Best posts made by silverfox

@Cobaltasaurus

Oh my gosh, his eyes are like deep dark galaxies of the soul.

It really bothers me when people wish me a happy mother's day because I'm a female.

I'm not a mother. It's not my holiday.

Stop it.

This entire thread has been utterly fascinating because it is so very different from anything I've experienced hiring for teaching positions. My profession (elementary education) has almost the exact opposite problem. It it isn't in administration it is very hard to get men into the classroom when the kiddos are young. (The worst I heard from a parent once was, "He teaches kindergarten? He must be a pedophile, I won't let my child be in that class!)

back to being a bee on the wall

@Arkandel

Excuse me as I fire up Amazon Prime and hit play. counter protests the only meaningful way, with eyeballs.

Parent Teacher Conferences today.

One of my boys walked up to me during work time after checking the schedule looking very confused.

Boy:"Mrs. Are you seriously staying until 8:00 tonight?"
Me: "Yeeep."
Boy: "And probably after so that you can clean things up."
Me: "Yeeep."
Boy: "Dang."

100% empathize with what you're saying @Auspice.

If I KNOW everyone at a gathering I can be a total social butterfly. I'll pop around, talk, whatever. Throw even one "new" person into the mix and I withdraw instantly.

It drives my husband crazy.

I am hearing the people here but...

My students are terrified. They talk about it every recess.

We even had a little girl bring a mask to school because she has a chronic cough and that was their compromise between her washing her hands every time she coughed and keeping her home from school. My students all thought she had the virus.

Telling them that as children they're very safe is one of the only tools I have as an educator. I am sorry it hurts people, but my tool box is empty in the fact of something that kids just can't understand/grasp at their developmental level.

I got the soap put back in the boy's bathroom!!

(The boys kept emptying it out into the trash can/floor so had to use hand sanitizer for a while. Hopefully they don't start again...)

I also spent $200 on things I WANT for my classroom. (Aka, they're above and beyond the basics that the school DOES supply.)

Baking recipes that assume you have a standing mixer but don't MENTION it in the actual tools.

There are many places where a hand mixer does not cut it.

Excuse me as I go back to scraping bits of dough off of every part of me... and changing clothes. An apron was not sufficient for this!

Back to school night. Seeing all the new faces, getting hugs from your kids you had before, watching parents faces transform from worry to confidence... I just love it all.

And they are SO TINY. One of my newest babies only comes up to my hip and hid behind his mom most of the night!

I just learned my Acer Chromebook can charge from either of its two USB-C ports, not just the one next to the battery indicator light.

This is a peeve because the one next to the indicator light has been busted juuusssttt enough that I have to place the cord JUST SO AND THEN NOT MOVE to get my computer to charge for about a year now.

I could have not been aggravated for a year if I'd just tried the other side.

I've watched it all the way though twice, and I'm going on my third.

West Wing. I imagine for a bit we have a president who gives a fuck.

@KDraygo

I will say that my school district is pretty much the bomb. If I legitimately NEED something, then I can get it. Most of my classroom is "want" though. Things that fit my personality and style, new tools I want to try but am not sure I actually want to sustain, cute shit that just makes me happy (because in a typical school year I spend more time in my classroom than I do at home, so I want to be comfortable there). That's what I'll be replacing next year.

So I have pretty good insurance through my employer, and access to an employee assistance program.

However, in these times the wait times for counselors is WEEKS if not MONTHS. I can't actually schedule anything with the woman I was seeing before because she is booked past the point they allow appointments to be made.

With everything though I knew I couldn't wait that long for counseling. So I had been hearing about Betterhelp from my podcasts and I decided to just try it. It is 4x as expensive as using my insurance but I can get in //now// and //often// and honestly it has helped so much. Just getting to talk to someone else NOT in my situation or feeling obligated to take my side is so nice.

I'm sure that phone or video conference counseling doesn't work for everyone, but in a crisis sometimes something is better than nothing.

So in short, a plug for therapy here.

If I thought my kids were okay then I'd be okay. But:

1. (See child above)
2. Lives in a borderline abusive home
3. 3 kids who's parents don't speak English
   3.a Also in charge of her 1st grade brother and two pre-school aged kids (she's 8 guys)
4. Not independent at all and needs a lot of help
5. Can't read independently
6. Mom has to take her to work
7. Aunt got fed up with behavior and kicked her out so she doesn't have a place to do school work.
8. Has several kids running around in a two bedroom house
9. Spotty internet connections
10. Mental illness brought on my isolation

We could say "The kids are alright" in April.

The kids aren't alright any more.

I really envy the females in my family. My mother quits BEAUTIFULLY. My older sister does Stained Glass, my younger sister paints, and my youngest sister knits.

I missed the craft gene completely. I envy people who have it. #envyenvyenvy

@Auspice

@aria

oh fuck, I'm sorry. Thank you for reporting it anyway.

I get it. I know why we're remote. Please don't fucking reply with 'it's for the good of all'

FUCK distance learning. FUCK it.

It's NOT better for some kids to be at home and we're not making a fucking ounce of accommodation for those kids.

Every time my advanced degree gets me excused from a professional development I start singing. Thank god~~