Saturday 14 February 2004

Thursday I was asked by one of my students if I would be bringing in candy the next day for Valentine's Day. I responded as seriously as I could, "Tomorrow isn't St. Valentine's Day... it's Friday the 13th. I'll be bringing in pieces of a broken mirror."

Of course I brought candy, and gave some to each of the K-8 students at school. It was a nice day. In return I (like the other teachers in school) was given six valentines, a small box of chocolates, a four-inch chocolate meltaway heart, a cookie, a chocolate-covered strawberry, a rose from Beth and Jody, and a hug from each of the students in the 5th grade class.

Geez, Mark, you sure have been writing a lot about school lately.

I know. What can I say? After a year away from teaching, I'm just so happy to be back. More duties have come my way this week as I've now taken over teaching computer science to all students in grades 2-8, and am the new webmaster for The Academy website. My new hours came from two sources... one teacher who was only teaching on Tuesday afternoons and realized she could make more money if she worked at her other job instead, and Beth's husband who was formerly updating the website in his spare time on the weekends. When hired I was scheduled for 14 hours per week (including preps)... now I'm up to twenty.

Anyway, happy St. Valentine's Day. Last week I wrote about something missing in my life. There are two things especially. One is no one with whom to share romance today. I pulled my personals from Yahoo! and Match.com after realizing that since I didn't have the balls to call Cindy last month that I really shouldn't post an ad until I can purchase a used car and actually be able to go out on a date.

The other is atonement. I have yet to file bankruptcy or to make amends for my bad credit. I've yet to set up child support for Dawson and haven't called Kari in three months (since learning she had that instrumental hand in my undoing at my last school.) Needless to say, there's no way in hell I want her to know that I am teaching. You know there's no depth to which she's capable of sinking if she wishes.

I like taking care of Catherine, and am sure would feel the same with Dawson. I just wish I could take care of them directly rather than having to go through the bitch and the psycho-whore.

So, I've another St. Valentine's Day alone... but I do have fans out there. Although it's obvious each of the art classes put together their valentines with particular themes about each teacher, they still served as a source of warm-fuzzies. I'll share them with you....