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Wednesday, March 22nd
Fiasco-tastic
Did you think I'd died?
I didn't. The field trip almost killed me but I'm still here. Fiasco doesn't really begin to cover it. And before you ask? I don't know how the play was. I only saw the last 3 minutes of it.
Here's how the trip should have gone:
9 am - 4 busses arrive. 8th grade class boards busses, teachers call roll.
9:15 - busses leave and drive to San Jose
Just before 10 am - Busses arrive at theater. Unload students and get into theater.
10 am - Show begins
11:15 - performance ends.
11:15 - 12:40 - lunch and free time
12:45 - Busses arrive for return home. Board busses.
1 pm - Depart for home
1:40 - Arrive back at school.
This? Did not really happen. Here's how it actually went down:
9 am - Look outside. No busses
9:02 - No busses still. Feel blood pressure rising.
9:05 - No sign of the busses.
9:10 - Still no busses. Begin to freak out.
9:15 - Take class to the boarding area in the hopes that the busses with arrive if we are standing around waiting for them the same way a train will show up the second you light a cigarette.
9:20 - 3 busses arrive. Three. Not four. Three. We need four. There are three.
9:20 - 9:35 - Board the 3 busses. Ask where the hell the fourth bus is. Nobody knows. Perhaps it is on the way. Begin praying. Continue praying as frantic efforts (well, in your mind they are frantic. In point of fact they are rather lackadaisical) are made to locate the fourth bus.
9:37 - Decide to leave because you can't wait any longer. Depart school, leaving 70 kids and their teachers and chaperones behind, knowing that the 4th bus is on the way. Pray harder, even though you are an atheist.
9:40 - Head toward freeway, see 4th bus approaching school at slowest possible speed. Curse (silently as you are on a bus filled with students and parents).
9:41 - Call box office. No answer. Repeat every 2 minutes.
9:48 - Call theater company. Explain bus situation. Ask how long performance will be held. Grit teeth as snotty operator explains that performance will be held for 10 minutes as per policy. Wish to strangle operator through telephone.
9:52 - Hit traffic
9:53 - Watch helplessly as bus driver takes alternate route. Thank god you didn't drink coffee because you're about ready to jump out of your skin as it is.
10:15 - See theater. Watch as driver passes theater and takes unexpected alternate route to what you assume must be the bus drop off point.
10:16 - Tell bus driver, "This is not the right theater. Please keep driving. The theater we want is half a block that way. It's the one you passed, not this one which is BOARDED UP."
10:17 - Congratulate self for not strangling bus driver.
10:18 - Disembark bus, walk through mist (the wrong way) to find front of theater because bus driver did not in any way, shape or form park near the front of the theater.
10:22 - Herd three busloads of children in performance which started 10 minutes ago.
10:23 - Wonder what happened to the fourth bus.
10:24 - 10:52 - Work with another teacher on cell phone to locate LOST BUS. Try not to go into mild hysterics. Go into mild hysterics anyway. Wonder why the bus driver was so late, did not have directions, cannot find downtown San Jose and JUST MADE AN ILLEGAL RIGHT U-TURN IN FRONT OF TWO OTHER LANES OF TRAFFIC (according to on-bus teacher accounts, real-time).
10:53 - Flag down fourth bus.
10:54 - Show students which way to go to see the last 20 minutes of the performance. Grit teeth as bus driver nastily explains that the situation had nothing to do with her. Be glad when she drives away.
10:55 - Wonder where the boxes of lunches are.
10:59 - Go back to the bus that stayed at the theater and count boxes of lunches. Realize some are missing. Have bus driver radio driver of Magical Mystery Fourth Bus to see if she has the missing lunches. Listen as Haughty Miss Lost-A-Lot insists that "Didn't nobody put nothing under my bus".
11:01 - Haughty Miss Lost-A-Lot radios back. She has three boxes of lunches and will be back in a few minutes.
11:07 - Return to theater. Watch last scene of play.
11:13 - Herd 8th grade class of over 200 students to the back of the theater to locate and eat lunches.
11:27 - Lunches have been inhaled. Consider what students will do until busses return at approximately 12:45.
11:30 - Groan when you overhear that the theater is going to lock its doors now. There are no other bathrooms around.
11:32 - Hold breath as drops of water begin to fall from the sky. Refuse to believe in rain.
11:33 - Nearly pass out with relief when it becomes clear that the drops were merely shaken off a tree via wind and there is, actually, no rain. Continue disbelieving in rain in the hopes that rain will lose confidence and self-esteem and stay away from such a negative person as yourself.
11:33 - 12:40 - Keep students from killing themselves or others. Reflect that this is pretty much an ordinary work day in that regard. Refrain from punching parent who reflects gently that "This is a fiasco" and math teacher who muses "This really wasn't planned well at all was it?"
12:40 - Praise deity of choice when busses arrive.
12:45 - Herd children onto busses. Call roll 3 times because you're not convinced that the fates wouldn't let you leave a child behind.
12:48 - Busses depart.
1:35 - Return to school.
1:39 - Let classes back in classroom. Let them have the run of the place because they're all hyped up and what are you really going to accomplish in 30 minutes? Let them play chess and Scrabble. As long as nothing is airborne, you're ahead of the game.
2:04 - Gratefully listen to final bell ring.
2:05 - Consider what you'll be drinking now that it's the weekend.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 03/22/06 at 09:23 PM [link]
Thursday, March 16th
One way or another
Tomorrow, Friday, is our 8th grade field trip. It's been a disaster from the start and we haven't actually gone anywhere yet. I have little to no faith that this event will be held together by anything but spit, tape and hope. If we're lucky - if we're very lucky indeed - that will be enough, because it seems to be all we have.
See, the whole thing began in September when I agreed to arrange this whole fiasco. I didn't, obviously, think it would be a fiasco at the time, but it became one quickly enough. I made the reservation for our 375 person group online, no problem. 375 people for one performance of The Wizard of Oz in San Francisco, please! Coming right up!
A few days later, I got a phone call from the Half-Assed Production Company. "We can't accomodate your group of 375 people in that theater" said they. Why they accepted the reservation I cannot explain except to say that Half-Assed Production Company must have a half-assed online reservation system. "OK," said I, only slightly annoyed, "What can you do for us?"
"We can take you on March 22 in San Jose," replied they, only sort of condescendingly.
"Alright," agreed I. "Sign us up."
So we were set. 375 people going to San Jose on March 22. In early November I arranged the permission slips, got ready to send them to the printers and...
I got another phone call. "We are changing the date of our San Jose performance!" declared they! So cheerful!
"Change? The date?" I asked.
"Yes. Your performance will be on March 17th," said they.
"Um. The hell??"
So I screamed. Loudly. About permission slips and about confirmations that had been sent. About incompetence and planning. About deposits and... and why the hell was the date changed anyway??
"We didn't have the venue reserved when we took reservations... now we do but the original planned venue listed in the mailing wasn't available on that day. Oh, also? The play will be at a different venue than the one in the pamphlet."
Smoke was visibly pouring out of my ears, I'm certain. A ruckus was definitely raised by me. A huge ruckus. A very loud ruckus. A ruckus that apparently scared the lady on the other end of the line. Because I pointed out that taking reservations for a performance that you didn't even have a theater for seemed fraudulent to me and that I would be certain to contact every teacher in my district and inform them about Half-Assed Production Company's actions on our behalf.
So she said she'd call me back.
When she did call me back the next day, she informed me that while nothing could (or would) be done about the venue and date changes, Half-Assed Production Company would be taking half off the remaining balance of our tickets! Isn't that great? Aren't we kind?
Woop dee friggin' doo. After a few more pointed words, we parted ways.
Well.
Fast forward a month. I was beginning to hear rumors that there were conflicting field trips on March 17. That the choir kids would be going on their annual Disneyland trip that weekend, and that the band kids would be at a performance at one of the local colleges. My stomach turned over. It was all true. 375 attendees for the Play from Hell wasn't quite what would be able to attend. About 100 kids would be alternately engaged on March 17, and the 10 chaperones that would have accompanied them. That's a lot of kids, and a lot of money to have to eat for a public school.
So then the negotiations began. Could we take any 6th and/or 7th graders? Could we make arrangements with another middle school in the district? Could we sell tickets to other classes? What were the options?
We settled on taking selected students form 6th and 7th grades. None of those kids came with their own chaperones, so we have to make do. I have 30 of my own students attending this field trip, for example (the rest are on the band trip or in Disneyland, the lucky sods) but I'll have another 10 kids I've never laid eyes on. Tracking them will be a joy.
Then there's the bus situation.
Because of the date change, I didn't get busses until fairly late in the game. Too late, it seems, because the only 4 busses we could arrange (and that's going to be a tight damn squeeze) are only available at 9:15 am. The play, it should be noted, begins at 10 am. In San Jose. We are in Union City. Those of you Bay Area denizens who frequent this site? You know we have to take 880 south to get to San Jose.
It could take us hours to do that.
And thus began the frantic calls (by me and another teacher) to Half-Assed Production Company and to the theater to try to inform them that almost 300 people WOULD, in fact, be attending this Play from Hell but that we MIGHT WELL get caught in traffic and could they DEIGN to hold the performance a few minutes if we were? We would call, from the bus, if we WERE, in fact, going to be late, but, you know, this was a heads up?
They weren't exactly receptive to the idea. I think the exact wording I got was, "We do have a second performance at noon, you know."
"But the one I'm worried about starts at 10 am. And is only supposed to be 70 minutes long. So, I know I don't teach math but it seems to me that that provides a 50 minute interval. Would it really be impossible to cut that to 40 minutes and start the 10 am performance at ten after IF we're running late? Since the date got all changed on us and all?"
No love. No agreement. No nothing. Thanks Half-Assed Production Company (whose real name I will happily give you if you email me or ask for it in the comments. May you never be plagued by these people.)
So, here it is, the night before the curtain rises on perhaps the greatest fiasco of my teaching career. I have not really touched the surface of the strategic planning and insanity that has gone into this. The lists of students to be checked and rechecked. The assignments of students who cannot attend any trip at all because they are on restriction (grades or behavior). The minute by minute planning that has had to be done to ensure that we get on those damn busses THE SECOND THEY ARRIVE to maximize travel time. The TWO new students that I got this week, one of which, I fear, is going to walk into my classroom TOMORROW MORNING during the Great Rush To The Busses and not have a permission slip so I won't be able to take her and where the hell do I send this poor kid? The uncertainty that there will be anyplace decent to eat our bag lunches after the performance because two of our four busses are leaving and returning at 1 pm to pick us up so we're stuck at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts come hell or high water. The nail biting and sleep deprivation I've experienced because I'm terrified that we're going to arrive at this theater tomorrow and be told, "Oh, we started the performance 10 minutes ago and the doors are now closed."
I will run into traffic if that happens, I swear to you. I will.
Oh, and to top it all off with a cherry? It's quite possible that it will rain tomorrow. 300 people, without transportation, unable to enter the theater, stuck in the rain for 3 hours. THAT is my greatest fear. THAT is the worst case scenario. Pretty bleak, huh?
God help us all.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 03/16/06 at 09:55 PM [link]
Monday, March 13th
We were doomed from the start
In typical Goddess fashion, I've spun, I've knit, and I've purchased stuff right through Cold Front 2006. The newscasters were predicting Rain! Hail! Ice! SNOW! for this area. We were doomed, I tell you, DOOMED! It might, God help us, get down below 32 degrees! HOW can people live like that!?
We were doomed.
It was fairly impressive, I'll admit. On Saturday morning there was snow within sight of my window (on a mountain a few miles away. A doomed mountain), which, for a California girl such as I am is, like, far out man! It was a crazy cold weekend (for these (doomed) parts) and is still pretty chilly, so I've been able to wear scarves. Yay! I don't generally get to do that, around here. It's too warm for the most part and I don't like stuff around my neck because I have a strangulation issue. As in, I am afraid I will strangle at any given time (hey, it could happen). But when it's this chilly (37 degrees in the morning! Cold! Shut up, East Coast!) I will risk an ignoble strangulation death in favor of warmth. And you know what I discovered?
I don't have enough scarves.
This would seem impossible to anyone who has followed my knitting progress, but it's true. I actually only have one wearable scarf. There's the purple Grief Scarf, which, dur-hey, I can't wear. Maybe someday but probably not and if you don't understand why, well, we should talk. There's the silver and blue scarf that Mom made which is very cute and I do wear it but it's fashionistic, not warm... istic. And there's the red chevron one that Bean made me, which is the clear winner here. It's cozy. It's warm. It can be dressed up or down. It's... just that much too wide.
Clearly I need to look for The Perfect Scarf. Soft and luscious without being so expensive that I'm afraid to wear it, warm and cozy without being too bulky (with this chest and these shoulders, what I don't need is bulk). I'm considering many options. Any input you have will be appreciated.
Anyhow, in the midst of all the Weather Commotion around these parts, I have been spinning, dying, knitting and buying up a storm but I have no pictures of any of these activities because when you spin and dye and knit and purchase you are very tired at the end of it all, and so the reader at home must wait to see all the pretty lovelies.
Let's just say that I am continuing to buy spinning materials at an alarming rate, but that the Fleece of Donna now resides in a proper cotton drawstring bag (of DOOM!), the Carders of The Fleece of Donna have arrived and resemble overgrown dog combs (of DOOOOOOM!), and that a pound of inexpensive Lincoln wool has replaced 8 ounces of multicolored domestic in the (oops! brand new!) Basket of a Thousand Spinning Happinesses (no doom there) in the living room.
There may also have been the purchase of a tensioned Lazy Kate, 3 new bobbins and the ordering of cold water fleece wash. Maybe. I'm not speaking of that. It would doom me.
In order to forget that we ever had this conversation (a DOOMED conversation, yo!), I will direct you here to become completely creeped out by The Lego Knitting Machine and Creepy Phillip Glass Music Player (of doom) (of course).
Posted by GoddessKristin on 03/13/06 at 09:52 PM [link]
Wednesday, March 1st
The tooth of the matter
Well, it's confession time again here at Chez Goddess. I know it's not been long enough since my last confession, and it won't be long enough until my next one, but what can I tell ya? I was raised Catholic and I'm a firm believer in the "confession is good for the soul" theory of life and also? You are here reading so you must want to know my deep dark secrets.
OK, so here's this week's. I'm afraid of the dentist.
I know I'm not alone in this. I realize that it's not even that strange a phobia. Lots of people don't like to go to the dentist. There's comfort in that, there really is. But it doesn't change the fact that my fear has prevented me from seeing a dentist for... 4 years? Maybe more?
Now not all of this is my fault (bien sur!). When I was laid off at work I lost my dental insurance. And that was... 2 years ago. So the last 2 years can be understood because I didn't have insurance and if there's one thing I hate worse than sitting in a lumpy dental chair and getting poked in the gums with a sharp object it's having to pay 100% for the *ahem* pleasure.
Of course, that doesn't explain the other 2 years. Not having insurance for 2 years could concievably excuse me from seeing a dentist for, oh, 2 years, but not for four. But I have an excuse for that too! Honest! A good one!
See, I'm a chicken.
But! Wait! That's not all the explaination I have! I was subjected to lots of Ambush Dentistry when I was a kid, courtesy of the fact that we travelled 60 MILES ROUND TRIP AT LEAST TO VISIT THE DENTIST.
This was not because we lived in the country or on the moon or anything. It's because my parents were insane. Oh! No! No they weren't! I didn't mean that. Although what you call people who drive into downtown San Francisco to visit a dentist when they could just have easily have stayed in suburban Newark (on the other side of the BAY!!) and seen one... is unknown to me. Loyal? Maybe? Insanely loyal?
The net result of these (insane) trips to the city was that we'd go to the dentist, get X-rays and a cleaning and then BAM! "We can squeeze that filling in right now." And why could they fit it in? Because we always got the last appointment of the day (in fact, I think we only ever saw another patient in the waiting room, like... once? Sort of creepy) since we'd driven a long way and why make another trip?
Why? Because it's not nice to spring Novocaine shots on innocent children when they were just expecting a cleaning, that's why! It's not nice and I didn't like it. No sir! Not one bit!
Thus my fear, years later, of dentists. I'm totally afraid they'll say something like, "Oh we can fill that right now!" I don't WANT you to fill it right now, sir. Or ever really, so keep your big-ass pokey needles to yourself Dr. Shoots-A-Lot. To avoid such scenarios, I just didn't go to the dentist. I didn't want to go to the dentist and, legally if not socially, I'm an adult and I can avoid the dentist like the plague if I want to. And I wanted to. So I did.
But exercising my god-given right to avoid dental professionals has it's drawbacks. In the form of cavities. That need filling. In my head.
I have these soft teeth that are quite prone to cavities. Brushing, flossing, whatever - my mouth is full of dental work (see: fear of dentists). Some of that dental work is, in a word, crappy. Such as the filling on the side of my front tooth that has a hook that catches dental floss. Or the crown with a gap between the tooth and THE CROWN. Just for instance.
So yesterday I finally caved and went to see The Dentist (going full time at school has the benefit of dental insurance). The Dentist was a very nice man with many many sharp objects who only used them on me a little bit. He chipped off 4 years worth of whatever it was he was scaling off my poor teeth, and took lots of X-rays and told me I need to come back and see him three more times! My dentist likes me! He asked me out again!
Or, you know. He wants to inject me with Novocaine and fix the crappy dentistry of the past and also "deep clean" my right lower jaw. I thought you could only do that for carpets but apparently it's a possibility for teeth as well. Who knew? (the dentist did, apparently).
I'm going back in about an hour for the first of the three visits. Fillings. Front teeth. Not. Excited. At all. This despite the fact that my new dentist is a very nice man who chatted me up about Europe and unconciously sang "Night Fever" while taking a crow bar to whatever plaquey crud was cemented to the inside of my bottom teeth. Who couldn't like a Disco Dentist? I couldn't resist his Bee-Gee lovin' charms and I don't think you could either. Dave had warned him that I was afraid of dentists and you could see he was going out of his way to make me comfortable despite the VERY SHARP POINTY THINGS HE HELD. He stopped often. He took the tools out of my mouth before asking me questions. He noticed when I did the Butt Walk down the chair and was so tense it looked like I was going to shoot out of the chair like a rocket. In short, he was nice.
My dentist as a kid was nice too, I suppose. It's not the dentists themselves that I object to. At a cocktail party I'd certainly have a discussion with one, not run away crying at the mere mention of bicuspids or otherwise flee in anxiety. It's the NEEDLES and the POINTY HOOKS and the fantastically disturbing sounds that come out of my head when they do their voodoo on me.
That's the part I don't like. Also? I can't knit with people's hands in my mouth.
Posted by GoddessKristin on 03/01/06 at 03:54 PM [link]
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