The Curse of Even Steven

Where is everybody, Sweet Blog O' Mine? Nobody here now
but those twisted tumbleweeds. Is it because I dare speak of toilet
paper? Or give a quiz ALL ABOUT MEEEEE? There was a big
crowd up in here Friday, but they've all gone. It's Monday, and
they are still staying away in droves. I'm sure it's only because they
are as busy as Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. Yeah. That's the ticket.

I'm throwing a big pity party for myself. As soon as I find the time.
Oh, sure. I brought this all on myself, what with my incessant
procrastinating. The six 3rd Quarter tests that I must have ready
by Thursday afternoon and Friday morning are my fault. I have
known all year that I am expected to give a test at the end of each
quarter. I was just discombobulated by those four snow days
that popped up.

I've also known that I have to turn in my Writing Across the
Curriculum binder with samples of student work. It's just that
only about six of us turned them in at the end of 2nd Quarter,
and did we get a big "H*LL YEAH" out of it, or at least get
the chance to sit smugly through a meeting where the slackers
got a talkin' to? NO! And it does not seem so rewarding to do
what is expected of you unless you get...well...a reward. So
this task was put on the back burner.

And I suppose it's my own fault that I misread the lesson plans
of a fellow Mathie in Lower Basementia, mistaking last week's
plans for this week's plans, and congratulating myself on being
only two days behind, when in all actuality, I'm supposed to be
one day behind anyway, to emphasize what she introduces.
Imagine my horror this morning when she handed me THIS
week's plans, and I had to chuck my old plans out the window,
though not literally, because I have encased one such window
in black butcher paper because nobody who promises to get
me shades 'this week' has ever followed through.

But the things I WILL NOT take responsibility for are the new
email system which was just installed Friday afternoon, which
even when I followed the full-page, 10-point-font directions to
a T, would not let me into my email, where I had an attachment
of beautiful, color-coded Science GLEs, 18 pages of them to be
precise. Thank the Gummi Mary that my other computer let me
in to admire the GLEs, only refusing to print them for me. Which
took me an hour of hard labor to discover.

Oh, and then five minutes after the discovery, in waltzed the kind
Science teacher who gave me these colorful gems, cradling a
rather large cardboard display of a new textbook, in all it's glory,
with a teacher's edition, student edition, study materials, computer
test bank, and all kinds of goodies, if I could please review it and
get back to her, because we need to order some texts for next
year. Which I would have gladly done, except that the information
I needed to search that text for were not coming out of my computer
any time soon, and I can not just plop myself down to read and
annotate 18 pages of Grade Level Expectations while neglecting
my students, who are rather high-maintenance this year, if I do say
so myself.

But then...it gets better. At Basementia, I tried to take roll online,
as is the custom there, and NO INTERNET. So I wasn't gettin'
any GLE attachment out of that computer, either, not even the
lesser black-and-white copy that I had anticipated. Oh, and do
you know that if there is no internet connection there, you also
can not log on to the other building's gradebook program to
enter grades that you ran out of time for there, what with the
email/printer fiasco, and the mini-discussion of the new text?
It really was not my fault that I could not enter my homework
hotline info for the week, because hey, there was no freakin'
internet. That was because, as I found out by accident when
I went to make ONE copy of a thingy I want to put on a 3rd
Quarter test, and neither of the two copiers would work, so I
had to commandeer the one in the office, that a truck had in
some freakish manner backed into some phone lines (about
15-20 feet in the air, mind you), and taken out Basementia's
connection to the world.

Oh, and while I was there, I thought to beg (ahem...ASK) for
my paycheck, which others get delivered to their classrooms
in the morning, but since I am not there mine becomes a
scavenger hunt twice a month, and wouldn't you know it, my
check could not be found! Not by the counselor acting as the
secretary, who could not find the administrator who had them
last, and even rifled through his desk but came up empty-handed.
So I declared that I would just have to pick it up tomorrow, IF
it could be found at that time, because I had a meeting in the
other building right after school, and had to hit the road, Jack,
but planned on coming back tomorrow.

Lucky for me that when I balanced my checkbook on Sunday,
I discovered a little error from the snow days early in the month,
having written down a withdrawal and not gone to the bank until
the next day, due to the snow, and by cracky, writing that ol'
withdrawal down again the next day, making me $600 wealthier
than I thought I was at the end of the month! But it was a bit of
a consolation anyway when the acting secretary brought my check
down to Lower Basementia about 10 minutes before I blasted out
of there for the meeting, having found it in the vault, which is of
course the last place you would look for a misplaced paycheck,
since they are usually found under some cluttered papers on the
desk, or folded in a jacket pocket...while the vault is used to
store paper clips, discipline slips, tape, and the absentee slips
we don't need because that is done online. Except when a truck
pulls down the lines.

The meeting lasted until 4:00, which meetings in that building
never do, but we are having a committee of people visiting us
next week, plus it's a short week with Parent Conferences, and
we need to prepare our classrooms with exemplary student work,
which I have also know most of the school year, but my students
are not particularly known for exemplary work, and I have been
waiting and waiting for some to magically appear.

Even Steven, baby. I find $600 extra dollars in my bank account...
but I have a buttload of work to keep me busy.