Glad it's Friday

Friday: It was noticeably darker this morning as I drove to work. I gave the third and last nine week's exam today, and now have a stack of them to grade. Ah, it's Friday. I love Friday evenings and the prospect of a grading-free evening.

I'm sick about the stock market crash(es). I'm sick about how much of my IRA from the years at Georgia Southern has disappeared. L and I worked hard during those years and had our priorities straight when we decided to contribute a decent monthly amount to that retirement account so that I would have a glimmer of hope to be able to retire some day. When I left GSU, I just let the account sit since I'm in the state Teacher's Retirement System. Our goal now is for me to achieve 10 years in TRS---I'm now in year five---and use the GSU account to supplement the measly pension from TRS or even buy a few more years from TRS. Even with the best case scenarios for retirement income, I sure as heck won't be living high on hog. Perhaps this is time of life when aging baby boomers should come together and start farmsteads, homesteads, and communes, and live cooperatively and economically with each other's help. We ex-hippies had it all wrong. We should have kept our noses to the grindstone during our younger years and gone back to the land in our sixties. But nah, I think we're too tired and creaky now to be chopping wood and harvesting crops.
I know I'm too crabby and independent to want to share my space, my routine, or tomato crops with anyone but family.

Yesterday, the first fight occurred at Richmond Hill High School. Remember at Groves, there was one about once per day? Until yesterday, there had not been one at RHHS. But the spell has been broken. At 3:00, as school let out, a violent fight erupted at one of the entrances to the school. I didn't see or hear it because I was in my classroom, but the three children of the teacher with whom I share the classroom came running into the room, all excited and breathless, reporting that THEY HAD SEEN THE FIGHT! Their mother was out of the room, so they had to tell me everything. "One guy was on the ground and the others were STOMPING ON HIM!!" A teacher got hit during the chaos.

This morning, my first block students were talking about THE FIGHT non-stop until the first bell rang. After all, it's not the norm for them, as it was at Groves. Then, for the first time since school began, the Principal himself came on the intercom to speak to all teachers and students. After his reminder that he will NOT tolerate any nonsense and WILL permanently expel students who misbehave physically, he said that the fight yesterday was vicious, violent, and was gang-related. A few gang members who were not students at our school, walked right through the door and jumped a RHHS student (he was the one on the ground). The principal assured everyone that the jumpers were now in jail. He told the students that he was aware that there is a growing element of "gang wannabes" at the school, and he said, to the effect, "Students, don't be stupid. If you're a gang wannabe, the real gang members are going to come after you. Plus, we're going to expel you." After his announcement, one of my students confided that "Brandon," a student in that very class, had been part of the fight. He was absent this morning. I don't know for sure if he was the one jumped, but he certainly fits the stereotype of a gang type. To be honest, if he did not return to the school, I would not be sorry. He swaggers in every morning with an attitude---I'm the man!---and proceeds to disrupt, show off, not work, and basically do the posturing thing. I think the school administration is serious about culling the deadbeats. The bad boy of my third block class has been expelled from the school, and the freon-sniffer is in ISS almost full-time, where he can sleep contentedly. One of the special students from my fourth block class has been expelled, to my surprise. Apparently, his mistake was to be naive. On the way to school one day, he found a bong (so he claims)and brought it to school to impress the cooler kids. The administration was not amused, and expelled him.