Irrational: A Math Teacher’s Notebook

Our campus is undergoing construction.  As a result of this construction I was fortunate enough to move out of portable hell and move into a nice classroom.  Portable hell would be the classrooms that will be in the middle of construction for two years.  They currently have no internet and their power is questionable.  I definately would not like to be there.  However, there is something wrong with where I am.  In that there is so much construction, many “creatures” are being uprooted from their homes and looking for new ones.

Culprit #1–the cockroach.  Enough said.  They are disgusting and everywhere.  I do not have running water in my classroom, so my situation is not as bad as others.  However, they are everywhere!  To the point that we’ve asked for desks for them.  If they’re going to be around on Monday when the students return, they might as well learn, right?

Culprit #2–spiders.  My friend across the hall has so many itsy bitsy spiders in her room that she can literally work at her desk, go away for 15 minutes, and return to her desk covered in spider webs.

Culprit #3–Thursday morning a parent was visiting with a counselor to get her student set up for th new year.  As they were talking, the mother pointed out A MOUSE running across the counselor’s desk.   What am I doing here?

So now, there are roach and mouse traps all over the front office as well as several classrooms.  I might add that there are no vacancies at these roach motels.  It is disgusting.  They are filled with the little vermin.

One final story.  We go to our first staff meeting of the year, when the principal hands out staff handbooks.  By the way, I’m sitting front and center because my friend thinks this is a good idea.  Principal is talking…blah blah blah…and I am bored.  So, I open my handbook to pass the time.  I stifle a scream as there is a live roach crawling around the first page.  Friend next to me looks over and is also caught in a fit of giggles…now we’re getting the evil eye for being on the front row and goofing off.  I push the binder to the edge of the table until after the meeting and then hand it back to principal.  He opens it, laughs at me, shakes the roach to the ground, stomps on it, and then hands the handbook back to me.  I inform him that I don’t want that one and he needs to find me another one.  Boy’s P.E. teacher comes by at this moment, also laughing at me, and hands me his staff handbook because he doesn’t really need his.  Again, what am I doing here?