A Raven, Kind Of

I hate deadlines. 

That raven that I've been working on is a birthday gift for my sister-in-law. Her birthday is Wednesday. 

She lives in Ohio.

So, if I wanted to get her gift to her before her birthday, I had to get it in the mail. I had hoped to mail it midweek. 

I got the body finished Tuesday. Wednesday I had hoped to get it all assembled. (And I'm already late getting this thing done to get it in the mail midweek.) 

I got the beak attached. I attached the feet to the legs and then the legs to the haunches. I attempted to attach the haunches to the body, but I ran into a bit of trouble. 

So, I detached the legs from the haunches and reattached, this time making sure to orient the feet just so. I went to attach the haunches to the body, and... 

Let me just say it did not go well. 

I tried to do it more than once. I attached, found it wasn't stitching right, and then I ripped it out. Five different times. 

Somehow one of the haunches is larger than the other. I don't know how this happened. I followed the instructions. I made two the same way. 

So, after two different nights over two hours, I gave up. I realized that I probably need to redo the haunches to make sure they are precisely the same size. 

Although, even if they were the same size, they didn't go onto the body well. I couldn't get it so the feet were under the body of the bird. They were at an angle. That's part of the reason why I kept ripping it out. 

If I had another week... 

I don't have another week. 

Then I looked at the bird... I mean, does it really need the feet? 

Ideally, I'd attach the feet. We're out of ideal territory.

I kind of like the birdie without feet. 

So, I'm declaring it done. Without feet. 

Sorry about the pictures. I took them, then packaged up the bird, and then got it into the mail. Otherwise, I'd redo them. 

I packaged everything Friday/Saturday. Got it into the mail on Saturday. Tracking shows it'll show up... Thursday. Sigh. 

Only a day late. Not ideal, but at least it's not nine months after (and counting). 

Now I really should get back to the reluctant sweater which was last Christmas' gift, but likely won't be done by this Christmas. Sigh. 

Dressed for the Wrong Occasion

Two of the most beautiful words appeared in the lesson plans for the day: student teacher. Woo-hoo!

It was eleventh grade U.S. history, so I wasn't expecting difficulties, anyway. (I've subbed for this teacher many times in the past. Her classes are generally fine.) But all I had to do was input the roll and keep track of restroom passes. The student teacher, Mr. B, did all the actual work of teaching the kiddos. 

The lesson was on inventions that made life easier. I wasn't really paying attention, though. I was more focused on how the students were dressed. 

It was a spirit week. That's a week where the school encourages the kiddos to dress up to various themes of the day. I mentioned Adam Sandler day on Wednesday. I was at other schools for jersey day and "Anything but a Backpack" day. (Kiddos carry their stuff in something other than a backpack. Look it up on social media. It can be hilarious.) And I would miss the assembly on Friday where they were told to wear black. 

But this day, Thursday, they were to dress for the wrong occasion. And many participated in interesting ways. 

I caught a few students in Christmas gear. More beachy stuff, though. One boy in class wore an inner tube along with board shorts. (He was dressed for a pool party.) There were girls in fancy dresses. Two teachers were dressed in marathon gear. (Ms. V, who does run marathons, said it was very comfortable to wear her marathon stuff that day.) And many students came to school in their pajamas. (No pajama day this spirit week. That day tends to be the most popular.) 

It was kinda fun to laugh at some of the ensembles. I marveled at wintery gear as it's still in the 80s here, but the kiddos clearly understood the assignment. 

What would you dress as? The idea is that they're dressed wrong, and of course, they were at school. So, if that was the assignment, to dress for the wrong occasion, what occasion would you dress for? 

Taking the Assignment

About three weeks ago, I got an email from a teacher asking if I would be able to cover her class. Of course, I replied. 

Then last Friday I got another email from her. Ms. S was going to be out on Wednesday of the next week. Could I cover her class? 

I was already booked for Tuesday and Friday. The Friday I'd be working for her. I would be glad to take the assignment. 

The district does some things weirdly. It took them forever to get with the times and get the sub scheduling app. (Like, they were a good decade, or more, behind the neighboring districts.) And, in their infinite wisdom, they have decided that if a teacher wants to request a specific sub, they have to have a person at the district office input that into the system. 

So, since it was late on a Friday, I knew I wouldn't get the booking until Monday. Not a problem, really. 

Monday morning, I did not get called in. So, I was playing games on my phone when a job popped up. Because of how fast the open jobs go, I grabbed for it. It was only after looking at it after I managed to snag it did I notice that it was for Wednesday. The Wednesday I agreed to cover Ms. S's class. Deep sigh. 

So, do I cancel the job and hope the one I said I'd do pops up? Or do I keep the one that I now have? 

They can, at the district office, drop me from any assignments I have and reassign me. And, it I happened to grab the assignment when they were putting the other in, I might have missed it already. It was hard to tell. So, I stuck with the assignment I grabbed. 

It was a history assignment at the same school. And it went fine. (I won't be mentioning it any more as nothing very interesting happened.)

At least I worked that day. Things have been a little slow, but we're only just getting into the second month of the school year. Slow is standard for this time of year. 

Not That Alert

Tuesday. Middle school yearbook. Seventh period.

It was Adam Sandler day. Which meant everyone was dressed in shorts, sloppy t-shirts, sandals, and a baseball cap worn sideways or backwards. 

The yearbook staff was coming up with interview questions. They're going to have to go out and talk to their fellow students to get quotes for the yearbook. But, middle schoolers. Some weren't so very focused. (But things could have gone a lot worse.)

Mostly, I was keeping track of restroom passes. 

It's become a thing. We only allow one student out of class at a time, but each student takes a while, so there ends up being a line for the restroom. Keeping track can take half my attention most days. 

So, when the student asked to go while someone was out, I gave my usual response. "As soon as the student who's out gets back." 

While we were waiting, three other students asked to go. As usual. They got added to the continuing list. The last student who asked got a no response, however. We were at maybe twenty minutes left of class, and by the time the previous three went and returned, we'd definitely be at less than ten minutes left of class. We're not supposed to let students out that close to the end of the period. 

The girl returned. I called for the boy to go. He did not hear me. He was sucked into his phone. (Because it was yearbook, because they had come up with interview questions, because it was that kind of day, those are all reasons why phones were out and I wasn't making an issue of them.) 

Well, fine, then. If he wasn't going to go, then I'd go to the next person on the list. 

After she had left, and by that I mean that she had been gone for a couple minutes, the boy again asked. What happened when I called for him? But, it was ten minutes until the end of the period. So, even when the girl came back, I wasn't going to let anyone else go.

"But I really have to go..."

I mean, how serious was that need that he was completely tuned out when the person we were waiting for to return returned, and he didn't notice? When kiddos need to go, they usually are watching that door. (And the girl was not gone that long.) 

I told him he could go after the bell rang. At that point it was something like seven minutes until the end of the period. 

The time passed. The bell rang. The students filed out. The boy? I found him sitting in one of the nice chairs in the entryway to the classroom after I had done my final check and I was ready to leave. 

"I thought you really, really needed to use the restroom." 

I guess it wasn't as critical as he was making it out to be.

Pregnancy Danger

Abortion bans kill women. 

I stumbled upon a thread in Bluesky last week about how the rate of ectopic pregnancy deaths had more than doubled in recent years. TL;DR: Abortion bans are at least partially to blame. There was an article in ProPublica all about it. 

Pregnancy can be dangerous anyway. Abortion bans make it worse. 

But that's what a certain segment of the population wants, and the regime is pandering to them. It's in the authoritarian playbook. Control women. If it kills them, so what? So long as the men keep their power. 

So, let's have the EPA test for abortion pills in the water. It's not like there's anything else they need to do. *stares meaningfully* 

Maybe I'll write postcards to swing districts. It's something, anyway.

Winging It

There is a Crochet Procedure that frequently appears in patterns. You start with a round (or an oval) of, like, 12 stitches. Then you increase it by six by crocheting one and then increasing in the next stitch, which consists of crocheting two stitches into the next stitch. 

That pattern (crochet one, increase one, giving you three stitches in the current round where there were two stitches in the previous round) is so common that when I saw it in the raven pattern, I barely read it, and just commenced with the increases. 

The next round consisted of crocheting two and then doing the increase. And the following round was crocheting three and then increasing. Easy. I've done this many, many times before.

So, why could I not get the stupid thing to work this time? 

I mean, I counted carefully. I got twelve stitches in the first round. I did the increase, and somehow I was a stitch off. But I counted, and I had 18 stitches. Okay, then.

But five times I got to the round where I was supposed to have 30, and I was off. By, like, a lot. 

I have no explanation for this. I counted. I worked into each stitch. Of course, I'm working in black, so it's harder to see, but how did I mess it up that badly? 

On Saturday I attempted it again. In better lighting. And still... I ripped it out twice before finally getting to the round of 30 and actually having 30 stitches. Whew. 

(Just in case you were wondering what was blocking me from making progress. For three weeks. Yeah, the wings.) 

Luckily, wing two went much easier once I brute forced my way into getting wing one done. 

Seriously, I have no explanation for why this was so freaking hard. It shouldn't have been.

Deadline's fast approaching, and with the wings done, I could finally start on the main body. 

Alana, see that tail thing at the back (on the right side in the picture)? In round 13, that's where the chain went. And then in the following rounds, you just work over that chain, and it builds out, adding to the body. At least, that's what I think the pattern meant. 

Hopefully that was the last major glitch. I managed to do that whole increase thing on the body with no issues. Why I had trouble with the wings perplexes me. 

Identification Snafu

Friday. Peer counseling/mental health class, third period. 

(This class was a new one for me. The teacher has been with the school for several years, and I believe she taught this last year as well. As for how long she's taught it, I couldn't tell you.

It's kind of a psychology class, at least that's the foundation. But it's more geared towards teaching the kiddos about themselves with a bit about teaching them to do peer counseling through a couple programs at the school. I think. At least, that's what I gleaned.) 

This was my second day in the class. I had been there on Wednesday as well. (They're on a block schedule, so each class meets every other day.) And they had been generally okay. (Fifth period, which came after, was horrible. But, of a class of 33, five of them weren't freshmen. Age makes a difference.) 

However, this day got an extra degree of difficulty. It was pass-out-their-IDs day. And that's when they learned that they were now required to wear their IDs on campus all day. 

They did not like this.

And, the passing out of IDs did not go smoothly. Not at all. 

Having gotten a heads-up, I had gone to the teacher's mailbox to get the IDs and lanyards that I would need to pass out. But, there were not 27 IDs in the stack I got. It felt short, and then I counted. Yup, I was about 10 IDs short. 

As the announcement went out that they were getting their IDs, I held them up to show the kiddos that yup, they were getting them for sure. But not everyone. Once the IDs I had went to the proper students, I gave the students missing an ID a lanyard for when their IDs showed up. 

You'd think they'd be happy they didn't get an ID. Nope. A couple of those without IDs were visibly upset that theirs had not arrived. And those that got them? Yeah, not happy with them. (They hated their pictures. I can relate. I hate my employee ID picture as well. And they let me retake it when I got it.) 

Then I got a call from the office. They listed off seven names. Could I send them to the office? They had their IDs. 

So, at least a few of them were happy to get IDs. 

To say the rollout of this was a mess... Yeah, that did not go well. 

But then again, having worked for this district for a while, yeah, that snafu is an acronym really, really applies here. 

(Some people have a word for each new year. Something they strive for. I am beginning to feel like this school year has a word, and it's snafu.)