WNBP: Searching For The Pause

The start of the new school year is always kind of interesting.  The way the holidays work in these here parts, it seems as though we are always cruising towards a break of some sort, at least for the first few months.  That is nice and all, but it also means that we are always trying to recover from a long weekend or vacation and that is never easy.

It's like there's a big, ol' pause button just out of reach at all times...

Most of the time, the kids have figured out that a long weekend is lurking somewhere and they won't rest until they've nailed it down.  I guess it doesn't help when the teacher suddenly realizes that parent/teacher conferences are next week and that the Veteran's Day observance can't be far behind.

Maybe I shouldn't have said that out loud.  At full volume.  Whilst doing a funky little dance.  That might have set things off to some degree.  I take full responsibility even if I don't feel all that much in the way of remorse.

Here's tonight's Wednesday Night Bullet Post.  I'll try to leave out the long pauses.

*If someone wants to tell me why Li'l Einstein showed up wearing a paintball mask today, I'd love to hear it.


*We do not generally have random paintball battles breaking out in the classroom.


*Maybe we should.


*Things have been pretty tense lately and I can't help but wonder if shooting one another in a non-lethal manner might take some of the edge off...


*It snowed here.


*It snows here a lot but I can honestly say I have never experienced a blizzard in October.


*Trick-or-Treaters had to stumble over snowbanks in order to get their candy.


*They did not stumble to my house.


*They never do.


*I pretend to be disappointed, but I'm not really.


*I get the candy and can pretend that I didn't want it.


*That is hard to do with the half-priced stuff I've been buying since November 1st.  I'm obviously feeling the want for that.


*Spent ten minutes giggling with the lady behind me in line at the store because we were both so thrilled with our respective candy hauls


*I've got me a candy filled freezer!!!!!


*I am pleased to report that the chai latte k-cups are as delightful as anything I've experienced of late.


* Café Escapes Chai Latte K-Cups for Keurig Brewers, 24-Count


*Much more delightful than snowstorms and kids doing their math in paintball masks.


*The hot apple cider ones are also really good, but they upset my stomach sometimes.


*We have a keurig at school.  I bring chai latte k-cups and brew them whenever the stress gets to me and I start thinking about firing paintballs at recalcitrant kidlets.


*Did anyone see The Walking Dead on Sunday?


*Note:  the site is a little wonky right now so I'm not linking.  I figure you either know it or you don't at this point anyway...


*If you did watch it, did you totally and completely freak out in the last five minutes?  Huh?  Didja-didja?


*Lost.  My.  Mind.


*That, kids, is what we call an Emmy Moment.


*Brilliantly written, stunning direction and amazing execution.  Hit every single note perfectly.


*And, when I arrived at school on Monday, not a single soul had seen it yet.  I had no one with which to process.


*Mrs. Secretary Who Sits At The Back Desk rushed off to watch it that night and now we just keep saying, "I'm sorry" to each other.


*Then we fire!


*And in bookish news...


*I discovered The Better Part of Darkness (Charlie Madigan, Book 1)


*These are really quite good and a wonderful way to kill time until some of the books I'm waiting for appear on shelves.


*Moved on to The Darkest Edge of Dawn (Charlie Madigan, Book 2) pretty quickly.


*Kind of wish I'd gone right to The Hour of Dust and Ashes (Charlie Madigan, Book 3) but I got distracted.


*I'm going to finish up with Heart of a Dragon (The DeChance Chronicles) and get right back on track.


*Oh, by the way!  I forgot to mention Max Quick: The Pocket and the Pendant!


*A fun YA/Middle Grade read if you like that sort of thing.  And it's a series which, as we all know, makes me giddy with joy.





I just remembered that I need to pull together a social studies lesson before tomorrow.  I sent myself an email reminder from school so I wouldn't forget and then I read my email before I left school so I ended up forgetting again by the time I landed at the home front.  Now it is getting late and good TV is almost upon me.  If I don't come up with some sort of brilliant learning experience in the next hour, I fail to see how I am going to manage it at all.

There are no pauses this week, I'm afraid.  Probably should get on that teaching-as-a-priority thing.  I trust that your Wednesday ran smoothly and that any breaks in the pace were the good kind that allowed you to breathe for a minute.

Or that you had a paintball mask because I am starting to think that isn't really such a bad thing...

SA