Slow News Week

"THAT'S SO TABU!"
The one noteworthy piece of news occurred this past Saturday, during my friend's asado (bbq). A couple other friends had brought over TABU, the spanish version of TABOO. I was tentative to play as the last time I did so ended rather abruptly seven years ago. Freshman year of college and the word was "sleigh." Sounds simple but its just obscure enough that, when you take out the five words you can't say, there are very few options. The clever pup that I was, however, decided to borrow a tune from a christmas jingle and started to sing "______ bells ring a ling, ding ding ding-a-ling do." Obvious right? My teammate blanked. This was the first word of the minute, and as we both grew more frustrated I started to sing it louder and faster...didn't help. Finally at the end of the minute I screamed out "SANTA RIDES IN ONE YOU ASSHOLE!" Santa was one of the five forbidden words and I thought that had ended my short-lived Taboo career.
Now that I'm older and more mature (yeah, right) I felt I could handle it this time. No real eruptions, at least not from me anyways, and Spanish Tabu was rather fun. It's not nearly as hard to talk around some things in spanish as I thought, especially since that's what you do most of the time when learning a new language. The other fun difference in the game, besides the oh-so-cute spelling, is that instead of an electronic buzzer this game has a squeaky dog chew toy.

I'VE GOT ANOTHER MEETING WITH THE BOBS
I never thought I could have likened teaching to an office job, but I was wrong. You know that scene in Office Space where Peterman is meeting with "the Bobs" and tells them straight to their face that he really only works about fifteen solid minutes in a given week? Well, I had one of those moments. Some may argue that Peterman says this because he is still under the hypnotism but given that this occurs long after his original actions I think he says it cause he truly realizes how messed up the system is in that idiots get promoted. He knows that no bad, and perhaps only good, can come from his confession.
So the other day my boss and I were talking of possibly changing my schedule a bit. Currently in the afternoon there are 10 hours of work with children in a given week. Since my position is a bit odd, I work three with the bilingual children (who I love) and four with the sixth grade ESL children (who I like despite the fact the school lets them run all over the teachers). Generally the other two periods would be planning for every teacher, but that only leaves me with 9 hours of work with children. The other contributing factor is that I'm supposed to split my time evenly between the 6th grade classes, working one hour with each of them (there are four each week). Since my bosses never came up with a solution to this problem, I made my own: an extra planning period (and to be fair this was the exact same schedule the person I took over for had).
So as my boss and I are discussing my new schedule she brings up my planning periods: one on monday and one on thursday. Never one to lie, I corrected her and mentioned the additional planning period on Monday. She looked a bit puzzled and murmured how that couldn't be right and that I must be the luckiest teacher in school. I shrugged my shoulders and that was the end of the conversation. Are we calling it luck? There are various words I would use and many more phrases, most of which involve choice four letter words, to describe the situation I'm in and "luck" is not one of them.

RANDOM THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
I love the creation of celebrity from absurdity. Let me specify as I'm not talking about idiotic people like Paris Hilton: I love Yanni. Other than being a musician and looking ridiculous, I know nothing about him. I couldn't tell you one song of his and am only slightly confident he plays the flute (and would imagine its some woodwind with a sillier name like Piccolo). That said, I love Yanni and have no idea why, though think it has something to do with the 1/2 hour infomercials I used to watch when I was sick from school. The other day I found a folded up Yanni shirt in my laundry and was thrilled. This wasn't a cd release or even a concert shirt, it simply had a picture of Yanni on the front and his name scrolled down the side. I can't explain it but I thought I had been blessed by the gods, I immediately put it on and headed for our night out in a jazz club. My bubble was burst, however, when my roommate informs me that it actually belongs to our mutual friend beth and wasn't just a random gift the laundry gods had mixed into my clothes. The following is a verbatim text dialogue that transpired and I promise alcohol had no influence in the conversation.

Daniel: Do you own a Yanni shirt?
Beth: Dude that my prize possession. Dont let anything happen to it. Im wearing that to my dissertation defense
D: wearin it now And lovin it! Funny story, may be mine now!
B: No effing way buddy. Anne even asked me where it was when she was here. Id give you my grandmothers wedding band but not the yanni shirt
D: Sold!
B: Ps Anne says he looks like me if I transitioned to male. He creepily does look exactly like my cousin.
D: Good you can take a picture of him and put it on a shirt until your grandamas ring gets here
B: R u drunk?
D: Drunk on yanni awesomeness!
B: Listen, I'd really love to give it to u but it was the first thing anne gave me when we started dating. Sentimental value and all
D: I thought the idiot laundry ladies put it with my stuff by accident (fate) and was so excited!
B: Haha nope. I am the idiot in this case.
D: But now Im more let down than that xmas where my parents told me they gave my super nintendo to charity.

Next day
Daniel to Beth: I'm wearing it again. You need to take this thing away from me! I have a sickness...Save me from myself!

Postscript: Beth and I have since worked out a joint custody agreement for the shirt.