Work Week (Brief) Review

Made it to another weekend. Today I'm joining a social networking group to see the movie "Wolverine". Normally, I hate going to a crowded movie, but I have a procrastination problem. I've missed a lot of movies by waiting until the last minute to do something or go somewhere. Mainly, going (despite the crowd) is to get out of the apartment this weekend.

I'll try to do a quick end of the work week summary.

Thursday - After another irregular bed time, I was up and moving slow, so again it was a taxi ride part of the way to work. Problem? I seem to have a "crazy cloud" above my head that seems to (on occasion) to attract craziness to me. The taxi ride was uneventful until the driver missed to "regular" turnoff of the expressway. When I tried to tell the guy the way, he starts yelling at me about knowing how to get there and about the traffic. Well, his way put us right into morning traffic down a very busy street. After a few blocks the street was blocked with school buses and firetrucks, so the taxi driver had to turn off the street. But, instead of going just two blocks and then resume heading south, he passes the street to keep going. Again, he starts yelling at me. Me telling him, I've taken a certain route every day this week (including yesterday), had no affect. Also, telling him I've taken this route many times in the two years I taken the taxi route to work had no affect. The problem is that I tend to get time down to a science -- its that crazy cloud above my head. As long as there is no change in the "regular routine" I tend to arrive on time. I have a bad habit of figuring out the exact (or nearly the exact) arrival time, it then gets locked in my head. I get too comfortable with routines once established. I'm getting sidetracked.


Anyway, The guy refused to change his course. Finally, I had to offer a $20 challenge. I told the guy that if he went my route, and I was wrong, then I would give him a $20 tip. The driver was reluctant at first, but eventually accepted complaining and mumbling the rest of the way...until he realized that he was wrong. Then he was very quiet and fairly polite. Needless to say, my day did not start off nicely.

Thursday was also the day of our school's show. The show was from 5pm to 8pm including a dinner at the end. Since I'm not a party person, I volunteered for the clean up committee. Since I had about 5 hours to kill, I told myself that I would use that time to get organized. However, I quickly realized that since I usually finish shuffling papers about the same time, I really didn't have a lot of extra time. And sure enough, after shopping, classroom set up, and grading papers, there wasn't anything extra done.

Oh, why did I go shopping? My plan is to stop eating those school lunches that do not have some healthy component to it. That means avoiding Pizza Day, Taco Day, Hamburger and potato wedges, etc... I spent $40.11 to have some healthy alternatives for those days, I skip paying for the school lunch. With my mini fridge, I now have more options. Next school year, I plan to buy a small microwave for my classroom. The microwave for the teachers is way at the opposite side of the floor. Even though it is about a minute from my door to the teacher's room, it is often running a gauntlet of distractions. A minute walk often turns into a 5, 10, 15 minutes walk (or longer) after stopping to talk to this person, being stopped by that person, stopping in that room, assist with this or that, or deal with roamers in the hallway.

After killing about 5 hours, the clean up of the party began. This time, there were more teachers still around. I think since this "show" was the principal's thing, a lot more teachers wanted their brownie points. After cleaning up, I was out of the building about 9PM. I should have gotten home and showered and called it a night. However, I wasn't sleepy when I walked in my apartment. I told myself that I would just check my email. Well, I was out like a light in a matter of minutes (clothes and all).

This entry is much longer than I was planning. While I'm typing I'm listening (more watching actually) YouTube videos. At the moment, I'm in the 80's music videos. Martika's Toy Soldier is playing.
Now, I'm watching Alice Cooper - Poison

Friday - The day was stressful, but not extremely. One of the disruptive students seem to have gotten a pass. Thursday, I spoke to his sister (who picked him up at dismissal) about his extremely disruptive behavior. I had also sent an email the day before to the father about the disruptive behavior the since the beginning of the week. Well, at the same time, another parent came up and mentioned how her son was stabbed with by the disruptive student. Since I'm hearing about the "stabbing" for the first time, and I see the reaction of the disruptive student, I don't believe it. However, timing is everything. Since stabbing is more serious than being loud and disrespectful, I suspect the father focused on the stabbing later that day. Since the father probably didn't believe the stabbing story(and neither did I -- even though I didn't challenge the story), the other "stuff" got forgotten...I'm just guessing. Oh, the "stabbing" was a scratch on the leg I couldn't even see, but then my eyesight is going.

Anyway, Disruptive student arrived in school just as talkative and playful as he could be. That behavior told me (what I wrote above), dad probably didn't believe the stabbing story(negating everything else), so he probably told his son to just behave and not cause problems. The end.

I was out of the building about 4PM because I had a delivery from UPS. My boxset of Sword of Truth and my camp stool arrived on Thursday. I'm glad for the delivery, because it forced me out of the building. Without the delivery, I'm sure I would have stayed in the building until about 8PM shuffling papers.


Post Date - Saturday, May 2, 2009 2:50PM