Ramble

I am sick today. It came out of nowhere: one second, I'm feeling fine; the next second, I can't breathe, talk, or hear.

I bought some nasal spray. I never use nasal spray, on account of my aversion to putting things in my nose; in fact, I probably stopped using nasal spray right around the age when my mom couldn't wrestle me down anymore. But I bought some, and you know what? It totally works! I can breathe through both my nostrils right now! I have seen the light.

Today was the first day of semester exams. About half my English class is failing. At first, I looked through their grades and thought, "What did I do? What did I not teach?" But then I saw that, by far, their lowest grades are in homework, in that they just don't do it. I give them all the tools I can in the 90 minutes I see them, but once the bell rings, they're on their own, and if they choose not to complete the homework, they also choose to get a zero on that homework. So then I stopped blaming myself and set to work writing a letter to parents which will explain exactly why their darlings are going to be in freshman English again next year. Just in time for Christmas.

I have complete my Christmas shopping. I'm totally done. I've even bought wrapping paper and tape. Now I just have to find a clear spot on the floor so I can spread everything out and wrap presents.

It's cold here today, but not cold enough for snow. How ridiculous is it that we have so many snow days built into our schedule, but we never get to use any of them? I blame Al Gore.

One of the benefits of the writers' strike is that I have a lot more time to read now, without the distraction of television. On the other hand, I don't have as much knitting time, without the background of television.

I spent the majority of the afternoon creating and researching a Shakespeare webquest. It's a lot of work, but I'm having fun putting it together. Of course, that will be shot to the bad place once my students get hold of it and start complaining. But I am going to put those thoughts aside and just enjoy the process. There is time enough for negativity later.

I am not going to the state thespian conference this year. I decided today. There are only three students who said they wanted to, and three is not enough for a bus. Three is barely enough for a car. So I am going to refund their money and stay home this year. My decision may or may not have been affected by the fact that I really like one of the kids, find one of them tolerable but annoying, and cannot stand the third. I do not regret this decision.

Some day, if I buy a house, I am going to make darn sure it runs on electric heat, because I am FREEZING right now. I turned the thermostat down to 63, and my fingers are icy and my ears are blue. But every time I think about kicking it up, I get a vision of a four hundred dollar gas bill, and I just put on another sweater and shiver.

I got online last night to check out the graduate class I'm taking next semester; I thought I'd go ahead and buy the book and start preparing. Well, the book costs $114. That is some heavy BS right there. Is the type set in solid gold ink? Are the pages made of diamonds? Are the covers handcrafted by medieval artisans? There is no way there is any textbook on earth that is worth that price! In my experience, education textbooks are often full of idealized strategies that are better suited to Utopian Paradise High School, and are therefore not at all applicable to my--or anyone else's--situation over here at the Real World School System. So I am checking eBay instead, and fuming the whole time, let me tell you.