Good Thursday

So, usually I dread Thursdays. Really, I dread them for good reason. Thursday is the last "full" day in my week. The last day of the school week that taunts me. The kids don't have music, or gym, or art... or anything. I am with them alllllllllll day long. They get tired, and restless, and annoying... and I get the full brunt of it. I was dreading today even more because I had to sit through parent teacher conferences from 4 to 6 pm. Sitting for two extra hours after work and not getting paid? No thank you!

Anyhow, there was a dense fog advisory for today, so I wanted to get out of the house early, so I didn't feel like I needed to rush to work. And guess what? I actually managed to leave the house early! The fog wasn't nearly as dense as it was yesterday, so getting to work was no problem. I was not only there on time, but early.

For some reason, the work I had for the kids went great today. Not only were they enthusiastic to do it, but for once, we actually got through things as scheduled. I had so much extra time, I was able to do extra lessons in order to catch us up on where we needed to be. The weather was great, so after lunch, the kids were able to go out on the playground. They don't go on the playground much since we are in a unit and not the main building, so they always love it when they can go out on the play equipment.

I was able to do some fun things with the kids in the afternoon, and everything went smoothly at dismissal. I was able to actually get a snack in before going to the main building to sit for parent teacher conferences. Now parent teacher conferences were a bit of a joke... four parents out of my 18 students actually showed up... but this is Flint, after all. Most of the time I sat picking at my fingernails, daydreaming, trying not to yawn, and filling my face full of the Quizno's mini subs the principal had put out in the teacher's lounge for all of us to snack on. All in all, it wasn't a bad experience.

Of course Charlie's mom showed up, with Charlie and his three equally out of hand brothers. I loved how Charlie was climbing on a bookshelf, somehow set the copier to make 123 copies (his mom didn't seem interested in making the machine stop, so I jumped up to hit the cancel button), shook my Cherry Coke (I grabbed it from him and told him NO!), and started climbing on the table at us... meanwhile Charlie's brothers are doing equally crazy things, and Charlie's mom said nothing. Of course not, why would she tell them no when I could so easily do it for her? Ehhh....

Even with that being said, I had a sigh of relief to know that Charlie was going home with her, and not me. When I left for the night, I was greeted by a nice, warm night. It was still at least 60 outside, and it made me smile. I could imagine for a moment that it was still summer. Suddenly my stress melted away, and I felt great. When I went home, I decided to go for a little adventure. I went to this gourmet market I had wanted to check out. They have a lot of Middle Eastern and European foods, so I bought fresh baklava, homemade spinach and artichoke dip, and some Milka chocolate bars.

When I went home, I talked to a good friend for over an hour. We just laughed and talked about our woes and problems, and it was nice to touch base with a friend.


So in the end, somehow, don't ask me, this Thursday has turned out great. I'm going to go to bed now, so that I can have a good Friday, too.