13 days and counting. . .

Well, I have 13 more days of school before Winter Break. Yes, I "get" to work until December 21 this year. I'm actually excited that I have so much time after Christmas and New Years this year. I know I'll get my Christmas stuff done. I love Christmas too much not too, and when I have to go back January 2 or 3 I'm still so tired from travel, etc. that I almost feel like I haven't had a break at all. That being said, to have four weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter Break has to be some kind of cruel and unusual punishment. Seriously, I'm loopy, the kids are loopy. . . it's a bad picture all around. To top that, I get to teach my LEAST favorite work of literature for the year, Antigone, in the two weeks prior to our break. Oh well, let's get it done.

Added to all of this loveliness is the fact that we've had more wackiness going on at my school in the past few weeks than I've ever experienced as a teacher. Right before Thanksgiving, we lost our server and therefore all access to our computers for 2 days. Then, on the day before Thanksgiving, when I was showing a MOVIE, we lost power at 10:00 am because the geniuses who are building next door cut our power by accident. Because I teach at a magnet school and our students come from all over the valley, the district refused to cancel school. What do we learn from this kids? That BUSES and MONEY are more important than our students and teachers. Then, last Friday, We got the announcement mid-day that we did not have any water in the school because the super genius construction workers cracked the pipe delivering water to our school. So, we had NO bathrooms or running water of any kind. I thought, "Surely the district can't refuse to send our kids home now!" Wrong again. Instead, our amazing custodial staff drove to Walmart to get 100 gallons of water so that our kids could use the restroom and pour water down the toilets in order to make them flush. WHAT??? This can NOT be legal.

My question is, where are all of the parents with pitchforks demanding the district send our kids home under these conditions??

Monday morning I arrived at the school to see that one of our classrooms is shut down because a barometer broke causing a mercury spill, and that same afternoon the super brilliant contruction workers next door once again cracked the water pipe causing us to lose water.

Some of us have decided that locusts are next. I guess a little freshman asked one of my department members, "Is it always like this at our school?" No, little one. . . it's not our school. . . IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!