May the Holday vacation begin!

Ohh yeah, it's about frickin' time too... Things were looking pretty crapulent earlier this week but by week's end, my frown was turned upside down.

I got a nice visit from Tyler, a former student of mine, and he brought me cookies! Cookies! I don't even get cookies from my own students!

So I wish everyone Happy Holidays and tons of rest...lord knows I need it!

acts of sheer stupidity, christmas edition (return of the badly drawn penis)

Some moronic grade 10 kid (or kids) broke into the school last night, vandalized property and drew swaztikas and penises on the walls (inlcuding a grotesque 2 foot penis on MY door), wrote nigger on a teacher's classroom door (the teacher is black) and other various vulgarities... Why I am convinced that the culprit(s) is(are) in grade 10? Only a grade 10 student would that I have had pass issues with penis drawing (not with the penis itself, but with the act of vandalizing public property). They are fully aware of my multiple rants against defacing public property (especially when that public property is associated with me), so it can only be one of the several dumbass dickheads that roam around amongst the grade 10 students.

And when they get caught, they will feel my wrath... Miss Alarie is majorly pissed.

Digging myself out of the snow

Lucky for me, my hubby and I paid someone to dig ourselves out of Fridays blizzard. 41 centimeters of pretty, fluffy white snow, which has not been plowed yet, so streets are like an off-road bike course. There's barely enough room for one car on most side streets, never mind the pedestrians...

Last week was bizarre: 2 work days, 2 strike days and one snow day. Students and teachers feel dishevelled, it's patchwork teaching at its best, trying to remind students where we left off 4 days ago. It's the first full work week in about 2 weeks and it will be the longest.

We are back to work in every sense of the work... no more strike days looming ahead. The Liberal government in power in Quebec imposed a decree forcing public sector unions to adhere to a contract. Some are content, others (many I must say) are livid and intend to continue striking, although illegally at this point. I'm somewhat in the middle: I am glad this is over, I am happy knowing I will not sacrifice another day of pay and I am happy I can now fully participate in school life. But I am pissed that the government will not recognize that if they want our kids to get a better education, it's not by revamping the educational system or creating new fandangled programs for disaffected youth. The government must realize that we lack daily resources to deal with the students, nay animals, that roam the hallways every day. I see new teachers, fresh out of university wondering if they missed a course on how to deal with the maniacs in their classes, and I reassure them: No no, it's not you, they are the ones that are fudged up... How can they be expected to last more than a year?

Although it has to answer to the entire pupolation and not jsut to teachers, the government has shown teachers that they cannot see this situation by imposing this contract. Bleh, I say

yes, Môôôssieu Carlôô, it is indeed Monday

and I think everyone is due for some time off, because even at school, we feel like we are dragging a kind of dead weight.

Bleh. And tomorrow is our first strike day. I am not for this strike day, I think I have metionned it before. And not only because of the loss of income, but because of the lack of public support for our cause. Parents are sick and tired of these rotating strikes. It's become almost a cure-all solution to problems at work. Unhappy, disgruntled, disaffected? Strike to your heart's content...

...and now for something completely different: I couldn't post the pictures of the dirty hallways, because my camera, which was low on juice, didn't actually take the pictures. Grrrr!

Oh well, I will prove that my students are messy on another day.

Grade 10 students are pigs

And I don't mean in the perverted, sex-obsessed way... Oh if it were just that, I'd be happy... It's much worse: they are actually filthy and they don't mind living in that filth. It's gross and unsanitary and I have never ever seen, in my entire career, so many many students indifferent to the fact that they are sitting in their garbage.

I'll post pics of the mess soon...yuk.

Ph34r me, 4 I am l33t

Well, not quite that elite, but apparently, according to some of the ladies in my grade 10 ethics class, it would seem that the guys are trying their best to behave in my class because they are afraid I might hurt them. I, Miss Alarie, apparently instill fear of bodily harm in the hearts and minds of adolescent boys.

It is with an evil grin that I say: cool!

But honestly, why would they fear me? I am but a sweet, lovable, short-tempered and impatient highschool teacher. I have never been violent towards a student... well except that time I abruptly sat on Chris C. The twit deserved it. Anyone that annoying merits to get squashed under 175 pounds. I have his brother now, and thankfully, he isn't as bad as Chris used to be.

...heh, they fear me. PH34R M3, I say!!