Gah! Air Travel!!

This morning, Ms. Without-Shopping and I woke up at o-dark thirty to catch a 6:30 flight to a conference. Flying anywhere for any professional reason almost never happens to teacher types (it involves money), so we're excited--until we get to the airport. We park and hustle into the terminal. Turns out the e-ticket is one of those "operated by" tix, so we're at the wrong airline. On the wrong side of the terminal, it turns out. While we're crossing over, we see that the TSA screening line stretches from here to Chicago (at 5:45 am?? Hello??). So basically, no plane for you!

So now I have a day off from work, but I'm spending it in the airport on standby. My life is an encyclopedic justification of Murphy's Law. Air travel FAIL.

Whither Work?

Teachers tend to be of two models: vampires or early birds. I'm in camp II. I hauled myself out of bed this morning just after four a.m. to do some paper grading, and lo and behold, our web-based gradebooks are down. They were down yesterday at this time as well, according to another teacher. If regular server maintenance is scheduled between four and five in the morning, they're going to infuriate a bunch of us. Can't you back that up until, say, 2:30 or 3? That seems a happy medium for us teacher types.

This grading is going to take foreeeeeeever at this rate...

Tallahasses

Today, the vampire bats of education flapped down our hallways and invaded our classrooms. Yep, it's visitation day. We've been at Defcon 2 for a couple of weeks now. It apparently isn't enough to give Florida schools a letter grade based on one set of test scores; now we have a "level" to go with. Our level means that we get bat teams a couple of times a year to make sure we're teaching right or something. Honestly, it feels like we're living through the education version of Dean Wormer's "double secret probation."

I am SO SICK of bureaucrats who think they have the magic answer to our education problems. There's no telling how long it's been since they've been in a classroom, if ever. But man, do they have some crazy ideas about how learning's supposed to happen. Case in point: write the state benchmark, complete with its arcane numbering system, on the board in one particular place. Guess the magic key to reluctant teen readers is to slap an "LA.A.910.9.blah.yada" up front, and the clouds part, the angels sing, and hood rats suddenly develop a craving for John Irving. The kids in my room know what we're doing. Benchmarks? They don't need no stinkin' benchmarks!

Given our abysmal state grades, I think the bat brigade was expecting a scene out of Lean on Me, complete with graffiti and freshman getting trapped in lockers. Surprise, surprise...we have a close community that's working hard, kids who respond to their teachers, homework. You know, school. Here's your clue, folks: generational poverty. When you find it, you find academic issues, pure and simple. Doesn't mean our kids can't learn or aren't intelligent, it means they don't have backup. These kids aren't going to museums and computer camps in the summer. They don't have laptops and Internet access and books on the shelves. If they're lucky, they got Sesame Street when they were little instead of Jerry Springer and inattentive babysitters. Many of them aren't. Hence, our issues.

*sigh* One more adventure in our high stakes environment. Are we ready to have a substantive talk about testing pressure, please??

Cripes, Tallahassee!

Today was the first day I attempted to foist the new state-mandated testing on my students, and let me just say that there are military terms that aren't for mixed company that perfectly capture the essence of today's fun. Terms beginning with the word "cluster" or expressed with the acronym FUBAR.

Needless to say, when the wizards in Tally tell the entire state to hold off on testing until later, then open the floodgates to a small window of completion, they're asking for trouble. They're asking for more trouble when they--knowing that the opening sequence will be accessed hundreds of thousands of times--advise the districts to purchase and maintain cache servers to make things run more smoothly. Um, clue. These are the same districts that have been laying people off right and left, but they have money to blow on purchasing, installing, and maintaining special servers just for your new brainstorm of a test?? Let the people say DUH.

I got my kids almost through second period, roughly 9 am, when things started to bog down (the Panhandle's awake!). By third period, the entire network crashed and didn't come back up until close to the end of the day. Brilliant planning, idjits.

So we're not done, and now the teaching part is equally FUBAR. Testing is, yet again, holding learning hostage. Data-driven my...

Band Geek WIN

Tonight was middle school band night at the high school where the denizens of Chez mimi are zoned to attend. Since I'm a proud graduate of that same school, I was especially interested in having young Frick, my aspiring tubist, attend. You see, he plays in a wonderful middle school band. The problem is, most of the kids at his middle school go to a nearly lily-white suburban marquee high school--let's call it FooFoo High School, just for funzies--with a small slice going to Frick's future alma mater, which has a much more diverse population. As a result, his band director is all over whatever happens at FooFoo High and totally neglects OUR high school. Or so it seems (mimi does admit to a bit of touchiness and snobbery when it comes to OUR school vs. FooFoo High, which is populated with teens who drive far nicer cars than the teachers and have the attitude to match*). So Frick has been hearing all about how WONDERFUL and FABULOUS FooFoo High is and bubkes about his own school.

Until last night. I bring him to the band room--which was the library when I attended--sign him in, and he disappears into the tuba section. They bond immediately over his cool mouthpiece and he turns on the Parental Ignoring Beam and I leave. I know when I'm superfluous. Still, I worry. He's only in seventh grade. He's very very small compared to those big high school kids and their humongous Sousaphones. So an hour later I text him: Having fun? Glad you went? Do you want one of us to be there while you're at the game? He texts back:

Yes, yes, and no.

Ooooookay then. We leave him to his fun. DH goes to pick him up at the end of a very long night, and he arrives home brandishing a sheaf of tuba arrangements for things they played in the stands, a grin wider than a bass drum, and total excitement about AlmaMater Band. Yay!!

The moral of the story? NEVER underestimate the power of music.

*DISCLAIMER: One of mimi's partners in crime, the Bed Bandit herself, has a daughter attending FooFoo High. Mr. and Mrs. Comic Book's son goes there as well. I personally adore these two children and their younger siblings who will be attending FooFoo High because they live on the other side of our lovely hometown. But that's all the love FooFoo's getting from me. So there.

What Is It With These People??

I don't know what they're drinking in Tallahassee, but apparently now there's yet ANOTHER test we have to administer our kids to find out what's up with their godforsaken reading scores. This one's computer-based, though, and will take up two day's worth of class time that I now can't spend instructing them. Yeah, that makes sense.

You see, apparently the right TEST is going to be the key to unlock why teen readers don't score well on standardized reading exams. Get the right test and the right spreadsheet numbers and presto!! Scores miraculously soar. Right? I mean, it's not like my professional judgment can do anything to pinpoint what they have issues with. You know, by assigning reading and asking them to write things that reveal what they comprehend. It's the almighty SPREADSHEET that will cure all. I'm sorry; I didn't know that you needed a minor in statistics to be a competent English teacher, but whatever. I can play along. But it won't stop me from wondering whether the people drinking that funky Tallahassee Kool-Aid have ever been in a classroom with actual children. Because, after all, children respond so well to more tests when they're having issues with a test. You try convincing a teenager who's figured out that the only scores that matter are the ones that tell you you get a diploma when you graduate (FCAT) or get you into the college of your choice (SAT/ACT) or college credit (AP) that he or she needs to buckle down and work on additional test number 5,297 because THIS IS IMPORTANT and YOU SHOULD TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. Those benchmark tests and Edusoft assessments and yes, our new silver bullet, FAIR (Is there a job in the Florida DOE just for making up acronyms?) are the keys to data-driven instruction. Which soon will be all data and no instruction unless they knock some of that testing crap back down to a manageable, sane size.

Plus, to add insult to injury, the mandatory training sessions were held on the day before and the day progress reports were due to be submitted. Into a new online-based system, no less, so it's the first time we'd ever used it to post grades. The same day the increased server activity crashed the server. The same day some brain trust at the county office wiped out the student/parent database, so none of the kids could check grades online and were freaking out because why worry about your grade until the day it's going in?? Sheesh!

If I were in charge (and that would never happen, because although I have lovely party manners, I do not suck up well), I would put a cadre of really smart teachers in charge of all these new state mandates. Anything the legislature suddenly believes is a good idea would be required of them before they can require it of Florida's students. Plus, legislators would be required by law to work for a minimum of one week per year as a substitute teacher before they would be permitted to introduce legislation which governs how I do my job. You know, the one I've trained for (two degrees!) and have twenty years' experience doing. With an army of successful college graduates to back me up, thankyouverymuch. Otherwise, shut your piehole. And take your freakin' test with you.

Much Ado About Nothing: Presidential Speech Edition

Just in case you've been camping on the moon for the past couple of weeks, today President Obama delivered his socialist agenda brainwashing speech to innocent children, better known to those of us who actually use our brains to think as a Presidential Back-to-School address. Seems President Obama, who knows from both his and the First Lady's backgrounds that a solid education is the key to success, wanted to remind the kids that their futures were in their own hands, and their job is to work hard in school, persevere, and watch all that work bear fruit.

How very pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps of him. Just the kind of hard work, self-reliant, achieve your American Dream kind of thing the conservatives have been harping on for years. Unfortunately, there are some truly loose screws shouting from the right side of the aisle these days. Even more unfortunately, a sizable chunk of the populace is listening to them without thinking much about what they're actually saying.

These are the same folks who got all bent out of shape when people criticized President G.W. Bush. As in, "How dare you criticize the President? How un-Patriotic! How un-American!" Now that their guy's not in the Oval Office, it's open season on Obama--and that's being patriotic and American.

Look, folks. Dissent is an American value. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution don't guarantee that we're all going to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." You don't have to agree with President Obama. You don't have to like him. But, to be fair, if you demand that the office of the President deserves respect (as I heard so many preaching during the W years), then put your money where your flappin' gums are and respect the man. It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable--and I'm not just talking about the conservatives. There are some lefties who've abandoned their good manners and foam at the mouth as rabidly and unattractively as the freaked-out tea party crowd. Extremism of any stripe is annoying and dangerous. And, most of the time, downright wrong.

Thinking Americans of all stripes can find much to praise in today's message. They can also find much to discuss. DISCUSS being the key word. Thou canst not discuss when thou art shouting.

I think President Obama's words were on the mark. He, at least, seems to understand that the work of education is spread among a large group of people. Today, he addressed the group that's often left out of the "let's improve our schools" debates--the ones actually doing the work in the desks. He tells the kids,

"By the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world — and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities."

Preach on, Mr. President. If you're lucky, maybe some of their parents were paying attention.

Whooooaaaah...Back on the Chain Gang!!

Not really, but today is the first day of school! Kids are in and excited, and my feet are *killing* me!! That's what I get for wearing cute shoes with my Day 1 outfit, though. It's all my fault. I'll be back in Crocs tomorrow (the ladylike ones, not the clown shoes).

So far, pretty good, if you don't count the network crashing halfway through the day so we couldn't do attendance or anything. The kids were nice, I eased through the "wah wah wah wah" Charlie Brown's teacher monologues about the Code of Conduct and gave everybody homework. Yep, mimi means business right out of the box when she's in TeacherLady mode. It won't be hard...unless they think I'm kidding about the summer reading that's due next Friday. The phrase "world of hurt" will never mean so much!!

If you can judge the school year by the first day, this will be a good one. I'm looking forward to it. Probably not as forward as I'm looking to getting in my jammies, but you know what I mean. Happy 2009-2010 school year, everyone!

I <3 School Supplies!

I don't know about you, but I've always been way more excited in the Office Depot or the Staples than I have ever been in the shoe department. Yes, I'm warped. But still, there's something about fresh, new Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, Pink Pearl erasers, and riffly sheets of notebook paper that just gives me the shivers. New school supplies mark the beginning of an unblemished school year, where I can teach everything perfectly and all my students soak up the learnin' like baby sponges. One week in, and it's all screwed to hell (so much for perfectionism), but right now, it's still perfect. And that makes me very happy indeed.

IB Pissed

I don't know about you, but sometimes professional conferences are a pain in my considerable behind. Today's is no exception. I'm at a gorgeous beach resort--no complaints there--with nice food and a room that's about a hundred feet from the Gulf of Mexico. Fine. Dandy.

What's not fine, or even approaching dandy, is the veritable avalanche of paper I got this morning, all badly organized and comb-bound, which makes it impossible to reorganize. Top that all off with a room full of people from rank beginners (moi) to twenty-year-plus veterans, and you have a recipe for a very confused room. Especially in my seat.

The situation: I'll be teaching the first year of an IB course this fall. I come to get teaching strategies and make sure I'm on the right path to help my students do well. Within the first half hour, I'm unsure I'm in the right place, thanks to the aforementioned mix in the room, and then I discover that the syllabus I submitted, which I thought had been vetted and approved, was wrong. As in "violates the rules and would disqualify my students' scores" wrong. How the hell did it pass muster, then??

Let's just say I'm never--never--the dumbest girl in the room. This morning, though, I sure felt like it. And I was. Not. Happy. At. All. Pitch a fit not happy and embarrass myself in front of everyone, which made me even less happy. This is the kind of thing that gives teachers chronic headaches. Good thing I have the beach to stare at.

Last Day!!

Today is the last day of school...and am I ready!! One more exam to give, then it's grade grade grade, then clean clean clean, then pack pack pack stuff to work on over the summer because, contrary to popular belief, teachers do not get three months off. Let me repeat that:

TEACHERS DO NOT GET THREE MONTHS OFF.

The "three months off" canard is one commonly tossed at folks like moi, who happily toil amongst other people's children in the public schools, from people who like to snipe at the "failing" public school system. Public school teachers, apparently, are just slightly higher on the evolutionary scale from "welfare queens" and those who enrich themselves on the government's dime without doing any work. Amazing how corporate crooks like Blackwater and Halliburton are never mentioned in these conversations, although they've siphoned off billions more tax dollars than my puny salary ever will, even after I've put in 30+ years and start collecting retirement.

Just so you know, here's what my summer is shaping up like. The last day of post-planning is this Friday. We're back in school for pre-planning the third week of August. That's ten weeks, not three months. In that ten weeks, I if I am professional and want to have a great 2009-2010 school year (I am, and I do), I must complete the following:

• Four day IB training seminar in St. Pete in June, travel expenses to be borne by moi and then reimbursed at the standard rate (which means part of it's coming out of my pocket)
• Five day AP training seminar in St. Pete in late July, all travel expenses to be borne by moi and then reimbursed at the standard rate (which means part of it's coming out of my pocket)
• Redesigning my current AP course so it includes IB standards so my students will be prepared for both, since our school's program isn't large enough to support separate courses
• Re-reading all of the books I assigned for summer reading (that's for AP, IB, and honors English, about 15 books total) so that I can discuss them intelligently and answer questions on the Google Group I set up for my students so they walk in on Day 1 ready to work
• Four or five days of curricular planning for various groups at school so the teachers walk in on Day 1 ready to do amazing things in the classroom
• Resting. I'm exhausted. Like most teachers, I "leave it all on the court" by the end of the year. Trust me, you're getting a full year's worth of work in the 38 weeks I'm actively at school. The stuff I do in the summer is bonus.

Of course, none of this work is compensated. It's my time and my dime. And that's not counting what I have to do to accommodate DH's summer schedule for his teacher training, which doesn't happen at any of the same times as mine. That would be, as they say at my favorite high school, "too much like right."

Did I mention that teachers don't get paid over the summer? Right. That's another misconception. We're paid when we're in school. No kids in the seats, no money in the wallet. That's why you see so many of us delivering pizzas and wandering the aisles of Home Depot in orange aprons all summer.

For now, though, I'll be glad for the break. I've had a headache for four days now (a common exam week malady). Then I'll be back at it, because all those kids who aren't mine deserve the best I can give them. And frankly, the best I can give them is pretty damn awesome.

Graduation After Retirement

Congrats to the Class of 2009! Just sat through graduation at my favorite high school, my first after handing my senior class sponsor sash and tiara over to another teacher. Two things today's experience taught me:

1. Life does go on without me.
2. I am waaaaaaaay critical.

Nothing skidded to a halt without me. Everyone got in the O-rena and found a seat. Programs were printed. Speeches were made (good ones, too--funny and touching). Names were called. Tassels were moved from right to left and mortarboards tossed. But...and this is a big but...from my spectator's seat, I nitpicked. Since I've done the job before, I had the two column thing going in  my head: How I'd Do It vs. How It Got Done. And since I am my father's daughter, I found plenty of things in the HIGD column that were most definitely not HIDI, which made them BAD and WRONG. Isn't that always how it is with us semi-control freaks? Our way is THE way?

But all that's not important. What's important is the smiling faces of all those newly-minted graduates, ready to take on the world. (We won't tell them about mortgage payments and other related adult fun just quite yet. We'll let them think being "grown" is all fun and games. For now.)

Success Looks Like...

...this fabulous young woman, who is now a proud graduate of the University of Florida. Prior to joining the Gator Nation, I taught her in my AP English class. She started hyphenating her last name with mine at the tops of her papers and calling me "Mom," so of course, "Mom" was in the O'Connell Center this morning taking pictures and beaming alongside her actual for-real mom. They don't tell you that these moments are the bonus pay you'll get when you become a teacher. They are so worth it.

Congratulations, C!! I can't believe you're (I'm??) this old!!

Cuts to Education Never Heal

Donned my red T-shirt this morning to protest ongoing cuts to Florida's education budget. It's interesting that whenever things get tight, legislators in this state sharpen their axes and hack away at schools. They're making noises about rolling back the class size amendment because "it's too expensive"--but not a peep about rolling back the pregnant pig confinement regulations, or last year's Amendment 1 (which got us into a chunk of this mess). Schools are already bleeding, but instead of giving them a transfusion or--God forbid!--helping the problem, they're planning additional amputations. If the patient bleeds to death while on the table, oh well. It's just kids we're talking about. It's not like they pay taxes or contribute to reelection campaigns.

What's even more infuriating is what it takes to get parents fired up. When they were talking about cutting elementary art, music, and PE teachers and elementary and middle school guidance counselors, nary a peep from the masses. Then someone looked at sports, and Lord, have mercy. You'd have thought they were rezoning everyone into Sodom High or Gomorrah Elementary.

Here's the thing: Should sports be cut entirely? Absolutely not. But they should face the same trimming the rest of the budget is expected to endure. Do we need ninth grade sports? The kids who are talented enough to win scholarships are talented enough to make JV rosters. Kids have a far greater chance to win college scholarships through academics than they do through sports. So why is no one screaming bloody murder when they talk about classroom and teacher cuts?

As a writer, the wife of a musician, and the mother of a pianist/tubist and a violinist/painter, what really chaps my ass is the laissez-faire attitude toward arts programs. ARTS ARE NOT FLUFF. If anything, the arts require practitioners to employ critical thinking skills. There's tons of research showing a direct connection between the arts and academic success. Visual artists translate those skills to spatial math and engineering problems. Skilled musicians are usually equally strong in mathematics. Drama students apply close reading strategies and integrate social studies information to create plausible characters. Much of what we know about ancient civilizations comes from the ARTifacts left behind--their sculpture, architecture, plays, and writings. Sports played an integral part in those societies, but the arts taught us all about them. We shouldn't treat basketball and lacrosse like sacred cows and drawing and drama like they're expendable. Each has value, but we have to find balance.

They're holding a huge rally at UCF tomorrow. Let's hope the good folks in Tallahassee are listening.

Classy Dame: Jill Biden

Dr. Jill Biden, our new "Second Lady," really classes up the joint. Since her husband's election to the Vice Presidency, she could stop working and focus on hostessing or whatever the wives of the Vice Presidents do. Instead, she fought to keep working as a college professor of English. And not at Georgetown, or American University, or some other high-dollar campus. She took a position at Northern Virginia Community College, because she enjoys working with that group of students. That says a lot about her character.

Her story is well-known. She married Joe Biden when he was a widower with two small boys. Those boys, now grown men, call her "Mom." In fact, she married the whole family when she said yes to Joe and took the boys on their honeymoon. She's worked during practically their whole marriage, and she's a walking, talking, very fashionable example of how capable a smart woman can be. Yep, I love me some Jill Biden!

Knock It Off With the Chainsaws Already

This week's cover of Time sure pegged my Pissed-Off-O-Meter. The unsmiling woman in the photo is Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools. She is one no-nonsense broad. She's determined to make sweeping (hence the broom) changes in the D.C. system, damn the torpedoes.

More power to her. The public school system in this country is, let's just admit it, bloated and overly bureaucratic and in serious need of some housecleaning. But I have, to quote one of my more favorite movie lines, "reached the end of my tether" with the "public schools are broken!!" meme and the frantic calls that they need to be "fixed." Because when people say they want something fixed, they want a quick, clean, one-shot solution to the problem that leaves them with no more worries and the ability to walk away.

That is never going to happen with something as complex as public schooling. Believe me, if there were a magic bullet, someone would have found it by now. We teachers don't just sit around and drink coffee and talk to kids all day, you know.

What no one seems to be willing to admit is that schooling in general is highly complex work. No other profession, save possibly health care, requires its practitioners to deal with the day-to-day idiosyncracies of individuals at such a complex level. There is a huge difference between dealing with the idjit in the next cube who wastes company time playing online games so you can't finish your project goals on time and working with a third-grader who's just been kicked out of his house who still can't read as well as the average suburban kindergartener. Huge. As in, most of the blowhards who dismiss teachers and their supposed inability to hold a "real" job wouldn't last a week in a classroom, while many teachers have easily made the transition to corporate America and become quite successful, thank you.

What the Time cover story and the "broken schools" meme often suggest is that it's just bad teachers who keep all the schools from relocating to Lake Wobegon, where all children are above average. Get rid of bad teachers, and your battle's won. The problem is in how you identify a teacher as "bad." If you rely solely on test data, you're going to be tossing out plenty of fabulous teachers who choose to work with the toughest kids in the school. Many of those kids have learning issues so intense, Annie Sullivan wouldn't make a dent in them easily.

Test data don't tell the whole story. If a kid puts down his pencil and sleeps through the test, is it fair to judge the teacher? If another kid bombs because her anxiety over the test is so large, she's spent the past four days throwing up in the school nurse's office, is it fair to judge the teacher? Numbers don't lie--but they don't tell the whole story, either.

That's what's missing in an honest dialogue about public schools. The whole story. Don't just fret over the systems in crisis, like DC--find out what works in the leafy suburbs and see what they have that the crisis systems don't. Until there's equitable distribution of resources, you're not going to have equitable schools. Period. Can charters work? Sure--but if charters get state money, hold them to the same accountability standards expected of the public schools who survive on state money. That goes for the voucher folks, too. Take a voucher to attend a private school? Fine. But you have to take the state test along with it. If we're going to pass out state money, make the people who use it accountable for it.

And yes, be realistic about what teachers can do. If someone is doing nothing but drinking coffee and passing out worksheets, that person needs to find another line of work. But don't create "accountability measures" for teachers that would unfairly penalize those who choose to work with the toughest kids in the system. The solution, folks, is not a chainsaw. There's not that much wrong with the public schools. But we sure could use a great surgeon.

Clearly, He's Never Been in a Real School

Several years ago, the spineless weenies at The Orlando Sentinel decided that Doonesbury was way too political for the comics page, and they shifted it to the editorial section instead. A couple of years ago, a new crop of spineless weenies decided that they were being unfair to the meat-eating red staters 'round these parts and went a-huntin' for a "conservative" comic to balance all that Doonesbury liberalism (guess they haven't read much Doonesbury, since Garry Trudeau skewers everybody eventually). They chose Mallard Fillmore. Every time I read it, I wonder if Bruce Tinsley knows how outclassed he is. That, and where his brain cells are located. Anterior or posterior, if you get my drift.

Why the ire? This:



Tinsley's been socking it to teachers all week. According to his viewpoint, we're all undereducated boobs who can barely get out of our own garages, let alone college. We're stupid. We don't know the subjects we've been hired to teach. Basically, every dumbass canard that's been spewed from the right-wing voucher proponents for years. You know, the ones who think that public schools have all gone to hell in a collective handbasket because you can't pray in 'em (staff and kids can pray all they want, privately--we just can't lead corporate prayer), they talk about sex (which might make teenagers go out and have it, 'cause clearly learning about condoms is way more titillating than--I don't know--their HORMONES), and they talk about other countries like they're as good as we 'Muricans are (heaven forfend that the rest of the world's population might be something we can learn from, seeing as we're a country of immigrants and all). Sigh.

I ought not to read this tripe, I know. It's better for my blood pressure all around. But I can't help myself. Guess that's Tinsley's issue too, bless his heart.

Big Yellow...Taxi?

Yesterday, DH broke down and bought Frick a cellphone. I've been anti-phone, mostly because this is a kid who can't find his own shoes half the time, and also because, well, he can't find his own shoes half the time. I wasn't too keen on having him have to keep up with a phone. Plus, he loses his natural mind around electronics, so I had these nightmare visions of phones going off in class, him answering, then shushing the teacher because he couldn't hear the bonehead on the other end. But DH was worried about contact, and let's just say testosterone won the day. Frick came home with a Motorola RAZR, and we have a bigger cell bill.

Today, I had to revisit my anti-cell bias. Frick spent his first afternoon at the YMCA aftercare program at school. Fine. He was having fun. Fine. We were on our way to get him--late, since we have to break our "stay late at school" habit still--when he texts to say "Go home. I'll meet you there."

Huh??

So I call. He tells me "I got on the bus." At that point, about three thousand neurons in my brain, all of them in the protective mom lobe, melted. "What bus??" I'm screaming. "Oh, I'll just have the driver drop me off at the corner," he says blithely. This is sixth grade logic working. Since a bus picks him up at the corner, clearly a bus leaving school will be happy to drop him off at the corner he specifies, right?

Nightmare visions of missing kid ending up at the bus depot in the dark, clutching his 15-freakin'-pound backpack hurtle through the cortex. I can't get a straight answer out of him about where he is. I order him to hand the phone to an adult. The adult--the driver--has a thick Jamaican accent. So now I'm trapped in a calypso nightmare that still ends up with my kid alone in a dark bus depot.

Finally we suss out where he is. We tail the bus down the road and finally spot it. We follow it until it stops, and out pops Frick. He looks none the worse for wear. I decide to kill him. DH plays the voice of reason (a new one for him in cases like this--usually he's the one playing the role of freaky parent) and instructs me to be gentle. Good thing, too, because Mr. Frick had scared himself nearly to death, quivery lip and all. He won't be jumping on any strange buses anytime soon.

And now I have to take to my bed with a cold compress on my aching head. With a side of whiskey, thanks.

Welcome Back to School! Or Not...

First day of school today! The kids actually popped out of bed this morning and got dressed with very little prodding (or begging, or threats). Got the cute back to school pic, fed them real breakfast--chocolate chip pancakes, thank you very much!--and sent Frick off to the school bus. First day in middle school! Good thing he was early, because so was the bus. Frack is loving being the queen of the elementary school now that big bro is off amongst the tweens.

My day went pretty well, too. Nice kids, good questions. They mostly got to class on time, and everything went smoothly considering we had a gajillion classes to teach (six periods out of seven). But now I have a headache and need to get into my pajamas.

Plus, for extra fun, there's an almost-hurricane out there in the Gulf, so that means they've punched the panic button. No school tomorrow. Goodbye, makeup day in October, which we were hoping to use to visit the grands. Argh!! So now it's buy the propane and put water in jugs, just in case. I predict hellacious rain and boredom tomorrow. Maybe I can get the lesson plans done. Or the proposal. Probably the proposal--it needs to go out!

Ouch!!

Today was the big go-to-the-Convention-Center-for-some-learnin' day (aka "Professional Development Day"). These are all-day extravaganzas with breakout sessions and usually a vendor exhibit with all manner of educational items for sale. Not that anyone has any money to buy anything in this lean year, but there you go.

So I'm strolling the booths when I get accosted by a salesman for a giveaway. Fill out this pink card, and you'll be entered into a drawing for a free iPod! I guess I didn't exhibit the requisite excitement over his offer (we're a four iPod family already), so he decides to pitch the closer: "...if not for you, then use it as a gift...maybe for a grandchild!!"

Okay, I know I'm going grey and all, but this is not a grandma face. Besides, if I were having a grandchild, you'd already know since I'd be all over the National Enquirer. My kids are 11 and 9. Yikes!

I guess the first week of school's taken more out of me than I thought!