Disappeared

Thursday before winter break. (I saved all my subbing stories for when school was back in session.) Seventh period business math. 

The last two days before winter break I caught a math class. Although, it doesn't really matter what the class was as the finals had been Tuesday and Wednesday, and with the grades due Friday, Ms. C had to have submitted them before she left. Which meant the class would have nothing to do (that counted). 

But Ms. C left them a math worksheet (word problems relating to Buddy the Elf from Elf). 

Not that they were really doing it. 

We'd been in class maybe fifteen minutes when Harley asked to use the restroom. As she sped from the room, the rest of the class erupted in complaints. 

"She's gone." 

"Don't let her go." 

"She won't be back." 

"She's on the escort list." 

(She was not on the escort list. I checked.) 

Unfortunately, I had already said okay, and there was no warning in the lesson plans to not let her go. If it had been any other day, I would have been more upset, but considering the timing...

About five minutes later, Prescott asked for a restroom pass. I told him he had to wait (I have a one-at-a-time policy as do most subs and teachers). He was certain Harley wouldn't be back, so I let him go. 

Mistake. 

Anyway, Harley did return. Fifteen minutes later. So, yeah, it was a while. I did my usual, "Where ya been...?" that I ask students who take forever out of class. She said she had gone to the office for reasons. (I wish they would just ask to go to the office. I don't generally say no.) 

Harley then asked to leave class again. This time she "needed water". The office people gave her a burrito, so now she was thirsty. Um, no. One outing per class period. (And besides, it was a minimum day. We had maybe twenty minutes left of class.) She was not happy with me. (She complained of dehydration, as the students always do when they insist they need to get water.) 

Remember Prescott? Yeah, he was still not back from his restroom pass. He who had been whining about how long Harley would take. 

As the end of the period approached, I collected back their papers and made sure they returned computers. The bell rang. And that is when Prescott finally returned to class. (He had left his backpack behind.) 

Deep sigh. 

He who howled the loudest? He was out of class for forty minutes. (It would have probably been longer if it had been a regular schedule day.) 

When they take forever to the restroom, I do note it for the teacher. Those who are in the habit of disappearing to the restroom get placed on the escort list. That is, if they need the restroom, they must have security escort them. 

Not His Own Work

Monday. Continuation high school. Math, fourth period. 

(This was the Monday before winter break. I saved all my subbing stories for when I was back at work.) 

The students had work online. It's a program called IXL. I'm familiar with it as all the schools in the district use it. 

When a student answers a problem, the program immediately tells them if they got it correct or not. If they got it correct, they move on to harder problems. If they didn't, the program shows them how to solve the problem, and then gives them a similar one to solve. 

The goal is to get to 100. It can take twenty problems or it can take forty problems, depending on if the student is getting the problems correct. (If it's taking much more than twenty problems, it's time for the student to ask for help.) 

So, when I walk the room while the kiddos are on IXL, I know what to look at on their screen to make sure they're on track. Twelve problems with a score of 72? They're right where they should be. Twenty-two problems and a score of 31? It's time for me to gently ask if they need some help. 

Jasper was on his phone. I reminded him that phones weren't to be used in class. When it looked like he was back on his phone, I stood over him again. I urged him to get on task. Then when he did...

He wasn't solving the problems. He took a screenshot. Then he uploaded that screenshot into Google's Gemini. And Gemini solved the problem for him. He took that answer and input it into IXL...

Yeah, that's not how that's supposed to work. 

I asked Jasper if he didn't understand how to do the work. He said he did. (Doubtful, but okay...) So, then I explained that he needed to do his own work, not use AI to do the work for him. This was cheating. 

He didn't see my point. He explained that he didn't want to take the time to solve the problems. He knew how to do it, but he needed to do it quickly. When I pointed out that Mr. F wouldn't appreciate him doing it this way, he replied that Mr. F would be okay with it as Mr. F knew he needed the credits. 

Uh huh. Sure. 

(I've had similar discussions with students in the past. They're singing a different tune after their teacher hears they didn't do their own work.) 

Mr. F is a very gentle teacher, but he's also very strict. I imagine Jasper is not going to like having to explain how he did his work to Mr. F. 

(Mr. F is also an author. Here's a link to his Amazon page.)

Good News?

For my first screaming into the void current event post of the new year, let's have some good news...

Trump says he’s dropping push for National Guard in Chicago, LA and Portland, Oregon, for now. I mean, he's threatening to come back "when it's needed", of course. And this is only happening because the courts have been pushing back. It never should have come to this, but I guess people needed to see the authoritarian overreach before they really got it. But I'm going to be happy for this win anyway. 

Stephen Miller Is The New Republic’s 2025 Scoundrel of the Year. The next lines of this article are great: "He was counting on a nation of haters. He was wrong." I'm proud of us for that. Enough of us have pushed back that he was unable to fulfill his goals. Now, that's not to say that he hasn't done a lot of real damage, but it would have been so much worse if we did not fight back. And we need to continue to do so until he's being tried for his crimes. 

And finally, We Are Going to Win. I mean, I hope so. The bit under the headline, "Trump's revolution will fail, but we still have a long and painful road ahead of us," rings the most true. I look forward to getting past this era, but it's going to be a lot to clean all of this up and make sure it never happens again. 

Any other good news? Please link in the comments. 

Sleeve Progress and Falling in the Mud

Sleeve progress:

It's hard to tell by itself, so let's compare it to the sweater front:

Decent progress. But I think you can see why it didn't get done in time for Christmas. I still have a second one to make, plus assemble the thing, and then knit on a collar. 

I wanted to get more done during my time off from school, but then I fell... Well, it wasn't a big one, but I'll explain. 

Sweater Tracking:

• Starting the Sweater
• Getting to the Back
• Missed Deadline
• Distractions from Knitting
• A Month Late
• Inching Along
• Tracking the Growth
• Weekly Sweater Update
• Moving Right Along
• Good Progress
• Almost to the Interesting Part
• Plot Twist
• Not Worth the Effort

Falling in the Mud

New Year's Eve. It was raining. As I do pretty much every day, I took the dog out for a walk. The rain had let up a bit, so I figured it was a good window. 

Buttercup did her usual sniffing around, and she finally did her business a bit too close to the water. 

The scene of the incident

I went to pick it up when the mud underneath my feet gave way, and I landed on my butt and slid, heading straight for the water. Luckily, I managed to only land my left foot in, my right remaining in the mud. 

One shoe (the left) floated away. (I was wearing slides, because of course.) I removed my right shoe and tried to get some traction to get me up, but no dice. I slid more. And, of course, no one was around, so it was up to me to get up and get home.

(Buttercup hovered on the sidewalk, waiting.) 

I flipped over onto my belly, and attempted to find a way to inch up the bank. 

This is pretty much head on from where I was

I reached for those rocks. I didn't have enough to pull, so I wrapped my arms around that tree. From there, I was able to pull myself up to where I could crawl to the sidewalk and stand. 

I was barefoot and covered in mud. I looked back to see my right shoe had now also fallen into the water and was floating away in the other direction. 

I picked up the leash, and I took Buttercup home. We weren't far. I went in through the garage, and stripped out of my mud-caked pants. I went in search of my grabber/reacher stick, and once I found that, I went back out to retrieve my shoes. (I had put on another pair of pants first, though.) 

They were too far for me to reach, but a neighbor happened by, and he was able to get both shoes out of the water. 

So, no visible injuries. I'm only sore, mostly from the exertion of trying to get myself up. The mud came off my clothes in the wash and off my body in the shower. 

I just knew I was due for another fall. At least this one was minor in comparison to my previous. 

2025 Year in Review Quiz

2026 has started, but you haven't forgotten 2025 yet, have you? (I know we want to memory hole the year as quickly as possible...) 

How Well Do You Remember the Year 2025?

I got 13 out of 18. Not terrible, but not great. In my defense, I do not pay attention to soccer, and some of these pop cultural events totally passed me by. 

Warning, this is a bit U.S. based, so my non-U.S. readers might want to skip this. Let me know how you did in the comments. 

Promote Yourself

Happy New Year. 

Today is normally Thursday 13, but I posted it yesterday (as I wanted to do my 2025 in 13 posts in 2025), which leaves me with nothing for today. 

But a couple weeks ago my brother sent me a text. It seems that eldest nephew has started a Band Camp page. And I thought, why not link to a few things I wouldn't normally have a need to mention on the blog? 

So, first, eldest nephew's Band Camp. Don't let the photo fool you. He's actually 20. He did drumline in high school, and now he's making music on the computer. Take a listen. I'm sure he'd appreciate any support. 

Next, my sister-in-law started a podcast called Raven's Lore Cast. The previous link is the podcast on Spotify, and this one is the Facebook page. 

My brother, who has been kind enough to edit my little yarn-y YouTube videos, has made a couple of his own. (Well, besides the actual work he does, as he does actually work in television.) The Night of Zach. And The Night of Zach 2. 

I have mentioned my uncle's YouTube channel before, but as long as I'm doing this, I'm going to mention it again. He does animations that he posts every couple of weeks. 

And then, of course, my YouTube channel, where I make things out of yarn. I have a plan to knit slippers next, but I have not even started this yet. 

What sorts of things do you have out there on the internet? Post links in the comments. Promote yourself, too. 

2025 in 13 Posts

For the last Thursday of the year, I like to list 13 posts from the past year for Thursday 13. Alas, the last Thursday of 2025 was Christmas, and I kinda didn't want to do this on Christmas. So, instead I'm going to do this on the actual last day of the year (a Wednesday) and just link up with Thursday 13 tomorrow. 

1. January 24th: Scissor Emergency

About a seventh grader and the scissors he had to have. In the class I covered almost a full year ago now.

2. February 3rd: Mom

The post I wrote when my mother passed away. Suddenly. Yeah, 2025 was that year.

3. February 14th: Missed Deadline

In February, I started a long term assignment for a class that lost their teacher at the semester (she got a new job), and it was a mess. Like, missed-turning-in-grades mess. 

4. March 20th: That Day

A most unusual extra period assignment, but not in a good way. This was the period when the students were informed that one of their classmates had passed away. 

5. March 26th: Booked

Spring semester was kind of a tangle. This post kind of explains how I was in the middle of a couple longer term assignments. 

6. May 1st: Settling into the Long Term 13

And I ended the school year in an eleventh grade English class. In this post I talk about how it was going.

7. June 16th: Zombie Time

My main yarn-y work for the first half of the year was the Minecraft collection, characters from the video game that I crocheted for my nephews. This was the last one in progress. 

The Minecraft Collection with the nephews

8. July 11th: Missed Connection

The week of the 4th of July, I flew back to Ohio to visit my brother and family. On the way home, I got stuck overnight in Denver, Colorado. 

9. August 11th: Starting the Sweater

And for the second half of the year, my main yarn-y work was a knitted sweater for eldest nephew. This is the beginning of that project. 

10. August 27th: Starting from Scratch

I began the current school year in a vacant middle school art class. It was a mad scramble to get things set up. 

11. October 16th: No Return

After leaving the middle school art class, I continued to see "my" students in other classes. Somehow they were unclear on the whole they-hired-a-teacher-for-your-class bit. 

12. October 29th: Six Seven

You may have heard of this. If you don't see kiddos or teenagers regularly, you do not know my pain. It's worse than you know. Six... seven... 

13. December 3rd: A Reading Lesson

The end of the calendar year saw me back in the day-to-day subbing of it all. This day was a senior English class where they were studying a graphic novel.