Halloween was kind of funny this year. I think this was the first time since I've worked at Parkdale that it was not snowing for our costumed parade. In fact, it was close to 80 degrees--an all-time record, according to the news ( Read more... )

And now I shall list some things that have happened lately, most of them jolly weekend escapades, although some of them may have happened on weekdays. If you have a problem with that, find someone who cares. As with my recent narrative of the trip to Erie, PA, this entry is long, convoluted, and self-indulgent in the extreme, and no apologies will ( Read more... )

All right, now it's time to round up some school-related news:

Lacrosse

The season is over; feels like I attended about eleventy-dozen matches this spring. I'm glad it's done. Folks were just starting to get on my nerves, you know? There was the incident where I got yapped at about the malfunctioning scoreboard and internally lost my cool, then ( Read more... )

I promised my first-graders that if they worked hard on their ant research and found lots of amazing facts, I would make all their ants have a battle.


( Read more... )

Today a kindergartener farted so heinously that I gagged and had to stop everything and ask if anybody had actually pooped their pants. All respondents said no. I did not press the issue ( Read more... )

I say, what a day! Even a normal, relatively (I stress relatively) sane day at school is an exhausting ordeal. I'm not even complaining. I'm just reporting. Here's just a watermarked preview image of a typical day at an elementary school ( Read more... )

Well, the author visit went well, although it was quite the most exhausting day in recent memory. My brain woke me up at four in the morning in anticipation of the busy day ahead and did not allow me to go back to sleep, so we were off to a great start. Then it was just constant activity through almost five in the afternoon ( Read more... )

Almost there! Another very long and busy day, capped off by the first lacrosse game of the season, which was freezing cold and not something I was enthused to have to do ( Read more... )

OK, it is now March 19. March nineteenth is an anagram for "nattier henchmen," so on this day I require my thugs to wear bowties. It's cold and snowing, so that feels nice and normal, and April is just over the horizon. One way or another, each school day passes by without anything disastrous happening, so that's also a plus. There's just no time ( Read more... )

The month of March moves ever forward, as if stepping in a measured cadence. Thursday's Literacy Night event went all right. That was not actually my responsibility, although I was on the planning committee. For two hours in the evening, families descended on the school, steaming and stinking from the rain, and played various reading-themed games ( Read more... )