Many Things

Say What?! Wednesday

This week, I got a flood of ridiculous parent emails. It was perfect timing for Say What?! Wednesday!

• Let's see... one parent emailed me in all caps to ask when her son could make up his mid-term exam from January. I love all-caps emails. They give me that sense that I'm being yelled at -- love that from parents.
• Another parent emailed to let us know that while she can talk to her daughter about her behavior, when the girl is in class it's the teachers' responsibility to deal with the girl's behavior problems. Ah, thanks for the support.
• The best, for me, was a parent who emailed to tells us (us) how much she needs a vacation. Hm, a week and a half off for snow and spring break coming up in 4 more weeks... yes, next week seems like the perfect time to take a vacation. The point of her email was not just to tell us she needed vacation but to ask the ever-important question: "Will this affect my daughter's education?" By the way, the answer to this is always, "No, we'll probably just color pictures while we wait for her to return."

Ok, so as good as those were... my 2nd period cherubs made the best Say What?! statement today. I've mentioned that there are a handful of native spanish-speakers in that class. Well some of the kids in this class like to joke with each other about being black and "Mexican." So one of the black girls is trying to pick on one of the hispanic girls and she just says out loud to the whole class: "Did you hear about that Mexican that went to college?........ Me neither." The good news is that these kids are only kidding with each other and they all laughed, but it was a bit of a challenge to get them back on task after that.

33 Weeks

I'm still feeling really good here at 33 weeks, aside from my feet! The swelling has been going on for a few months at this point but the night I took those pictures it was really really bad. I have some pain in my feet but I can't tell if it's from the swelling or just the extra weight. They just feel like there are some strains or injuries in a few spots. I'm not too worried though. I asked the doctor once and they basically said, "Yea you're pregnant. It's mild."

Otherwise, I have just 6 and a half weeks left until baby day! I'm really really excited to meet this little girl and to get some good stay-at-home time to spend with her and getting to know her. I can't lie that I'm really excited at the thought of my school year being over in 6 weeks, and I still have spring break in there too.

My biggest stress right now is getting the internship hours clocked. Remember my recent post about how I would be getting an intern to teach my classes? Turns out for some reason her advisor doesn't want to let that happen. He thinks it would be best for her to begin teaching my classes on the day she takes over as my sub :[ I am disappointed because I was looking forward to having that extra time to get in some internship hours and, well, just prepare for being absent for 8 weeks, but I'll have to find another way to make it happen. I think my department leader has decided that he wants her to actually split her time between my classes and the guy she has been interning with. So at some point she will teach my classes a few days a week and that will be helpful, it's just going to be a longer transition. But either way, I am very grateful to have a competent substitute that I'm comfortable working with.

Update

One last thing for tonight before I go... I also posted not too long ago about Facebook and how iffy it can be to unfriend someone or to not accept a friend request. Well, I took the plunge and unfriended someone. Despite never having said a single word to me on Facebook until a few months ago when they made some rude comments about something I had posted, the reaction was exactly as I had predicted.

Call me what you want, I just don't tolerate people being rude to me. It takes about once until I'm done -- particularly if it was a barely-there connection to begin with.

I will end with this thought: God leaves us no choice but to age, yet so many of us choose to never mature.

Wouldn't the other way around have been glorious??