April 17th, 2009

Friday! Getting back after spring break is always a bitch. Took two days to return to the "up at 6:00 AM" schedule. My students were obnoxious, and I was not too much fun as a teacher. Two of my students were particularly rotten on Monday and Tuesday, so Wednesday; I took them to the mean ceramic's teacher and let him torture them by making new clay from old clay scraps. I'll spare you the details, but the kids came out tired and filthy after the experience. On Thursday the two students were angels.
Combine the above with the fact that it is Income Tax week, and the cold wet storm that raged for 4 days dumping snow and cold rain daily, and the week was pretty "F'D up". Since my back yard was a cold muddy, snowy, mess; poor Freddy was black with mud and couldn't just come inside. We would leave Freddy in the utility room for several hours to dry out every afternoon, before I could brush the mud off of him. Freddy, as you know, is a very intelligent and emotional dog. When left in the utility room he takes it personal and gets all "butt-hurt" about it. I tryed to explain that he is too muddy, but he's still a good dog; however: he still feels like he did something wrong no matter how nice I am.

Thursday was quite a day. I woke up to find out the IRS rejected my tax return, after fixing the error, I learned that I owe $900 in income tax! So I rode my bike to school in the cold rain, lamenting the fact that I would have to make payments to the IRS. Got to school and realized I left my keys at home. I got the janitor to let me in my classroom, thankfully; the kids were well behaved. Since it was a casting day, I had to bust my ass casting 6 molds after school. Then I would have to go to an awards ceremony at 6:00 PM over in Brigham City 30 miles away that evening. I rode my bicycle home in the rainy 35 degree weather, only to discover that I had no keys, so I decided to wait for Logan in the truck camper. Of course the camper was locked (I never lock the camper), so I had to try to find Logan at the school. By the time I got home at 4:00 PM, I crashed for an hour before heading to Brigham city (SHIT! WHAT A DAY!).

I rode with the photo teacher and a few students, up the winding "Sardine Canyon" and made it to the Brigham City museum, in time to be stuck there with nothing to do for 30 minutes before the ceremony even started. After the awards were passed around (my students took first place!), the photo teacher dragged us all to some crappy looking, Mormon owned, Mexican food place.

By this time, all I wanted to do was go home, yet I got to spend an hour and a half, hanging out with the photo teacher and six of his pretentious students, all who thought they were little movers and shakers of the Art world, just because they can manage to click a shutter of a camera. I got stuck sitting across from an anorexic girl who ate nothing but put out negative vibes of tragic angst. The kid beside me looked as if suicide was all he thought about.

Actually the Chinese-American kid, next to "Miss Anorexia", was funny as hell, and the food was surprising good. The walls of the restaurant, were covered with bad Spanish and Mexican art from the 50's, with loads of black velvet and bullfighting scenes. The waitress was quite a charactor with full face paint and surly attitude. She was an absolute riot, cussing at the cook, while flirting with me and the other teacher. For the first time today, I started to lighten up and have some fun.

The drive back through the canyon, seeing the snowy mountains, shrouded with clouds that reflected the light from the distant Logan Metro area, was spectacular.

By the time I got home at 9:30 PM, I was too tired to move. I sat on the front porch with my dog and drank a beer in the cold, wet, night; thinking about how great this busy day turned out to be.