Be the change you want to see.

So, um, "laundry" mushroomed out into "fold AND reorganize All The Things" which then assimilated "Purge the closets and drawers and linen cabinet and put winter clothes into storage".

What this ACTUALLY means is that four hours later I have a heap of clothes to give away but there are still unfolded clothes on the bed.

Isn't there a search term for meandering around all over and getting there indirectly? There's a quilt pattern called "Drunkard's Walk" that reminds me of how my early afternoon has progressed.

Well. I'll go give it another fifteen minutes and power through to get the bed cleared off. That clean laundry has been piled up, in some places, for a week.

Today went very very smoothly. The teacher has a routine of the students practicing their work at the OH projector, then they do their own work in pairs or independently.

Bathroom rule is pretty standard: 5 minutes maximum out of class.

Fair enough. One kid, the last period I was working(fifth) decided to "go to the bathroom" but was gone for 15 minutes. The students were debating whether he'd gone to Starbucks or Panda Express. I was being quietly amused at how aware they were of this particular student's, um, proclivities.

Then one kid (I have to hand it to him for carpe-ing the diem) says, mischievously, "Hey, we should call him, put him on speaker phone, be really quiet, and ask him where he is." Eyes go slideways toward me.

I thought for a second, was even more amused, said, "Sure, let's see what he has to say for himself." The kids were delighted, the call proceeded, the kid outed himself in front of the whole class. He says how he went home for chocolate then realized he wanted his ipod for after school sports practice...

O.M.G. I was (silently) laughing so hard I took my glasses off and was wiping tears out of my eyes. Now, it wasn't mean-natured or anything, it was just, he did something goofus, now we've busted him and we're gonna laugh a little.

Kid moseys into class a few minutes later. Avoids eye contact. Slides, maybe slinks out the door when the period ends. Probably thought he got away with it, too.

He didn't. I let Ms. Woods, the sub-scheduling secretary, know what went down. She LOL'd as well, and then I happened to mention this kid had been seeming disconnected and avoidant and not-grounded, or floaty, "kind of like a stoner", I said, "though I'm not implying I believe he is one"... Ms. Woods says, "Well, if you even THINK he might be doing something like that, we want to know about it."

A good day. I got a whole Waldorf lecture read and annotated while the kids were working today, connected the dots for it by doing some artwork (boy, I'm glad I thought to bring my homework to do!!), and got a damn fine bellylaugh out of the deal as well.

I love that his peers totally punk'd him.