March 26, 2009

A Temper Tantrum All My Own

Yesterday Lil C had the temper tantrum of the century. This morning I had one of my own.

Disappointed, frustrated, and a bit angry after wasting my time grading assignments that were half completed, I went into class this morning intending to give the kids a good talking to. When I got in there though, I couldn't stop. I actually had to hold on to the podium because I started shaking. I lectured about laziness and carelessness for a good 15 minutes. It was kind of like when you start telling the guy who cuts your hair everything about yourself. You don't know why you're doing it, but you just know you can't stop. Today, I just couldn't stop.

Instead of doing what I personally always hated, I first told the kids who show up every day and turn all their assignments in correctly and on time that they could sort of zone out for a few minutes. However, I told them, "if you have any plans in the near future to slack off, then you should probably pay attention too."

Some of the highlights:

"When my second grader reads over my shoulder as I'm grading one of your papers and says 'Oh mommy, that's spelled wrong.' . . . we have a problem."
"I have a t-shirt I wear to the gym that says 'Lazy Sucks' and that would be my opinion on the papers I graded last night."
"I know that, by now, you understand how to do this, so the only possible reason for these poorly constructed outlines is that either a) you're lazy; or b) you don't care. Neither one of those reasons is acceptable.
You are a nice group of students. Nice doesn't get you an A though. Neither does just showing up without putting in any effort.
For those of you who have outlines that look like gobbly-gook with the completely wrong format, hold your hands up and wiggle your pinky fingers around. Ahh, see that, they work. Find the "tab" key and use it.

When I was finished with my rant, I handed back their outlines, pointed out five students who had done a great job and told the ones who hadn't to pair up with someone who did it correctly and "beg them to help you get it right."

I also passed out post-it notes with their current grades and the number of absences on it. I told the ones who were in good shape to keep it up, and not to slack. I told the ones who had dug themselves a hole that it isn't too late to dig themselves out.

Then I had a student ask me if I give extra credit for perfect attendance. I told her and the rest of the class that they don't get stickers and rewards for doing what they're supposed to be doing already. I'm not rewarding them for gracing me with their presence.

I then spent some time talking with the student with the lowest grade. He asked me if he should just withdraw from the class. After a good 10 minute conference with him, he went from being grumpy with me to finally taking ownership of the mess he's put himself in, and knowing what he needs to do to dig himself back out. Here's hoping he actually follows through. I think he will.

Eternal optimism. If a teacher loses that, they're done for. I was planning on keeping mine. . . at least for now, but then I got the results of my allergy testing today.

My number one allergy?

Cats. I have two.

I have told people for years that my allergies got bad after I had my kids. Perhaps though, I have just lost my memory of the years before having kids since my cats are now about 13 years old. I'm also allergic to late summer pollens, a bunch of molds, two trees (elm & poplar), and dust mites. That was my other big one; but the doctor and I ruled that out as a problem since my bedroom (thanks to my obsessively putting every bedroom item into an allergy cover) is pretty much a mite free zone. So, we're left with my cats.

Finding them a new home isn't really an option for me. So, for now I'm on a ton of medications (eye drops, nose spray, and a new prescription antihistamine). In three weeks, I go back to determine whether or not I need to move into the next phase of probable torture: allergy shots.

Today's appointment took 3.5 hours. I went through just under 40 scratch test things on my back which was similar to the sensation of tweezing eyebrows, but with a slightly painful little tickle that was more annoying than anything else. Then it was on to 32 intra-dermals, 16 for each arm. The one that glared at him the most was the cats. Why couldn't I be allergic to dogs? I can't stand dogs anyway!

The good news is that I was quite comfortable while there. My Mom works there and all the nurses and the doctor know me. I'm glad it's over with for sure, and hope that the cocktail the doctor came up with will work for me, starting now.

Since I'm feeling a bit like a human sieve, I'm skipping karate tonight. Plus, they gave me an antihistamine and prednisone before leaving and all I really want to do is go scrub my arms and back and go to sleep.

All around, this has been a completely sucktastic week. And starting tomorrow, I need to prepare for a luau birthday party for Big I, complete with a home-made volcano cake. Right now though, it's eye drop, nose spray time.

Fun stuff.