My Turn at the Easel

Earlier in the week I hosted an inservice in my classroom. A teacher complimented me on my tidiness and organization. She recognized my lack of a poker face when I was confronted with that untruth, and she then asked if I had cleaned for company. Ding, ding, ding! That’s the right answer.

I thought you might be curious to see my room. So here it is. This is what my room looked like at its best.

Okay, so prepare yourself for what it looked like at the end of the day today.

And here’s the command center:

I like to think of the squalor as a reflection of the fact that I am working with kids during class instead of focusing on housework during class.

Snow, School, Sickness and Snips

I’m working on a series of insect snips to hang down in my studio. I made a lot of insect snips as Artist Trading Cards, but would like to have a few of the insect designs for myself.

Today was a teacher inservice day, so kids didn’t come to school. Lucky dogs. It was snowing like crazy, but teachers still had to go in. I had been asked to lead an inservice for high school, middle school and elementary art teachers in my area. Leading any meeting is pretty far down on this list of “things I ever would like to do.” Plucking nose hairs would be more favorable to me than leading a meeting. In the end, no one called me an idiot or fell asleep, so I guess it went well enough.

My room looked great Thanks to my neighbor, MK, for letting me park carts of junk in her room during the meeting.

At the end of the inservice, the school system announced that the buildings were closing early. I had planned on going to the doctor’s office after work but they cancelled all appointments after 3. I think that I’m getting better anyway. It’s about time. I’ve had this cold, or sinus thing, for the past ten days.

I thought I was rested up and ready to teach today. On the agenda were a couple of fourth grade classes and Art Club. The only fly in the ointment for me was that I also had to clean my room and prepare for an inservice I am leading tomorrow. That meant that I would have no time to sit and rest. I would be up on my feet all day long. I’ve been somewhat sick for the past nine days and felt as though I was on the upswing.

At my school we teach a half day on Monday and have the afternoon for planning. When I have Art Club, I give up most of that planning time. So I didn’t have much down time today.

My fourth grades were a dream. No problems there. Inbetween those classes I was so busy cleaning and organizing my room I didn’t have time to eat lunch. By the time Art Club left at 2 my head was really pounding and I felt horrible.

At club dismissal, when one girl’s parent hadn’t shown up after a couple of minutes, I sent her in to give their parent a call. Of course he pulled up right when she went in the building. Now I have never actually interacted with this parent before, but he has this aura about him of being mean and crazy. Naively, I thought that if I was nice and friendly to this man, he would respond in kind. I walked over to the driver side window, smiled, and explained that his daughter went in to use the phone and would be right out. I even sent another child in to let her know Dad was there.

This man went off on me. He started yelling about the school office people and how they didn’t relay some message or other that they said they would, and how his daughter didn’t know there was Art Club because the office hadn’t told her. He yelled about this several times and turned redder and redder as he went along. He didn’t say anything that was related to me, but yelled as if it was. Trying to make sense of what he was saying didn’t work. Trying to change the tone or at least listen actively didn’t have any effect either.

Finally, when his daughter got in the car, I sidestepped the issues he was yelling about and told his daughter that I would see her at the next Art Club meeting. Then he yelled at me about how would his daughter know when that was, and how would he know. When I told him that I would tell her when club met; would give her a calendar of the dates; and the meetings would be announced to everyone over the intercom, he was not appeased. This time the complaints were about his wife not being able to read English; his daughter not being able to remember to give him the paper; and her not having a Tuesday folder anyway and how would the paper even make it home. He yelled, “How am I supposed to know when? Tell me how? I guess I’ll just have to call the office every day to ask. I’ll just call the office every day. How about that?” He lay back in his seat, put his hands on his stomach and started twittling his thumbs.

Years ago, before I got a job teaching art, I was a secretary for a psychologist. He once told me that if I thought someone had big mental problems, that was probably true.

All I could think of was “COO COO….COO COO” and that I needed to get the heck out of there. I knew that there was no response to his rantings, so I just backed away and told his daughter goodbye again.

All this on top of exhaustion and a pounding headache sent me back to my classroom, where I just sat and boohooed. He hadn’t really scared me. He just stressed me beyond my breaking point.

Then I still had to clean and ready my room for the inservice tomorrow.

I’m hoping like crazy that we will get snow tonight, so that I can spend tomorrow in bed. I’m heading to the doctor’s office tomorrow afternoon.

I really, really want to go downtown to the inauguration tomorrow, but this is what I feel like today.

This does not at all look like Diane’s “boy,” but I had him in mind when I was snipping this boy in a winter cap. I guess I had in mind his Mom’s adventures in knitting today.

Playing Barbies with Grandma Jan
-Scherenschnitte-

I’m still on Winter Break.  There’s a full, delicious week to myself awaiting me.  One of my goals is to do plenty of paper cutting.

I spent most of my break so far in Los Angeles.  My daughter and granddaughter live there.  It was a wonderful visit.  A sixth birthday.  Teaching the little one to ride a bike.  A visit to Disneyland.  Lots of  baking and playing with each other.

I did this scherenschnitte as a memory of my trip.  I still remember playing “Kelly’s Drive In” with my Aunt Helen when I was 5. I hope my sweet granddaughter will remember all the things she does with me.