Long Week's Journey Into Friday

I'm not exactly sure what changed, but the staff at my school has suddenly found the love for one another.  After three straight days of bickering, back-stabbing and bitterness, the storm has passed.  Instead of using the school district's email to send nasty-grams to one another, the wireless air around us was rife with informational postings, thanks for any and all hard work and even an apology or two.  Heck, even I got one of those "golly, I'm sorry if I made you feel all horrible..." missives.

With the last few days of school upon us, school consists primarily of activities.  There is much locker-cleaning, movie watching and running about whilst carrying eggs on teaspoons.  Yearbooks are being signed.  So are students.  For some reason (and it escapes me entirely) the sixth graders have taken to having their peers inscribe their arms and legs with those end of the year messages which my friends preferred to put in autograph books back in the day.  Any student who came to my classroom was handed a stack of worksheets which involved finding secret messages or hidden pictures.  The computer was made available for educational types of games.  No one was on a real schedule and I never knew when I was going to have to send them off to some other place.  There was no sense in trying to plan lessons with a beginning, middle and end.  

The Cheerful Teaching Assistant and I found ourselves using the day to process yesterday's bomb and trying to come to terms with our forced divorce.  We each had our own unique way of dealing.  She sat at the front table and knit upon a Very Long Thing With Lots Of Garter Stitch.  She even managed to master a rather impressive yarnover.  She would take periodic breaks to search online databases for a new job or to shout out, "Look!  I made a hole...on purpose!"

I sat at my desk and did paperwork.  Files were organized.  Folders updated.  The ones that are a hopeless mess and impossible to put into anything resembling order were shuffled to the back of the file cabinet so I can later claim that they were left there by my predecessor.  I probably would have knit something, but I didn't bring any knitting.  I didn't even think of it.  Which is indicative of my depression level over the whole matter of losing the Cheerful Teaching Assistant to the high school.

We are in agreement that we no longer like our current director.  He told us untruths then hid before we could find out the reality.  We also do not like the person who will be taking her job and thought very mean thoughts about her.   We were fully aware of the fact that seems sort of unreasonable since she is probably a very lovely person who will make educational magic happen for the kids in my class next year.  I've no doubt that she is a saint of a human being who gives to charity and feeds the stray cats.  But we are in the Anger Stage of the whole process and see no real need to be reasonable at this point.  

I also dealt with matters by getting myself some rather risque new nail polish and applying it to my toesies this afternoon.  It will distract the eye nicely from the capri pants I purchased at the same time and which I do not really love.  But this retirement dinner thingie is this weekend and I'm kind of out of time for finding something better.  I can only hope that everyone will be so taken with my darkly polished piggies that they won't notice the horror that is the capri pants.  At least the little top I found is cute...and was on clearance for four bucks.  

I am working hard to keep my attention on all things Busy or Mind Occupying.  As the CTA and the sixth graders will be on a field trip tomorrow, I will spend the day driving the fifth graders into forced servitude so that I can finish packing up the classroom.  Then I shall go home and focus entirely on the weekend.  I need to bake some challa for the Father's Day Feast at Mommy and Daddy Sheep's house.  I also need to put on my ugly capri pants and travel to points north for a retirement dinner.  I shall be very busy what with all the baking and pants loathing.  It should be a full weekend!

Then I have 1.5 days left.  Hopefully, the staff will remain civil, the students will remain distracted by their arm autographs and I will remain able to keep from driving over to the Central Office for a "word" with my boss...

SA