The whole week has seemed strange and out of sync. Monday morning at 5:15 a.m., I let the dog out into the fenced back yard for his morning business, half of which he now does inside anyway. It was dark, of course. I hate the dark season of the year. I sat in the living room to read the paper and drink my coffee. Since Pete takes a long time, I usually leave him in the yard, and go back to check on him in five or ten minutes. In due time, I went to the back door, looked out the window, and my heart stopped as I saw him treading water in the middle of the koi pond, which he had apparently stumbled into, either through lack of light or senility. Liberto was just coming into the kitchen, so I yelled to him to help me rescue the poor dog. On my way out, I grabbed a mop, sat on the edge of the pond and and tried to reach the handle towards his collar, so I could drag him towards me. Liberto was yelling not to do that because I was hitting him on the head (which I wasn't doing, but sometimes L. just has to be contrary). He ran to the other side of the pond, and Pete somehow turned around and swam in that direction until he got back to the edge. I very much did not want to have to jump into the pond myself, in the dark, to rescue him, so I was relieved that Liberto was able to reach him and lift him over the edge, soaking, onto the ground. I went back for towels, and we brought him inside. Luckily, Paul has been on school break this week, so we told him to get up and give Pete a bath, since we had to get ready for work. Paul wasn't thrilled about rolling out of bed at 5:30 to bathe a dog, but he did. Pete didn't seem the least bit traumatized or harmed after his swimming adventure. That was the first time he'd ever gone into the big pond. Years ago, as a frisky puppy, when we still had the little, one-foot deep pond beside the house, he was doing his crazy run around the yard, faster than a speeding bullet, when suddenly he lifted off, sailed through the air like Krypto, and landed, splash! in that little pond, terrorizing the fish who lived there. It was quite funny back then. But the other morning was awful. Every morning since, in the darkness, I've put a leash on him and attached it to something so he can wander a little but not as far as the pond.
Today, the front porch of the portable at school collapsed, yes, just fell inward about a foot in the middle, as the students and I were coming up both sides of the stairs on the way back from the Media Center. Of course, they thought it was hilarious, as they do anything that's destructive or dangerous. I called the front office on my cell phone. It rang and rang, with no pick-up from the office. What if it had been a Code Red for a terrorist? I sent a student to report the problem, and soon a construction crew arrived to bolster the porch up.
The cause of the porch collapse may have been the abundance of rain this week. One day, it poured so hard that a river of water flowed under my classroom door onto the lineoleum floor. The students, who were at lunch in the main building at the time, couldn't have been more thrilled at having to run from the main building to the portable in the pouring rain and bringing additional mud and water into the room. I had no towels in my portable, so we had to make do with paper towels from the restroom which hardly helped absorb a mini-lake.
The week has been off-kilter; little things like the above, especially with the students, rubbing me the wrong way.
My homebound student couldn't meet yesterday because he had to go to the hospital, which upsets me deeply. His mother called just before I was ready to leave for his house after school. He'd developed a fever, and since he's on chemo, they have to be ultra-careful about exposure to germs. Thus, he had be admitted to the hospital for the night. I was supposed to go today instead, but she emailed me this morning that he needed to stay in the hospital for several days. It's deeply upsetting. She said he'd be ready for next Tuesday's after school meeting, however.
This week, I've also experienced some down moments about teaching 9th graders. Maybe I''m just plain getting burned out on the hundreds of "Bubba,-be-quiet-right-now"'s that punctuate my day. It's more about control than about curriculum, and that annoys me. In our area, about two-thirds of new teachers last less than five years, according to an article in this week's paper. Just think; this is my 6th as a secondary teacher. At least I've beaten the odds of getting past the five year mark while trying to make it to 10.
All I can say is that I feel jubilant that it is Friday. I'm sure all it will take is three sips of a pony before I fall asleep in front of the tube at 7:30.
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