This week:

* Has been parent-teacher conferences. For the most part, I've really enjoyed getting to sit down and talk with the parents of the little people that I spend most of my time with. Granted, I had three no-shows today, and another Tuesday morning, but those who have come by have been awesome. For the most part ;-)

* I had a student drop the f-bomb. Which another student then repeated. Which, finally, was repeated to me by a third student. Loudly and clearly. Isn't first grade precious?

* My children didn't see me bleed once!

* I get to go on two dates with Kevin this weekend!

* I feel like I haven't slept at all

* I came to the realization that an era (the live-at-home-with-chuck-and-judy era) of my life is coming to an end. In about two weeks, I will be moving out. I am shacking up with my boyfriend. Really, this is the last step towards living an independent, adult life. I've finished school. I have the career. I'm moving away from home. Although I had practice living on my own in college, I came back here afterwards and have spent the last two years becoming quite comfortable settling back into the adult-child-living-at-home routine.

i would think of a clever title, but that would take away from my preparation for conferences time

“My name is Jessica, and I am a workaholic. I guess I've known about my problem since the 90's, but I am just now realizing the depth of my addiction”. There has not been a single day in the last 3 weeks in which I have not done a substantial amount of work for school. If I could stop, I would. Unfortunately, I have selected a job that is ideal for a workaholic and that supplies ample opportunities for my addiction to be fed. I will work mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights, and weekends until I die.

In other news...

Oh wait. There is no other news. My entire life has been consumed by teaching. I have become the dreaded one-dimensional teacher woman.

Has your life ever felt like a Chevy Chase movie?

One week ago, exactly, as I was walking across my classroom to set up a magnet center, four or five of the magnet sheets I was holding slipped and landed on my foot. Although I didn't cry out, the pain was considerable. The blow left my right toe slashed open. This happened at 9 in the morning, in front of my students. I covered a diaper wipe with blood, and limped through the day. Finally, at four o'clock, I drove to Kaiser to have my injury checked out. I was sent (hobbling, mind you) from building to building, back and forth, for over an hour. I was x-rayed, and, in the end, my toe's fate was decided: it was going to heal. It was cleaned and bandaged, and I was sent on my way with numerous work-related injury forms to submit.

Something else you should know is that approximately three weeks earlier, also in front of my class, my "favorite" student caused a large 20 lb. dry erase board to fall on my other foot, leaving my foot very bruised and bleeding. It had just returned to normal when incident #2 occured.

As a follow-up to incident #2, I had to return to Kaiser today to have my toe checked out. As I was retrieving my wallet from the backseat, I somehow managed to slam the first joint of my finger in the car door. The door actually closed and sealed around my finger - flattening it thoroughly. With my finger jammed in the door, I was forced to use my key remote to unlock the door so that I could 1. Open the door and 2. Remove my finger. As I walked towards the building, my finger began bleeding. I walked into the office, checked in, and stammered, "Um... I...Uh...I...". The receptionist could tell that I was struggling with whether or not to tell her something, and she asked me, "What is it?" Relieved at having been given the opportunity to "come clean", I blurted out, "I... just slammed my fingerinthecardoorintheparkinglotjustnow". By then, my finger was beginning to fill back in (it was flattened to about half-size right after the accident). I sat there, in occupational health, waiting for the appointment to clear my toe and overhearing talk of yet another x-ray, icing my finger and feeling like the world's biggest walking accident. Currently, my finger is about twice it's normal thickness and hurting like hell.

I'm sure I'll have a good laugh about it. Tomorrow. Or the day after. Within a week, tops.