This morning during first period, I opened up my desk drawer to grab some staples, but immediately gasped and jumped back because the entire drawer was coated with ants. I'm not scared of ants, it's just that the sight of a gazillion of them flooding my desk took me by surprise. Two of my students, being adorable chivalrous little guys, removed the entire drawer for me and spent the rest of the period cleaning off all of my supplies and getting rid of as many ants as possible. But man were they everywhere. Even on me. I'm feeling pretty grateful for the three day weekend now. Hopefully I'll return to an arthropod-free classroom. Teaching is already challenging enough without having to swat at your arms and legs every five minutes because some little critter has decided to use you as an overpass.
Our fire alarm also went off today, but it only lasted for a few minutes. For reasons I don't quite understand though, it takes the school a long time to turn off the alarm, even when it's been declared a "false alarm" (as I once mentioned in a past post). So you end up having to cram your lecture into little ten second increments, between the obnoxious, jarring, ear-piercing beeps. Between ants and fire alarms, I just about threw in the towel today as far as teaching was concerned. The only standards my kids mastered were how to effectively cover their ears and squish stuff.
Builders Club is now back in full force. I held an informational meeting last Thursday, and our first official meeting yesterday. I had about 46 kids at the meeting, which was huge. A ton of kids want to join the club, and I couldn't be more excited, especially since this year I actually know how to run it. I designed our T-shirts last week and placed my order two days ago. I love my T-shirt guy. I worked with him last year too, and he is awesome and puts up with my constantly changing mind. This year the kids voted on a monkey theme, so I came up with the catch phrase: "Builders Club--We don't monkey around," and pieced together (from Google images) a goofy monkey carrying a toolbox. I'll try to post a pic of the T-shirt once it's done. Now that I think about it, I should post last year's too. I don't think I ever did.
I was just thinking back on the fire alarm, and it was a little ironic, because we did actually have two fires burning here in the desert today. The large plume of smoke could be seen from outside of our classrooms. The smoke from one of the fires was thick enough at one point to close down the I-15 from both directions (on a holiday weekend, nonetheless). It's still raging on. So I guess the "No Fire" part of my title isn't completely accurate.
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Man, California is always on fire! My dad was stuck in traffic on the I-15 for hours this evening. He couldn't get up the hill, back to the desert, because of the pass being closed. I think he eventually went the long way around, but what a pain. I bet all the people trying to go to Vegas for the holiday weekend are pissed!
ReplyDeleteThe ants thing just made me feel creepy and crawly and there aren't even ants on me... right now. Our house has had a HORRIBLE ant problem this year. We sprayed everything down and got it under control, but it was a nightmare! There're still the occasional ants in my bed, which is so annoying. I have bites on my legs, so I know they are there, even if I can't see them all the time. Did I mention that was annoying? Yeah, you get this! :D
Good luck getting your classroom under pest control and with your builders club. Can't wait to see the t-shirts!
It's so true Kristyn! We definitely have more fires than we do earthquakes. They never tell you that we're called the "Golden State" because we're always on fire. Lol.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it seems like the ant situation is getting worse and worse every year. Every time we conquer them in one spot, they find creative ways to march somewhere else. When we spray the perimeter of our house, they come from the ceiling. I think they're evolving into super-smart, hybrid ants or something.
Thanks for the well wishes!