KLB - Sick

One of the joys of teaching children is that you get sick easily. I had a cold all last week. Then suddenly this morning I woke up and was sick to my stomach. Ugh. Julie ran down to the store and bought me soup and some healthy side dishes and gave me medicine...all before she ran off to work. That was nice of her.

Tomorrow is "open-house" day at work. All the parents (probably all the mothers), the principal, vice principal, agency boss, will stand in the back of the room and watch my classes all day. I hope I feel better by then, otherwise they'll be watching me blowing my nose all day, coughing and running to the bathroom repeatedly.

"Bonnie" came in on Friday last week by surprise for the birthday party routine. The surprise was on her because most of the kids were away on another field trip that day, so it was a big waste of cake. She also wanted to make sure I was ready for open-house and she advised me to be a little early and dress nicely (I was planning on showing up late wearing gym clothes).

She told me she was also going to video tape me so that I can review how effective my teaching is. Yeah whatever. That's where I drew the line. As if it's not going to be enough pressure with all the people there. I flatly refused and, eventually, she conceded. I won't be surprised to see a camera there tomorrow though.

I can't wait for this whole open-house thing to be over. Cathy has been obsessing and frantic about it for weeks now. Every day it's, "We have to ready for open-house! All the parents gonna be here, Shawn!" And every time I tell her, "Don't worry, I'm all ready." Then she replies, "But we have to practice the students," (which I've already done 3 times now. I snapped on her last week when she said, "Let's practice again Friday exactly open-house," And I said, "I've already done that three times now, the same lesson! The kids are going to start saying, 'no! not this again!' during the open house!"

"But Bonnie said..."

"I don't care what Bonnie said."

Her face flush. "What? Rearry?"

I apologized to her later. I think we're both stressed out about it. The whole affair is just another distraction from teaching and designed to make the agency more money with more students - which will mean nothing for me and Cathy except more kids to worry about and more noise. If they really want to attract more kids, they should provide an incentive for the teachers. More students = more pay. Then we'll all be jumping up and down to impress everyone. Pretty simple concept.

Tonight I stopped down to the post office again and on the way out heard the kitten meowing from the same spot. A moment later some little twerps stuck their heads in the bushes and then chased it off. Julie and I bought more o-daeng and waited, but the cat didn't come back, so we left it in the bushes.