Weather forecasters, climate control & emails

Unlike most schools, mine started back Wednesday, Jan. 2 on a day that was cold by Texas standards–I awoke a frosty 23 degrees with the high topping out at an official 43 degrees. The next day offered little relief with a chilly 46 degrees.

Now, just in case you’re wondering why I’m turning in to the educational version of meteorologist Kristine Kahanek, hang with me a moment. It’s important to understand that it was, well, cold outside. So when I parked my trusty blue mini-van into my parking spot, gathered up all the stuff I didn’t work on over the Christmas break and dashed (OK, maybe not dashed, but at least speed-walked) into the building, the expectation was for some semblance of warmth.

Silly me.

Baby, it was cold inside. I complained several times during the day, and when I left for the evening, all I could do was hope for the best the next day.

Silly me.

When I arrived Thursday, it was really cold inside–as in coat-wearing cold. Keep those mittens on cold. Rudolph-my-nose-is-red cold.

And, not only was it cold, the blower was blowing. And, it was blowing in cold air (You were expecting something different?).

Now, please understand, that I have an optimum productivity temperature window. It’s somewhere between 70 and 75. Anything else, well, makes me a bit grumpy. OK, maybe lots grumpity. After all, it’s really difficult to perform a variety of teacher tasks with gloves on. (You try it.) Typing doesn’t work well… so that pretty much eliminates taking roll and entering grades. Passing out papers becomes a monumental task.

Never one to suffer in silence, I did what any self-respecting journalism adviser would do. I tossed off the gloves, whipped out an e-mail and hit “send all.”

Here’s what I sent (and yes, it’s word-for-word)…

I’m really not sure what I’ve done or who I have offended, but I just wanted everyone to know that it shouldn’t have been a surprise that I showed up for work yesterday (it was on the district calendar after all), so I don’t really understand why the rooms in the 400 wing were so cold we had to wear coats and gloves. Didn’t Hal the computer brain not know that we were here?

Ok, so I complained yesterday. I arrive today. Room 420 has blowing air. And I do mean BLOWING–as in my hair actually is wind blown INSIDE. I wouldn’t really care except the air is COLD. It’s JANUARY. I was hoping for some heat. The air is also blowing in room 421. It’s COLD too. Room 424 seems OK. I’m not entirely sure about the art rooms. I’m stuck frozen to my seat so I’m hoping my buddies are OK there. At least they have chisels.

So, back to the problem at hand… If I have offended Hal the computer god, I am so sorry and will sacrifice whatever I need to. Although I am fond of them, just let me know how many students are required. I’m basically a good person. I show up for work on time, pay my taxes, I love animals and I’m a good cook. I’ve even made a few more friends this year. To my knowledge, there’s only about four–OK maybe five–grumpy pants here that hate me. And, as far as I know, they are not in cohoots with Hal.

Will someone save me?

*********

Of course, not much was done although someone somewhere did stop the blower from blowing about five hours after my email, but only after my not-so-coiffed hair resembled Medusa. I did, however, get quite a few responses from other teachers. Here’s a sampling…

From the Helpful advice category…
Hal is trying to flush you out of the airlock. That was not “blowing” air; it was air being sucked into the vacuum of space. Tie yourself to something and hope for the best.

From the We’re-Worse-Off-Than-You category…
Our thermometer in the BAC room is reading 54 degrees.

From the Let’s-Struggle-Through-This category…
The air is cold in the 400 wing and makes working with coats and gloves difficult…Does anyone have an extra pair of thick wool socks, and a blanket or two?

From the Nonny-Nonny-Boo-Boo category…
Crazy–right across the hall in the hidden computer lab it’s Hot, Hot, Hot–we are all wearing our fruit hats and dancing in a conga line! But the kids do seem quite relieved when they come in here to thaw out. Thank you, Hal! Guess he liked my Christmas present!

********

My students–ever the keen observationists–entered the room asking, “Are you cold?”

Which to my credit and in keeping with my New Year’s resolution, never once did I reply using the phrase, “you big fat stupid head.”

I can hardly wait until Monday. Temperatures are forecasted to be in the mid-70s.

But, you know what that means.

Yep, the heat will be fixed and blowing full-forced, and sadly, my make-up will be pooled on the floor (having melted off my face). And as I jump into the conga line, I will once again ponder how we can put a man on the moon or make a computer chip the size of a white blood cell, but can’t make thermostats work in old, new or gently used public schools anywhere in the country.

It’s not rocket science, but I know my thermostat stands about as much a chance of working as a snowball’s chance in…



Well, you get the picture.

152 Carnival of Education is Out

Joel over at So You Want to Teach graciously hosted the 152 Carnival of Education. Since I had to go back to work today, sigh, I haven’t had a chance to peruse very many of the submissions, but there’s a lot there that sound really good and I am looking forward to reading them this evening. My submission “Slackers, Inspirations & New Year’s Resolutions” was included, but you don’t have to go there to read it here.

Slackers, Inspirations & New Year’s Resolutions

Just a brief note to wish everyone a Happy New Year… Something tells me that I should have been less of a slacker and had some profound epiphany in which to usher in the new year and post. But, alas, I am at somewhat at a disadvantage since I have been away from my DIs–that’s Darling Inspirations not Divine Inspirations (although I suppose that is a debatable point)–for 11 days, 9 hours, 4 minutes and 20 seconds…but hey, who’s counting?

So, yes, I have been somewhat of a slacker and not touched one yearbook page, one lesson plan, one paper, one red pen…although a purple politically correct grading pen did sort of blow up in my hand en route to the Colorado mountains. At which point, I considered that a divine sign not to think about school for the entire duration of my holiday trip.

But now that the re-start of school looms ominously less than 48 hours away, I face two choices… Choice #1–Begin a frantic frenzy of grading, yearbook page proofing, lesson planning and school organization or Choice #2 –Procrastinate a bit longer and devise a New Year’s Resolution list.

I pick Choice #2.

So here it is… drum roll pah-leese… my Top 5 New Year’s Resolutions…

#5…The perennial favorite… Lose Some Weight… Of course this goal isn’t helped by the fact that I just purchased four bags of Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate with Caramel for a mere 74 cents a bag. Sigh.

#4…Stress less about deadlines (which should be helped by those four bags of chocolate mentioned in #5). Those deadlines hang heavy like an albatross around my neck…

#3…Banish cliches from writing… although I’m not willing to abandon the cliche finder. It’s just too much f-u-n.

#2…OK, after reading #3, perhaps I should work at finding a life.

And here, my friends, is my #1 New Year’s resolution…Can we have a drum roll pah-leese?…

#1…Work at a kinder, gentler me… but wait a minute… where’s the fun in that? OK… so let’s inject a bit of realism here. Let’s see how many days I can go this year without calling anyone a big fat stupid head. Ladies and gentlemen, start your counters!

Take a ride on the Education Carnival

Sorry for the delay in reminding you that the education carnival is up and hosted at History is Elementary. I seem to lose all track of time and days on vacation without any bells to prod me along. ;-) My submission “From Podless to Podness” can be read right here, but if you get a chance, please head on over there. As always, there’s great stuff to read. I particularly enjoyed the Rightwingprof'’s submission about creativity vs content. (He says, “teacher creativity is overrated,” which I have to agree is true in way too many cases although not with the journalism advisers I know. Most journalism advisers never sacrifice content for creativity. Having said that little disclaimer, his thoughts ring true.)

From Podless to Podness

With all the other stresses that come with the holiday season, I just wanted Steve Jobs to know that he no longer has to worry about my iPod status. I’m sure it was keeping him up at night worrying that I would be the last teacher standing sans iPod.

Worry no more for I have gone from iPodless to iPodness. Ah, isn’t life grand?

So what if my iPod isn’t a new one.

Or that it’s a third hand-me-down (silly me thinking that children should be at the end of the hand-me-down chain).

You see my VP of Humor Control was the first one in our family to own an iPod. Within a year, though, she was grousing about no memory (and she wasn’t talking about my forgetfulness either). So Santa gave her a new iPod for Christmas last year and she handed down her old one to her sister. Now that Christmas is rolling around again, my VP of HC provided a rather lengthy argument as to why she just had to have a new, improved touch screen iPod. (I think she’s secretly on Steve Job’s payroll).

Once again Santa sent a nifty new iPod to little Ms. VP of HC who then promptly handed down her old iPod to her sister, who then handed down the original iPod to yours truly who promptly started this and that play list.

Now, my iPod may not be the greatest or the latest, but Hails Bails, it is engraved. Flip it over and there it is… “What’s cookin, good lookin?”

Now, what’s not to love about that?

Merry Christmas to everyone and wishes for love and laughter throughout the new year!

The Carnival Of Education: Week 150

The Carnival of Education is out and hosted by The Education Wonks, so if you want to know what’s happening in the EduSphere head on over there for some interesting reading material. My submission, “‘Interesting Situations,’ Discipline Forms & Capital Murder” was included, but you don’t have to go there to read it here.

“Interesting Situations,” Discipline Forms & Capital Murder

Jennifer, my BFF who teaches over yonder on the east coast, and I battle weekly over who has the most “interesting situation.” (In my dictionary.com mind, “interesting” translates as CRAZY and “situation” roughly translates in varying degrees of one, two, three and four-alarm calamities.)

I think I won this week.

I went to the office to grab a disciplinary referral form because I used the only one I had, and it was left over from last year which shows you just how often I write referrals. Kids just tend to behave in my classroom. If I have a problem, I'll mention the liver thing (“Don’t make me pull your liver out your nose”), or the glass thing (“I really don’t want to have to talk to my children through glass”). Those two statements pretty much stop them. The liver one because it grosses them out, and while they’re trying to decide if it’s possible, they stop their bad behavior. The glass thing stops them because it takes them awhile to figure out that I’m talking about prison glass. Either way, in both cases, they wonder if I’m crazy enough to do either one, and well, in the meantime, the problem just disappears.

But let’s get back to the “interesting situation.”

So I grabbed the new-and-improved disciplinary form, and as I’m walking back to my classroom, the words in the lower left hand corner of the 5-part form grab my attention…

Item No. 17–“Murder or capital murder…”

[You can click on the image below to see a readable document. Proof in quintuplicate that I’m not making this stuff up.]



Well, alrighty then… How amazing is that? Does anyone else find that mildly disconcerting? I have in my possession a form–a 5-part form no less–that has a little spot to check capital murder (as well as all other kinds of penal code violations). Needless to say, I trotted speedy quick back to my room and grabbed my newspaper editor who is constantly threatening to slay slothful staffers.

“Katelyn,” I said, “you can’t kill anyone.”

“What? Why not,” she said a bit exasperated because she hadn’t fully recovered from our most recent newspaper deadline.

“Because,” I said with a bit of drama and emphasis, “I’ll have to write a disciplinary referral.”

“What?” she said.

And, then I whipped out the form and pointed to Item No. 17.

“No way,” she said. “Well then, you can’t set your hair on fire either."

“What?” I said.

“Yep,” she said with a bit of smugness. “I’m pretty sure it’s arson. Look at No. 16.”

“Oh,” I said, reviewing the form again. “But is it really arson if you set your own hair on fire? Does it count if you’re the teacher?”

Interestingly enough, my BFF’s “interesting situation” involved smoke and fire, but that’s a story for another day.

I think a check off spot for capital murder sort of trumps that.