Positively Ridiculous

This year, I set an intention before school started to try to be positive.  If you know me, this is going hard against the story of my life.  While I would never categorize myself a pessimist, I am, for sure, a hard-core realist.  So I am giving positivity a try and while I find I have to force myself into it and be very mindful about choosing it, I think I am doing a decent job of not being mired down in the negative or the sheer exhaustion that comes from life.  However, sometimes the ridiculousness that comes from choosing to work surrounded by teenagers really makes one exclaim all day long “This job is ridiculous!” and not in a positive way.

This was easily said as I frog-marched children who were doing state-mandated testing to lunch one day this week.  These are the poor kids who failed the test last year and are retaking it again and again and again.  There were about three adults and ten kids and we were marching along to make sure that the kids wouldn’t be talking about the test.  To ensure this, we were told that they were not allowed to talk at all.  Kids who had been trapped in a room for three hours taking a test that they probably wouldn’t pass this time either could not relax for twenty minutes and talk.  Ridiculous, right? 

Yesterday, the doorknob on my classroom door seemed loose.  I was nervous all day that it would break off and I would be trapped in a roomful of kids.  “Careful with the door,” I said every single time someone entered or exited the room.  Ridiculous.  The knob fell off today and a coworker and I taped up the locking mechanism and now it reminds me of a swinging Western door in a saloon as you just push on it to open it and I keep hearing “Howdy Pardner” as it opens.  Also ridiculous.  However, I don’t even have to try to be positive about this because I am!  It didn’t break off trapping me and a roomful of kids.  Hooray!  A ridiculous win!

Purple tape to match my room, naturally.

Also ridiculous that a student came back from the restroom with a Magnum condom and dropped it, purposely, on the floor next to another student.  Ridiculous that I had to say the words “Pick up that condom and throw it out.”  Even more ridiculous that I had to repeat that more than once and then explain that I had nothing against condoms, but I wasn’t picking it up and the cleaning lady wouldn’t be picking it up either.  So much condom talk ensued I then found myself saying “Stop talking about condoms.”  And a seventeen-year-old kid with a Magnum condom?  Whatever.  Ridiculous.

My last ridiculous thing for the day is the note I wrote in my grade book about a student’s assignment.  This student does very little work and doesn’t often show to the class, so while I had him here today I told him to write the letter he owed me.  Know that I am a kind and benevolent grader and will often take whatever kids turn in and make it work.  This was supposed to be a letter to his future spouse detailing what he wanted in a spouse, what he had to offer to this spouse, and how he envisions their life.  He wrote me Lil Uzi lyrics that start “Dear Mama”.  I knew they were lyrics because the entire thing rhymed and because I AM NOT DUMB!  I hate when they think I am dumb.  I entered a 0 for this assignment along with the note “submitted Lil Uzi lyrics for this assignment.”  Ridiculous!

This ridiculous day is competing hard against my wish to be positive. However, even as I type that, I am focusing on the positive:  I am positive there will be more ridiculousness tomorrow, I am positive I will still not have a doorknob and I am positive that a pair of pajama pants and a glass of wine never looked so good.