Friday the 13th

Are you superstitious?

Do you believe in luckstones, rabbit's feet, four-leaf clovers, lucky numbers, and so on? Would you be worried if you walked under a ladder, broke a mirror, had your path bisected by a black cat, cut your toenails at night, received a gift that was of a certain numerical quantity, or had a strap on your sandal break?

What about Friday the 13th?

Let me tell you about mine...

Yesterday we finally got our new toilet put in. We were told we'd only have to wait three days, but it wound up being three weeks thanks to a plumber moonlighting as a farmer (helping plant other people's fields). It's a beaut of a toilet, too; my wife and I both decided to splurge a bit. We chose it from the catalogue because it had a heated seat, a bidet, and a built-in cabinet. It also looked really cool. We never dreamed that it would be a fully-automated, sensor-laden device that would automatically open the lid for you and start the fan when you enter the room, and then flush and close everything up without you having to do anything except your trousers. It also plays mp3 files from an SD card! Now THAT'S what I call a TOILET!

Guess what? This morning I discovered a nice puddle of water all over the floor behind the new toilet. The damned thing leaks. The plumber said he's coming again today. Let's hope it doesn't wind up turning into another week.

My first lessons with the 9th grade (disaster) class are giving me a very good indication of what's to come this year. For the most part they were kind of fun, but I'm already feeling worn out. These kids may be the death of me.

As for our new 7th graders, over the past five days we've had two violent assaults, three potentially serious bullying incidents, one serious theft, and nearly half a dozen boys with worrisome attitude problems (which may all be interconnected). Not even our most notorious problem classes to date have ever had so many issues during the first week. At least the grade staff is getting on it immediately and landing on it hard, thankfully avoiding the "Just keep smiling and talking nice, and they'll come around" approach used to such horrendous (ill) effect by our current 9th and 12th grade crews when they were grade 7. Most of the kids seem okay, though. I hope (optimistically) that this is all just teething troubles...or a Friday the 13th fluke.

At least I don't have any students named Jason...or Freddie, for that matter!


UPDATE: Well, as if to add insult to injury, not long after I wrote the above post I began feeling a little weak and dizzy. A little later I had to supervise my 7th grade cleaning crew (who did a very good job, by the way), and I began feeling progressively worse, to the point that I came very close to fainting a couple of times. I went to the dispensary as soon as the cleaning was done. By then I was pale, shaky, and feeling chills, but I had no temperature. A quick check showed my blood pressure was normal, but my heart was beating more than 90 bpm. The nurse told me to lie down for an hour, which I did, and I fell asleep immediately. After that I checked my temperature again, and I was more than a degree below normal, a symptom the nurse said was actually common before the onset of a high fever. The flu is going around at Ye Olde Academy right now, so I feared the worst as I immediately left the school and slowly drove home, focusing on the car in front of me. I made it home okay and took a two-hour nap. I never did develop a fever, but I'm still feeling languid and shaky...wondering what the heck's the matter.

Oh, and the plumber did fix the toilet, thank goodness.