Tuesday, August 24, 2010

That's A Day I'll Never Get Back

Bullying training, today. Or, better yet, training to prevent bullying. My ADD kicked in about 2 1/2 hours after workshop commenced. Actually, I was on a row with three others who had lost consciousness. Because, seriously, I CAN'T sit still that long and have a meaningful experience. Oh, and we had another 4 hours to go.

I've already figured out who the problem is going to be this year. The child is a little awkward - but if you knew her mother, you'd understand why. The mother checks her child out of school every Wednesday early to go to her psychiatrist/psychologist appointment. She has the child on Prozac and Concerta. And this mom can't help but complain and gripe about everything. Timed math tests for her ADD child. How her child was bullied, beaten and picked on at her last school. How I have handed out an outdated reading assignment on passports - when I did so to prove a point about trusting sources - she emails me the State Department regulations on travel. WTF? I know what I'm doing, so stop second guessing me. (I can't imagine what she would have done if she had read that Hong Kong was still independent like it said in a Social Studies textbook I had to teach from for years.)

She has also loudly and publically stated that her ex-husband abused this child several years ago, but the daughter still has five hours of unsupervised visitation with this man.

Excuse me, but this woman is the definition of crazy. If I believed for one second that someone had abused my daughter, you can believe that she wouldn't be visiting him five hours a week. Unsupervised.

Still, I'm not going to let this woman bother me. I know what I'm doing. She doesn't.

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Monday, August 23, 2010

Bonjour!

I think it's going to be really hard having a student who only speaks French with a smattering of Spanish. I tried to find out her address today to tell the bus driver. I resorted to " donde esta la casa?" To which she replied something in FRENCH!!! Not that my Spanish would have been any better than my French, but WTF (why the face!!)? Who sends their kid to school in a foreign land (okay, Canada, you're not that foreign, but someone forgot to tell this kid) without making sure she knows her address and phone number IN THAT LANGUAGE?!!

I waited for a good hour after school and no one called looking for her. I take that as a good sign.

I have some really motivated, smart Indian girls who have taken her under their wing. These girls had to learn English as their second language, so I have some hope that they will do her some good.

Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome!! What a year.

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Sunday, August 22, 2010

Weekend Update

So many things I could write about:

  • my 29th student shows up tomorrow. She only speaks French.
  • We've been in class for twelve days so far.
  • I think PrincipalLady is trying to make it so we fail this year. She has dumpped so many things on the table, I can scarcely breathe.
  • However, I have decided to have a personal life this year, so I will not take home crap. Won't check my school email after school and weekends.
  • I will hang out with BrownBear. (My new high school freshman!!)
  • I won't be a helicopter mother with Prep - my new college freshman!!!
  • So, as bad as life could be, I'm not going to let it be. I miss my girl, but I know she's happy and having the time of her life. I am not going to waste the next four years with BrownBear because I am all too familiar with what is going to happen. I am going to make this a great school year. I am just going to will it.

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Saturday, August 07, 2010

A New Phase Begins

Dropped Prep off at her new dorm room.

All is well except for the crazy with a capital K that is her roommate's mother. It was as if Roommate's mom was moving into the room and not the Roommate, herself. I was pretty calm, but this crazy (I'm sorry) KRAZY lunatic was decorating within an inch of her life. Prep is going to have to live in her dormroom, not me, so I decided to hang back and let her take care of business. Not Krazy. And, I think she took Prep's lofted dorm bed that we paid $260 for. Let me get that situation figured out - I hope, hope, she didn't take it. Hell hath no fury like the fury I will unleash upon her.

But otherwise, it was an entirely pleasant day. Sort of. Can't believe she's gone, but she is in her element. I can't be anything but happy for her. She and the 24 pairs of shoes she took with her.

Oh, yeah. School started two days ago.

Nothing but sheer madness around here.

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