WFHDTDAB, Monday

This has been the "Week from Hell due to Dumb-Ass Behavior." Spring Break starts tomorrow and the kids can't seem to keep it together. It started on Monday with a discipline committee meeting over a student who had been written up about 14 times for different things. He'd served cafeteria duty, detention, and even a Saturday detention just last week. We had a parent conference; he screwed up again about 3 hours later. 3 hours before the discipline committe meeting, he decided he was too tired to actually CARRY his 25 pound bookbag down the stairs, so he just dropped it off his back over the 2nd story balcony railing. No, he didn't look first. YES, it did land on someone's head. No, she's not SERIOUSLY hurt, but she did get hurt. Due to "Dumb-Ass Behavior."

So 3 hours later, we're sitting in a room with the 3 deans, his advisor and another teacher for a meeting that had been scheduled for over a week, pondering how he could A) do something so stupid B) do something so stupid KNOWING that we were having this meeting. After 2 hours of listening to this kid and his parents babble on and say NOTHING of consequence, the committee voted to "separate him from the school." That's Prep school talk for expulsion.

Then I had another hour of talking to the principal, who was a little nervous to kick him out. (Hmmm...I wonder if she was worried that our head of school would be angry, since the parents own a very successful business and had just been invited to a "cultivation" dinner for donations.) The head of school wasn't in a great mood when we called her, because she was in the hospital getting chemo, and was getting a needle inserted RIGHT at the time the principal called. In any case, the expulsion stood, and as hard as it was, it was the right thing to do.

Then came Tuesday.......

Cats in Space

Would you rather live in....

the Star Trek Universe 14% 1 vote
the world of Dr. Seuss 86% 6 votes

I guess maybe I should have specified which Star Trek universe. It may have made all the difference.

I got a raise!

Monday, we had a student switch places with our principal. It's one of the items sold at our annual auction; I have no idea how much his parents paid for him to be able to skip classes. During assembly, he told the kids to untuck their shirts and said he would write up anyone he caught with their shirts tucked in. He also gave them a FULL dress down for Tuesday (which meant jeans and t-shirts. The kids LOVE that and so do the teachers. The best part of the day is that he told the teachers he was giving them all raises. Then he stood outside the auditorium and gave each of us 4 pennies. I gave him a hard time about not springing for the whole nickel. So he gave me another penney. Then he put a stack of 4 pennies in every teacher's mailbox, but somehow, I got 2 stacks. So all in all, I got a 13 cent raise. Not bad considering the week I've had. I'll tell you all about that next time.

Only a Band Director's Kid!

I have a band director friend whose 2nd grade son seems to be having a little trouble playing recorder in music class. A note was sent home that little J needed to practice 20 minutes on his song. Dad sent him into his room to do his work. When he went to check on the progress, he noticed that his son had turned his Spider-Man poster backwards and wrote "Warm Up Room" on the back.

I guess the kid has been around WAY too many festivals lately!

Freakish Alien Arrives!

Got a call Thursday night from R & M in Chicago. The baby formerly known as the Freakish Alien has arrived. Molly Grace was born at 8:06 PM on Tuesday after 36 hours of labor. In true M form, there was heard the phrase "Well. THAT'S a first!" when she had not one, but TWO epidurals, neither of which did the job intended. She ended up going under general anesthesia and having a C section.

The family is home and doing well. It won't be long until that child starts rebelling, I'm sure!

God moments are NICE!

So I'm sitting in small group tonight, discussing Hebrews 3 and what our responsibilities are when holding fellow believers to a higher standard and confronting their behavior when we feel it's destructive or unhealthy. WideDaddy Dave asked us to think about the person that we've created a relationship with whom we trust enough to ask to hold us accountable, and then my phone rang. It was MY "trust buddy." I was thinking SO hard about them that they felt the need to ring in.

HOW FREAKIN' COOL IS THAT?!

More Dwarves.....

I just found this list of names for Goth Dwarves. I love McSweeney's lists!

Who's worse?

So Spring Break officially starts at 3 PM next Friday, 3/30. The kids went on Spring Break officially at 2 PM today. I quickly followed. We're all just dancing around in limbo for the next week or so. Who are we trying to kid?

Multicultural LUNCH!

Since about 90% of the students at my school have parents and/or grandparents who were born outside of the US (and probably 50% of the students themselves!) we celebrate "Multicultural Day" every March. The highlight is that the parents send in native dishes for lunch. Today was an International FEAST! I had Cuban Arroz con Pollo, Jamaica patties, Thai noodles, Indian Curry Chicken, Chinese Won Ton soup, Jewish Keugel, and so many other things that I can't even remember. I was SO mad when the bell rang - I never even got to the dessert table!

WARNING!

It's spring. I'm fried. My mind is mush. I haven't had a date in about 8 years. Just remember that before you read the Dwarves post....

Remember, this whole blog thing started here because Tedley made a comment "I'd like to see what goes on in your mind." Well, there you are!

Seven Dwarves of Porn

So I hear that some good friends of mine were having a spot of fun whilst roaming through the Magical Rat Land in central Florida. It seems they were coming up with possible porn names for the Seven Dwarves. I didn't get to hear them all, but "Snowball" would be a good choice. Either that or "Hot Carl."

OK, never mind....

DON'T drink the Kool-Aid!

Would you rather.....

have a permanent grape Kool-aid mustache 0% 0 votes
have permanent Dorito residue on your fingers? 100% 4 votes

4 votes total

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While I agree that Doritos are finger-lickin' good, I can't help but wonder if the Kool-Aid aversion has anything to do with the Jim Jones cult in Guyana? Just a thought......

San Fran Foodies

Today, the 8th grade Dean (Lamburrito) sent me an e-mail regarding the upcoming annual trip to San Francisco.

My response was "I’m getting excited, although I may STOP eating between now and then to compensate for the food orgy in which we are about to partake."

He wrote back "I hear you. My mouth unfortunately is deaf!!!"

It's going to be a fabulous trip, as always!

Easy Money!

Since spring is here, the hormonal adolescents I work with seem to be having trouble controlling their impulsivity. Not in the way you imagine however. Instead, it's mostly the 7th grade boys pounding on each other. This is my 3rd year as their Dean, and I am finally getting the hang of the usual pattern: Boy A teases Boy B. B teases A louder. A pushes B. B pushes A harder. This pattern continues until either an adult intervenes OR someone gets hurt. The cycle is considered a complete success if someone is actually transported to a medical facility, usually by a vehicle with lights and sirens.

The school has decided that preemptive measures are in order and are paying for adults to supervise the parking lot area where students are picked up after school. I get to sit outside for 2 1/2 hours a day, 3 days a week for $20 an hour. I can do whatever I want while I sit - read, surf the Internet, write e-mails, even blog! With a laptop and the wireless network, it's better than Starbucks!

I LOVE my 7th graders!

It's still dark out!

So I remembered to turn my clocks back for Daylight Savings time. The problem is that when I wake up in the morning, it's still DARK. So my body says "Hey! Don't get up yet. That's just not natural." (How quickly my body forgot about all those early morning marathon training runs at the Oh-Dark hundred!) So this morning, I was late for school because I just couldn't convince myself that it was REALLY time to get up.

When I was in middle school, my dad would walk me up by opening my bedroom door and turning on the light. I learned very quickly how to sleep with the lights on.

I wonder if the two are related?

Soap vs. spotlight

Would you rather....

leave a trail of soap suds wherever you go 60% 3 votes
have an intense spotlight shining on you at all times 40% 2 votes

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It was a close one this week, folks. Thanks for voting!

The Old Man and the Sea

I took my 8th grade band to Key West last weekend for fun and to play at our concert band festival. One of the kids told me "Can we go to the Hemingway House? There's a picture of my grandfather's brother in it."

I'm thinking - ok, his uncle is probably in the background of some crowd photo or was driving the boat during a fishing excursion. Instead, we get there and there is a HUGE full color painting of Hemingway and "uncle" Gregorio Fuentes." Also known as "The Old Man" Santiago from Hemingway's book "The Old Man and the Sea." Seems Ernest and Gregorio were old fishing buddies in Cuba, and Gregorio was the model for the book.

The kid had NO clue what a big deal that was!

The Family Homestead is no more!

So my mom decided to sell the house I grew up in. It's a 4 bed/2 bath with 2 garages (a 2 car attached and a 4 car detached) on 4.3 acres (wooded and on a river) in northern Illinois. It sold in less than 2 weeks for the full asking price of $189K. WHAT A BARGAIN! Friends told me I should have jumped on it. Too bad I have NO desire to move back there!

Caffeine is our friend!

Would you rather fight to the death...

Votes
100 cups of coffee 20% 1 vote
30 watermelons 80% 4 votes

5 votes total
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I agree.....although both would kick your butt if you ingested them.

Where I've been....

Ok, nowhere exciting. I know, I know....it's been over a week since my last post, and a LOT longer than that since my last MEANINGFUL one. Get over it. It's "Festival Season" in the band geek world and I've been up to my ears with prep work and crazy stuff. Last weekend I took my 8th grade band to Key West for concert band festival. We had tons of fun, but their performance was not that great. Oh, well...time to try something new. Perhaps a career in the fine world of refuse management.

Cleared a big hurdle on the convention plans this week, too AND I didn't quit. I thought about it a squillion times and came REALLY close. But the convention host heard I was getting frustrated and kissed some MAJOR butt last night to get me to stay on.

Got back to running again this week. D inspired me with his 30+ pound loss. I'd like to lose about 13 of my own before spring break. Of course, then it's off to San Fran with the 8th graders, Lamburrito and the gang and the food fest we always experience. YUMMY!

Since the end of the grading period is next week, I'm winding down the school year. That means summer vacation plans are in the works. I'm looking at airfare and options regularly so I can have another 6 week world tour. I'll keep you posted on that one.