chatter from the Library Monkey

Two days in one

Started this last night, hope to finish it tonight

So I am taking a picture of the school, with a dusting of snow out front. I did this by turning onto the small road beside the school and stopping. I was a little nervous that I would be re-ended, so I kind of rushed. When I put down the camera I noticed that there was a kid standing out in front who had turned his back on me. For some reason he thought I was taking a picture of him. He is a big kid (over weight by maybe 40 pounds — but aren’t they all now a days), but I was a 100 yards away from the school. At best he was going to be a little orange dot.

I was laughing about this with my aide and told her that it was fairly presumptuous of him to think I was taking a picture of HIM. She laughed and said she didn’t think he would know what ‘presumptuous’ meant.

Ironically, 14 minutes later I was in the computer lab uploading some pictures and he is sitting two seats away from me. He made some comment about, where he was acting like he outsmarted my picture taking. And the guy next too me is looking at my computer, which has the picture on it. “Where is he?” and I say I think he is behind the rock in front of the school, which is really a monument. And the overweight kid - call him boogie - makes another comment. I asked him: “Boggie, do you know what ‘presumptuous’ means. He is looking at me and his face goes blank, then he says, “I know it means you didn’t take a picture of me.”

And the other kid says, “Wait a minute, back to the picture, boogie was hiding behind that big rock??”

Okay, the week is almost over. yippee. Sort of two four day weeks in a row. Conference on Friday and Vets day on Monday.

I might write a skit over the weekend. I have a good idea for the Coffee House my school puts on — that I never go to, but often write a couple skits. I don’t go because: a) I am not really invited; b) the first year I wrote half of the skits and the teacher in charge made it clear from the beginning: I was the writer, but I should not expect any input into my skits. That un-welcomeness operates at several levels.

Interestedly the teacher and I groused a little bit today on a mutual slight we both get. The scheduled the teachers dinner on the same day that she has had the coffee house scheduled. Now this is one of the worse slights there is, since the reason they are scheduling it on that day is the fact it is the only date without a baseball game. It is no secret that somehow the school thinks the most important event at the school is sports. It is frustrating in so many ways — in this example last June anyone who has an events sits down and schedules around each event. It is why there isn’t a coffee house on a basketball night and basketball on a concert night.

One of the things I keep telling people is that the school is losing teachers left and right and will continue to do so until they make new people feel welcomed. Most of the new people that come are not in the sports fold — I found that the hard way. And if you are interested in the arts in anyway, you are told you are second bass clarinet. I am sure it is like that at other schools, but at other schools (where the new people end up after a year or two) there isn’t the hour drive and there is higher pay.

and there might be a couple staff members that are friendlier that my staff.

Some has to do a couple things: 1) sports is a big machine that is rolling along for years; 2) it is often one of the things the kids are most interested in (though some of that has to do with how parents treat it — at my school there are a lot of parents who would want a star basketball player over a straight A student)

But, as the teacher said —- and how many professional athletes have we produced?

one more day and then the conference. I am listening to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” it is a tough book. Had to turn it off and listen to Cracker — archive.org. It is somewhat unbelievable the world that Carson painted in her book. I often think the world has no morals, just self interests

Gratitude (3)

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