Let’s begin now.

Have some pretty flowers.  At least, this is what Google gives you when you google “pretty flowers.”  (Image credit.)

Okay.  Today was better.  At no point today did I wish to resign, storm out of the building in a high dudgeon, or annihilate any other living being who I work with or am responsible for in any way.  That’s progress!  Days without rage are good, and as you could probably tell from yesterday’s post that day was rather high on rage.  Better is good.  I got things done today!  Things that have been nagging at the back of my brain for weeks, and only emerging into full remembrance when it’s been much too late for me to actually do anything about it!

I have my ISTEP scores, by the way, which is unrelated to yesterday’s issues.  Short version:  I’m happy, personally.  I’m not going into building level stuff right now and may not go into building stuff at all here, as it makes it too easy to locate precisely where I work and I’d prefer not to do that.  I’ll have to figure out how to write the post if I do.  But personally I’m happy.  More details of some kind later.

(Fifteen minutes of staring at the screen later)

I’m apparently lacking in things to say today.  Despite how bad yesterday went, I’m doing a pretty good job of keeping to my “don’t yell at kids” promise this year.  I had that one moment with one kid (I think I talked about it here; if not I’ll come back and edit, because it’s kind of a funny story) but other than that I’ve done really well.  Even the reading of the riot act that occurred this morning (complete with rearranging the desks and new seating charts for my first and second hour classes, which were the main sources of my bad mood yesterday, although by far the only ones) was done largely through tone and without raising my voice.  Today we managed to remember that, hey, we’ve sorta done math before, once or twice at least, and maybe a fraction isn’t some sort of alien life form that no one has ever seen or expected us to convert into a decimal before.

So, yeah.  Point is: better day.  Hopefully yours went okay too.

Ha!  I didn’t tell that story.  I love my homeroom, right?  They’re wonderful kids and I would keep them forever and ever if I could, but sadly they’re only my homeroom and I don’t have them all day like I did last year.  I have duty in the gym in the morning, so often my girls are already waiting at my door for me when I get to homeroom– my unofficial rule is that I don’t care when the bell rings, if you beat me down to my room (which, remember, is out in the sticks) then you’re not tardy to class.  Anyway, one day a week or two ago I’m letting the girls into my classroom when I hear a piercing, blood-freezing scream from one of them– a kid who I like a lot but who could very justifiably be accused of being slightly high-strung.

I spin around.  Note that at this point I’m not even raising my voice.  “Nefertiti, what in the world is wrong?”

She points at the tiniest arachnid ever, which is toddling across the carpet and minding its own damn business.  She’s still shrieking.

“THERE’S A SPIDER!!!!”

At this point I lost my temper a little bit, I admit it– I don’t like horrifying piercing noises first thing in the morning, and drilling my ears for no reason is worse— and I snapped at her– loudly– before I really even realized I was doing it.

“Child, unless that stupid thing has laser beams coming out of its eyes that I need to know about, you’d better leave it alone and get your butt into my classroom before the bell rings.”

And that was it.  I’ve yelled at one kid this year and it referenced spiders shooting laser beams.

I think I can live with it.