Let's Pretend This Never Happened

So apparently Jenny Lawson and I have a freakish amount of stuff in common. Well, aside from the fact that I didn't grow up in Texas. And my father didn't torture me with strange wild animals. Though he did make a rattlesnake out of his fingers and chase me around the house with it.

Now that The Prince knows I blog about him I can tell you his name is Bruce and our beagle is named Daisy (remember that because you'll need that information later). This story begins this past Christmas when Bruce decided to get me a Kindle. I hadn't moved in with him yet but I had actually made the mistake of taking him to see my storage unit. This was a bad idea mostly because I had just gotten done convincing him that I'm not a packrat, but the wall to wall shit in my 10' by 15' unit told a different story. It also gave him a peek into my minor book obsession.

"How many crates of books are stacked in that corner?"
"Um...seventeen."
He nodded. "Seventeen. Plus the book case at your mom's house, the books under the desk at your mom's house, and the ladder that's being used a book case, and the books piled on the floor."
"Don't forget the two boxes of books in the closet. Oh and the one in the trunk of my car. The guy at the car place said that's probably why the back end of my car scrapes the ground."

I'm pretty sure that conversation ended with him saying something about me being allowed to move in but since there are only four bedrooms in the house I'd have to scale back on my books. I almost left him that day...

So I got a Kindle for Christmas. Which was a bad plan on Bruce's part because he also wanted me to watch "A Christmas Story" for the first time with him. He was utterly disgusted with the idea that I had never seen it and he felt that I had missed out on a key part of my childhood. The only problem being he had handed me an electronic gadget (I love gadgets) that was connected to millions of books. Did he really think I'd be able to watch a movie instead?

Fast forward to my birthday. My mother didn't know what to buy me so she gave me money. And I bought another Kindle. Bruce came home to find me sitting on the couch reading my new Kindle and he gave me a funny look.

"Didn't I give you a Kindle for Christmas?"
"Yes."
"And you bought another one?"
"Yes."
"Why? Oh I see. You got the Kindle Fire. So my poor black and white Kindle isn't good enough for you now?"
"No. That's not it at all."
"Then why did you get another Kindle?"
"Um....I filled the other one up already."
He looked dumbfounded at this answer.
"You filled it up? Doesn't that thing hold like thousands of books?"
"Mhm."
"Then how the hell did you fill it up?"
"I downloaded 7,000 books this morning."

And then he walked away.

But of course the first thing I downloaded on my new Kindle Fire was "Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jenny Lawson. And now I have an author crush on her because we should so be friends.

A Novel Idea

Once again I'm blogging at work. Why, you ask? Because I have little to no spare time thanks to the death trap house which I'm convinced is trying to kill me. Evidenced by the sliver I got today that was the size of a small Eastern European country. Do any of you know of any wood borne diseases I should be worried about?

The other item on my ever growing To Do list is to finish my first ever novel! Yes, you heard right. No more of this historical nonfiction nonsense. I'm finally turning my hand to gratuitous abandoned building ghosty foolishness. And I LIKE IT!

A Prisoner in the Asylum, the first book in what I hope will become a series, is about a quarter of the way done and for once, it seems the idea is sticking and I'm managing to keep the story flowing. However, I'm the only one reading it so it could very likely be a bunch of crap but hey, A for effort, yeah?

I must go teach! My poor creative writing deprived students need me!

Home Improvement Hell

See, I'm slacking already and not writing regularly. That's what happens when the only spare time you have is spent cleaning sawdust and joint compound out of all of hur crevices. However, I am indeed still alive and still writing, though right now I'm sitting on a ladder watching the Prince put up electrical boxes. Altogether not too exciting!

Today's Rant

Fellow educators, there's something I need to get off my chest and I would like your opinions. As most of you know last year I worked at a small Catholic school. Catholic schools are private institutions that do not offer special education services, though I had a number of students who were obviously struggling. As their teacher I stayed after school every day except Friday and helped them best I could because it was part of my job. By the end of the school year I knew I wouldn't be returning to the Catholic school so I sent notes home with a few students, offering to tutor them over the summer and prepare them for 6th grade.

When the school year started, I heard rumblings from my students that teachers were making comments in front of others about them being tutored by a former teacher. Some students went so far as to say that these teachers were essentially bullying them about having me as a tutor. That was bad enough- but then I find out that these teachers are now being allowed to charge their own current students $25 an hour for extra help.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but is this not a conflict of interest? Isn't extra help part of your job as an educator? And how is it that the principal can justify asking these parents for even more money so that their students can have what should be available to them regardless? I also have to wonder what's going on in the classroom that the students aren't learning in an effective manor. Case in point, a math test was scheduled for today and the students were so shaky on the information that 23 out of 27 students had to stay after for extra help the night before the test. Shouldn't that be a red flag for any teacher that perhaps their teaching methods aren't reaching their students? Instead this same teacher poked fun at one of my tutoring students saying, "Shouldn't you understand this material? I thought you had a tutor?"

Creepy...

For the last 10 minutes that I have been sitting waiting for my mother, the radio has said simply, "Look". I watch too many horror films.