Hand sanitizer and young love

I worked in a fifth grade classroom today and I think I now know what it was like to work in a TB sanatorium.  About a third of the kids had wet, hacking coughs; emphasis on the wet.  It was gross.  I washed my hands about fifty times after watching one kid cough into his bare hand then come up to the front to hand in his paper and on the way he touched three desks, another kid's pencil, the teacher's podium and the Smartboard before I had to stop watching to keep myself from going crazy.  Now I see why all the teacher have a gallon of hand sanitizer in their rooms.  (I'm not exaggerating, hand sanitizer really comes in gallons.)

A couple of girls were chatting with me and one of them put her arm around the other one and said, "She saved my life."  I asked how, and she said, "The other day I was choking on a chunk of rubber, and she pounded me on the back until it flew out."  I asked why she was eating a chunk of rubber and she said she wasn't, it just sort of flew into her mouth.  (The playground is covered with shredded rubber.)  Then the life-saver girl told me that the chokes-on-chunks-of-rubber girl wants to be a stylist when she grows up and marry Brian, one of the boys in class.  The choker turned red after that and I think she wished she had a chunk of rubber to shove in the life-saver's mouth.

Inventor's Fair

Today I subbed for a fifth grade class that had their inventor's fair so I got to see all their inventions and it was fabulous. I wish I had pictures. One kid invented a boot carrier that straps on to his backpack so then he would no longer have to transport his boots IN his backpack. He had a poster telling about his invention and it was so great. He had pictures of himself taking soaking wet, wrinkled school papers out of his backpack with a look on his face like, "Not again!" It was like an infomercial. He wrote about how he decided on what to invent based on what he needed. He said this is the second most important thing he needs, the first would be an invention to deal with his annoying sisters, but he couldn't figure out how to invent a "shutter upper."

Why Children Are Deadly Dangerous

Today I gave Kira five dollars for school carnival tickets. I handed her the bill and looked away from her. She took it and then said, "Oh, I love the smell of money." I looked back at her and she had this filthy, disgusting bill pressed against her face and she was breathing it in.

She also told me that on the bus after school, the kids have an ongoing Mercy tournament. You know, it's that game where two kids grab hands and try to hurt the other by bending their knuckles back. So they go from one kid to the next, clasping filthy, sweaty palms. Then I just know that every kid in the tournament goes home and the first thing they do (after grabbing the door handle that everyone in the family touches) is grab the refrigerator door handle looking for a snack and then they rifle through your FOOD.

Today I overheard a kid in my class say to another kid, "Last night I put 47 pennies in my mouth." Apparently he thinks he could fit in more, but 47 was all he had to work with. You know, you ARE going to get one of those pennies as change sometime, don't you?

And none of them wash their hands after they use the bathroom unless I'm standing there watching, and make them go back in to do it.

If I can get through the next few months without getting the swine flu, it will be a miracle.

This is biological warfare, people! We have to fight against all the children that are trying to kill us! I think I will start carrying around a can of Lysol and a hepa mask. And a club.

My class

Random Craziness

Today while subbing for fifth graders, when I went to the cafeteria to pick them up from lunch they were getting totally reemed out by the other fifth grade teacher for being obnoxious during lunch time. Apparently they wouldn't listen to the lunch monitor and somebody threw some food so they had to sit in the lunch room for an extra ten minutes and get a very long, very humbling lecture.

During the lecture, one girl from my class was whispering to me, trying desperately to get my attention. "Mrs. Lindahl... MRS. LINDAHL..." I noticed her but I ignored her. She kept it up. I thought maybe somebody next to her might be having a seizure or be choking to death so I acknowledged her and she asked me in a loud whisper,

"What are those long things in fried rice?"

And then she looked at me like having the answer was a matter of life and death. I said, "... um...what?" and she repeated herself slower with careful enunciation:

"What... are those long things.... in fried rice?"

It was so surreal. I avoided the question by pointing to the other fifth grade teacher and shushing her like any good teacher would, but I couldn't stop thinking about that all day. Why was she thinking of fried rice right then? What are the long things in fried rice that she was thinking of? Carrot slivers? Sprouts?

I might have to pull her aside tomorrow and ask her. It's driving me crazy.

Also today Sam said something very weird. He said, "You know how when somebody pulls one over on you, you say 'touché'" I said, "...yes..." and he said, "Well, when you fool yourself do you say 'oneshay?" Mitch and I both said, "Yes. Yes you do." Just kidding, we didn't. We said, "No, you stupid idiot, don't you know French?" No we didn't.

Working Girl

I got a two week sub job at my favorite school for one of my favorite classes. Yay for me! The teacher is out because she developed a lung infection from all the cement dust floating around the school because of all the construction. So what if I'm only a substitute teacher, earning hardly any pay and having no health benefits and I'm working full-time in an environment that has already proven to be a health hazard. So? It's worth it, isn't it?

Other than the risk of developing Black Lung, the job is pretty sweet. Beautiful room, nice kids, easy-to-follow curriculum; and the best part is that they are studying US history in the 1800s for Social Studies! I think Dr. Quinn may have to make an appearance! Lucky lucky kids.

My class

This post is rated "R" for language

It's one of those days when profanity just rolls off the tongue. The F-bomb is inserted into my every thought, and, I'm afraid to say, too many of my sentences. At first it was just one of those swear-a-lot days that we all have, but as the day started getting bad, I found myself having to really think before I spoke.

For example, when I was at work today, subbing for a fifth grade teacher, and one of the boys thought he'd be really funny and SNEEZE on the back of another kid's neck ON PURPOSE I wanted to say, "Hey kid, what the fuck is wrong with you? Ever hear of the swine fucking flu?"

But I didn't say that. I had to literally bite my tongue to stop myself. I spared an entire class of ten year olds from a barrage of profanity laced vitriol and simply said. "Gross. You: go wash your neck off. You: sit down and don't get up again unless the building starts on fire."

Now that's self control.

The only bad part was that about fifteen minutes after I said that, the building actually did start on fire. I'm not even kidding. There are contractors working on it and one of them was soldering and started a small, totally manageable fire, but the super-sensitive brand new fire alarm system picked up on it and went nuts and we had to "go calmly and quietly to the nearest exit!" That's what I said, but I wanted to say, "WELL? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! THE FUCKING BUILDING IS ON FIRE!"

Then I came home and saw that my gorgeous husband shaved off the beard that I meticulously cultivate because I love it, and I said, "What the fuck happened to your face?" Just so you know, that is not the way a spouse likes to be greeted.

Then I came in the house and discovered, via email, that the teacher re-licensure committee, that only meets once a month, and that has to okay all my brand new college credits and work/volunteer hours to update my teaching license met today, BUT they didn't have the packet of information that took me a WEEK to meticulously gather and that I put in the hand of the chairperson of the committee two weeks ago. They just didn't have it. They don't know what happened. Now I have to gather all the stuff AGAIN and wait another month for them to meet and FUCK IT UP again.

I love bureaucracy.

When I took a course in linguistics last year we had a linguistics problem that was this: Analyze the following sentence. Note that when buffalo is used as a verb, it means "intimidate."

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo bufallo buffalo buffalo.

Which means basically Buffalo from Buffalo intimidate other buffalo from Buffalo who intimidate other buffalo.  

"What the fuck are you talking about?" you say? The point is that it is possible to use one word, even the stupid fucking word "buffalo," as almost every part of speech. I think the f-word is a much better word for using as every single part of speech. I obviously like it most as an adjective.

Deadbeat

Tomorrow is my last day of semi-full time work. The district has to replace me because unfortunately, the teacher is way sicker than she originally thought, and a long-term sub is needed and I am not licensed to do it.  I have a middle school/high school license and an elementary license is required to do the job properly, apparently (cat sound). They tell me that long term subbing is the same as having the job full time and you have to be licensed in the proper area to do it.

I was prepared to do the job for the next three months because I really like the kids and the staff and the school, but I have to admit, when I was told about the license glitch, I was secretly happy. Turns out I don't particularly care for full-time employment. (Sorry Mitch) I don't want all the responsibility of being a real teacher without the contract and the pay. It's kind of like the difference between raising your own child and babysitting. When you're babysitting you're constantly thinking, "Please god, don't let these little bastards get hurt on my watch," and "When will this be over?"

And I'm too immature for a job with children anyway. Today in the reading book we turned the page and there was a poem called "Summer Hummers" and right there at the front of the class, I could barely stifle a giggle. (Plus, a good teacher would have previewed the pages before the lesson and been prepared for seeing a haiku about BJs. )(It was actually a poem about BEES.) (Yeah, I don't get it either.)(Wow, that's a lot of parentheses.)

So after tomorrow, when I'll be training in the teacher who is replacing me because she is qualified, and I am not (again, cat sound), I will have more time to sleep in, tend my facebook farm, shop, and most importantly, blog.