Winter

A quick count on my own fingers and toes, my dog's toes, and Michael's left hand leads me to believe that I have been in school for 22 years of my life. (Okay, I didn't need Oliver to help with that, but still . . .) This is the first time I have experienced winter as a(n almost) teacher. I learned something about teachers today. Or maybe I just learned something about myself.

Teachers like snow days almost as much as, if not more than, the students.

I am the type of person who believes that life can be jinxed. When deciding what to be called at my second student teaching placement, I thought very seriously about what students should call me. For three weeks, I would technically be Miss Buechner, and then for the other six weeks of the placement I would become Mrs. David. But why on earth would I want to put those poor high school students through pronouncing Buechner for three weeks, only to turn around and present them with an utterly pronounceable, memorable name like David? (My seventh and eight graders at my first placement knew and called me by my maiden name because I actually wrote "Beak ner" board when introducing myself. If they had received a letter from Miss Buechner they would have been dumbfounded.)

Well, for one reason, I was terrified to go by "Ms. David" before actually getting married because I did not want to jinx the wedding. Apparently my cooperating teacher believes in the power of the jinx too (or he's just like that) because he asked me, "are you sure he's not going to leave you at the altar?" when I decided to be Ms. David.

(In a sidenote of this sidenote, I think it is hilarious that my cooperating teacher really emphasizes the "Mrs." part of my name now.)

So anyway, today my students kept talking about how we would not have school on Wednesday, and how great their day off was going to be. I tried to shush them, but they would not listen to me. I tried to counterbalance their tempting of fate by loudly proclaiming (well, not that loudly, but I am the teacher . . .) that there is no guarantee that school will be canceled tomorrow. (As I write this, school is still on, and I'll plan to be there with bells on, as long as I can physically make it to Ripon.) I mostly just wanted them to shut up and let the powers that be make that call, without any interference from students who have no apparent concern for jinxing a good thing!

In an effort to prepare for the . . . um . . . worst, I reserved that media center computer lab on Friday, just in case we're not able to use the media center computers tomorrow. While I was in the media center, the new head librarian (who likes me because it is easy for her to remember my name is Katie David since her name is Kathy Davis) confided that she could really use a little bit of extra time at home tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm going to stop thinking about whether or not I have school tomorrow, and go eat a Pastie (good for a cold night) and watch a movie with my husband (who introduced me to Pasties) :)