Allergic to Jazz games.

… I’ve been to more Jazz games this year than all other years combined. I went to one again on Wednesday, because someone from Chevron cancelled and the manager asked me if I wanted to go.  So I did.  It was a good game, against the South Carolina Bobcats, the lead bouncing back and forth until the Jazz won at the end. 

… All great, except that, like last time, I ended up out sick for a couple days right after.  And this time all I drank was diet Coke, so we can’t blame it on the “bottle flu” (last time can’t be blamed on it either).  So, I must be allergic to Jazz games, either that or the name “Energy Solutions Arena” literally makes me sick.

… I woke up feeling terrible, figured I’d suffer through the Algebra Academy I had to go to in the morning, and then take the afternoon off, go home, sleep and be better by Friday.  Thanks to the way this Academy was scheduled, I couldn’t call in sick for the afternoon (Subfinder kept telling me I had a conflict), so I had to go out to the school and work things out from there.  I was home, in bed, by noon and slept until the alarm went off at 5:00 in the morning.

… Not feeling any better, I called in sick and, like most teachers know, had to drag myself out of bed, drive down to school to prepare for the substitute.  Now, I’ve worked at schools with incredibly agreeable secretaries.  The last three I’ve been at (before this one) I’ve been able to fax or email worksheets to them, with instructions for the sub, and they gladly made the correct number of copies in time for my first class.  I was going to talk to our secretary about that when I brought in my plans for Friday, but decided not to bother after just getting her to make copies for the day (as many of you know, we mere teachers are not allowed to use the big Xerox machine, she is the only one allowed to use it  I’ve even had to keep lookout for the Vice Principal when he needed copies and she was out of the office).

It’s 7:00 am on a B day, I have 1st prep, so students don’t show up until 9:00.

Me: “I’m going to be out sick again today, can you copy these for the substitute?”

Her, looking at the packet:  “150 copies, six pages, that’s a lot of copies.”

Me, thinking 3 classes, 40+ kids per class, with a few extra for mistakes:  “Yeah, I know, but they need ‘em.”

Her: “What about your emergency lesson plans?”

Me, not meaning to, but getting a good laugh from the other secretary:  “Those are for when I’m in a coma.”

Her:  “That’s going to take a lot of time, I’ll try to get them done.”

Me, thinking ‘you go in there, put the six pages on the machine, hit 2 sided, hit collated, hit staple, hit 150, hit start, and then walk away.  I’ve done it before, it isn’t going to take 2 hours’: “Thanks”

… Silly me, wanting something relevant to what we are studying for the students to do instead of the emergency lesson plans I put together at the beginning of the year.  Next time I’ll keep my priorities in the right place, I’ll just stop by Kinko’s and do it myself.