Passing?

I'm not in school anymore but I am a teacher and that usually means maximum drama because, let's face it, kids are funny.

Especially college kids who think they're smarter than the average professor.

Like last week when I had a conversation with a girl who is concurrently enrolled in high school and my college class.

Which is usually the sign of an above average student

Usually but not always.

And definitely not this girl. As evidenced when she approached me and told me that she needed that she have this form that needed to be signed saying she was passing my class so she would be continued to be eligible for high school activities.

And actually she was supposed to turn them in every week and had just forgotten but never fear she had enough for the rest of the semester so if I would just go ahead and sign them in advance and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

To be honest, I hadn't been worried...largely because I hadn't known about the existence of the form until that exact moment.

Her brilliant plan, though, did worry me.

"I can't sign a whole semester's worth of forms in advance," I told her. "I can't see the future; I've no idea if you'll be passing six weeks from now."

Judging by the look on her face, this might be the most confusing thing anyone had ever said to her.

"I just have to have the form signed," she said in a slow, careful voice,

"I just have to tell the truth on it," I said.

And she stared me like she honestly couldn't figure out what my problem was.

Since I am a teacher, I decided to use this as an educational moment.

"Look," I told her, "if I sign that I'm saying that you're passing the class.  What if you stop coming? What if you're not passing? I can't sign a form that says you're passing six weeks from today's date when I have no idea what your situation will be then."

And she just kept staring at me like I'm the one who wasn't making any sense.

"I just have to have a form that says I'm passing." She explained one more time.

"But you're not even passing NOW," I told her.

And she stormed away in a fury.

I still can't figure out if I should be insulted that she thinks I'm dumb enough to fall for this or if I should be horrified that she honestly can't see the flaw in her plan.

This post is part of a weekly blog hop called Finish The Sentence Friday. For other school related posts, please click below:

My Favorite Part of the Day

It’s Finish The Sentence Friday and this makes two weeks in a row that I’ve participated—it’s like a Friday miracle!

In any case, this week’s sentence is The best part of my day is...

Since many of my fellow bloggers are moms, I’m probably not going to get a lot of sympathy with this one but the best part of my day used to be the 10 minutes between first and second alarm.

At our house, the alarm goes off at 5:35 am.  Which is insanely early—as my niece, Abby, always says “God himself doesn’t get up until 7:00.” So, I do what any normal person does: I hit the snooze. And then I get back in bed, I snuggle up next to Opie and we have a few minutes to just laugh and talk and get ready for the say.

It used to be the best part of the day.

Until Princeton P. Kitty decided we need a chaperone and started resolutely entrenching himself between us.

 

 

Now, Princeton is my first cat; I was strictly a dog person before I got him.  And prior to getting him, I would have said “What’s the big deal? Just MOVE THE STINKING CAT!” However, now that  have a cat, I know it would be easier to solve the problems in the Middle East than move a sleeping cat who doesn’t want to be moved.

To rephrase Yoda, “Try or try not. There is no move.”

So we started trying to snuggle around the cat.

Unfortunately, this just convinced Bubba that it’s 100% appropriate for animals to wriggle their way between their owners.

 

 

And if you think it’s hard to move a cat, you should try moving a dog that is half-Rottweiler.

Then, to make matters worse, we just got a new puppy.  We aren’t crazy enough to let her in the bed (yet); she sleeps in a playpen. But when she hears the alarm go off, she doesn’t really care about the snooze option.  She begins an immediate litany of:

“Mom! Mom! I’m awake too! Is it time to get up? Is it? I’m ready, Mom! I’ll get up! Mom!  Did you hear me? I’m up!  Totally up! Wide awake, Mom! Ready to go! Do you want to see a trick? Here, I’ll do a trick!  Mom, are you watching? Mom! Mom! Mom!”

(I’m translating here, of course, but I happen to be fluent in dog.)

In any case, there’s no sleeping through THAT.

So, that has kind of put the kibosh on the favorite part of my day, at least for now!