Halfway...

through conferences and dead.

I have completed all of my report cards and about half of my parent-teacher conferences. There have been many promises of lost privileges and ass whoopings. Not that I entirely condone the latter. But some of these kids? Can make you have homicidal thoughts. I sometimes find myself asking other teachers, "If I were to kill this certain student, do you think I could get off on justifiable homicide or at least temporary insanity? And if not, how many years do you think I'd get?" Don't get me wrong. I love the kids. They just irritate the hell out of me at times. Like yesterday.

Yesterday would be the first day of conferences. It would also be the day that I realized around lunch that I really wasn't feeling well. Sinus headache, swollen glands, feverish chills. Yep, I really felt like sticking around until 5:30 to meet with parents. By this morning, I realized that the headache is due to a sinus infection. I also confirmed that I am indeed running a slight fever as well. Any other time, I would have stayed home but I had conferences. And they were for some of the biggest behavior problems in my classroom. No way I was going to miss out on those.

There were some other happy moments though. After lunch yesterday, it would be mild to say I was a queen bitch to the kids. After they lined up on the yard, I barked out (as well as my sore throat would allow), "You will walk to the room in an orderly fashion. You will go directly to your chair and sit down. You will not make a single sound. Do not even think of raising your hand when you are seated because I do not want to hear you." I then quizzed them to make sure that they understood. There were a couple of offenders and I quickly sent them out of the room with a timeout form. I then turned to the rest and asked, "Who wants to go next?" Toward the end of the school day, one of the girls handed me a letter that she had written. Luckily I did not read it until after school. She wrote something along the lines of, "I am sorry you are feeling so bad today but I have some good news for you. Tomorrow is another day and it will be better." I cried.

Then today my first conference showed up -- the wonderful folks from Sri Lanka. They came armed with a package of fresh samosas (I'd post a picture but I consumed them pretty quickly.) and a thermos of fresh Chai. I so want to move in with those folks.

So now I am debating crawling into bed because unfortunately I have signed up for a seminar tomorrow. I guess I shouldn't complain because I will get paid for my time. And they'll be feeding me.