A mid-week post of nothing in particular

I was officially observed today for the first of two times this year. Normally, these things don't phase me a bit since I am a brilliant teacher everyday. However, last year my principal came in for an "unofficial" visit on probably my worst day teaching during the year. It was the day after a test and I had a lot of students that were absent for an unannounced language evaluation. So I decided to show a movie while the absent kids made up the test. We were finishing WWI and I was going to show part of All Quiet on the Western Front. Now, there are two versions of this movie. One was made in the late 1930s and was an Oscar Winner. The other was a made-for-TV movie made in the 70s with Ernest Borgnine. Clearly, I intended to show the Ernest Borgnine version which is in color and is much more exciting than the 1930s version. So when I was cuing it up at lunch I found out that Blockbuster had put the 1930s version into the Ernest Borgnine box, thus making my movie-viewing activity obsolete. So I decided to show a back-up video documentary narrated by Peter Jennings. Instead of making them take notes I decided to be revolutionary and just add interesting bits myself to keep them interested. Well, the principal walks in 3 minutes into the video and had nothing good to say. I explained the situation to her later and she said she understood, but I got a really bad feeling from her for the rest of the year. I had really good "official" observations and even 2-3 surprise observations that went well that year, but the one bad observation that I had in 5 years of teaching stuck with me more.

In any case, today's lesson on the social structure in colonial Latin America went really well and the comments on my official observation form were good including a "very nice job Jeff" at the end. So I feel better, but I hope that I don't have another fiasco this year when my principal makes her surprise visit.

In other news, I have a mailbox full of nominations for DBotW. There are some real doosies in the pile and I will narrow them down by the weekend. Here is one nominee for a teaser:

David Rodriguez, 18 and from Chicago, kidnapped an 8 year-old girl from outside of their local library. To rape her? No. To make her clean the kitchen? No. To carve a pentagram into her chest as part of a demonic ritual intended to bring back his ex-girlfriend? Unbelievably, yes. Fortunately, he was caught because he made the most common mistake made by people kidnapping little kids to use in demonic rituals: he let the little brother go (he went and told a responsible adult - so kindergarten works!!!). Police arrested this anus as he returned from the store to buy candles and incense. This makes me wonder: Don't you buy the supplies for the demonic ritual before you kidnap the 8 year-old? Fucking amateur.

After taking a vote from the EToWJB staff, we (I) decided that this guy was more of a chode-smoker than a douchebag, which cost him the win. Sorry. Maybe he can perform a ritual to repair his rectum after the guys in jail get done with him.

Happy Hump Day!