When asked by my room mate today how she could use fewer paper towels, I jumped at the chance to enlighten her. I suppose this was owing to all the pent up emotion I have from the times I have found her drying the dishes with paper towels and other like sins. I have seen her wash her hands and tear off a paper towel to dry them without a thought for the calculated cost divided by three of us room mates paying for them. I have seen her likewise rip off a piece of paper towel to clean a smudge of residue from the countertop when the dish rag was right in front of her, waiting to be used. In short, I have suffered greatly.
As a teacher in a small school I deal with some of the students knowing a little too much about me. One day I made the mistake of answering my student's question of "What kind of car do you drive?" and I live with the ramifications every school day. For some reason, these two students take endless fun out of threatening me about my car, "Ms. L., how was your car yesterday afternoon? Did you notice anything unusual?" they will ask, "No, well we'll hire somebody else next time, Bob's not working for us." Or "I noticed you didn't park in the usual spot today, you think you can hide from us?" They've even said, "Ms. L., do you know how many people are planning on doing something to your car the last day of school? I suggest that you park far away and walk to school." Is it any wonder, then, that I am a bit paranoid lest they mean some of what they say or that saying it so often will make them bold enough to actually do something someday? What their motivation is for this, I scarcely know. Their manner and conduct makes me think that it is as much a tendency for bullying as crushing on me, and their work and relationship to my class is generally negative with either boredom or pointlessness ruling their opinion of the class and me.
"Never a dull moment" they say in regard to teaching, and today I would really have to agree. It all happened in my D period class--my class full of characters. They were all just starting to settle into their seats when one of my students called out, "Ms. L, do you have a band aid?" "Yes," I replied, "give me a minute and I'll get you one." Now, I hear this all the time. "Can I have a band aid?" for this and for that. One of my students currently has two tiny band aids, one above and one below his eye where a girl punched him and they stand out quite distinctly on his black skin. Ninth-graders have barely outgrown that stage where they would ask for a band aid for a sliver which I remember from when my sister was young. Needless to say, I was not in a rush to get this girl one. A minute later, I went over to her with the First Aide kit and asked her what size she needed. That's when I noticed that there was an awful lot of blood on her finger, and it kept coming. At this point, the student sitting next to her started opening some alchohol wipes and several of my students went next door to get some tissues. Somehow, she managed to stop the bleeding enough to get the some band aids on her cut. At this point, I had blood on my hand, too, and availed myself of the wipe.
I would do almost anything for a snow day; I wouldn't sell my soul, but, that's about the only thing I wouldn't do. To enjoy the luxury of sleeping in until 6:30--7:00 if I want to, taking a leisurely shower, trudging through 8 inches of snow into town to get my car. I wouldn't care if the snow was 4' deep and it took me hours to unbury it from the snow, it would still be worth it.
There we were at a nice Mexican restaurant in Worcester: Karl, Anne, myself, and Quintus Horatius Flaccus. I guess you could say that Horace was the most unwelcome of the diners, at least to me, because he's so dang hard to translate, but there he was, and he was the reason for the gathering after all.