In which something finally worked out

On March 28, 2025 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

So the 8th graders went on a field trip today. Half of them went to Goshen College, the other half to IUSB. I don’t really know what they did there, but they were gone most of the day, and I found out earlier this week that I wasn’t actually going on the trip– I was one of the teachers chosen to stay back at the building and babysit (call it what it is) the kids who weren’t going on the trip. For, like, five hours.

I was, to put it mildly, a bit concerned. I can handle just about anybody for the length of a 55-minute class period, but five hours? I might have to kill one of them to keep the rest in line.

Well, not only did my seventeen kids basically chat amongst themselves, play cards, and watch videos quietly for the entire time, but I got an enormous amount of work done in my room– which, remember, I have to vacate next week for carpet, lighting and paint work– and and and the field trip, and specifically the part of the field trip and the bus for the field trip that I would have been on had I gone, was a nightmare hellscape.

First, it was pouring all morning. Everyone got soaked on the way to the buses, then had to pack three to a seat because the district didn’t send enough buses (which is the second time they’ve pulled that move while I’ve worked at this school) and then the bus broke down, apparently spraying unknown fluids everywhere and forcing an actual bus evacuation through the back doors– still in the downpour, requiring the kids to take shelter at a nearby farmer’s market, which I’m sure was just great fun for everyone involved. Then the next bus took them back to school for some reason, then yet another bus actually got them to the field trip, over an hour late, and then apparently a kid had a major allergic reaction to something? And all of that would have been my problem if I’d been on the trip?

God, enough

On October 7, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn lifeLeave a comment

Stayed home from work today, not because anything was wrong with me but because my son was sick, and he spent the day asleep, so I spent the day sitting around and feeling vaguely guilty for no Goddamned reason at all except that I’m a teacher and apparently I’m supposed to prioritize other people’s kids over my own, I guess.

Meanwhile, the world is visibly ending in about twelve different ways, and this is really starting to feel like the run-up to Katrina, where it was plainly obvious to anyone paying attention that New Orleans was about to be wiped off the map and that didn’t seem to be nearly as frightening to most people as it ought to be. This thing’s going to be a fucking monster, and if you’re anywhere in central Florida, please swallow your ego and get the hell out of town. Unless you used to be President, in which case, please drive west.

I’m gonna vote tomorrow. I’m gonna vote, and then my role, at least, in at least one of the impending apocalypses will be done. Then maybe I’ll drink myself into a coma until the second week of November and see what’s still left of America.

We’re all gonna die

On February 27, 2024 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, lifeLeave a comment

It was 72 degrees today, and it is not yet March, and we’re all definitely going to die because of that, but because I live in Indiana, in the next twelve hours we are expecting high winds, tornadoes, rain, snow, a fifty-degree temperature drop, and hail.

we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes we don’t have alligators we don’t have hurricanes we don’t have earthquakes

This is fine. Everything is fine. We’re all fine here.

On September 14, 2022 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching4 Comments

Our assistant principal quit today. That means that, eighteen days into the school year, the following people have quit:

The AP
A science teacher
A language arts teacher (hasn’t happened yet; considered inevitable by literally everyone)
Our counselor
Our librarian
Our attendance secretary

In addition to that, we have not yet filled the following positions:

A math teacher
An ISS supervisor
A social worker
A school psychologist

Curiously, the principal hasn’t publicly admitted, even to the teachers, that the AP has quit. I heard the rumor mill before a meeting this morning, waited patiently through the meeting for her to mention it, and then asked after the meeting was over. It was confirmed that he had quit. Spent the day waiting for an email; none came. I’m not sure why you would let the rumor mill take care of that one, but … well, I’m not sure why a lot of decisions are being made this year.

I find myself being pulled in several different directions here. Part of me wants to go scorched-earth and start lashing out at absolutely everyone. Yell at the principal. Show up at the School Board meeting. Email the superintendent and the assistant superintendent and ask them just what the hell they were thinking. Part of me wants to spend some time chewing out some of our teachers and a whole fucking lot of our kids. Part of me wants to just join the fuckit crew and go my merry way. This won’t be the end of it; there will, beyond a doubt, be more defections. Part of me also recognizes that, while she’s good at hiding it, our principal is drowning right now, and despite the fact that I disagree with a lot of decisions she’s making she needs more support than she’s getting too, particularly given the number of late-night emails I’ve gotten. I’m pretty sure she’s working about fifteen-hour days. That’s not sustainable.

The staff is ready to riot. I don’t blame them. There’s talk about a sick-out; I’ve heard that the paras aren’t showing up on Friday en masse. I gotta be honest; that sounds counterproductive as hell to me, and either way I won’t be a part of it. Making the building unsafe for the kids doesn’t help anyone or anything.

I dunno. It’s 7:30 right now and I promised my family I wouldn’t spend the whole evening in the office. This type of post can get to thousands of words pretty easily and I need to do some serious thinking before I put much more down on paper. I was talking with a few other teachers after school let out today and brought this nightmare scenario up: what happens if the principal quits? Like, literally, what happens? Does downtown just steal somebody from another building? Nobody even knows.

We had big problems before today. But losing the AP tilts us firmly from “in trouble” into full-blown crisis mode. And right now I don’t see a way out of it.

In which that’s the end of that

On August 18, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting2 Comments

Summer ends tomorrow, as the boy returns to school and my schedule changes not at all. It’s going to be a weird couple of weeks, as all the other kids from his class (all of whom, as you may recall, are older than him) are moving on to kindergarten and he’s remaining in preschool. I remain firmly convinced that having my 11-year-old taking math with 13-year olds, as would have inevitably occurred down the road had we not done this, would have been a bad idea, but for right now we need to make sure that he understands that the reason he isn’t in kindergarten with his friends is not because he’s dumb. He hasn’t said anything like that to us yet, but he apparently made a comment to my mom along those lines a couple of weeks ago.

Managing to have a baby right at the beginning of school is one of the more spectacular examples of poor timing during my life, by the way.

Meanwhile: the water feature we had to build in our basement the other day has proven to be merely a massive inconvenience and not actually anything one might use the word “disaster” to describe, and certainly not anything that affects us financially. The basement is currently dry and our sump pump made it through the night without exploding. Not everyone was so lucky; the picture above is the parking lot of a local grocery store (note the car in the middle distance) and the store is pretty much completely destroyed, as is a nearby day care that is the south-side version of the one my son’s been attending. We got lucky. Lots of other people didn’t. Turns out that getting two inches more rain in a day than the area has ever measured before is bad, guys.

So, yeah. School tomorrow. I plan to get my review of Stranger Things written, and maybe I’ll break tradition and actually work on Tales from the Benevolence Archives instead of just talking about it. We’ll see.

Motherfucking water

On August 16, 2016 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy5 Comments

Motherfucking rain motherfucking crawl space motherfucking al gore motherfuck fuckery fucking fuck.

Terrible Decisions: the repurchasing

On January 19, 2014January 19, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy7 Comments

Here’s what you’re looking at:

Six pieces of 5′ x 3′ Durock cement board;
3 1/2 gallons of Redgard;
Our new showerhead/faucet combo;
A six foot metal ruler that I plan to use as a straightedge (and, dammit, is too wide for the back of the shower, but it’ll still help to trim the Durock)
Three clean 5-gallon buckets;
A variety of painting implements and sponges and grouting tools and a notched trowel and an X-Acto knife and a few other things inside the buckets

Off-camera:

A hundred goddamn pounds, which seems crazily excessive now that I think about it but the guy insisted was the right amount for our square footage, of dry mortar;
25 pounds of grout;
An 8-foot wall stud that I need to cut to a three-foot length to give me something to attach the cement board to in a weird part of the wall;
20 feet of J-channel to set the cement board into on the tub;
Dual-sided sixteenth-inch tape to attach the J-channel to the tub;
Several hundred screws;
Several hundred spacers;
Mesh tape for the cement board;
Respirator masks, because I hear Redgard is nasty-smelling shit;
A caulk tube

Shit we forgot to buy:

A handful of wood screws to attach the aforementioned 2 x 4; we probably have some suitable ones in a drawer in the garage somewhere, though;
A caulk gun;
Some regular blue painter’s tape to tape tiles to each other while they’re setting;
Some other damn thing I can’t remember right now but hopefully either I or the wife will by the early-morning Lowe’s run tomorrow morning.

And we didn’t buy this today but:

You can see the side of our new vanity, which we had to take out of the box because we used the box for broken drywall and tile when we did the demolition;
Our new toilet (still in the box)
And a bunch of other shit that has nothing to do with the bathroom reno but is still piled up in that corner.

We’re out, like, $525 or something. And I am so gonna completely fuck up putting the walls up tomorrow. Be prepared for me to burn the house down and blame it on a spider or something.