Substitute bamma

I took my first ever sick day on Tuesday because I needed a break. It was pretty stressful because I spent a lot of time meticulously preparing a substitute packet that included my classroom rules and procedures, lesson plans for each of the 6 content areas my children study, and all the materials necessary to execute those plans. I was at school until 8 pm on Monday getting all of these things ready for the substitute the next day.

The woman who subbed for me yesterday is a retired teacher who is scary as all hell. She is 5'3", has short, blonde hair that sticks up in odd points all around her head and thick cataracts that make her eyes look blue. She looks like a witch and she is mean. She hangs around the school going to classrooms and scaring children into submission by berating them (which you should note is completely different than making them cry). I told her all about the plans I left for her, and she told me she'd teach them.

Today when I got to school I found all of my careful plans and materials completely untouched. The students workbooks were empty, and the homework I had prepared had not been distributed. I have no idea what the hell that teacher taught yesterday but I could rip her eyes out for not teaching what I left for her. What the fuck is the point of having someone stand in your place if they won't even do what you've left for them to do? I asked around and heard that the sub definitely had my kids "in check" (meaning she screamed at them a lot). I might as well have told all the kids not to come to school yesterday if all they were going to do was get yelled at by some crazy witch woman.

That's why Ms. Patterson is the bamma of the week. She pretty much ruined my day off because I had to spend so much time the day before preparing for it, and I even spent a lot of time planning my lessons for today. I'd post a picture of her here but I wouldn't want to scare you. Just imagine a 75 year old black woman with Lisa Simpson's hair cut and no soul.

Triumphant Return of B.O.W.

Technically these bammas pissed me off last week, but since I have only recently discovered "Eatmyballs" I could only bitch about them now. The Bamma of the Week are the Port Authority employees who work at the Holland Tunnel.

Let me begin by saying that trying to enter NYC from New Jersey is torture. It doesn't matter whether you've chosen a bridge or tunnel, either way the view sucks, the traffic is almost completely at a standstill and it costs a lot of money. This is an infuriating situation even in my tiny Sentra, so I knew I was in for trouble when I would be trying to accomplish this feat in a 16' long Budget truck.

After much deliberation, it was decided we would take the Holland Tunnel. The back up for the Holland Tunnel began about a mile before the toll. It took us 90 minutes to move that entire mile, which means that we got to hear "Big Girls Don't Cry" like 5 times. Awesome.

As we pulled up to the toll, the toll lady informed us that trucks were not allowed in the Holland Tunnel. The entire 90 minutes we had been waiting to get to the toll there had been absolutely no indication that such a restriction existed. In fact, there were signs that actually said that trucks had to pay $6 and up at the toll booth, thus indicating that some trucks were allowed. As an added bonus, the Port Authority police officers were completely unhelpful in directing us to the Lincoln Tunnel (which FYI, is your best bet from NJ to NY truck travel), simply saying "Follow that van there." "That van" by the way was just some van that was also being rerouted. Seriously officer -- you can't even give me the name of a goddamned road? A highway number? A cardinal direction? ANYTHING that will be constant and that doesn't include trying to follow some strangers in a van who may or may not be going to the same place?

In the end, we got the truck to New York. It took an extra two hours, and we ended up in Hackensack briefly, but we did it. And we did it with zero help from the ignorant Bammas at Port Authority.

Belated Bammas of the Week

Sorry that I snoozed on the Bamma of the Week last time. I have too little energy and mental capacity to give a full bamma of the week award (sorry!) so I'm just going to list a few of the things that have made this week almost unbearable:

working in a "collaborative" with people who don't like to collaborate

being cited for professional conduct concerns (long story)

having to run up and down 6 flights of stairs trying to find an unlocked women's bathroom in an elementary school

staples employees who won't let you buy more than 10 folders at once

Wake up Call

At my program, we are going to be bussed to different schools all over NYC to begin teaching summer school. These buses leave at 3 different times: 6:45 am (theoretically doable), 6:25 am (sounds awful), 6:05 am (should be defined as torture by the Geneva Conventions). Obviously, I was really hoping that I'd be assigned to a school whose bus left at 6:45 am, and even more obviously, that isn't the case. For the next 5 weeks, every day I will be up at 5:00 am to ready myself for a day of teaching and to gurantee I don't miss my 6:05 am bus. Even worse, of the 10 people I live with, only 2 other people have to wake up for the early buses.

Whoever assigned me to this 6:05 am bus has more than earned the award for the Bamma of the Week. I am not merely giving out this B.o.W. because I think it will be annoying to have to wake up early, rather the person who assigned me this ungodly bus departure time has earned their B.o.W. because of their insensitive and thoughtless action. I, as well as anyone who will have to interact with me at any time between 5 and 9 am, will suffer as a direct result of this bus departure time. This is because I have a nearly clinical-level problem waking up early. (Obviously, I am a bamma for deciding to leave a job where I could breeze into the office every day at 10 am and pursue a job as a teacher where I'd have to be at work by 8 am, but that's not the point here).

I understand that there are a lot of people out there who can wake themselves up, but I am not one of them. I have an alarm clock designed for deaf people (it has a vibrating pad that you can put underneath your pillow), and it still doesn't wake me up. In fact, I burned out the vibrating pad because I would just sleep through it. Anyone who has ever lived with me has, at some point, had to wake me up. And when I say "some point" I mean every single day they would have to wake me up because I would inevitably sleeping through an alarm. Even as a child I didn't wake up easily: my dad had to pick up and shake my mattress for me to get out of bed when I was in elementary school. In high school I had problems consistently waking before 7 am, which was a huge problem since school began at 7:25 and I lived 30 minutes away. I'm hoping my body can adapt to a 10-5 sleep schedule easily, but I predict it's going to be a rough transition from my preferred 1-8 schedule. I pray for everyone who is going to have to deal with me in my cranky, zombie state until my body adjusts. Except, of course, for that Anonymous TFA Institute worker -- they can go to hell.

Bamma of the Week

Though normally I find morning commute radio shows to be evidence that there is evil on Earth, I do enjoy the Donnie Simpson show on WPGC 95.5. Huggy Lowdown is definitely the best part of the show. Mr. Lowdown, amongst many other bits, gives a weekly award to the "Bamma of the Week." Since I'm moving and will no longer be able to hear Huggy's weekly award, I thought I should give out my own weekly Bamma award. For those of you unfamiliar with the word "bamma", let me enlighten you. A bamma is a classless fool who is generally ignorant of their obvious failings. Also, it's anyone (or anything) who pisses me off.

So, with that in mind, I would like to award the inaugural "Bamma of the Week." Early in the week I thought I might be giving this ignominious honor to the highest bidder for the post-jail Paris Hilton interview. Once those deals fell through, my week was looking suprisingly Bamma-less. But then on Friday night, a new contender came out of no where to run away with the win. This contender is none other than the Anonymous Jerkface who threw up in the Union Station metro on Friday night.

I have no idea who Anonymous Jerkface is -- the only evidence I have that they even existed is the slippery puddle of vomit they deposited on the Union Station metro floor. Man or woman, child or adult, this Anonymous Jerkface wins my "Bamma of the Week" award because I slipped and fell in their puke. That's right, I got covered in someone else's puke. In case you've never taken in a spill in throw up, let me assure you that such an experience iis neither a fun end to an evening, nor an enjoyable prelude to a ride on public transit. I firmly believe that I wouldn't have fallen were it not for Anon. Jerkface's puke, and I'm damn sure I wouldn't have been soaked with half-digested food if Anon. Jerkface had managed to get to a trash can before hurling. In conclusion, Anon. Jerkface is the Bamma of the Week for not being able to responsibly monitor either their alcohol intake or their barf output. I've pasted below a picture of what I imagine the Jerkface looked like: