Sorry I'm late!

Hello, devoted readers of my blog! And hi to anyone other than my mom, too!



This past weekend I went to Ear Falls to play in a hockey tournament with the Pikangikum Stampede, and hence spent Sunday recovering instead of writing my experiences here. Now I am (mostly) recovered, and being that I don't really have to plan anything for the rest of the week, I can bring the blog up to speed.



A running theme through the last few weeks has been our gradual progression back to a full work week; last week was a setback, and this week is an even further setback. Last week, starting on Monday, I thought perhaps that we would have a full week. I felt full of vim and vigour, I had a fairly good turnout for a Monday (22 students in the morning, 26 in the afternoon), and as far as I knew, no one had died. After a fairly good day in class on Monday, I led a productive and fun practice for the high school hockey team, and I came home and went to bed anticipating school the next day. Then, I woke up, and felt horrible. I had a sore throat, headache, was slightly nauseous, and could barely keep my eyes open. Long story short, I took my first ever sick day as a teacher. I came back the next day and found that my classroom had not burnt down, and my students hadn't regressed to a preschool level, so in the future I will remember that my long-term health is more important than perfect attendance.



By the time I returned to class on Wednesday, apparently whatever I had had spread to a lot of the rest of the community. I can't remember how many students I had in my class, but I think it was somewhere in the 20 range. I heard from some other teachers, though, that they were teaching classes of 7 or 8 instead of 30, so apparently there were a lot of sick kids. Hence, no school for students Thursday or Friday.



To start this week, my neighbour in the other grade 2 class only had thirteen students; I was missing my teacher's assistant; a total of 9 staff were away sick, and for all of those reasons, the students were not invited to school yesterday (Tuesday) or any of the remaining days this week. If I'm not well-prepared by the end of this, and if I don't have my next report cards well on their way, then I am negligent. As much as this much time off would seem to be a blessing, it actually really throws off my rhythm as a teacher, and makes it very hard to plan.



Enough about what hasn't been happening - time for what has been happening!



First of all, here's a treat - the school staff played the band office on Wednesday night, in hockey AND in BROOMBALL! I didn't get to play (as Canada inexplicably designates field hockey as a women's sport, so too does Pikangikum designate broomball as a women's sport), but I did take some excellent footage! I think I may have a career as a broomball announcer.



I tried to put in a video here, but unfortunately, Pikangikum's firewall prevents me from uploading video to Youtube. I guess you'll just have to wait with bated breath for the next time I update from somewhere other than here...



From Monday to Wednesday, I did teach my class, but not much of note happened. So instead of talking about that, I'll talk about playing in a hockey tournament this past Saturday. It was awesome. We played 5 games between 10am and 8pm, and just to top it off, I reffed a game. Aside from the first game (the only one we won, but who cares?) it was some of the best hockey I've ever played. Fast paced, I would say hard-hitting, but it was non-contact, high-scoring hockey. The best part about it? Although I didn't score a goal through the whole tournament, I did pick up a few assists, and I was a consistent and solid defenceman! Weird.



In the most important statistical category in any recreational hockey, I was 1 and 1. That's my ratio of injuries incurred to received. In the incurred category, I was skating hard for a puck behind my own net, got to it and backhanded it around the boards. Unfortunately, that left my stick right at the level of the family jewels of the opposing player coming to challenge me for the puck. I don't think I've ever seen a stick break on a jock, but that's what happened. I'm glad to say the other guy was alright, other than sounding a bit like Michael Jackson. In injuries received, I blocked a shot with a fairly unprotected part of my ankle, but I made it back to the bench and kept playing. It hurt something fierce once I eventually took my skate off, and when I tried to put my skate back on Monday night, but I imagine it'll be fine on time for the tournament this coming weekend... How do I find time to teach with all of this hockey? I don't, so it's lucky that there aren't any kids at school anyway!



One development that I feel is important in my classroom with all of the time I've had off is that I've child-proofed my classroom. Seems kind of oxy-moronic, but I have a very energetic bunch, and I have a number of girls who have decided (I can't for the life of me figure out why) that they like kissing boys. So, I've rigged up a lock for the cloakroom door (now my students are locked in on both sides) and I've attached the mailboxes that block off the shelves where the blocks and toys are to the shelves themselves, so unless one of my students brings in a screwdriver, they don't get into the toys unless I say so.



Speaking of my classroom, I'm in it, so I should get back to work. I know there's other stuff I wanted to write about, but I guess I'll have to wait until this coming weekend.