Monday, April 28, 2008

Broken Window

So yesterday afternoon I was disciplining Haley for lying about something and I hear a pop in the direction of my living room window. I look up and my BRAND NEW window is CRACKED!!! I paid a truckload of money for these "top of the line" windows and the freakin' thing is CRACKED!!!! I think it was an omen of things to come for my Monday morning.

I had a meeting at school this morning at 6:45 that basically said we're going back to the old pass policy. GRRRR!!! Seriously...I could have gotten this information through an email and not added to the typical Monday runaround. Haley's allergies are awful and she didn't sleep well last night, which of course means that I don't sleep well. I had her up at 2:00 this morning doing a breathing treatment. Then I get into class and my students are unprepared. I kind of expected it, and half prepared to postpone the lesson until tomorrow anyway, but then I walk around to check on their progress and a few of them are just reading Spark Notes instead of actually having a shred of integrity and doing the work from their own brains! These are honors kids...they are perfectly CAPABLE! So of course I lay into them about that and get them working again. I take this opportunity to call the blasted company that sold me the windows in the first place to be told that they would have to call me back after they "reviewed my file"...whatever! Then I decide it's time to confront the two kids who I found plagiarized an essay I graded last Friday. One of the kids is failing. I told both of them they would receive a zero for the essay and that I expected to receive a Pride and Prejudice essay from them this week (late of course). The kid who's failing says, "Do I really have to do it, I mean I did my senior paper and I'm going to do the course assessment." At this point I'm ready to walk out...I'm ready to quit...I'm ready to go back to bed and try Monday again tomorrow. Instead...in my teacher voice of course...I say, "Yes you have to do the essay, I'm not turning you in for plagiarism of your Sense and Sensibility essay and if you actually want to GRADUATE you need as much cushion as you can get by actually doing ALL of the work that is assigned." He walks away... Next, the window company calls back and says they can replace my window (YA THINK). I then ask for a time frame...they'll have to call me back (why wouldn't you get a customer that information right away?). They call back and tell me 4-6 weeks. 4-6 WEEKS???? WHAT!!!! I DON'T THINK SO!!!! They tell me they'll see what they can do.

The bell rings...marking the end of period one...me...I leave for SONIC for a LARGE Diet Coke...

Is it Tuesday yet???

1 comment:

Elnora Turmelle said...

Oh, what could be worse than a new window getting cracked? Good thing they replaced it with a new one. Anyway, kids these days should be taught about the importance of hard work, don't ya think?