Sloth

That destructive siren, sloth, is ever to be avoided. ~ Horace

Like hell it is! If I didn't embrace sloth-like behavior at times I would utterly lose my mind! Today has been the day of the sloth. It's my new Chinese New Year symbol. If there can be a Year of the Pig, there can certainly be the Day of the Sloth. Last weekend was an absolute whirlwind. I spent Saturday watching Daughter's basketball game, lunch at my brother's, and a trip to Ace Hardware & Food Lion. Sunday was devoted to preparing for the NERESA conference (out of all the presenters WE made the county article -yay for us!). The classroom we were in was in poor shape. The school is only in its 3rd year of operation and is by far in worse shape than ours although ours has been open for 5 years and has 5-11 year old children running about. It was really sad to see how poorly kept that school was. Architecturally it is beautiful: faux columns that lead to arched ceilings, wide halls. Our room looked like soda had exploded on the wall beneath the white board. EVERY floor tile had at least 50 indentations caused by the chairs. No one had bothered to clean the white board. They knew company was coming and didn't even clean! Over 700 people attended the event...people from our county as well as educators from several other counties. The teacher workroom was the saddest place of all. If I worked there, I would avoid it like the plague. The sink was filthy. There was no soap and only a few paper towels. Who leaves a place like this ESPECIALLY knowing all these other people were coming to see a school that is supposed to be a Taj Mahal?! Anyway, Luscious and I spent over two hours (did I mention that it takes me over an hour each way to get to this pigsty?!) preparing our room. We needed tables and had to BEG to get them. We even had to resort to using desks to put the rest of our crap on. We are anal in our planning and had fortunately stopped at the Dollar Tree to buy tablecloths to add that decorative touch to our materials (and doesn't it make all the difference?!). I had to rework the Power Point because the colors just didn't look the same through the projector. This wouldn't annoy some people, but it disturbed me to no end! I finally just had to deal with a color because NOTHING looked right. By the time we were done, our room looked good. By the time I got home, I felt rather crummy. I had had a few "dizzy" spells during the day. I don't know what it was from. All sorts of nasty illnesses have been circulating through the school. I wasn't sure if it was some kind of stomach ick or if my ears (yes, that is plural - I had my ears checked halfway through my course of decongestants and due to the cold I had contracted BOTH ears were now showing that they had fluid!!) were affecting my balance (as had been the case when I dealt with the infection). I took Son out to A's house (Hubby was taking Daughter to the dentist in VA while I presented) to spend the night. No need in waking him or anyone up early to suit our busy day. By the time I got home, I felt really dizzy. I went straight to bed. Was this my reason NOT to present? I knew Luscious would kill me in a slow and painful manner if I was not well enough to present. On Monday I awoke to decent health. No way out now! I practiced the whole way to Luscious's house (45 min. away)....I loathe speaking in front of adults and was incredibly nervous. People were already gathering in our room when we arrived! We had planned on me speaking and Luscious being the Vanna White, advancing the slides on the Power Point. At the last minute, a "clicker" showed up. Now that people were in the room we were kinda stuck with the original plan, but now there was no need for Luscious to sit at the computer at the back of the room. All in all, it went ok. We were told to plan for 25 and ended up with 33 so we didn't have enough materials. It definitely wasn't as bad as the MaEd presentation, but still not something I want to do again. The rest of the week was busy, too, but it wasn't as bad as the prior weeks with nothing short of 4 gazillion activities to stress about. Basketball is winding down. Daughter is really improving...taking more chances, being more aggressive, attempting shots (I hope she'll make one before the season ends). Her team was undefeated in regular season play (there are only 3 teams) and the tournament is next week. Last night there was a county Girl Scout function called Fight Like a Girl. Several women from the community (EMT worker, magistrate, fire fighters) came to tell the girls about their jobs. Then two other women came and taught the girls how to escape and fight in the case of an attempted abduction. It was scary hearing her talk, but incredible to watch these little girls (from kindergarten to 6th grade) practice escaping from these two scary women....none of the adults in the room attempted to grab either of them. They were taught how to scream and act like freaks to try to get free as well as how to hit an attacker with the back of their heads. The women told them how to bite the forearms of an attacker.....they even got to practice biting oranges. The women were extra rough with the bigger girls. I suppose because they are bigger (duh) and more likely to encounter some sort of pervert. The self confidence that emanated from the girls as they escaped these brutes was awesome. On the flip side, it's really sad that we have to teach our children these things. The instructor told the girls that they needed to have their parents practice attacking them twice a week. It all made sense. We teach our children all sorts of things: how to brush their teeth, dress themselves, etc. BUT we don't teach them how to help themselves in a life or death situation. It was a fabulous evening. Needless to say, I was absolutely exhausted after teaching all day, spending 4 hours with 50+ girls (who ultimately had to be watched closely b/c they were starting to practice on each other), and then cleaning up. I didn't get home until 9:30 last night. I go to pick up the cookies in about 10 minutes. That will be my next fun adventure. Needless to say, I think I deserved a bit of sloth-like behavior today. I have made sure I have done laundry. At least we'll have clean clothes even if the house looks like crap. I don't think occasional trips to Slothdom have ever killed anyone. Pooey on Horace.