Uncaffeinated

Did today really happen?

This morning I administered a 4-hour AP Government exam in an otherwise empty high school. With limited people on staff and being entrusted with "top secret" testing booklets, answer sheets, and a hermetically sealed "Red Folder," I knew that getting a bathroom break during those morning hours from 7:30 to 11:30 was going to be about as likely as everyone showing up to their test this morning on time--not going to happen. With no one available to relieve me so that I could relieve myself, and not wanting to to breech the security of this all-important exam, I had to adjust my usual routine. Thankfully, my ability to plan in advance is keener than my addiction to my morning pot-o-coffee. So I thought . . .

Consequently, I drank just two cups of the stimulating diuretic, which means that a) I didn't have to bring the entire class of test-takers to the bathroom with me, and b) I remained in a hazy fog all morning. With a 17-year pattern of sipping pots of highly-caffeinated java in order to jump start my brain, having only fraction of my usual amount is like letting a Facebook addict update their status only ONCE a day. Although I was able to read the testing script like a more "animated" robot and keep at least one eye on the AP testers, it was a good thing I didn't have to stand and teach. The entire morning felt like something I was dreaming rather than living. If it weren't for the massive headache I was slowly acquiring, I might have thought I was actually inside of a caffeine-deprivation nightmare.

After testing, I thought a chopped-beef sandwich, 64-ounces of caffeine-enriched sweet tea, and stimulating lunch conversation with my wife would be just what I needed. Well, the BBQ was delicious, the conversation was cathartic, but all the tea did for me crave the bathroom, which I was at least able to use without an entourage.

Still sleepy. Still in a fog.

Back at the house after picking up the kids (how did I get there? Autopilot? Did my son drive? He's only 8, but he IS awake . . . ) my kids wanted to play in the sprinkler. Great! What better way to finally wake up than a shower of cold water combined with running to and fro. Do you know how difficult it is to run when you're sleepy and wet and cold? My headache was really pounding now and was only accentuated when muddy kids' feet found there way into the house.

Then, get this, my kids wanted to watch a movie and dress in their pajamas! I don't know if they sensed my desire to just go back to bed, or because I was already wearing my loungewear, but I wasn't about to deny my kids the happiness and joy that comes from an afternoon PF party. I put a DVD in the bedroom (dark, cozy, inviting bedroom with a giant comfy bed) and we got underway. Then I started feeling guilty. . .

I left the kids with their movie and began my P90X Plyometric workout. If 60 minutes of jump training with Tony Horton wouldn't cure my of my lethargy, nothing would. As I began, I thought of my old college roomate who used to do situps in his sleep. We never knew how he got those 6-pack abs until I caught him one night while I was suddely awoken from choking during one of my "sleep eating" episodes. Exercising in your sleep is great if you are not consciously aware of it. Exercising while you're SLEEPY just plain sucks.

With that, I gave up all hope and went to finish the movie with the kids. I was asleep before my son finished filling me in on the plot.


I awoke later when my wife came home, still with a headache and still in a funk. With the movie long over, luckilythe kids were still in the house and hadn't started any fires with the food they were making on the stovetop.

All in all, I've had a miserably exhausting day doing pretty much nothing, and it all started with my intellect solving a problem of strategic bladder control. I'm going to try to survive the evening, with the help and support of my alert, cognizant family.

Tomorrow, I don't care if I have to take a busload of strangers to the bathroom with me, I'm getting back into my routine of having that pot of hot, steamy, aromatic, Black Silk coffee and enjoying the buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Can you just GO so we can go!!

Setting the Record Straight

There have been lots of rumors going around lately regarding the swine flu. Who has it, who doesn't have it, that it's a giant hoax put forth by the makers of Tamiflu, and (my favorite) that school is closed until May 11th! Now some rumors are true (like that last favorite of mine) but more often than not, the rumors are nothing but sensationalized hearsay fabricated my scandal-mongers for the sake of having "something" to talk about. Heck, weathermen do it all the time, reporting that it's going to rain only so that they can report that it didn't rain like it was "rumored" to have supposed to--but that's another story altogether.

Looks like the forecasters were wrong again. Good thing I was drinking a Mai Tai

Teaching in a high school with throngs of loquacious, social adolescents who thrive on high drama, I hear my fair share of things whispered throughout the halls. This is mainly how I learn about John breaking up with Sally because he's "gay," and how Timmy almost died from smoking a whole garden full of Salvia. Most of the time, the rumors are innocent enough, even when they're about me, like the time everyone thought that I really hated precalculus students, which was so ungrounded that it was humorous: I didn't hate ALL of them.

But there are times when words can hurt as bad as sticks and stones, and there are times when even the most preposterous rumors are perpetuated for far too long that they cease to be amusing, kind of like when students asking more than once if they can have a "Free Day" in class. But long before there were hints, lies, and allegations being spread about every sneezing person on campus having swine flu, there was an informational invention about ME being chattered about all around my perimeter and even in the grocery stores on Sunday morning. While I guess I should be flattered to have my name come up in the same conversation as Jesus and "Uncle Ben," but being the butt of an ongoing, untrue allegation, even if it's not damaging to my reputation, is a bit frustrating, annoying, and disappointing.

Rumors DESTROY the flavor of rice

For several weeks now, I have been asked if I and a close colleague and friend of mine are leaving our teaching positions to accept a "better" job in a "better" school district. It sounds harmless at first, maybe even somewhat flattering, first to think that there IS a better job or better school out there, and second, that I have been recruited, courted, and seduced into teaching at that educational Eden. But after I've continually dismissed the rumor and reassured my students that I have no such plans or aspirations and the questions still come at me, I've got to wonder if there's some sort of covert plan to GET me to leave!

What makes this situation even more appalling is that my colleague and I DID, in fact, visit another campus to speak with the principal about the possibility of the marriage between their needs and our talents. The visit was mainly to case their school and bring back good ideas to make OUR school better. Although we didn't get any panacea for handling tardies, we did bring back some useful insights. This visit took place early LAST SCHOOL YEAR!!

We obviously returned to our teaching positions this year, and since then have attacked our curriculum with more fervor and dedication than ever before. With both of us being alumni of the great school we now teach at, we were NEVER serious about leaving, but now, a year later, long after we even forgot we visited that campus, someone let's the cat out of the bag. Well, that's one dead cat. Time to put it bag into the bag and bury it next to Schrodinger's fated feline.

In an age of instant information, where students text message each other continuously about every tiny detail of their existence, it's rather strange that this type of message took so long to grow into the weed it now is. If this rumor was a student, it would be a junior student who goes to the bathroom during 1st period precalculus only to return without washing his hands just in time for his senior final exams!! Talk about a tardy problem.

So officially for the record. I'm going to set the record straight:

• I am NOT leaving New Braunfels High School (except occasionally on the weekends to see my family).
  
• I am staying on board to continue to teach at my alma mater.
• I'm a true-blue Mule Unicorn who bleeds red (sorry, I only WISH it were blue).
  
• I am NOT a Jedi.
• Not ALL those Facebook "friends" are my friends. Some are relatives.
  
• That was NOT me coming out of that bar
• YES, I HAVE thought about joining the alien circus.
  
• No, I DON'T do math all the time at home (sometimes I throw in a little physics)
• YES, those ARE my real Biceps
• NO, I'm NOT addicted to knee surgeries
• YES, I AM addicted to coffee
• NO, I CANNOT divide by zero
• YES, I have NO outstanding warrants for my arrest
  
• And NO, I do NOT have the swine flu (yet)
  

The "Piggyfly" Effect

In early April in La Gloria, Veracruz, Mexico, near the "manure lagoons" on a giant pig farm, 4-year-old Edgar Hernandez gets the swine flu. Today on the other side of the continent, an entire community closes it's schools for 10 days.

Talk and hype of this new Swine Flu has already made more people sick of hearing about it than those who have actually been afflicted by the virus. Even with the historically recent epidemics of the Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, SARS, and the Avian flu, I never thought that such an outbreak would ever effect or disrupt my life as this swine flu has. Being a perpetual "hand washer," "sneezer into the crux of my elbow," and being around so many surgical masks (unfortunately), my family has always done our part to keep germs at bay, going so far as to steer clear of annoying neighbors. In fact, I thought that being a teacher and being exposed to the communal germs brought to campus by the students of various hygiene habits actually increased my immunity against infections in much the same way allergy shots are designed to work.

I've rejoiced (silently) when school closed down for a day or two because of a couple of ice crystals on a bridge. These rare moments were an opportunity to frolic with the kids without the serious risk of breaking the flow of obligations. But a school closing for 10 days because of an unknown, morphing strain of influenza virus? "Never will that happen! That's movie fodder!!" "When pigs fly," I thought. But now it's official: "Pig's flu!" Who knew?

Ten days is an awfully long time, just long enough to get used to new habits, like sleeping in until 6:30 a.m., actually eating breakfast, laying around in lounge shorts, delegating chores to my children ("Tate, come press this button on the remote control for me"), watching "Days of our Lives," and updating your status on Facebook. But with an incubation time of 5 days, the mandated "vacation" was chosen to span two incubation periods, and also because it coincided very nicely with a Monday return.

With over 150 deaths in Mexico from the H1N1 et al strands already, and the first confirmed death in the U.S. just this morning, no precautionary measures are being spared. Until health officials get a firm grasp on what this virus really is and how to contain it, taking measures to avoid a massive outbreak via social settings makes sense, although I can already picture large groups of students gathering on their "break" to tube the river, play volleyball, and study math.

Those who are already tired of hearing about this piggish, piddly flu (the same types of people who stay put to ride out hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and a busload of Jehovah Witnesses in their neighborhood) draw attention to the 30,000+ deaths in the U.S. each year due to the common flu. What they fail to realize is that the common flu is, how to say it . . . , more COMMON than the swine flu. An estimated 50 million (that's 6 trailing zeros before the decimal, infinitely many beyond it) Americans contract the general flu each year. That comes out to a mortality rate of 0.06%, miniscule really. Of those that fall into that unfortunate percentage, they are likely to be those with weakened immune systems, such as infants, elderly, those with respiratory disease, and those who have spent 10 consecutive days indoors on a couch watching "Days of our Lives." As of today, the mortality rate for this new flu is at 2.6%, with 66 confirmed cases in the U.S. alone, 6 of which are in Texas. Like a rattlesnake with Turret's syndrome and buck teeth, this isn't something anyone wants to mess with.

Now that the "swine flu" has entered into the vernacular, more people with symptoms are being diagnosed. There are hundreds of potential cases currently pending, and people are scrambling to purchase items they think will protect themselves. Drug stores are selling out of surgical maskswhile making all the news stories appear to be at first covering a Michael Jackson Fan Club Convention. Although is is doubtful whether the masks provide any real defense against the swine flu, it is making the surgical mask making companies rich. Look for designer colors and styles to hit the shelves at your local department store soon.

So the reality is that because of a small boy in Mexico (who's made a full recovery), I've got an unexpected 10-day sabbatical that I get to spend with my own children. Although it complicates things, one should never let a world-wide health scare go to waste. The kids and I will make the most of our time off. Perhaps we'll start with a little arts and crafts activity: pimping our homemade swine flu masks.

Attack of the TAKS

Brains are a churning
Calculators are crunching
Pencils are smoking
And students are munching

Each lost in their thought
of x's and y's
solving equations
finding rectangle's sides.

Today is the TAKS test
Mathematics's up first
It's smart to start testing
with the test that's the worst

We're all in the midst
of day one of the four.
At the end of the day
we'll still have three more.

Students sit for exams
'cause the state says they muss'
They're judging the students,
but they're, too, judging us.

These high-stakes conditions
try to adequately measure
What a student can remember
under high-stakes pressure

But the test is untimed
and some finish fast.
Others go slowly,
lest they must go to class.

Bubbling and gridding
they work through the test
certain on some,
and guessing the rest.

Some take small breaks,
put their head down and sleep.
Others just zone off
without making a peep.

As I actively monitor
alert and aware,
sometimes a student
feels the weight of my stare.

I've never spent 4 hours
that felt quite so long.
Even pacing the room
didn't move time along.

Then slowly they finish
first one and then two,
and now that they're done,
they have nothing to do.

So now I must make sure
that everyone's quiet
And keep one's who've finished
from starting a riot.

I know it's my job
and I shouldn't be bitter,
but at times I just feel
like a paid babysitter.

Then finally, at last,
the last person's done.
In reality, though.
The long week's just begun.

Tomorrow, then Thursday,
then Friday as well.
"Oh cometh, ye Saturday,
our savior from . . . "