River Brown

This has to be illegal. My day was full of illegal activity and I am sure that in another state or country I would have received some hefty fines…

Soooo my genius self used the wrong sign in sheets yesterday and then had the audacity of leaving the ones needed for today at the wrong school…How to explain that? Uh I have had thirty billion logistical pieces flying at me at like 90 mph…We should all be glad that I at least show up wearing shoes and not my house slippers! Illegal.

Then in the middle of a PD session I uploaded the wrong planning template. I think I was supposed to leave it as is with only rearranging the pages, but hell I went a step further and uploaded the most recent one with the hefty changes… How did I handle that? Well I made sure to head to the restroom minutes before teachers started downloading the plan and when I returned the presenters were in a huddle steeped in conversation as to how to tame the chaos that had ensued. That’s when I cowered behind my laptop and slowly flipped it around to show what I had done. I really wanted to say, “Ha, ha! April Fools! Just kidding!” and then I really wanted to see the teachers burst out in similar laughter and then dance about the room in perfectly choreographed leg kicks similar to the Vegas dance girls. BUT that didn’t happen, instead the huddled conversation went absolutely quiet as all eyes stared at me – I gulped wondering if this would be the moment when I would finally get fired. No, it wasn’t. Pretty sure I still have a job. I think I should have just stayed quiet and not admitted my error. I swear that ought to be sooooo illegal.

Soon after this I had to speak to our small bilingual teacher group to highlight the modifications of the heinous template so that they knew what standards to teach in Spanish. Brilliant, as I had no idea how that would work and I could barely understand the template (which way is up?). My awesome self sat with the teachers and started explaining when I suddenly found that I was in a fishbowl as the director and managers crowded around us (Oh so this is how zoo animals feel…). I tried to make my voice go really low, down, down, down to barely a whisper and I prayed that the break would start soon, but time seemed to have stopped to mark this grandiose moment when I sat in a circle and could think of nothing to say…Absolutely illegal.

And then guess who they put in charge of capturing video? Oh yes, me! Great idea since I had never ever ever used the darn camera. So there I am with the huge tripod and tiny camera on top when the teacher who I am supposed to capture SITS down on a chair and I find that she is not even within the frame of the video so I try to lower the tripod, but it doesn’t cooperate. And I am screaming bloody murder, because the minutes of this great lesson are blowing away like air escaping from a balloon. So I just lean the tripod slightly down and manage to get her neck and head in view – that is good enough! But the show is not over yet because then she gets up and starts moving around amongst the kids seated on the carpet. I have to fight with the tripod to surrender the camera and it must have looked like when wrestlers hold each other in headlocks. Somehow I manage to get the camera off the tripod and lean in really close…She confers brilliantly with a student about spelling strategies, such awesome stuff, I am already patting myself on the back because I caught the moment and it is gold. I move away as she scoots to the next child and it is then that I see that I NEVER had the thing recording!!! When I snatched it off the tripod I must have pushed the red recording button and stopped it…Where is the damn police to arrest me? Really? Can I get away with all this stuff?

Just bad, bad, bad. What do I tell myself so that the guilt doesn’t eat me? I think that there is always tomorrow and that this illegal activity cannot repeat itself because I am learning from it and I can only get better. Just in case, though, I am wearing an orange jumpsuit tomorrow.