"We live longer than our forefathers; but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles, we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves." -Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
So I really don't have time to blog. I basically have an entire house to clean and dejunk, and about two weeks to do it in. Perhaps that is why I am sitting here blogging. Denial. Avoidance. All very familiar emotions at this point in the school year.
Am I the only one that labors under the delusion that we should be done this week? Jessica's teachers pretty much have it all figured out, everyone except her math teacher of course. Jessica has a math test tomorrow. I don't know why I'm so surprised. Math teachers have no soul and no sense of humor. But the other teachers are great! They are as thrilled to grade homework as we are to do it. Jessica walks into her AP English class each day, and her teacher says, "We will be starting a new novel today ", as he pushes the play button on the DVD player. That's what I'm talking about right there. None of us have the strength for one more thing. So push the play button please.
Sabrina's teachers have been down-right cruel. She has a massive poet report due in two days. I have yet to go to the library and retrieve the books on Miss Gluck. What? You haven't heard of the poet? Neither have I. I have managed not to set foot in a library this entire school year, and it kind of irks me that I have to do so four days before school is out. Why not just use the internet? That would deviate from the primary purpose here, that being to inflict long slow pain. You see, the teacher wants several sources. And the bibliography is a major part of the report. By the way, I don't think they're called bibliographies anymore.
Sabrina has brought home fat math packets every B day for the last week. She came into my bedroom this morning asking if I had washed her gym clothes. What? You're dressing this week? I encouraged her to find her grubby gym clothes from the bottom of the hamper and to couple them with a pair of clean socks. I attribute some of this to the fact that our junior high principal has insisted that not a single video be viewed in class until the last few days of school. His nobility is doing us no favors here.
We have already discussed that wretched Rube Goldberg project. I let that one be Neil's baby. My advice was take a zero. That was my advice. It was Sunday afternoon five days before the last day of school. Just take a zero.
Don't teachers see what they are doing? We parents spend all school year teaching our children the importance of integrity as they fulfill their school work. "Do your own work. Do your best. You have to do the thing that is hard. Finish strong." These are all words that I have uttered to my children over the last eight months.
And yet, when one more project gets piled onto this broken back, these are the words my children are privy to: "Just take a zero. Yes, you got your 130 minutes of reading in, give or take 100 minutes. Bring me the paper, I'll sign it. Just use your project from another class. What is the assignment? That's ridiculous. You don't have to do that!"
An entire year of concerted effort in teaching my children to be good honest upstanding citizens, is pretty much destroyed in two weeks of complete and utter hypocritical despair. Why are we pushed to this point?
I listened to Neil and Sabrina wrestle with blocks, dominoes, marbles, golf balls, and old Hot Wheels tracks, while I drifted in and out of my nap on the couch.
You see, I'm tired. I need a nap. An end of the school year nap. That's what I need. But I can't take one just yet. I have to go pick up tasty items for my boys' home lunches. I was determined not to pack a single lunch this week. There is exactly $9.50 in each child's lunch account, and they were just going to have to make that stretch as they suffered through school lunch this week. But Spencer has a field trip tomorrow and a picnic at the park on Thursday. So I am off to locate boxes of fish crackers and imitation Hostess treats.
The elementary teachers have been sending pleading emails that they are in desperate need of volunteers for the last three field trips of the year and for field day and for the Mountain Man Rendezvous. Sorry teachers. You've burned your bridges. I'm field tripped out. I have no more five dollar bills to donate. I am not running to the store one more time for one more supply for one more activity. I'm done. Let's just all agree to be done.
You had me at the five dollar bill line. :) LOL! I am totally there.
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