…cuz today I had a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
I shoulda known it was going to be bad when I got out of the shower to find my dog sprawled across my bed, chewing on my cellphone. Luckily, he had only gnawed through the case on one side. But still, he GNAWED THROUGH THE CASE ON ONE SIDE.
And when I took the phone from him and swatted his rump?
He just looked at me like, “What? It’s not my fault. You’re the one who left it there.”
Punkassdog.
Hindsight’s 20/20. I shoulda scooted his little ass over so I could crawl back into bed. It woulda been a lot less painful.
I eventually make it to school, where seven of my SENIORS came in AFTER THE TARDY BELL. And then, to make matters worse, FIVE of ‘em had to go on the temporary i.d. list because they forgot their school i.d.
Because of last week’s jackedup test schedule, fifth period was a chapter behind in Lord of the Flies. We powered through that chapter, listening to the audiobook. (And yeah, I realize many of them tune out when you play a book on cd, but it would take FOR-FREAKIN-EVER to read a 12-chapter book popcorn-style. And no, they can’t read parts of it at home, because we don’t have enough damn copies of the book to issue.)
I have gotten extra-tired of hearing kids bitch and moan about how boring the book is. And how they don’t understand what’s going on because it’s so boring. And then, they bitch about how boring the cd is. But when I offer to let them read silently? They start bitching about how that’s even more boring.
Bottom line? They want me to read it out loud to them, stopping every five minutes or so to explain what happened. Why the hell would I want to do that when I know that they’re going to snooze through the “reading” only to wake up for my explanation?!?! Helllllllllllnawwwww.
Okay, now I get that some literature is hard to understand, and really needs to be “translated”. But we’re not reading Shakespeare here, for Pete’s sake. The story is about a bunch of boys who crash-land onto an island, where they run around naked while they have pissing matches to try to figure out who exactly is in charge…and how the eff they’re gonna get off the island. All while trying NOT to admit that the only smart one among ‘em is the chubby bald four-eyed kid who has “ass-mar”.
I about lost it with seventh period when it took umpteen tries before they realized that the “activity” going on in the sky above the boys’ heads was not “shooting stars” or “birds” but *holy crap-what a concept* A FREAKING WAR!!!! (Apparently it escaped them that a guy fell out of his plane, and got stuck in a tree where the wind would make him move into an upright position so that it looked like he was looking at the boys.) Which was going to totally freak them out, because they had just been talking about how there was a “beast” that came out of the sea in the previous chapter….and that THIS chapter was titled “Beast From The Air”.
HELLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
This launched me into a somewhat cathartic (for me, anyway) rant about how annoying it is that they don’t want to turn on their brain and see the story. “You’ve been spoonfed by tv and the internet and movies and you don’t even want to use your imagination and see what’s happening! There is a DEAD GUY hanging out of a tree, but do you get that? NOooooooooo! All you can see is HOW BORING THIS IS! Do you NOT GET that your imagination is A GAJILLION TIMES creepier than any movie you could every watch?!?! But you won’t even turn it on! Well, duh! Of course it’s gonna be boring…but you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself. You need to realize that not everything in life is going to be a day at Six Flags. Every now and then you’re gonna need to dig deep and find something to be interested in! Or you’re gonna live a sad and boring life!”
I want to give a big shout-out to Laclay for talking me off the ledge several times today. She was a lifesaver. She totally listened….err, read…. what was making my head spin and let me know that she felt for me. She didn’t try to be the voice of reason and tell me that I was being hormonal…and for that I thank her. I know that 95% of this mood is due to a whirlwind of hormones…which is making me have a ridiculously short fuse….and I hate it, but there’s very little I can do about it. Except wait for the storm to break.
And try to find a way to deal with The Hormone Cyclone, so that I don’t give into the tempation to make an example out of the next “THIS IS BORING” whineyass by plucking his lips off his face….thereby rendering him INCAPABLE of EVER uttering that phrase again.
Pray for me. I think I’m going to change my strategy for tomorrow. I think I’m going to do Literature Circles, so the burden of reading/understanding falls on them. I’m not sure it’s the wisest idea to try to do something new with them when I’m this frustrated with them already….but all I know is that I can’t handle 6 more chapters of bitching about boring.
Get the bail money ready,
Alexander
