Four Days Left - Running on Fumes

We're plowing through to the goal line, dragging would-be teenage tacklers and stiff-arming administrators who wave data monitoring forms, final exams, retention lists, standardized test scores, and professional development plans in our faces. The summer is the ONE reason for teaching. Don't give me any of that high-minded bullcrap about changing the life of just one child. I love my students. I've changed lives. I've righted wrongs and injustices. I've filled the vessels that had previously been impenetrable. (Holy hell, that sounded awful.) The only reason any sensible person would do what I do is for the reward of summer vacation.

And I pledge to make it a good one.

For one thing, it's my daughter's last summer before preschool. This is it. No more freedom for the tiny dancer. We're looking at pool days, spring days, rainy day video game/movie marathons, camping, beach trips, a visit from the greatest cousins on the planet, a visit to the in-laws in Nashville, and gratuitous amounts of popsicles. I think she'll be happy. The littlest ninja is completing the grind of kindergarten, so he'll be happy with anything that doesn't involve the Letter People, I'm sure.

My better half will certainly be happy. Why? Because I'll be home, that's why. I am the sweet nectar of our wedded bliss. (Remind me not to send her a blog update.)

It'll be a good one for me for all of the above reasons, plus this:


motorcyclemotorcyclemotorcycleWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Playing Hookie - Hookey - Hooky - I dunno, I'm sick

I rarely miss school - especially for my own illness. Usually a sick child, children, or wife can cause me to turn the reigns over to a substitute, but still not very often. I hate leaving my lovely pupils with somebody else, but especially my classroom. It's like loaning your car to a person who doesn't know how to drive - when you get it back there's likely a scratch or two, unexplained stains in the seat, and the check engine light starts flashing all the time. Fortunately for me, this guy is my sub today:



No lie. Take about 15 years off The Tall Man and you've got a fascinating character I'll call Dr. Checkett. I'll call him that because it is, according to the school board via the FBI, his real name. And title. I have doubts.

Dr. Checkett's arrival could not have come at a better time. We've been talking about scary books and movies all week in preparation to read "The Tell-Tale Heart". I was going to turn out the lights and fire up a few candles and have another teacher bang on the door at the climax, but alas, I've got catbite Ebola or some shit. In my plans I left Dr. Checkett instructions to read the piece aloud himself if he was feeling dramatically inclined. I'm almost certain he will.

Let's take a moment to recognize my lovely custodian, Ms. Sandra. I'm sorry about the feces and urine you're about to discover coating all my desks.

Time to Kill

No, not the movie - Sam Jackson is cool, but not cool enough to float this white-man savior flick. It is me who has the time for the killing. Er, killing time, that is. Whatever. I was sick last time I posted something and I'm sick now - not the same illness. That would make it AIDS or something. I went to the doctor's office yesterday because I was bitten by a cat at my principal's house. Really hard and repeatedly. My finger looks like it was slammed in a door with nails sticking out. So the doctor (male nurse practitioner) points out that I have a sinus infection to go along with my infection caused by feline bitery and prescribes me these gigantic and expensive horsepill mammajammas. (Teacher health plans suck goats.) So I'm sick, but not for long. And my finger is guaranteed not to fall off. By a male nurse practitioner.

Anyway, I'm killing time because I'm still at school waiting for a meeting on my own time. Each year we have to draw up specific individual plans for students who fail to meet FCAT goals. What is FCAT, you might ask? A great test with monumentally stupid implications thanks to the No Child Left Behind (but neatly swept under the rug is OK) Act. So all of the kids in my intensive language arts class have a plan and their parents are supposed to come tonight to sign it and, if previous years are any indication, stare blankly at me because these plans are stupid and redundant and probably flash cleavage liberally because they've never seen a male teacher under the age of 30 with no visible scars.

Wish me luck.

Really Creative Writing

OK - so I teach 8th grade language arts. Yes, I know - 'how noble of you.' Anyway, last Friday I put an interesting picture on the overhead after the kids took their vocabulary test. It was a futuristic painting (actually a mural at Epcot) of these gigantic flying saucer-like submarines and a bunch of underwater exploration crap. OK, so it wasn't really that interesting, but it was freakin Friday and I just wanted to leave. So, to get the kids started, I ask them to think about what it would be like to live and work on one of these submarines. Most responses were pretty bland - they just wanted to leave, too - right? One response wasn't. Even though this kid just wanted to leave (possibly after kicking my ass), he made my day. His essay, in its glorious unedited entirety:

If I was in the place I would be the owner. The divers would be camels drinkin apple juice. Me to, and we would build things and listen to music all day. We would all have a mermaid girlfriend. They were freaks. We would have cars that drive under water and on land. Me and my dogs ran everything, spit apples in the face of people who don't show us the respect we needed. We were power rangers. We told people they smelled like hot pee.

Awesome shit like this makes it all worthwhile. My response:

Good Job. Sounds like a blast. Don't forget to use 'too' when you mean 'also.'