Monday, October 26, 2009

8

=the number of weeks until we leave for senegal, africa. i saw pics last night. beautiful little children with bright eyes and big smiles. i might not come back.

a few things we learned at the meeting:

1 -- women on the trip will be helping the women from the tribe make food, wash dishes, clean, and care for the babies.
2 -- the men will be sitting under a tree drinking hot tea. "men" here refers to coacher. he's the only man going from second. poor man.
3 -- the babies don't wear diapers, so it's perfectly normal to be pooed on.
4 -- coacher and i have chosen to stay in the village, which means we will have no electricity, no running water (bucket baths), and no toilets (we will use the "squatty potty" out back.)
5 -- we must take our own toilet paper.
6 -- they are deathly afraid of snakes. this is because their snakes are deadly.

oh, the adventurous life..how i love it!

Friday, October 23, 2009

26

that's not my age.

that's the number of referrals i wrote in the first quarter of school. (there were actually more than that, but i threw some away because of the following situation...)


4 (or more)

that's the number of referrals that got sent back to me by a certain assistant principal because i did not call the student's home before writing a referral. i'm sorry, but i did not have time to call the student's home while he was pushing shaniqua out of her seat, talking nonstop while people were trying to read silently, then cussing at me because i told him to stop and he hates me, my class, and everything else dealing with school or authority figures. i will also be sure to attempt to control the other 7 kids in class who cannot control their own talking, and i will put their names on an ever-growing list of students whose parents need to be informed that their kids cannot control themselves in class.

next time, i will be sure to press a pause button so that i have time to call home and hear the student's mom ask me if i've ever heard of bipolar--because everyone in the family has it--and then ask me if i knew that one manifestation of bipolar is the inability to control the amount of talking coming out of the mouth. "we just can't control him...haha."

sure, i have plenty of time for that and 7 other conversations like it.

i understand. high school kids, who can drive and get jobs and make babies, shouldn't be expected to follow rules or be held accountable for their own actions.


i'm sorry. it's been rough...