December 13, 2013

When I was a kid, Friday the 13^th seemed like a rare and significant event. Now that I am no longer a kid, it seems like they happen all the time and I could not possibly care less.

At work today I made progress on the storybooks. That was a major part of my day. And the rest of my day kind of happened. During the second grade spelling test this morning I very nearly sent one of the kids back to the room during the test because he wouldn't stop talking. Next time they will all get one warning and after that someone is getting sent back.

Second grade reading groups weren't really a thing because one of the mom's came to talk about Christmas traditions in Germany because she is full-on German. After her talk there were only fifteen minutes left so I watched a group work on a worksheet but they didn't really need help.

The sixth graders came back to the lab this afternoon to work on their Stock Game spreadsheet. The teacher went over the steps on the projector and I walked around and helped the kids that had questions. I am an Excel god when it comes to adding, subtracting, and multiplying cells.

Eventually after work it was time for the work Christmas party. It actually wasn't too bad. Pretty much another party, and I did a lot of standing around waiting for time to pass, but I did talk to people. After they started talking to me. One of the third grade teachers was telling me about her afternoon, which involved her redneck son killing a deer on his way to work, cleaning it at work (not an office job, I asked) and then asking if he could hang it in a tree when he got home. Later on her other son came home, who is not a redneck and tends to be more clean cut and put together, and all he could say when he walked in was “What the fuck?”. I also listened in on her conversation with some other teachers and paras about getting thrown under the bus by her student intern. The student interns this semester were all just kind of awful, if not at their job than as people. Both of the third grade interns had horrible things to say about the teachers they worked with, and one had horrible things to say about the woman in charge or her at the school and all the other supervisors on up the chain. And both of the teachers were pretty much blindsided by it because they thought the semester had gone pretty well and both had very good things to say about the interns. It is believed that the one coaxed the other into doing it but she still did it. Everyone's initial reaction, after disbelief, was how do these girls expect to get a job, when they just dragged all their potential references through the mud. Anyone who could possibly give them a professional recommendation will now be completely honest if they receive a call from a potential employer. And that is not going to end well for them. I don't really get it. Kids are just stupid these days I guess.

At the end of the night we did the white elephant gift exchange. It was fairly entertaining and their didn't seem to be any malicious stealing. I ended up with two grapefruits, and I don't like grapefruit, so that kind of sucks, but their wasn't anything else I would have wanted so I didn't really care. I wrapped my potholders in newspaper and it got picked close to the end because it didn't stand out very well next to all the colorful bags, but one of the receptionists got them so hopefully she has a use for them. Even if they are regifted. I'm just glad I relearned the waffle stitch so I can start on my blanket again. Possibly tomorrow during my double at work.