Friday Photos- Things I Don’t Like to See (TIDLtS)

A look back at the week, Monday thru Friday, through photos and screenshots

The week was a good one, overall, but just in the way that nothing bad happened. It was pretty very uneventful. But that is ok. My temperament was made for weeks such as these. Let me carve a little time in my week for exercise, for reading and to have fun, relaxing times with Donnie, and then I am good. Plus, if every week had special things about it, then the truly special ones wouldn’t stand out as much. A lunch of an egg and bagel sandwich is fine; it’s when you have a lunch out at your favorite restaurant every once in a while that your lunch is special. Lunch out every day would be expensive, highly caloric (unless you were super disciplined), and not as special due to it happening daily. So most days I am content with my breakfast sandwich for lunch. All right, enough with the meal analogies (yes, I am hungry!) And most weeks, I am fine with the normal and banal accounting for 99.9% of it. 

Like I said, it was a fine week but when I looked back at the photos on  my phone, I had to kind of laugh because there was a theme. The pictures were almost all negative things.

First off is this cloudy water in my water bottle. Gross, right? Even grosser is that it came out of the water fountain at one of the schools where I was subbing this week. I took the picture to alert someone in the office about it. 

Fortunately, I was able to find one of these water bottle refilling stations out of which clear water was pouring.

Next is this little toy. Note the dust. Guess where it was? It was in a space that I don’t have a name for- it was where you open up the bottom of the gas fireplace. There’s a slotted piece of metal on the outside of the fireplace, at the bottom. Joe, our contractor for the outdoor project, needed to take a look at the space. I guess they’re getting ready to run a gas line out back? Joe wanted to see something pertaining to the fireplace, so he opened up the space by removing the slotted piece of metal. I had no idea the piece was removable; I’d never removed it. Well, lots of spiders knew about the space. There were a ton of cobwebs in the space. And there was this little toy. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was. In fact, I asked Joe if it was supposed to be in there. Like there is some pastel blue part that is part of a gas fireplace? It seemed unlikely but we’d never opened the vent thing so how on earth did it get there. Joe chuckled and responded that it was not supposed to be in there. He said it was a little toy and one of the kids must have placed it in the open slots and it fell. I didn’t recognize the toy and don’t recall the kids having a little cooking set with pastel blue kitchen supplies, but the memory is a tricky thing- I don’t recall nearly every toy that the kid had. But who’s the stinker who figured out that items could be placed in the slots and then did so?

I mentioned being at school this week. I subbed three days. Two of the days were doozies. I don’t like to get students in trouble. I hate for the teacher to have to deal with discipline when he or she gets back into the classroom. And I don’t like for students to get detentions which is why I always give warnings before I write a student’s name down as one who has made poor choices. But, it is necessary for the good, ultimately of the student (home is the best place to learn there are consequences for actions but if parents abdicate that role and/or if the student decides to make bad choices despite knowing better from home, then school is as good a place as any for youngsters to learn there are consequences for poor choices) and also for the entire classroom (since the poor choice of one often results in disruption to learning to the entire class) to know that certain types of poor choices will result in an unpleasant consequence. One teacher has a whole system for detailing malfeasance which I think is super fair- the student knows exactly why he or she is getting in trouble and the student’s parent or guardian has to sign the paper as well.

I will take Words You Don’t Want to See Written on Teacher’s Sub plans for $1000.

NOOOOOO!

The class wasn’t thaaaaaat bad. (It was not good don't get me wrong! The note about it did help me to brace for it mentally.)  But I did find myself repeating (in my mind!) my stimming/panic attack avoiding phrase of, “The school day is going to end. It’s going to end. It always does.” I say that a few times in a row and guess what, the day is that much closer to being over :).

Switching gears to the controversial subject of free speech and potential lawfare over stating an opinion (straight out of Orwell)...

This quote from Seth Dillon makes me uncomfortable, only because I fear it is true. As someone whose political beliefs are often not in alignment with those in powerful positions who want to censure those who do not agree with them, well, uh-oh. 

The article quotes Michael Shellenberger (he is not a conservative though Seth Dillon, quoted above, of the satirical site, The Babylon Bee, is)

Here is Shellenberger´s quote on X

"Clinton, Gates, Kerry, UN, WEF, say we must let them censor the internet to save democracy. We must not. Their demands are totalitarian and Orwellian. Deep state leaders are turning regime tactics developed abroad against the American People."

This graph shows the rise in mentions of "misinformation" and "disinformation" post-2016 in news media and academic papers. Cray- cray! Especially since many positions deemed misinformation pertaining to the pandemic turned out to be exactly the opposite of misinformation. 

There is so much more to say about this topic but, alas (for this post anyway), the weekend beckons.