amonia

Ah, yet another week gone by. Just like every Friday, I'm dead tired. I got home from school a little after 5:30 (after a quick trip to the grocery store for milk, which we haven't had since last Sunday), and ate some dinner. Then, I did my weekly Friday-after-school-ritual--- sat on the couch for two hours and just vegged, trying to get all of the week's stress out of my head. I had to force myself to get out from under my blanket just now so I could start some laundry.

Funny experience of the week: I have a group of girls in my 7th period who think they are "all that." They are funny to listen to and funny to watch. As 13 year olds they act more like 25 (not that that's a good thing). Everything is all drama and way too much perfume (I swear, I just about choke to death every day when they spray half a bottle cheap perfume on right before the bell rings). I've seen them share everything that fits in their TinkerBell laden purses--eyelash curlers, flavored lip-gloss, and hairy brushes. I know they all hang out after school and the weekends; as they've told me when I tried to separate them on the seating chart, "we're practically inseparable." One of them, who freaks out when I accidentally slip up on her confusing name, always gives me attitude about the assignments and tries to do my job by yelling out "Everyone shut up!" She's funny, but at the end of the day, she usually gets on my nerves. Anyway, on Monday she was the only one in class (out of the four of them). She seemed a little lost and lonely and for once in the year, she got right to work without the distraction of boy news and letters from friends. Right before the bell rang she came up and said, "I got all of my work done today, Mrs. Hubert, aren't you proud?" I smiled and said that it could happen every day if her chums weren't in class. Then she got this surprised look on her face and said, "Oh, yeah, I was supposed to tell you, A (one of her missing friends) wanted me to tell you that she has ammonia and probably wouldn't be in class all week." I thought about what she had said and looked at her and replied, "Ammonia? What does that have to do with class?" I was utterly confused when she said, "Yeah, you know, ammonia. She's real sick." My eyebrows furrowed and asked once again before I finally figured it out. "Oh, you mean pneumonia?" She frowned and said, "Yeah, whatever, she's just sick, OK?" I laughed. She was irritated at me for correcting her and I still don't know if she understands what "ammonia" is and that would definitely not be something to keep her friend from coming to class, unless of course she swallowed it or something.

I gave the first vocabulary quiz today. I have been telling them all week to study and that I would be collecting their vocab list on Friday before the test. When I announced that today, I had the majority of my students' jaw drop and complaints that they never studied. It took most classes the whole 30 minute period to finish and in the classes that we were able to correct it, most did very poorly. Hopefully they learned their lesson for next week. I made the vocab #2 list up this afternoon, using words that they need to know by the end of 8th grade as well as commonly confused words, and I'm going to try a few new techniques on teaching them next week.

I've come to learn the out-and-out of faculty meetings and how much they irritate me. They would be great if people would shut their mouths (it's been said that teachers make the worse students), and stop raising their hands every two minutes to say something "brief," and then go off for 20 minutes about something that really could be dealt with privately with administration. Phew! Today we were supposed to have a 20 minute faculty meeting and then to meet with our teaching groups for 30 minutes. The faculty meeting ended up being an hour because a few teachers insisted on putting their two-sense in about every issue and making comments. Then, of course, we had our teaching group meetings, which, like usual, was unproductive because all the veteran teachers complain and bring the whole group down. I spoke to a fellow English teacher about it and she told me that they used to have lots of planning time to improve on their own curriculum but in recent years, the new trend is to bombard teachers with meetings aimed at improving public education. These meetings have given me some positive insights and support, but it just gets irritating when I have TONS to do in my room to get ready for next week and I have to sit on the lunch benches and listen to the crazy resource teacher who doesn't shave her legs complain that she can't remember her computer log-in name and is their anyway for the computer to remember it??

OK. Enough ranting for now. I believe it's time to change the laundry, put some AJax in the toilet and go watch some more TV. Happy Weekend!