Useless?

I am so annoyed at myself. I left my cell phone and my little computer at school. How forgetful can I be? I missed the second bus as the first one pulled into the major shopping street so I took the extra time I now was assured of to jump into a discount brand name store. I bought pants that are very tight and a watch I couldn't set. When I tried to check the time on my cell phone I realized I left it along with my little netbook computer in school. I am apparently losing my mind. (but it will not stop me from yelling at anyone who is unprepared in anyway tomorrow).

My father used to remind us when we complained about cold winter morning waits for the crowded public bus, that Abe Lincoln walked 5 miles to school, in the snow, everyday. It wasn't until I was in high school did I stop to wonder if spring ever came to Illinois, but that is another story. Standing on the bus stop less than 5 miles from my home, I felt stranded with no phone and no computer.

My little coworker is stranded with the half of the ninth grade math class with special needs. Somehow last spring it seemed like a good idea to break up the neediest math group into two groups, giving the math teacher a small group and my coworker, the special education teacher, who has proven herself an effective math teacher, the other group. Yet both small groups have been trying. Keeping my coworker's group inside a classroom has been like trying to hold water in a sieve. With the high school classrooms having both front and back doors they wander in and out seemingly at whim. So today we tried moving into the dean's office, a half classroom with only one door. I went in too. So here we were two teachers, ten kids, one door and still there was spillage out of the room.

But here's the part that inspired me to write about all this. First I went into the general ed. teacher's class. Groans, and other verbal votes of no confidence. But Nathan, from the tenth grade was visiting. Nathan, who usually does what he can to keep me helping anyone but him in the tenth grade math class, said, "Why you dissing Ms. Teacherfish- she's the one who gets you to pass the exams."

And then I returned to the special ed. math group and Shaheem, the new kid, said, "why you here? You're only supposed to be the science help teacher?"
Kareem picked his head up from the desk and said, "No she's the everything help teacher."

And then the dean arrived with the participants from the gym fight, and we had to leave his office and squeeze into our overcrowded resource room, leaking a few students along the way.

My bus finally came. I arrived home, phoneless and computerless, but the house is heated against the late autumn chill, and at least today I don't feel completely useless.