Reputation

Wow does my school's name carry a certain amount of weight in this city or what? Everyone I talked to today made some sort of "whoa" gesture when I told them where I worked. Now, why was I talking to people during the day today - i.e. why wasn't I actually at work? Well, I somehow managed to injury my back so much that the doctor suggests I do not return to school until Monday. So there go a whole bunch of sick days at a time of the year when it isn't so horrible to be there. In fact, I met a TFA in his second year this weekend who claims that all sick days should be saved for February and March. Oh well. I probably shouldn't have gone to work yesterday either. It started innocently enough with minor back pain and decent weather. But then I arrived at school. Before homeroom even ended I realized I did not bring my cell phone to school and my watch had been stolen so I had no way to keep time. So I walked down the hall and borrowed another teacher's watch. By the time I returned to my classroom someone had shut both doors locking everyone out of my room. Well fine, so we fixed that and first period began. I informed all the kids that I couldn't move very easily and gave them time to get themselves together before we started reading. So I pull out my stool, sit down and bam, all four legs fall off the stool. Excellent start to the day. Then, second period is relatively considerate of my increasingly immobile self and the day seems to be picking up. That is, of course, until third period when some high schoolers decide to set the building on fire. So off I go, by this time I almost entirely hunched over, into the cold for forty minutes. At this point my back is killing me, every movement is painful and the building is full of smoke. So we are expected to spend the rest of the day in a foggy building. Luckily I'm done teaching about ten minutes later and can escape for a while. Naturally the rest of the day consisted of lots of inquiries into whether or not I was pregnant (what other possible reason would I have for an aching back, they asked). And my favorite event of the day - two of my boys fighting one another, seeing me, stopping fighting and then one of them limping away all bent over yelling out "now I'm walking like Ms. Johnson, ahhhhh"

Alright time to take some prescription Motrin and sleep for four days.