morning. It is a GREAT class. It is totally worth the effort of getting up to take a 6:30 bus to Harvard Square and then walking 15 minutes to the gym. Claudia, the instructor, takes us through an amazing workout! The problem is that the class is so freakin' crowded all the time. Actually, that really isn't the entirety of the problem. You see, if everybody gets their ass in the studio by 8:00 AM, we can all move around and make accomodations for everybody to fit and have sufficient room. The problem is that every week, like clockwork, the same inconsiderate jerks come to class ten to fifteen minutes late. They interrupt everybody when they walk over to get their equipment out, and then they set up shop right on top of some poor member who has to stop her own workout to make space for the late arriving offender. Often they end up pushing somebody (mostly ME) so far into a corner or so far against a wall that we can't even move safely. The worst part is that the jerks who show up late are often the "big kickers" whose moves are so huge that they have everybody around them cowering in fear of taking a boot to the head. It sucks.

This has been going on every Saturday since I joined the gym years ago. The annoying thing is that they "ticket" all the other popular classes so as to avoid this exact problem. But they refuse to ticket the step class.

Two weeks ago, in sheer frustration, I wrote a total poison pen email to the director of the club, in which I outlined all of the above concerns. Of course, every time I made mention of the latecomers, I referred to them in all caps as INCONSIDERATE JERKS!!

Anyway, I get this response in which they blame the instructor and say, "We aren't sure if ticketing the class would work, so we're not going to try."

I sent yet another poison pen taking them down a few pegs for blaming the instructor for something that the gym should be supervising. I also critisized them for refusing to try something that might help alleviate the problem.

Naturally I sent the emails from my own account and signed my own name to them. They all know who I am, and I wasn't cowering in the shadows of anonymity. Screw that. The funny thing is that the managers are all being all nice to me now, and they've decided to ticket the class after all.

Basically, I let it be known that for $91 dollars a month, their refusal to do anything about this problem, and endanger members in the process, constitutes an unacceptable level of customer service in my book.

So, there's my gym crusade.

Oh, and here's another little gym tale.

Today I was lifting weights at around 8. There was nobody there. Not a soul. The entire stretching area was empty and I was the only one in free weights for a while. Then another member showed up. I presumed she was there to lift weights, too. I was wrong. She was actually there in the free weight area to stretch, do abs, and do pushups. Whatever, right? Well, the crazy thing was that she decided to do all of these things right there in front of the free weight rack. So, needless to say, every time I needed a different weight, I was forced to walk around her or lean over her. And she kept getting pissed. Finally she said, "Do you think you could just take all the weights you'll need for your workout so that you don't have to keep interrupting me?" (Sounds shocking, I know, but this IS Cambridge.) To which I replied, "Do you think you could do your stretching in the stretching area so that you don't have to interrupt my lifting routine?" Of course she got mad. Remember, this is Cambridge, and everybody's world ends at the tip of their own nose. Convenient.

Anyway, hardly an interesting post, but still, at least it was procrastination time from my paper correcting.

Trumped!

I'm writing on my mom's PC, and I have no idea how to install a picture on this thing, but pictures are just aesthetics, and I find this issue pressing enough to write about without the aesthetics.

We need to talk about the Trump Show. We REALLY need to talk about the Trump Show.

In a word, it sucks. I know people panned last season, but seriously, that was award winning television compared to what's taking place this season.

These so-called celebrities are a bunch of losers, and Trump is totally pussyfooting around them.

Two weeks ago, there was a two hour episode on. I missed it for whatever reason. I was all bummed out to miss the show, but was relieved by the fact that I could catch it online the next day. So, I hunkered down in front of my Mac and tuned into the sure-to-be-nailbiting two hour episode. I was psyched.

It turned out to be a massive letdown. The show dragged on for two hours, only to conclude with the resignation of the guy from the Sopranos. It was idiotic because the guy had infiltrated the other team, and was then accusing his own teammates of being "rats" and he claimed to be fearing for his life. Puh-leez. As if freakin' Stephen Baldwin was going to be out there putting a hit on the guy.

Anyway, nobody even got canned and I thought it was so bogus that they made this a two hour episode.

I tuned back in this past week because, for some reason, I can't NOT tune in. Again, total disappointment.

This past week, Omorosa was working on the same team as her arch rival, Piers. They were at each other constantly. For the entire duration of the episode, she was really digging in her claws, making cheap pot shots at him about his poor relationship with his kids or whatever.

At the end, the Omorosa team, which had been so dirisive throughout the show, won the task. Trump dismissed that team, and was heavyhearted at the prospect of firing somebody from the losing team. They had worked together so well.

And in the end, he decided not to fire anybody.

Come on, Trump. These people might be "celebrities" but you don't have to creep around them. Christ, they are E list celebs, at best. You have more clout than them!!!

Whatever. I'm feeling Trumped by Trump.

I will tune in again this week, but if I don't see a good old fashioned blood bath of a firing, I'm never watching again.

Christ!!

Yesterday we had parent conferences at school. By contract, we are only supposed to have contract for a two hour period. Somehow, the conferences were scheduled for 2.5 hours. So, OK, we decided to overlook that. We didn't want to make a big union federal case out of it, so we let it go, sucked it up and decided to just deal with the longer conference period.

The things started at 2:45 and were meant to last until 5:15. At around 4:15, the fire alarm went off. Within a few seconds, the principal came over the intercom and announced that we should all vacate and take our things with us as it was not clear if we would be able to reenter the building.

So, we all got our crap and headed outside into the 20 degree temperatures.

And there we waited. And waited. And waited. Some parents were still there and they came over to chat in the school yard. At that point, what are you going to do? So, naturally we spoke with those parents who were still there and had been waiting.

All the while we're thinking that the principal is surely going to come around and tell us to get going, leave the school and get out of the frigid cold. But this dismissal never came. And there we stood. At one point, I was trying to talk with a parent and these kids were zipping through us on scooters and shit. It was really ridiculous.

So, not only did we have thirty extra minutes of meetings, but then we were forced to conduct the entire last hour of conferences outdoors. Even the teachers who had nobody to see them were stuck standing there in the arctic temperatures.

And the really horrible thing is that there must be some architectural property of the school that makes the school yard this barren, windswept expanse. And yesterday was really, really windy. It absolutely sucked.

So, there we stood, in the well-below freezing temperatures, for an entire hour having parent conferences.

Insane, right?

But here's my point.

Teachers are the only professionals that would be expected to put up with this crap.

Think about it....

If I were a teller in a bank and an extended fire alarm kept us out of a building for an hour, would my boss really make me take a calculator and a strong box of cash outside and conduct transactions in the parking lot?

If I were working at Target as a cashier, would they make me take a cash box outside and continue selling merchandise in the parking lot?

If I were a receptionist, would they give me a cell phone and make me take calls and messages outside in a freezing parking lot?

No, of course not.

And yet...as teachers, we're expected to just shut our mouths and put up with it. Hey, at least when we are in school, we do have heat. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that for the past few winters, we've had NO HEAT in school.

And there again, we're teachers, the scum on the bottom of the professional pond.

Case in Point....Never Remake a Classic Movie

Ok, so I'm sitting here correcting papers, and the Johnny Depp "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is on network television. I was kind of excited to see it advertised, because I'd never seen it. And I LOVE the Gene Wilder original version. Who didn't?

Can I just say that in spite of my broad vocabulary and gift of hyperbole, I don't think I can find the words to express just what CRAP this movie is. Jesus, it stinks. The actors suck. The music is terrible. Every single scene has been one letdown after the other.

I am going to turn it off. I can't even stand it anymore. Why did anybody think it necessary to "F" with the original film?

Exhausted.

Last night I had meeting number 2 of my 13-week-long course at UMass Boston (pictured above).

The course meets from 7-9:30 PM. A nightmare for me, who am normally in bed by that ungodly late hour of the evening. Last week, being the first week, the instructor let us leave at around 8:45. That was a delightful surprise. She even proposed that we consider meeting from 6-8:30 instead. I was psyched, but didn't get my hopes up. Just as well. When we arrived at class last night, the instructor informed us that the class would have to meet at 7 as regularly scheduled. I was a little disappointed, but I knew going into the thing that the class would go until 9:30. I had made peace with that.

I kept holding out hope that she might offer us the chance to skip the break (because she HAD to be planning on giving us a break, right), and just leave a little earlier than 9:30. Maybe 9:10 or something. Hey, its still late, but I'll take any minute earlier that I can.

Well, I was in for a not-so-delightful surprise when I went to class last night.

We NEVER got a break. We worked right on through the entire 2.5 hour period. At around 9, the instructor gave us a 15 minute period of time to collaborate with a partner. She told us that starting at 9:15, each of the 7 groups would have two minutes to present their findings. I smelled disaster right from the word go. Come on, 7 groups in 15 minutes. If you don't know teachers, then you don't know that we're TALKERS! Myself included. There was no way in hell we were getting through all 7 presentations in 15 minutes. The timeframe was blown out of the water as soon as the first group took the floor. They spoke for 12 minutes!!! That left 3 minutes for the remaining 6 groups. Do you see where this is going? I was in group 2, and believe me when I tell you, I held the floor for maybe 25 seconds. I hoped the other groups would cop on. No such luck. Long story longer, we wound up in the classroom until freakin' 9:45.

Jesus, as if I have nothing better to do with my time.

And this the thing...

This woman is there teaching me how to teach, but she has no grasp of time management or regulating discussion flow. Jesus, I was observed by my principal last week and she commended me many times on my excellent classroom management skills. Christ, I should take over the class at UMass. I can tell you this right now....nobody would be in that room a second beyond 9:30. And we'd have a break, too. Fo' sho!!

Whatever.

Today was a half day for kids, so I should have been able to spend some quality time working on report cards, which are coming out Friday. However, one of the two million committees I'm on met from 12-2:30. We then had a full school professional development meeting that lasted until almost 5, our longest one yet.

Again, bad timing all around!!