I'm not saying we should declare it a national holiday or anything.
I'm just saying that I've had one today.
The SCM -- who's on a rampage lately, but that's a story for Stupid
Colleague Day -- came across a boy sitting at a computer, right out in
the open in the library, on the phone. Yes, on his cell phone. The SCM
approached him and the boy immediately snapped it shut and put it
away, declaring "You're not taking this away from me!" "You can't use
your phone in school" said the SCM. "I can if I want!" said the kid.
"It was important!" Ah, trip number one of the day to Office Land.
My turn. We have two lunch periods here, each one concurrent with a
class period. During either 5th or 6th period, half the school is in
class, half is at lunch. We have an open lunch, by the way, 45 minutes
long, they can go virtually anywhere they can reach and get back in
time, including about 12 fast food places and all of their homes. I
digress.
Three sweet little polite boys walk up to my desk during 6th period
and ask if they need to sign in. "Is it your lunch or are you here
from a class?" I ask. A class, they tell me. **Deep sigh**. No, their
teacher didn't write them a pass to get here because their teacher is
absent, but the substitute said they could come. Well. They need to
come with written passes, but substitutes aren't allowed to write
passes, or send them anywhere, so I guess that explains that. Anyway,
so they sign in to the library right here at my desk, I take their
slips from them, and the three of them turned around, walked right
across the room and out the door. Out. As in, out, gone, not here. I
am too far from the door to get up and stop them, so there they went.
I had to call the office to sound the general alarm for them and then
fill out discipline referrals. Crap, I never have to fill out
discipline referrals, people who saw me doing it in the office were
laughing at me. They couldn't believe anybody bothered to misbehave
for me.
I returned from Office Land to find the scheduled class in the
library, 29 bozo freshmen who have no research to do, but the computer
lab is already full, so here they are. We have 15 computers. Chairs
are moving all over the freaking place. I asked a girl by the door,
who was trying to squeeze a chair between two desks where there
just wasn't enough room -- so not a geometry wiz either, here -- not to
move the chair. She said "But I'm only putting it here!" gesturing to
another spot where there was less room. I turned away from her and
said to the SCM who was right behind me "I can't talk to children any
more right now."
Yes. You were only on the phone. You were only cutting class. You were
only causing a fire hazard. When we said "Please don't do that" you
know what we meant? We meant "DON'T DO THAT!"
I just went over to help one routuinely nasty kid over at the computer
-- it's about 85 degrees in here now, and they're crammed in over there
like sardines since they freaking all moved their chairs, and I'm
reminded suddenly that 9th grade boys are not famous for their
hygiene, if you get my drift -- I got theirs -- and I noticed that there
are two girls sitting on the floor, in the aisle just behind their
project partners' chairs. I pointed out to them that if we have a
fire, they'll be the first to go. One of them scrunched up so that she
was more like under the computer table than in the aisle, but the
other one just looked at me as if I was the world's biggest moron who
couldn't have said something more pointless to her. So I clarified:
"If there's a fire, everyone here is going to run out right over the
top of your head." She still looked blank. "They're going to step on
you." She shrugged. Okay, fine.
Stupid kid days are not the norm for me. Earlier this morning, one of our
library regulars told us that he got into the college of his choice
today, in the library, in fact, since he checked online when he got
here. That's better.
I just looked up from my keyboard and saw that the teacher who's on
library duty this period -- another bizarre story, we didn't ask for
anyone this period and we haven't got anything for him to do -- is
sleeping. Aw, who am I to talk, I'm typing my diary entry while I'm
sitting here in the heat, drinking my warmed up Dunkin' Donuts coffee.
It's a loony day in the library, folks.
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I'm watching Ellen
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last ::
next
Sweet Sorrow - 06.12.2007
So ... - 12.19.2006
Christmastime Is Near - 12.18.2006
Fifteen Years - 12.17.2006
A Message From Our Sponsor - 12.16.2006
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