What a day!

OK - Tuesday was one of the absolute worst days I've had in quite some time!!
It started out when the dental van showed up at school ... Usually my students' parents don't sign them up for the dental van because they generally take them to pediatric dentists where they are sedated for the exam and any procedures. But this year, one of my kids' parents sent them form back, so when the dental van showed up, I knew I was going to have to take this kid to the dentist and try to restrain him while they tried to examine and clean his teeth. Now it takes three of us to brush his teeth after lunch, so I had a pretty good idea of how this was going to go. Anyway, I left the dental van minus a chunk of hair and a chunk of my arm with several scratches and bruises on my arms and chest. Anyone who knows me knows that I love my job and could never imagine doing anything else, but this was one of those very rare occasions when I wonder whether I shouldn't find a new profession. I know that he didn't mean anything by it and it wasn't intentional, and I know that he was just terrified and didn't know what was going on ... but when someone is biting down on your arm it's hard to think rationally about those things and you just start to think "what am I thinking?"

OK - so later that afternoon I'm on my way to school and I see blue lights in my rearview mirror. I ask the police officer why he stopped me and he replies "I'd be happy to tell you that after I run your license and insurance" - turns out my tag is expired. I swear I thought I had renewed it, I even vividly remember putting the new sticker on, but I guess I dreamed that. Thankfully he didn't give me a ticket, but it didn't help my day any.

So in class that night, we are having a discussion and I pissed off pretty much everyone in my class. The class is "facilitating college instruction", and we were discussing what needs to go on a syllabus for a college class. Now people are coming up with all these things like "You should spend the first night letting the students come up with rules and then print those in the syllabus", strict attendance policies and things like "no playing games on the computer during class" ... so I voice my opinion which is this: If I'm teaching a COLLEGE class, these are adults and they're paying to be there. If they can pass the tests and the class without coming to class or without paying attention, then why should I make them be there? And if they don't want to come to class, or they don't want to pay attention, and they fail ... when then that's not my problem ... And my classmates say that it's our responsibility to teach them responsibility ... and I disagree, because they're ADULTS! It's my responsibility to teach them whatever class I'm teaching, if they're not responsible enough to come to class and do the work then that's their problem ... and anyway, basically the entire class hates me now and thinks I'm evil

On another note, this week I've been very proud of myself! It's teacher appreciation week and Monday morning there were Dairy Queen biscuits for us and chocolate cake in all the workrooms; Tuesday there were donuts for breakfast and Loco's for lunch; yesterday there was chicken cordon bleu from a restaurant here in town; today there was Olive Garden lasagna and breadsticks and salad and tomorrow there will be Applebee's ... and I haven't eaten any of it!! I've stuck to my diet through the torture!! (that's not completely true, I had a bite of lasagna and a teeny bite of chocolate cake)
So far this year I'm down 16 pounds! Yay me! I've started doing a combination yoga/pilates dvd 3 nights a week in addition to my walking on the treadmill each morning.