Today FAILS so HARD that we're not just retaining it, we're sending it back a grade or two.
• Woke up early to take the El to work. Took the Red Line the ... I don't know 15 stops I need without incident and transfer to the Blue Line. I only need the Blue line for like, 5 stops. We get three stops in and the guy in the thing gets on the PA and says, "Oh and this is the last stop for this train. Get off the train. All of you. Now. The next train will go to the end of the line." So we all get off the train. And then he LEAVES his train on the track for FIFTEEN MINUTES so we couldn't even get the next train TO us. (And it wasn't like they had to send a tow-train... he eventually moved it just fine.) So I have to take this other train a whole two stops to get to work.
• Persecution-Complex!Student S totally destroyed the little faith I had in him today. He comes running up to me saying. "J3 called me a faggot!" Which is something J3 would totally do. And he's the kind of kid other kids would apply that word to. So I land on J3 and start heading for the phone to call her parents. As we're walking, P-C!Student S yells out "OW! J3 just punched me in the stomach!" And I'm about to lay into her again (because, again, she has a history), but before I could really say anything, Highly-Reliable!Student T tells me, "Miss [Waldo], J3 didn't touch him at all. He's making up stories." Now T really doesn't like J3 all that much, so for her to say that, it pretty much had to be the truth. P-C!Student S was totally in my doghouse for the rest of the day.
• My class was so off the wall that Exceedingly-Patient!Co-teacher lost it with them. They had silent lunch today. 13/26 were still caught talking, so now they have five days of it in the room when we get back from vacation. Yay for me... 5 days of not having to deal with their crap in the halls and in the lunch room.
• Total Disaster B was such a mess today Co-Teacher called her mom and said she can't go on the field trip tomorrow. She cried for an hour. She really didn't think we meant it when we kept threatening her with "If you do not stop talking/stay in your seat/choose kind words/etc... that we will not take you out in public." Surprise! NOT an idle threat!
> Weirdly, Sherlock realized we meant it and was really good this afternoon. And that was even before he got the added benefit of seeing B lose it over the fact that she wasn't going to go.
• There's one school in our network that already has a Middle School department (we start building ours next year.) Those little darlings hacked into our internet network and broke into both teachers' email accounts and the gradebook system. This means the network admins LOCKED DOWN our internet system so that we can no longer use any personal equipment on the system. This sucks hard - I actually usually use my iPad to check my work email and look up things for the kids. So anyway, they had to finally issue me a netbook. I could have had one in February, but I really hate these netbooks, so I didn't ask for one. My iPad was doing me just fine. So anyway, now I have to use a school unit to do all that crap. The one they issued me has a broken shift key on the left, which means I keep borking my password.
> Weirdly, I've found out that if I use my phone, I can circumvent the blocks on the network and get to my Facebook games and they work *better* on the netbook than when I was doing the same thing on my own MacBook.
> So because I had to take the El downtown for something else I called my adorable camera repair guy to beg that they'd have my camera done today so I could get all my In-the-Loop errands done in one day. SO VERY YAY that they could get it done. Got a call at 1:00 saying everything was ready.
• The principal needed Co-Teacher at the end of the day so I had to do dismissal on my own. Major, major, major yuck.
• Got on the Blue Line after school and went to get my camera. Got up to the little office for the repair shop and there was a Very Scary Guy in there yelling at my camera dude because apparently he sold them something and they issued him a check. He was half-yelling at, half-begging the guy to give him cash. Because apparently the last time they gave him cash, but apparently last time it was only $30 and now it's $60 and the camera guy didn't have the $60 on hand to give him. So the dude continues to rant/beg for actual cash because OMG the banks are CLOSED! (It was only about 4:45) and OMG he doesn't HAVE a bank account (so why does he care if they're closed?) and just OMG he needs the CASH! Eventually, my camera guy took back the $60 check, gave him a new $50 check and $10 cash. Drug issues much? At least appearing to have drug issues much?
> But my camera dude LOVED my strap. He couldn't figure out what it was made from. It's recycled *bright purple* seatbelt strap. I have no idea what car *ever* had bright purple seatbelts, but I love my camera strap. Oh, and FWIW, my massively broken camera was fixed for $164. Not even half what I was afraid it would be.
• Then I walked over to Michigan and got on a bus down to the Apple Store. Only I forgot that I was coming at the Apple Store from the South, and therefore the store would be on the opposite side of the street. So I missed my stop. And the Michigan buses at that point stop roughly at every third stop, so I was hiking it back down the street for a while.
• I had to go to the Apple Store because ONCE AGAIN, my cord blew out. In rather spectacular fashion, in the middle of grad school last night.
> To the good, the first person I talked to tried to tell me I had to BUY a new cord. Then I said, "Uh... the *last* time I had to do this, they just replaced it because they know they're faulty. So he called a manager who went, "Oh, one of these cords again. Here, have a new one." Score.
• As I was walking out of the Apple Store there was a 145 pulling up *right outside the door*! Yay, right? Um... no. I got on the bus, even got a seat after two stops or so, but then they did that CRAP they pull on the 145 where they put on the outside of the bus "this bus goes to [Waldo's Neighborhood]" and then get about six stops away and say, "This other stop will be the last stop, all passengers must get off there because we aren't doing the last, roughly, 10th of our route. Transfer, fools!"
PRO TIP TO THE CTA! If you have equipment labeled as "going to this place here" - be it a train or a bus - it should ACTUALLY GO THERE!
ETA: Oh! I forgot the corker! I came home to find out that someone apparently kicked in our front door on my apartment building. I didn't get home until nearly 7 and when I texted, the landlord said no one had notified him. *sigh*. My front door wasn't touched and the ferrets and my stuff were safe. But WTF breaking off our lock/doorjam???
*sigh*
So it's 7:30 now and my dinner is in the oven... it'll be around 8 before I can eat. My insomnia is taking on whole new levels of WHAT THE FUCK? lately. Last night I was too tired to actually *stay* awake after I woke up at 2:00, like I did the night before. Instead I woke up every half hour or so for about fifteen minutes. It was ridiculous. I can't wait to see what kind of fuckery it has in store for me tonight.
Tomorrow is a field trip to MSI with my whackadoodle class and then they are supposed to have field day outside for Spirit Week. I am not. looking. forward. to. this. Not even a little bit.
However, after that, the glory that is Spring Break starts.
• Persecution-Complex!Student S totally destroyed the little faith I had in him today. He comes running up to me saying. "J3 called me a faggot!" Which is something J3 would totally do. And he's the kind of kid other kids would apply that word to. So I land on J3 and start heading for the phone to call her parents. As we're walking, P-C!Student S yells out "OW! J3 just punched me in the stomach!" And I'm about to lay into her again (because, again, she has a history), but before I could really say anything, Highly-Reliable!Student T tells me, "Miss [Waldo], J3 didn't touch him at all. He's making up stories." Now T really doesn't like J3 all that much, so for her to say that, it pretty much had to be the truth. P-C!Student S was totally in my doghouse for the rest of the day.
• My class was so off the wall that Exceedingly-Patient!Co-teacher lost it with them. They had silent lunch today. 13/26 were still caught talking, so now they have five days of it in the room when we get back from vacation. Yay for me... 5 days of not having to deal with their crap in the halls and in the lunch room.
• Total Disaster B was such a mess today Co-Teacher called her mom and said she can't go on the field trip tomorrow. She cried for an hour. She really didn't think we meant it when we kept threatening her with "If you do not stop talking/stay in your seat/choose kind words/etc... that we will not take you out in public." Surprise! NOT an idle threat!
> Weirdly, Sherlock realized we meant it and was really good this afternoon. And that was even before he got the added benefit of seeing B lose it over the fact that she wasn't going to go.
• There's one school in our network that already has a Middle School department (we start building ours next year.) Those little darlings hacked into our internet network and broke into both teachers' email accounts and the gradebook system. This means the network admins LOCKED DOWN our internet system so that we can no longer use any personal equipment on the system. This sucks hard - I actually usually use my iPad to check my work email and look up things for the kids. So anyway, they had to finally issue me a netbook. I could have had one in February, but I really hate these netbooks, so I didn't ask for one. My iPad was doing me just fine. So anyway, now I have to use a school unit to do all that crap. The one they issued me has a broken shift key on the left, which means I keep borking my password.
> Weirdly, I've found out that if I use my phone, I can circumvent the blocks on the network and get to my Facebook games and they work *better* on the netbook than when I was doing the same thing on my own MacBook.
> So because I had to take the El downtown for something else I called my adorable camera repair guy to beg that they'd have my camera done today so I could get all my In-the-Loop errands done in one day. SO VERY YAY that they could get it done. Got a call at 1:00 saying everything was ready.
• The principal needed Co-Teacher at the end of the day so I had to do dismissal on my own. Major, major, major yuck.
• Got on the Blue Line after school and went to get my camera. Got up to the little office for the repair shop and there was a Very Scary Guy in there yelling at my camera dude because apparently he sold them something and they issued him a check. He was half-yelling at, half-begging the guy to give him cash. Because apparently the last time they gave him cash, but apparently last time it was only $30 and now it's $60 and the camera guy didn't have the $60 on hand to give him. So the dude continues to rant/beg for actual cash because OMG the banks are CLOSED! (It was only about 4:45) and OMG he doesn't HAVE a bank account (so why does he care if they're closed?) and just OMG he needs the CASH! Eventually, my camera guy took back the $60 check, gave him a new $50 check and $10 cash. Drug issues much? At least appearing to have drug issues much?
> But my camera dude LOVED my strap. He couldn't figure out what it was made from. It's recycled *bright purple* seatbelt strap. I have no idea what car *ever* had bright purple seatbelts, but I love my camera strap. Oh, and FWIW, my massively broken camera was fixed for $164. Not even half what I was afraid it would be.
• Then I walked over to Michigan and got on a bus down to the Apple Store. Only I forgot that I was coming at the Apple Store from the South, and therefore the store would be on the opposite side of the street. So I missed my stop. And the Michigan buses at that point stop roughly at every third stop, so I was hiking it back down the street for a while.
• I had to go to the Apple Store because ONCE AGAIN, my cord blew out. In rather spectacular fashion, in the middle of grad school last night.
> To the good, the first person I talked to tried to tell me I had to BUY a new cord. Then I said, "Uh... the *last* time I had to do this, they just replaced it because they know they're faulty. So he called a manager who went, "Oh, one of these cords again. Here, have a new one." Score.
• As I was walking out of the Apple Store there was a 145 pulling up *right outside the door*! Yay, right? Um... no. I got on the bus, even got a seat after two stops or so, but then they did that CRAP they pull on the 145 where they put on the outside of the bus "this bus goes to [Waldo's Neighborhood]" and then get about six stops away and say, "This other stop will be the last stop, all passengers must get off there because we aren't doing the last, roughly, 10th of our route. Transfer, fools!"
PRO TIP TO THE CTA! If you have equipment labeled as "going to this place here" - be it a train or a bus - it should ACTUALLY GO THERE!
ETA: Oh! I forgot the corker! I came home to find out that someone apparently kicked in our front door on my apartment building. I didn't get home until nearly 7 and when I texted, the landlord said no one had notified him. *sigh*. My front door wasn't touched and the ferrets and my stuff were safe. But WTF breaking off our lock/doorjam???
*sigh*
So it's 7:30 now and my dinner is in the oven... it'll be around 8 before I can eat. My insomnia is taking on whole new levels of WHAT THE FUCK? lately. Last night I was too tired to actually *stay* awake after I woke up at 2:00, like I did the night before. Instead I woke up every half hour or so for about fifteen minutes. It was ridiculous. I can't wait to see what kind of fuckery it has in store for me tonight.
Tomorrow is a field trip to MSI with my whackadoodle class and then they are supposed to have field day outside for Spirit Week. I am not. looking. forward. to. this. Not even a little bit.
However, after that, the glory that is Spring Break starts.