Category Archives: General

Tales out of school

Tales out of school

One of my coworkers calls my student teacher my “work husband”. Which is funny but also kind of creepy to me because the guy is 8 years younger than I am. And while I have dated people 8 years older than me (okay one person), I don’t think I could handle the fact that when I was in grade 12, he was a 4th grader. Plus there’s the fact that, you know. I’m married. And I don’t want any other husband.

Anyway. This morning we were talking about all kinds of administrative stuff: report cards, whether or not we have term life insurance (we don’t really have any. Nor does our dental insurance cover very much, and don’t get me started on what they cover, wig-wise), where to find Liquid Paper… you know, the important stuff. Then he yawned. And then apologized. And explained that his girlfriend (also a student teacher) had a seizure when she was in a class yesterday, and has been in the hospital since then.

It reminded me of something that I occasionally lose sight of, with all my sadness about the whole no-kids thing… that everyone has their problems, not to focus so much on my own, and not to assume that others are living such a fairytale life.

And to top it all off, today was his birthday. Here’s hoping that he gets to celebrate this weekend, with his girlfriend, at home.

for some reason Queen songs are running through my head.

for some reason Queen songs are running through my head.

Today was yet another long day. Hah, do I ever do anything but complain?

First I had to give up my prep period to learn how to use the new (third program in four years!) software for entering grades. Then my student teacher (I have a student teacher coming! In November/December!) had asked if he could come in and observe me teaching a couple of classes. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been doing this for ten years, anytime someone comes in to watch me I get nervous and worked up about it. It’s like – I can sing and dance and act like a methed-out baboon if I have to in order to teach kids; the second an adult enters the room I panic and feel horror-stricken.
I’m working my way through a brand new curriculum in one of the grades I teach, and to be honest there is hardly any material and it’s making me crazy. I’m flying by the seat of my pants and it’s not my favourite.
Lunch hour was supervision duty. The afternoon was kind of crazy, with a fire drill and then the kids would hardly settle down. Finally the day was over – but it wasn’t. An hour and a half of Drama Club.
I finally got to leave work at 5:30. I went to the store and picked up a couple of things we needed, got in line, waited 10 minutes, and just as I got to the front of the line and put myself on the conveyor belt, the barcode scanner malfunctioned. I had to go line up somewhere else.

By the time I got home from work it was 6:15. I know, I know, there are people out there who work 18 hour days… I don’t think I could handle that. I’m at work from 7:30 am – 4:30 pm, then I get to come home, eat supper, and hang out with Rob. Sure I do a couple more hours’ worth of marking, but at least I get to do it in my pajamas. Because today was so long, I feel like everything’s off. It’s as though I’ve been home for 20 minutes, and I’m about ready for bed.

My plan tomorrow is to leave work at 3:30. It’s Friday, I’m tired, and my grades are due a full week and a half earlier than usual and I’m going to be working on those all weekend. I deserve to sneak out early!

It's only Tuesday.

It's only Tuesday.

So I feel like I’ve been run over ten times and have left most of myself on various truck grills. I actually went to work today and about halfway through homeroom I realized that there was no way I was going to make it through the day. Luckily I had a prep first thing after homeroom so we got on the phone and found a substitute. Came home after getting some new medication, and still feel kind of crappy but there’s no way I’m taking a third day off in the first month of the year. No. Way.

On a lighter note, I did take advantage of today to get a bunch of marking done, plus I chose a Hallowe’en costume. So all is not lost.

Family.

Family.

It’s been quite a week.

Back to work. Which is good – I’m enjoying it, but at the same time, I am exhausted at the end of each day. Although I basically woke up at the save time (6:30) all Summer, I could nap if I needed to – now I’m in bed by 8:30 because I’m so tired. My voice is hoarse. I’m not used to talking all day anymore. It’s like this at the beginning of every school year.

Other observations: On the first day I was telling my grade 7 students about myself as a little introduction. I asked if there were any questions. One of the boys raised his hand. “Do you have any kids?” bang. Ow. My heart. “No, no kids.” “Don’t you want any?” How do you answer that?

Number of pregnancy announcements on my Facebook friends list in the past two weeks: Seven.

Number of pregnant coworkers: Two.

Number of people I told about my infertility and who said either “You can have one of mine, ha ha” or “You’re lucky, you don’t have to worry about college funds or anything” or “I just KNOW it will happen for you! Don’t worry!”: Three (one of each!)

Number of times I’ve felt incredibly petty and jealous and small because of my feelings when these things happen: Innumerable.

I was on the way home from work the other day, listening to CBC Radio. They were interviewing the creators of a new magazine for people in my province, called “Island Family”. Tagline “For all families!” It is geared exclusively toward people with children/teenagers. And it made me think: Does this mean that my husband and I, because we don’t and can’t have kids, are not considered to be a family? Wow. I always thought that we were.

The porcelain bus.

The porcelain bus.

So I went to my parents’ the other day for a visit, and they are redoing their bathroom.

They are 62 years old. My Dad has had heart problems. My mom has back problems. And yet they insist on doing everything themselves – everything from laying down the ceramic tile floors to putting in the new toilet and sink to the plumbing and painting. And even though my brother is just one door away and would be more than happy to help them, they refuse to ask for help unless something is exploding. He’s like “I will put in the toilet when I get home from work” so what do they do? They wait til he’s at work and they decide to put in the toilet. BECAUSE THAT MAKES SENSE.

Anyway. I walk in the door, and there’s Mom, trying to lift the new toilet, while Dad is yelling at her to stop, HE will do it, and I’m like “NEITHER OF YOU IS SUPPOSED TO LIFT ANYTHING HEAVIER THAN 20 LBS WHAT THE FUZZ!” so I do it and now their toilet is in place and I have pulled a muscle in my butt.

Curses!

Curses!

It’s been about 3 weeks since my surgery, and the bruises are gone. The incision in my belly button is fine, it just looks like a little x-shaped dent. The one that’s at my pubic bone, though… ugh. Now, it’s not infected, itchy, particularly painful, or anything like that. I don’t feel it when I’m not obsessively prodding at it, but when I touch it, I feel the rock-hard scar tissue that burrows deep beneath my skin. To me, it looks black. Rob says it’s just the angle I’m seeing it from; that it’s darker, purplish, like a new scar, but nowhere near as dark as I imagine. Maybe it’s darker to my eyes because of the black news it brought me.

I have an appointment with my RE at the end of this month. She will go over our options, fertility-wise, if we actually have any options. Remember, the surgeon said that IVF wouldn’t work for me, not that we could ever afford it. Dr. F did say that the RE might decide that I should go to Halifax and have them do this same procedure over again (lovely!), and maybe they would be able to figure something out. Or maybe she wouldn’t want me to do that. I keep letting myself feel some little tiny glimmers of hope (“maybe if I do go to Halifax they will miraculously fix me!”) and I really, really shouldn’t do that, because it’s not worth the repeated disappointment when it turns out that, seriously, dudes, nothing can be done.

We shall see.

I started writing this entry with the intention of telling you about how I think maybe I’m getting my period soon. If you recall, because I’m nothing if not 100% overly candid, I was supposed to have it right after the operation, I thought (I have been having it every 30-40 days since I went off the fertility drugs. Which is better than not at all for 9 months at a time, I suppose), and I did. For a day. In the literature the hospital gave me I was told that “your next period might be irregular” and… well, for something that usually lasts for six days, eight and a half hours is certainly irregular.

The reason I think it’s coming is not due to cramping or spotting. Nothing like that.

I know it because when we were grocery shopping today, and a lady bumped into me (hard! With her cart! Right on my leg! And didn’t say sorry or anything!) in the pet supplies aisle, I nearly tore the head right off her. I managed to get myself under control, didn’t say or do anything, but for a split second there the rage that tore through me was like a tidal wave. I don’t think she realizes the bullet she dodged today. I can see the headlines: “Mild-mannered schoolteacher dismembers woman with squeaky bone! News at 11″.

I also know it because during the grocery shopping, all I wanted to do was fill the cart with these greek olive, feta, and oregano potato chips (we didn’t even get a bag – I have self control). Oh my stars, people, they are so good. SO GOOD. We bought some last week and all I wanted to do was chomp them up (in fact, I did chomp them up. Two days – entire bag gone. And I think Rob only had one chip before he retreated in horror from my gaping maw).

But what shows it most of all was that once we got home, I sat down to watch BBUK 6 (from 2005 – Rob got the entire series for me). And when I saw Kemal get evicted, I broke down into hysterics. Sobbing. Boogers. It was the Ugly Cry.

I just felt so happy for him, and so glad that he had gotten to be there for as long as he had, because he needed to be there in order to become himself, if that makes sense. He had gone through such a journey in the 10 weeks that he was there – he was 19 years old, hadn’t told his parents before going in that he was gay, even, then entered the house in full drag… his entire time in there he was terrified that when he left the show he would come home to find that his family had disowned him. When finally, in the seventh week, he received a message from both his parents saying that they were proud of him and would stand by him, watching his face was incredible. The fear and hope and finally relief and joy that played across his features in that 60 seconds… priceless.

Anyway. Yeah. So. The PMS. I has it.

Before I buck up

Before I buck up

This morning I went to the basement to put some laundry on, and saw something that broke my heart a little more.

Just before our wedding, this came up on Freecycle. I immediately emailed asking for it, thinking “We don’t need it this second, but we should soon enough, maybe”. We picked it up and I had Rob put it down in the basement “for now”.

Well, it’s been three years, and we’re never going to need it. And I think that now it’s time to let it go, too. It just shatters me to do so.

Renovatin'

Renovatin'

Oh and!

Parts of the building where I work is about 50 years old. Some parts are new (they built some new classrooms 10 years ago) but other parts? Outdated. My classroom is in the older section. The foods, sewing, and one computer lab are in the old part. I think they’ve had some renovations, but not much. The science labs are incredibly old. Up until last year, they had what looked like copper kitchen sinks in them. Which is not exactly the best idea for a science lab where chemicals are going to be poured into them. Certain chemicals + copper = Death. Or so I recall from my days in the chem lab when I was in high school. Well. Maybe I don’t remember that so well. Did I ever tell you about the time I set something on fire? I actually think it was my lab partner who did it, but I ended up with the blame. Okay yeah, probably it was due to me not paying any attention to our experiment, but really! She should have been paying attention, too!

Anyway. They’ve been sort of renovating things lately. The science labs got new fixtures and fittings over the summer (during which time they found a dissected frog from 1963 way at the back of some cupboard somewhere). A couple of classrooms (including mine) got new whiteboards, and I got new maps and a globe. Other classes got LCD projectors built in to their ceilings. This summer, I *might* (might not, but might) get new desks to replace the ones I have that are always just filled with garbage. And at some point within the next 5 years, they are going to put shelving into my room.

It’s a little bit crazy, how excited I get about such things.

I really don't know where I'm going with this one. It is rather random.

I really don't know where I'm going with this one. It is rather random.

A kind of weird day.

At the end of the day, I kind of take a peek through the desks in my classroom. Mainly because kids sometimes leave food in them (yes, 12, 13, 14 year olds) and the janitors don’t clean them out, ever. Also because sometimes they leave behind interesting notes and I like to read them (nosy? yes!). Today? I found two MP3 players. Yes, teenagers can be careless about their belongings, but usually they care about their electronics.

Aside from that, at about 5:30 Rob said “I so want candy right now”. And so, off to Bulk Barn we went. Where he bought chocolate covered raisins. And I found Jelly Tots (disguised as Jelly Dots). Jelly tots have been my favourite candy since forever – but for some reason they stopped selling them around here about 10 years ago. I’ve been in mourning ever since. Of course, I only found Tropical Jelly Dots (Tropical is my least favourite type of Tot). That means I won’t be chowing down on them too much. And that I will be giving Rob all the orange ones. Ugh, orange.

Tonight I am washing my wig. This involves soaking it in a basin of water for about a half hour. Lucky for me it doesn’t have to remain on my head while I do this.

Interesting Facts

Interesting Facts

Did you guys know that I have a photoblog? I do.

Did you know that my report card marks are due on Monday morning at 9 am? They are.

Did you know that marking has driven me sufficiently crazy that I am now about ready to tear my (non-existent) hair out? It has, and I am.