Random Chitchat

February is a great month for Chicago Public School teachers, as we get President's Day and Lincoln's Birthday off. There's a professional development the day before Lincoln's Birthday. I love that. Yes yes, CPS has one of the shortest school years in the country, which certainly doesn't help our test scores, but if you met my students, you would want all the days off you could get.

School has been relatively uneventful in the last couple of weeks. No one has pulled the fire alarm lately. There haven't been any big fights. I don't know if it's just too cold or what. We thought today might be tough, since it was so warm out, but nothing happened. Could just be the calm before the storm.

I really love Barack-star, and I am getting increasingly annoyed with Bill Clinton. He is becoming quite crotchety in his old age. It's not a good look for him.

I can't believe Mitt Romney asked those black kids in Jacksonville, Florida, "Who let the dogs out." Oh my god what is wrong with him?

Last week I made my students (my sophomores) write a couple paragraphs using words like "John Stroger," "Hillary Clinton," "Barack Obama," and "Martin Luther King." I had to explain who everyone was, except for MLK.

And all my kids think that Barack Obama will be shot if he is the Democratic nominee for president. That seems to be their only opinion of him.

I got a new message tee for school that I wore today. It reads "Lit is Legit," which is a slogan I am especially proud of. Guess how many kids didn't know what "lit" meant? Sigh. . .

Emiko is all healthy and happy and is super close to walking. She's pretty hilarious. And now she's got four teeth -- her two front teeth are coming in. Barbecue ribs are in her future, I just know it!

The new Dolly video with Amy Sedaris is awesome -- I love Dolly so much! Todd and I have tix for her show next month. Another reason to look forward to February!!!

We had our first packzi of the season this morning. Yay!!!!! Life is good.

Mother Guilt

I've had a cold for more than a week now. I've been coughing and sneezing, and my ears are stopped up. It is better, though, so that's the good news.

The bad news is that I've given my cold to Emiko, which makes me feel really guilty. She got up Friday morning and was congested, but she wasn't really sick until Sat, which she started running a fever and was having trouble keeping food down. This was the case all weekend. We gave her Tylenol for her fever, but it wasn't going down very much.

Yesterday I was off work for MLK, Jr's birthday, so Emiko stayed home with me. She was so miserable. She threw up on me several times (I lost count). She was so hungry, but I would give her a bottle and then she'd either cry from being upset or she'd cough, and then she'd throw up everything. All over me. Poor baby girl!

Last night Todd decided that he would take today off and take Emiko to the doctor. Then at 11:45 pm he woke me up because Emiko had a fever of 104! Which is super scary and awful. We called the doctor and he told us to up the dose of Tylenol we'd been giving her, and that we should give her Ibuprofen as well. That did the trick -- we didn't have to take her to the ER thank God.

Today Todd took her to the doctor and both her ears are infected! I feel so guilty for not realizing that that was going on. No wonder she's been so miserable! But she got some antibiotics, and she slept all afternoon, so she's feeling better. I'm staying home with her tomorrow, and then I think she can go back to daycare on Thursday. I have to go to work on Thursday, because grades are due, and I still have two classes I haven't entered. Blah blah.

So that's that drama. Todd has a cold, too, but I think he feels ok. He has the Wii to keep him company!

Better Hope We Never Have a Real Fire. . .

The fighting at my school continues. There were two fights yesterday during 2nd period. On a MONDAY. Usually no one comes on a Monday, much less 2nd period. So it must have been serious. This fight was a gang fight, versus a seniors versus juniors fight or a "my project is tougher than your project" fight.

They pulled the fire alarm twice. I was sitting down in my room 4th period talking to a coworker who just got back from her honeymoon when it was pulled. I hate when they pull the fire alarm during my off period. Wait til 5th period, gangstas!

We got our stuff and walked outside. It was really cold. We hung out a bit and then the alarm was turned off and we went back inside.

7th period they pulled the fire alarm again. The funny thing was, at neither time did the fire department actually come to our school. Which is weird, because usually we wait outside til the fire dept gets here, they clear the building, and then they let us back in. So we think they've disabled the fire alarms -- they'll still go off, but we surmise that they don't actually alert the fire dept. Awesome, huh? And surely illegal. Just another day in paradise.

The most shocking part is that ALL of my 7th period students actually came back to class after the alarm. I still can't believe it.

Good Thing I'm Not Easily Embarrassed!

I signed up for facebook because Todd had an account, and if he has something then I think I need it, too. But I never paid much attention to it. It seemed too busy and I can't look at it at work, so who has time? And I feel too old. But last week one of my best friends from college joined and got back in touch with me and since then facebook has been so fun.

I lived in the honors dorm at the University of Arkansas, so you can imagine how dorky I was. But my friends and I had a whole lot of fun. Kerry keeps posting pictures from the era (1991-93 were our honors dorm years). They are so hilarious. I can't believe how long it's been since I was in college. Wow I had big hair.

My friend Kyle put it best -- he says we are probably the only group that looks better in our 30s than we did in college!!!

Next Kerry is going to post pics from when he and I went to the then-USSR way back in high school. Those should be really fun to look at! Stay tuned!