After running errands yesterday, and completely ignoring the pile of marking that I had to do, today was the day. I woke up at 6, walked the dogs, got started on my corrections, and then I had An Issue so I went back to get snuggles from Rob at around 10 am (I am a big baby and when I’m whiny I need snuggles from my husband. So sue me).  At 11:00 he had to leave to take the dogs to the groomer’s, and I got up and finished up my marking/report cards.

Well.

Six hours later I finished. I think I really need to see my doctor about some ADD meds or something because I just could not concentrate. I actually never can concentrate for very long. I feel like it’s getting worse as I age (but then I might just be getting senile).

But, they’re done. I know another couple of people who are going to be awake LONG into the night, so I shouldn’t complain.

Back in the Year 2000, I was in my second year of teaching. I was teaching the ninth grade  and for the most part I enjoyed it (I liked it much more than I liked my first year of teaching, when I didn’t have a classroom). I had one student, though, who told me right away in September not to expect anything from him, because he didn’t need school. He was going to play in the NHL. And he needed to spend most of his time at the rink. I will say that he was a great player for a 16-year-old (yes, sixteen in ninth grade. I guess the whole “I don’t need school” thing had been going on for a while).

And he proceeded to not do a lick of work all year. I brought in statistics showing how few people actually get into the NHL, so that he would see that he needed a backup plan. His parents were furious at me for trying to ruin their child’s dream. When I explained to them that he felt that he didn’t need school because he thought he was going to be the star forward for the Bruins, they said “Yes, that’s true, he is”.  He only came to school when he chose to, and, because he was older than sixteen, there was nothing that could be done about it. I begged for him to be tested (maybe he had an LD and that was why he wasn’t doing work!) and he was – perfectly normal in every way, although he was falling behind in literacy skills because he never used the skills he had.

I moved to Halifax the year after that and I didn’t really follow what happened with that boy. In the years since, I’ve run into a few of those former ninth-graders. One works at my dentist’s office. Another is a teacher.  And today, I ran into that boy.

I brought my car in for an oil change and engine flush, and he was working as an assistant to the mechanic. Not a certified tech (they have all the mechanics’ and techs’ diplomas up on the wall), but basically a guy who sweeps up and inflates tires.

I recognized him right away – I don’t think that he knew me though (I’ve gotten fatter and older, and, like I said, he wasn’t in school all that often), until I said hi and asked how he was doing. I watched as he struggled to write “oil change” (crossing out two misspellings of “change” before getting it right) and to read the form so that he could check off the other services I’d asked for.  When it came time for me to pay, he struggled to set up the machine to accept my contactless card (the kind you just wave in front of the paypad), but everything worked out eventually.

When we were done with all that it was time for his break, so we sat together in the reception area and had a pop, catching up on old times. He told me that he had been accepted into a prestigious hockey school after I’d left, and that they loved him on the ice but he lost his scholarship due to poor grades so he was sent home halfway through Grade10. He had been so depressed by that that he just hadn’t bothered to finish high school, and had been doing odd jobs since then. He showed me photos of his girlfriend and two adorable little boys. One of them starts kindergarten next year (yeah how old do I feel when former students of mine have kids? But then I am only seven years older than him). He plays rec hockey on weekends and is one of the better players on the team. And he’s happy, except he doesn’t like his job.

This seems to be Old Home week or something. I spent about half an hour on Thursday catching up with someone I graduated from high school with. But that’s a story for another time.

*** I re-read this and I feel like I may sound incredibly snooty about this guy. And that is not what I was trying for at all, obviously! He is an incredibly talented, intelligent guy –  he just put all his eggs in one basket.

We have had “threats” of storms several times this year, but all we’ve gotten were two one-hour delays and one day where we went home at noon. All our other storms have taken place on weekends.

I wasn’t sure we were getting one this morning, either- there are two school boards and the other one was closed for the day and mine had a one-hour delay as of 6:15 am. And according to a commenter on the StormWatch website, my board will never close because we have a new boss “who would rather buy everyone skidoos than close school”. But less than 10 minutes after they posted the one-hour delay, they announced a system-wide shutdown and I didn’t even know what to DO with myself. I ran back upstairs and got into bed with Rob and made him read (on my Touch) the StormWatch update to make sure that I wasn’t just making it up. Then I went back to sleep until 9 am. Then I woke up and panicked that I had dreamed it all and that I was supposed to be at work but had slept in and was going to be in big trouble. Then I checked and I hadn’t dreamt it so I did a little dance and came downstairs and had some toast.

The dogs and I went out at around 9:30 and they LOVE the snow. THEY LOVE IT SO MUCH. They love it so much that they decided to run around for half an hour while the storm blew all over my face!  What made it even more fun is that our roads haven’t been plowed yet so I was up past my knees in snow and the fools were bounding through it like crazy guys (have I mentioned that THEY LOVE THE SNOW? They were kind of annoyed when I made them come in).