Unmitigated

The Clothes Make the Man

That makes my man sweaty.

Skates and Shoes

A victory haiku, dedicated to my friend, LiteralDan:

Choppy ice, injured defensemen
Tired, old men versus youngsters
Experience counts.

Husband will laugh when I say that I've realized it's up to me to drop the other shoe. I have no idea what I'll be doing next year, but it won't be in a classroom. There. I've said it. Now I just need to tell my bosses.

Spider Monkey on My Back

Part One: When my back and legs are feeling particularly bad, I take prescription pain medication. Usually, so I can sleep, but more and more, so I can make it through a school day without a constant cringe on my face. It worries the children. Anyway, Husband Styro decided that the pain meds should have a cooler name, and cited "horse" for heroin as his example. He selected "orangutan." (When I wanted to try an alternative for awhile to keep from building a resistance, we went the Monty Python route and called it "sloth." As in, "And the Lord did grin. And the people did feast upon the lambs, and the sloths, and the orangutans, and the fruit bats, and the breakfast cereals..." For the record, sloth was ineffective, as was fruit bat. "Skip ahead, brother...")

Part Two: Every morning, before school officially starts, the children work on Daily Language Review (DLR). Some teachers use DOL, which stands for Daily Oral Language, although, since it's written, not spoken, I don't get the name. In any case, one of our sentences that needed to be corrected was about Mexican tarantulas being very large insects. Insects was misspelled, among other corrections, but my first language arts class took issue with the term, and thought it should be "arachnids" instead, so we made that change. Maybe arachnids are insects. Entomology was never my strong suit. I don't even like the word spider (Imagine if it had boobs?).

Part Three: When the other class came in to make the same corrections, I asked them if spiders were insects. "Oh, wait!" One VERY LOUD GIRL called out, "Aren't they arachutans? Or something?" One of the other kids corrected her pronunciation.

And the whole class wondered why Mrs. Wyatt was laughing so much.

Sunday Schedule

10:30 a.m. Roll my carcass out of bed.

10:40 a.m. Begin perusal of Google Reader and paper version of Detroit Free Press (ah...Sunday).

10:45 a.m. Pour coffee to make the experience complete.

12:15 p.m. Get dressed, make self presentable-ish.

1:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers take on the Colorado Rockies, in what MLB calls inter-league play, and what AL teams call, "padding the win column."

3:00 p.m. Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks play Game 4 of Western Conference Finals. Detroit is currently up 2-1, and I hope Martin Havlat is okay, but dude had possession of the puck. Since when does a player get a Game Misconduct penalty for a clean hit? Am I sounding like a Homer? Cool.

Post-game-time (whenever that is) Select film to see. I will be pushing for X-Men or a re-watch of Star Trek. First viewing of Star Trek was on a dome-shaped IMax screen. Not the best for first view. Either way, Husband Styro will not be hard to convince, as we will likely see the other one tomorrow.

I love long weekends.

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

I may soon be deleting the category "Molding Young Minds" from my blog list.

I am sitting at school on Fridaymorning, a Professional Staff Development (PSD) day. There is a breakfast this morning to mark the end of the year, but I don't give a sh*t. The training we are doing today is for one of those programs that's stepping on my toes, and my legs are already throbbing from these stupid lumbar disks. Maybe my back is just a convenient excuse. Maybe all the joy has just been sucked out of teaching. Whatever the case, after a conversation with Husband Styro last night, I think I need to have a conversation with my bosses about next year.

Husband Styro commented that knowing what you don't want to do is important, but knowing what you DO want to do is priceless. Am now accepting any and all suggestions...