The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
I ended instruction early with my sixth period class, with the words “To hell with this, you’re on your own,” went to my desk and put in for a personal day tomorrow on the spot. When you put in for a personal day you’re supposed to include a note to your administrator explaining what’s going on. Here’s mine:
My initial draft, “fuck this and fuck them,” was lightly edited by AI.
…that’s how it works, right? I’m still sick, by any reasonable standard, although I think the fever has gone away– it helps if you don’t take your temperature!– and the Weird Ear Thing has gotten better enough that I didn’t actually go back into urgent care this morning. I’ve started my antibiotics, finally, although this is still probably a virus.
One way or another, Goddammit, I’m going to work tomorrow, and I’m gonna make some kids know some math whether they like it or not, because I’m tired of this, and if there’s one thing America has taught me over the last eight years it’s that the best way to fix being sick is to pretend you’re not sick any more and then bad things never, ever happen as a result. So Goddammit, that’s the plan.
(I may still go back to urgent care if this ear thing isn’t fully fixed tomorrow. I’m hoping that the antibiotics take it out as a side effect, since it really doesn’t seem to be wax-related. We’ll see.)
Anyway. That problem’s solved. How’re you?
Let’s see. I was home sick again today, my son has been so sick in January that he’s made it to school for all of three days so far with a sinus infection that either just won’t go away or isn’t a sinus infection, and the scumbag in the White House released an EO that more or less starts the countdown until I get fired or am forced to resign.
Oh, and the Internet appears to have found yesterday’s post; I’m kind of surprised there aren’t any comments beyond my usual folks so far. Given the number of page views it’s definitely being talked about somewhere. I continue to really wish WordPress had more robust tools for referrals.
Today was probably the most demoralizing and exhausting day of the school year so far, to the point where I utterly unloaded on my boss after school, which is not typical of me at all. I’m usually the one talking other people off of ledges even on shitty days, and today the only advice I had was jump, fucker.
I don’t know how to educate people who know nothing and are utterly unbothered by the fact that they know nothing. I just don’t. There may not be a way to do it. You may as well just put some of these fuckers in jail right now, because that’s where people who fail every single class in middle school generally end up anyway, and finding out that one of the six or seven shitheads I wrote up today (!!) already has a PO was the shit cherry on top of the smegma sundae that today served me.
Another thing I said to my boss: “If our district was trying to set up the middle schools for failure, how would it look any different from what they just did to us?”
And then I got home and other than a break for dinner have spent three and a half hours working on study guides for the finals, which I will exhaust myself even more over the next four school days trying to get my kids to understand. I will fail, and they will make no difference, and 3/4 of my kids will fail the final anyway, because I could literally write the answers on the board and a third of them would still fail, and if thought is required those numbers go up. Significantly.
I really wonder what it would be like to work at a good school. I never have. I don’t even know where to find them.
I woke up this morning fully intending to go to work and was immediately hit with a wave of nausea so potent that I had to lie back down again before I fell down. If anything, I’ve felt sicker today than I did yesterday, and everyone in the house stayed home from work/school today. My wife suspects food poisoning as all four of us had Burger King on Sunday night; I’m a little skeptical as we didn’t all eat the same thing, but whatever it is, I’m fucking tired of it, and while I’ll still maintain that the symptoms (and the timing) are overlapping pretty damn well with panic attacks, those aren’t contagious.
I am going to work tomorrow if I’m not in the hospital. If I have to throw up out the window of the car on the way there, so fucking be it. I’ve already missed five days out of the last two weeks and I refuse to miss any more between now and Christmas, damn it.
I don’t have a lot to say, and I’m not going to use that as a launch into a ten thousand word post. I said plenty last night. America has demonstrated rather conclusively that she will choose any man, no matter how mediocre, over any woman, no matter how talented, and she has now demonstrated that twice. I am deeply disappointed, but I cannot claim to be surprised. I didn’t think this was going to happen, but unlike 2016, I didn’t think it was impossible.
I am writing through a fog of brain pills; I finally went to bed around 1:30, got up at 7, went back to bed at nine and slept past noon. I am pretty sure I am going to work tomorrow, and the day after that.
We can always hope he dies before January, I suppose. Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are still going to run the country either way, and RFK is about to singlehandedly ruin everything they don’t ruin, but maybe his heart will finally give out. JD Vance will be President before 2028; the only question is how long it takes.
Christ, I hate it here.
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.
Literally every single thing I have done or tried to do today has been frustrating, and I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow and it is not going to go well, because basically every single bad number that exists is going to be higher than it has ever been before, and if I had a window big enough to throw the entire fucking planet through I’d do it. I’ve been on vacation, supposedly, all week, and I’m still exhausted.
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