Phew!

You'd think that everyone would have returned to school this week relaxed and ready to go.  Not so.  I crawled into bed every night this past week by 8:15 and twice fell asleep at the Kindle.  It was a tough week.  The kids were jazzed all week, and it started right from the get-go.  We have 10 minutes of homeroom in the am before classes, and usually, there's some chatter, but they settle down once the announcements start.  Not this week.  Each day it's been taking longer and longer to get them settled down.  It must be a combination of springlike weather, and full moon.  Today about half the class talked through the announcements, so after they ended I started reminding me of the behavior expectations.  As I'm talking to them, one boy continued to chat.  I stopped, and reminded him that he shouldn't be talking while I was.
He argued back, "I'm not talking  when you're talking.  I'm talking in the gaps."  I stood there for a second, dumbfounded.
 "Excuse me?" I responded.
"I"m talking in between your words, so I'm not talking when you are."
"I'll see you at lunch.  We'll review attentive listening then."
"I'm not coming up."

He didn't come up either for lunch detention, so he wound up with a double write-up.  Later I found out that at lunch he punched another student, and had spent the lunch time with the principal, so he was "off the hook" for the detention cut.  He will have to serve it on Monday however.

Another young lady, C, is in our behavior program, and today was being shadowed by the behavior specialist. During one of my classes, C thought it would be funny to steal the specialist's glasses, and she wouldn't give them back.  Then she picked up the glasses and ran out of the room.  She wound up eventually at the time out bench near the office, where she started texting on her cell phone.  The teacher asked her to give her the cell phone ("off and out of sight" is the school rule), and C refused.   C started shouting at the teacher, so the principal came out to see what was going on.  He asked C for the phone, and she refused to give it to him.  Apparently he then got in her face and said, "I'm asking you one more time to give me your phone."  She threw it at him.

I'm also managing a Destination Imagination team again this year after a hiatus of 5 years. We've met 3 days this week, and it's been like herding cats to get them to all sit still long enough to talk to them.  Competition is in a week, and we have no props, no scenery, and they haven't figured out 3 major scoring items.   I've never had such an unfocused team before, and they do not work together as a team.  I'm just hoping that they can pull enough together in the time we have left so that they CAN compete.  I can't let them look like fools . . . .And if one more of them says "I can bring this in," and then doesn't . . . . . .  ARGH!

So I'm looking forward to a relatively relaxing weekend.  I have to do the monthly billing tomorrow, but then we're going to the movies with friends. (To see John Carter, because our friends' son was the assistant film editor).  We'll go out to dinner too.    Sunday I have nothing planned.  I may even (gasp!) skip church to sleep in!