Juggling, Whining & Jiggles

(Writer's warning: I know I promised this would be a NO WHINING blog, but go ahead and whip out the cheeseboard now because I need to have a brief whinefest. Join me if you wish. We'll all feel better for it.)

I can’t juggle. 

If I could, I would have joined the circus a long time ago. 

When I juggle, I drop something. You know what I mean. I try really hard to stay on top of planning, grading and working on my newspaper, yearbook, photography and journalism classes. I try and juggle those, but just when I get one rocking along fine, the other falls, crashes and burns.

Then there's all that professional stuff I should be keeping up with that's buzzing around the EduSphere. Proposed revisions to No Child Left Behind (oh pah-leese, do we have to take all of them?), stuff on test scores (how about a litttle studying?), charter schools (don't even get me started on those), homeschools (nor these either), public schools (I think that alien thing I wrote about takes care of that), private schools (I probably should stop now)…

Then there’s all that paper work stuff… grade stuff, progress report stuff, email stuff, contest entry stuff, contest practice stuff, budget stuff, supply stuff, trip stuff, stuff stuff. So much stuff stuff, it makes me overstuffed.

Then there’s all this blog and book stuff I try and do.

This juggling thing just isn't happening for me, so I suppose that now running away and joining a carnival isn’t an option for me either. Somehow that fact saddens me that at this point in my life becoming a carney isn't even an option for me any more. 

How did that happen?

I can jiggle though, but I don’t think there’s much of a future in that.

Weasely Puns, Mandarin Chinese & Mushrooms

“It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.” –Alice in Alice in Wonderland

I decided a long time ago (OK, OK, OK, let’s make that Aug. 22 when I launched my blog) that I would not be a whiner. Of course, that meant I had to give up eating cheese… no wait… different wine, different story… Now, if my VP of HC (Humor Control) weren’t still semi-fired, that sort of weasely pun would never, ever, ever have seen daylight. No siree, not on her watch, but it took her 26 days (not the 11 that I predicted) before she noticed she was fired, and that was only after I had dropped subtle hints all week.

You know, hints like, “Hmmmm, isn’t there something you forgot to do?” or “Don’t you miss doing something weekly?” Or, my personal guilt-laden favorite: “Why do you want to break your mother’s heart?” You know, those kinds of things…Or, just maybe it was the “You’re not going out this weekend unless you figure out what it is you didn’t do.” But again, I digress…

Back to the no-whining policy. I’m going to have to add to it. Now didn’t we all learn in English class that if you have a Numero Uno, you have to have a Numero Two-oh, and if you have an “A,” then by-golly you better have a “B” and so forth and so on, but now I’m making my head hurt…

So here’s the beginnings of…

Richie’s Official Stumbling Through Life Policies

#1… No whining. Anywhere at anytime (but especially fields trips), and trust me if you’ve ever taken a gaggle of teens anywhere for any amount of time, well, you know what I’m talking about.

#2…No talking to mushrooms. It makes you look silly.

My BFF Jennifer made me write that one down after I almost violated Policy #1 when I was providing her an account of a “situation” that happened to me recently regarding a discussion I had with an adult. You know the type of conversation where you logically present your viewpoint, but midway through it, you realize that you might as well have been speaking Mandarin Chinese?

So Jennifer asks: “Why do you keep talking to mushrooms?”

“What?” I asked.

“You know, mushrooms,” she said.

“Mushrooms?” I asked.

“Mushrooms never understand,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what you tell a mushroom, the mushroom never gets it, so quit talking to mushrooms.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And besides,” she said. “It just makes you look silly. Do you like looking silly?”

“Oh,” I said a bit uneasy because I don’t particularly like looking silly.

But then a few days later I did it again anyway. Yep, I tried to talk to that same adult, but then realized, oh my goodness, I must have lapsed into Mandarin Chinese (again), and I don’t even speak Mandarin Chinese.

Images of mushrooms popped into my head. I rather felt like Alice in Alice in Wonderland.

This time I vowed never, ever to talk to a mushroom.

It does make me look rather silly.