Each day is a surprise... when you go to school!

"Are you the lunch lady?"  (I am NOT wearing a uniform!  So, no, I am not the lunch lady.)

"Madame, that kid told a non-truth!"  Frankly, what happened to calling a kid a liar, like we did in my day?  Even kids are politically correct nowadays. Not a bad thing actually.

Have you ever heard of a "soft lockdown" in a school.  Here is my take on one.  It starts with you and your students getting locked in the corridor between the gym and the cafeteria. You can't get out and you can't get in. You have to bang on the doors to get the attention of a parent waiting for his primary aged child to be dismissed.  He finally hears the banging, and opens those doors so you and your students can go back upstairs to the classroom.

No, CORRECTION! You start to go up the stairs with your students, when the intervention worker comes runnning down with her walkie-talkie in hand, and tells you that NO ONE can go upstairs;  you and your students have to turn around right NOW! Mass confusion.  So you do as you are told and march back downstairs. You are left wondering why you can't go back to class; also wondering where to go. You end up congregating in the primary wing, where those students are getting ready to be sent home on the early busses, so it bedlam there too.  Then you get shuffled into a Grade One classroom.  After you have done THREE headcounts to make sure you have all of your 18 students, you are told you can NOW go back upstairs to your classroom. Why the soft lockdown?  What is a soft lockdown?  I still don't really have the answer to either of those questions. That is classified information, apparently! LOL

I walked by a table where the wees ones were having lunch in the cafeteria, and stopped to chat with one, because he is SO darn cute.  With a guilty look he immediately declared "I said the F- word by mistake!" I replied,  "You did? No one does that by mistake."  Little Jack on the other side of the table, jumps in with "Yeah, he called me an Idiot Pooper!"  I turn to Johnny and ask, "Is that the F-word that you said to Jack?  He nods his head solemnly.  I try not to show even a smidgeon of a smile, when I tell him "Well, you apologize to him for calling him the F-word".  Which he does, the little scamp.

Children obviously don't know their initial consonant sounds yet, halfway through Kindergarten, which is to be expected.  However, they don't necessarily know them in Grade Two EITHER, because a few years ago I had one student say, "Madame, Jordan called me the C-word."  You can imagine what C-word went through my head.  I thought, "OMG!"  I took a deep breath and asked Joseph what was the exact word Jordan had called him. His reply? "He called me an IDIOT!" 

I ended my week with a big hug from a full-of-fire Grade Six student in the French system, who put her arm around me at recess and said, "Madame, fa fredo oggi!"  That Italian is really getting around.

On a wall in Northern Spain:

We are born to study.
We study to work.
We work to die.
We are dead from the beginning.

Death to Capitalism!

The young do NOT have a monopoly on being being foolish and stupid!

When I am frustrated, upset, or angry, (anyone of those NEGATIVE emotions), I don't eat, nor do I veg.  I don't self mutilate either.  (Just kidding.... I wanted to see if some one was paying attention!).  I try not to add more negativity to how I already feel.  I do something physical, to drive out those emotions. Therefore, I go for a run, a long, long walk, a big hike, or as I did today, I go snowshoeing in the woods.

The forecast was for a few centimetres of snow, with the temperature rising and then the snow turning to rain.  Well, as usual, the forecast was wrong, wrong, wrong!  It continued to snow all day.  I took to the trails, alone with Vimy.  I got lost.  Plain and simple! I only meant to be gone forty minutes, but it took me twice that amount of time, and quite a bit of doubling back, before I found my way out of that winter wonderland of snowshoeing trails.  The falling snow kept covering my tracks, and it was hard to figure out where I had gone.  I must admit, a light panic set in a FEW times.  I had my cell phone, with RunKeeper, so I had GPS.  Unfortunately, I don't know HOW to actually USE and UNDERSTAND the darn thing.

Vimy and I got quite the work-out!  I have learned another lesson. DO NOT go snowshoeing alone, when it is snowing. If you do, stick to tried and true familiar trails. 

I gave myself something I never had, when I hiked 820 kilometres in northern Spain last fall. I have a BIG mother of a blister on my right heel!

What a "nounoune" I am!  (Fille ou femme, qui agit de façon stupide!)

A HIT and a MISS!

"We missed you at church these last few weeks".  That is what I was told by someone recently. You would think a priest, or a parishioner of my parish would have said that, right?

W-e-l-l-l-l-l, it was a nine year old boy in Grade Four on Monday morning, when he saw me at school!  Now, it is true I haven't been to church for about four weeks, because I was otherwise occupied, but still, I WAS there this past Sunday.  Imagine!  A sweet child noticed my absence, bless his little heart.

That about wraps up my excitement lately, which is to say, that which I can write about anyway, that is suitable for public reading. :)  I think I need to set up another "anonymous" blog, and really share EVERYTHING that goes on in my life.  That's not going to happen though, so I thank God for my awesome friend Listen Linda, to whom I CAN tell everything. 

Some major changes in my life,  are coming down the pike REALLY soon I hope.  While I wait with bated breath for these changes to happen, since they are out of my control, I have taken to doing some calculations.  I will share those in my next blog.  Let's just say, it has to do with moving, beds, and being homeless.

I shall end this post at the same place as I started, with a story about school. I was in the computer lab today, with a Grade 4 class, having the kids line up to go back to their regular classroom, when one poor little fellow tossed his cookies, right there in line!  A lot!  You never saw twenty other children scatter SO fast!  I have very little sense of smell so I am never bothered that way, by these type of "events"!

Mind you, you still have to be quick and think on your feet, regardless of the "no odour zone".   I tried to buzz the office, but of course the intercom never works when you REALLY need it. I sent one student down to the office, sent another one for a roll of paper towels, and evacuated the remaining students back to their classroom. I asked the EA, when the towels arrived, to go soak some in warm water, and return to help clean up the young fellow, who by the way was still sick, but is now doing it over a wastepaper basket.  We tried to get him to the washrooms, but of course they were at ONE end of the hallway, and the computer lab at the OTHER.  Wouldn't you know!

Back in  the regular classroom, ( having left the EA and a few students helping the sick one, still in the lab) I get buzzed by the secretary, who now knows what happened, but wants pertinent information, like "WHO" was sick so she can phone the parents.  At the same time, one of the student helpers dashes back to class to inform me that Jay (who was sick) wants me to know it was "strawberry yogurt!"  Hello? Do we need to know that? Try to teach a Science class after that kerfuffle!

A half hour later it is the end of the school day. In the office I see two school custodians talking to the secretary.  One is coming off his shift and the other starting.  On a whim, and suspecting maybe THIS part of the message was never conveyed, I innocently ask if the "mess" in the computer room had been cleaned up?  Of course, that fact got lost in the shuffle, so to speak. You should have seen the look on the face of the custodian just starting his shift!  He thanked me for telling him, but you could tell that is NOT what he really wanted to say. :)

Hey, don't shoot the messenger!

The OUCH and AWE moments in life ( for those not interested in watching the Super Bowl!)...

as defined by my experiences this week:

Having a $185 dental bill (NO dental insurance) to repair my lost filling, which disappeared last week, and which I am sure I inadvertently ate, thinking it was granola.  OUCH!

Being told by someone that while I am obviously fit, I have a lot of "rolls".  OUCH!

Doing a HARD Raggetty Ann PLOP on a sheet of hard ice at the bottom of my front deck steps.  I had no time to even try to break my fall.  My feet came right out from under me.  I had forgotten about that sheer ice, because it was nicely covered with a two inch layer of fresh snow. I don't know which hurts more; the five needles in my jaw from my visit to the dentist, or the pain in my butt from landing so hard on my backside.  OUCH!

NOT receiving my new Visa card, when my old one expires at the end of the month, and being told it was shipped to the wrong address.  Don't assume because you change your address online with your bank in plenty of time, that they will apply that address change to everything you have with them.  Forget that! It was sent to my old address, which is now my mother's former address, as she has moved as well. So I have had to be without a credit card for three business days, while they rush ship me one directly to the branch.   (Five days where I can't use my Visa?  Doesn't that count as an OUCH?)

Walking to your car in a parking lot at The Dollar Store, and hearing a child's voice yell out the window of a moving car, before you even see her cute little face, "MADAME, no fa fredo oggi!"  That is Italian for "It's not cold today!"  I teach a few Italian phrases when I supply and some kids are just tickled with it. This little one obviously was.  I yelled back, "No, fa bello oggi!" AWE!

The trail in front of me today, while snowshoeing, and the trail behind me.  AWE!

Celebrating a fifty-first birthday in the family, with baby bro's birthday tomorrow and Mamacita's eighty-second on Tuesday, with Mimosas and Sunday brunch. AWE!

Finishing up the week in Kindergarten, where it was wild! That day alone would be a whole other blog!  Reading a story always calms children down, so I read them a story about "The 10 Rubber Ducks" being put in a box on a cargo ship, destined for faraway countries. When I threw out the following question, "Can you think of a faraway country",  little Landon piped up, "Allardville!"  AWE!

NB: Tu dois peut-être venir de la région Chaleur, ou assez bien connaître notre belle province, pour apprécier sa réponse.  Encore une fois, j'ai voulu rire aux éclats.