Hour By Hour, It Can All Unravel.

The day started off pretty well, actually.  I knew that the Cheerful Teaching Assistant was going to be out of the classroom as she'd arranged for a well-deserved day off.  That was all right.  The Organized Teaching Assistant came back from her long doctor-imposed absence on Monday so it's not like I'd be all alone. I'd even managed to get past the rather pointed commentary from my ipod regarding my taste in music.  I still think it was kind of snarky for it to erase everything after I went to bed on Sunday, but what can you do? Ipods apparently have something against the golden age that was the 80's.  I'd be more accepting of the judgement if I hadn't crashed my laptop a while back and had some way of restoring my music library, though...

Still, I was feeling pretty good overall.  I made it to school on time and was even able to attend the weekly meeting I've been missing during the staffing crisis of the past month. Then one of my students decided to use a zombie apocalypse scenario for his cartooning assignment in language arts class.  We had a very jolly time discussing how it might look should a group of survivors get stuck in a kiddie play facility.  The idea of a contagion lurking in one of those disgusting ball pits kept us going for almost the entire first period.

It started to fall apart right before lunch, though.  The kids couldn't maintain their jolly, zombie-loving demeanor for the entire morning.  The OTA got a call and had to leave to pick up her son before he infected the entire elementary school.  The paper airplane project we are doing for science turned into a free-for-all and the teacher who came up so I could check on the project she is doing for her class in behavior management was probably not impressed by my kid wrangling skills.  In fact, she may be dropping the class altogether after what she witnessed.  No one would want to admit to having a background in behavior management if it meant getting my job.  That's all it takes, really.  Just admitting that you have the background.  She'll probably go study accounting or something now.

By day's end, I wanted but two things.  The first was an unoccupied bathroom since I hadn't seen one of those since 9:30.  The other was the freedom to go to my car in order that I might drive and drive and drive.  In the opposite direction of my place of employment.  To a place where there are no children.  Just a couple of cats (who are generally glad to see me and sometimes listen to me) and a fish (who really doesn't much care whether I'm there or not but who is very, very quiet).

Instead, I had to stay for a meeting.  I was not the most delightful individual at that gathering.  One person announced her pregnancy and it took everything I had to not point out to her that being pregnant means having a baby which, in turn, means an eventual teenager.  It has come to my attention over the years that the pregnant people don't really want to hear about that.  It's a downer.

The day is done now, though.  If all goes according to plan, the CTA and OTA will be back in place tomorrow morning.  While I don't expect the students to be any better behaved, at least I can spread the wealth a bit.  Meanwhile, I'm planning on sitting very quietly tonight and knitting something.  I just finished some left over goulash and that was tasty.  I might even bake an apple later on just for the Comfort Food Factor.  It is going to be a nice evening here.  I am going to recover and rewind.

In case it all unravels again tomorrow...

SA