Plumbing Problem

I am sitting here waiting for a plumber to arrive. Why do they always give you a four-hour window when they don't get here until that last half hour?

So, basically I feel like an idiot. I found this and thought I'd try it (the toilet only started running recently). Looks pretty simple, right? I thought I could handle it.

I got all the way through it. I replaced the part. I connected the hose back up. Then I turned the water back on. And that's where my troubles started.

The thing that lets water in? That started dripping. A lot. And then the place where the hose connects to the toilet was dripping too. So, I turned off the water, tightened everything, and tried again.

In the end (after several attempts), I got it so that it wasn't dripping much. But it was still dripping. And rather than screw it up any more, I figured it was time to call a professional.

I'm not sure what lesson I'm taking away from this.

Poe-try for Halloween

Today I was back at the continuation high school. In honor of Halloween, they were reading Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven".

But instead of reading it aloud or listening to it on CD, we watched The Simpsons' version. Remember it? (I wish I knew how to embed videos. That's the next Internet trick I plan to learn.)

The classes went very well. They usually ignore videos. This time I had rapt attention. I guess a cartoon is all it takes.

To Makeup or Not to Makeup

I was back at the continuation high school. Today was their first day back after a three-week break.

I don't get the whole apply-makeup-in-class thing that many of the girls do. I always thought that it made more sense to do that at home, before school. And who wants to do touch ups all day? But many of the girls pull out their makeup during class.

One girl was doing her makeup. She was seated next to a boy. Neither were working on the assignment. The boy was talking to the girl, and he was doing it loudly enough for me to hear. He wanted to know why the girl had to wear makeup.

The girl didn't get much of a chance to give him an answer. The boy kept talking. He complained about how when his family is going out, he has to wait for his sisters who take forever to get ready. He explained--an hour in the shower, an hour to do makeup, and hour for hair... His thought: this stuff was unnecessary.

The boy tried to get the other boys in class to agree with him. (The rest of the class was working on the assignment.) The other boys remained silent, focused. "Agree with me. Just say yes, you agree." No one did.

I don't know if anyone won that argument. The girl finished her touch ups and put her makeup away. And the boy moved on to other topics.

Did either of them turn in any work today? Of course not.

Stalker

It happens.

I was just settling in to my prep period when I got a call from the secretary. She needed me to cover another class. So, I trekked across campus to cover an 8th grade English class.

After that, I went back to the art class that was my assignment for the day. They were watching a video (the less said about that...). The middle schoolers were a little antsy, but nothing to worry about (especially considering the video).

It was the end of 5th period. The video was over. I had turned on the lights and collected the students' notes (they always take notes for a video, otherwise they won't watch it). That's when one of the students mentioned that he had me twice. He had been in the English class, too.

Never fails. Unless the extra period I cover is something completely different (I have freshmen all day, and the extra period is a class of seniors), there are bound to be a couple students who end up in both the extra period and the class I'm covering all day.

In that situation, I tell the students that I'm following them. While it may not be deliberate, it's true.

The Puppy Paper

Today I covered a high school special ed. English class. Each period was doing the same thing--they were working on a writing assignment.

They had gotten the writing assignment on Tuesday. They should have already finished it. Today they were supposed to learn how to peer edit. And for those that did the assignment, it worked out fine. But not everyone had done the assignment.

The instructional assistant (IA) went over the editing process with the students that had done the paper. I was supervising the students who had not.

There were two groups of non-completers. Group one was made up of students who had been absent. Those students needed a bit of an explanation ("A puppy followed your sister home. You need to tell her how to take care of it so that Mom and Dad will let her keep it."), and then they were on their way.

Group two was my main problem. They hadn't done the paper on Tuesday because they didn't want to. And they were having none of it today.

There is nothing quite so exhausting as watching students not work. Their lack-of-work ethic is strong. They would rather stare at a blank sheet of paper than write something on it. They would rather spend 15 minutes telling me how boring the assignment is, and then spend the rest of the class telling me that they don't have enough time to finish the thing now.

So, occasionally I would walk over, say something they ignored, and then go, sit, and watch the IA conduct class with those that put some effort into their schoolwork.

I am now ready for a nap.

At Long Last

I get a lot of catalogs in the mail. They're fun to look through.

The other day I saw something that I had given up ever finding. The Day the Universe Changed is finally on DVD. Yeah!

I have been looking for this forever (okay, only since my Betamax tape became obsolete). I've wanted it so much. But then I saw the price.

So, I'll be waiting to acquire this a little bit longer.

Listen to the Directions

6th period. 7th grade world history. They had a map of Latin America to label.

It was a busy work assignment. The teacher's absence wasn't planned, and the teacher next door had left me a bunch of activities for the kiddos to work on. Coloring a map? It's a nice way to kill a period.

The directions on the map said to label all the countries, the major bodies of water, and the equator. But the map also had been numbered, and the numbers did not correspond to the things the instructions said to label.

This is confusing for 7th graders (older students can usually look past such inconsistencies). So, I spent some time explaining the inconsistencies of the map.

I explained that #6 corresponded to the Amazon River which they did not need to label. I explained that while the Pacific Ocean had a number (14) the Atlantic Ocean did not, but both oceans needed to be labeled. I explained that South America was on one map in their book and Central America was on the map with North America (the previous page). I also explained that they could write names of countries on the side of the map if they could not fit their writing in the countries' outlines.

"What is #6 pointing to?"

"Why is there a 14 here but no number for this ocean?"

"What if I can't write the country's name in the space?"

"Where can I find these countries?" (The Central American countries.)

"Is that Alaska?" (The girl was pointing to Mexico.)

I answered none of these questions (except for the Alaska one). I kind of glared at them. I spent five minutes giving instructions which they did not hear. And it gets to me.

I got the class quiet. I warned them that I was going to answer many of their questions in the instructions. But I might as well be going "wah-wah" sometimes. Sometimes they just don't hear me.