on my christmas list: a stuffed sheep named dmitri

I have got to start bringing my camera to the exciting events I now attend so frequently in my role as disgruntled teacher who feels compelled to share her negative attitude with the world. I spent the morning helping honor students volunteer at a local shopping center's Halloween costume contest (for dogs and children!), and there were some real doozies that so captured my imagination, much of the afternoon has been peppered with my random descriptions aimed, unsolicited, at Ben.

"And then there was this Chihuahua, dressed as a hot dog! It was sprayed painted red and sandwiched between two oblong white pillows, with curly yellow ribbons on top! Wait, let me draw it for you....."

Two hours later:
"Wait, then there was a dog dressed as Dog the Bounty Hunter, and his 13-year-old owner dressed as Beth [his enormously endowed wife], both with blond wigs! Only she had a flat chest and hairy legs! Because she was only 13! Let me sketch it out so you get the full effect."

Then:
[Me] "You had to see it to understand how cute it was, this baby dressed as an opihi [limpet that dwells stuck to rocks in the ocean]. Here, it was like this....no, more like this...."

[Ben] "Oh, so it was a disfigured baby to boot! Ha ha, your nostrils flare while you draw, because you have to concentrate so hard."

In other words, I have been reduced to the tactics of Cousin Balki's villager friend from Mypos whose job was to draw all the momentous occasions. Next thing you know, Ben will come home to a house full of raisin bran, as I empty boxes into every receptacle, unable to believe that the manufacturer would make false promises as to the number of raisins in each box.

dept. of education time-management report

8:00 am: Arrived at office (I know, scandalously late; only the teachers who have given up hope arrive this late), pondered whether to take a fun-size Snickers from the rapidly dwindling bowl of candy that my mom's retired teacher sorority provides annually for other teachers, not for custodians to stuff their pockets with a week's supply of candy, ahem.Chose to be martyr, sacrificing own needs for the less self-disciplined among the faculty.

8:20 to 10:20 am: Proctored state writing test to group of students (none of which were mine) whose earnest effort was both heartening and demoralizing. Heartening to see students whose 10-plus years of education has actually resulted in skills and the capacity to complete a ninety-minute assignment, which they seemed to give their best effort despite it having no impact on their grades or credis toward graduation. Demoralizing to know that my own pupils have yet to be simultaneously "on-task," quiet, or even seated, for more than ten minutes in my class.

10:20 to 10:45: Searched for teaching jobs in Bellevue and Seattle, pausing over the website of Life Academy just long enough to realize it's not a progressive school focusing on organic farming, but one of an alarming number of Christian schools in the area. Surfed over to The Superficial, which contains way too many photos of boobs in bikinis to be safe for work even before clicking on the NSFW links, but is worth the risk to satisfy my need to see what Britney ate today while walking to her car.

10:45 to 1:30: Oversaw what was supposed to be a fun, no-brainer project, using computers to make posters on literary terms like "plot" and "simile." Turns out that starting up a laptop, let alone manipulating MS Word, is a skill not yet mastered. Twelve computers; each and every error message, low battery warning, or cursor blip prompted a panicked and demanding "MISS!" Decided to extend due date by several days, and that all future assignments will be done on paper. Or slates.

1:30: Cringed when I saw that Anger Management Boy had folded the monitor all the way back and was jokingly, but vigorously, pounding on the desk in frustration. Told AMB that might break the computer. Not sure if it was true, but this is what I've become: a scaremongerer with more regard for discipline than scientific truth.

3:15: Famished from skipping lunch, cruised by the office with a glimmer of hope that basic decency had kept fellow teachers from completely plundering the candy bowl. Nothing, not even a stale Tootsie Roll remained in the plastic pumpkin. I bet this never happens in the private sector, where entire office budgets are allotted for seasonal candy.

3:25: Home, collapsed on couch, where gobbled countless Dove Promises, thus accounting for the subsequent loss of sanity that led me to watch Rachael Ray's segment on a bunch of nurses getting an office makeover. (Nurses have offices?) The reveal, in which the nurses inevitably burst into tears, actually made me choke up. Not tear up, mind you, like I did at The Biggest Loser. Physical sobs! Appalling.

As Ben suggested yesterday, maybe it's the menopause.

ben's multiple personalities

So, we're talking more seriously about moving away from here. (Ben's been talking seriously about it since we first moved here, while I've just been giggling and ignoring.)

Ben cracked me up this morning by announcing, "I feel like George Bush." Huh? "With all my reasons--are we moving because of my asthma? the cost of living? my constantly sweaty back? I feel like Bush taking the nation to war!"

My husband has a tendency toward melodrama. First Luca, now W.

that's it, I f-ing quit

Motherf.......atherSisterBrother! (As one of my students likes to say.)

****

I started the above post several days ago, upon my most inauspicious return to work. Now I can't remember exactly what prompted the proclamation; it could have been any number of things, from realizing that I have spent almost $10,000 to become "certified" in a profession I'm not at all sure I enjoy or am good at doing, to the invasion of ants that makes me explode with rage against nature several times a day. I'd rather be a vendor of certified organic produce some days. I'm definitely certified something, if you get my drift. Yuk, yuk.

Anywho, my desire to be a kept housewife has never been stronger. But the days are occasionally enlivened by the unintentional irony uttered from the mouths of (sixteen-year-old) babes.

Stude: Fuck, I'm so pissed! Fucking v.p. stay making me take Anger Management. I don't fucking need Anger Management, I'm like the coolest, laid-back guy brah! (beat.) Ass why I wen punch the wall, and now my hand stay all fucked up.

Today, after being given the third essay assignment of the year: Why the hell are doing so much writing? This is an ENGLISH class. (Spoken very slowly for the benefit of me, the dim-witted, writing-obsessed teacher.)