Mamacita says:

The newest Carnival of Education is up; click on over and catch up on what your kids’ teachers and other kids’ parents are saying about the state of education these days. You can’t have a viable opinion if you don’t keep up! (This applies to everything, by the way.)  If you would like to submit a post to the Carnival of Education, you can!  And it’s EASY!

I wish I knew why I am so dog-tired all the time these days.  I know it can’t have anything to do with the fact that I stay up all night and try to go to work anyway.  I’ve done this pretty much all my life, except for when I lived with my parents, and it’s only been lately that it all seems to be catching up with me.  It can’t be old age – that only affects OTHER people – you know, the old ones. . . . so it’s got to be something else.  Maybe leprosy.  Or Tropicana Fever.  (brought about by too much longing for an island and an excess of orange juice to pretend you’re on one.  An island, that is.)  It’s to the point that I can’t listen to music while driving any more;  if it’s early in the morning and I’m going to the city to teach, it makes me sleepier.  Yes, even the really LOUD STUFF.  Too rhythmic, I suppose.   I had to start listening to Audio Books to stay awake, and you know what, my beautiful DIQ (daughter in question) was right – they’re cool!

Once I’m at the college, I’m wide awake.  It might be forced, but it’s real.  I love my job, and my college, so much!   Nice, nice people, my students.  I try to be as interesting as possible, and so far even the narcoleptic student has managed to stay awake.  He sleeps soundly until the very last minute, but that’s all right.  He’s not MINE until the stroke of 9:30.  They can all show up with pillows and warm milk and teddy bears if they want, and sleep all over the floor, as long as they’re alert at 9:30.  I don’t bother them until it’s time.

We do have all new faucets, toilets, and paper towel dispensers this semester: a wonderful thing indeed.  Gone are the days when people had to flush, turn handles, and “pull down” manually.  The new fixtures are all motion activated, but the motion has to be extreme or it’s not noticed.  What IS noticed, however, would be the row of adults, all gesturing frantically, begging the water to come on, or turn off, and waving dripping wet hands in the air in supplication, hoping for an inch of towel to peep forth.  It’s like a band of St. Vitus Dance victims at a revival.  Or a tour of Dutch windmill country during a hefty breeze.

I always feel guilty about leaving the stall before the thing flushes.  It always does, but what about the times when there’s a long line, and someone enters the stall before it flushes after the previous pooper?  Sometimes, that thing doesn’t flush for a minute or more.   Ick.  I have this THING about pooping on top of a stranger’s poop.  Color me goofy.

Dancing for the bathroom fixtures.  As if life didn’t come with enough indignities. . . .