Boondoggled

My friend K, who is also struggling through the world of teaching, recently received an amusing email from a parent. Said parent wrote, "Given your science background, what torture methods do you recommend for motivation that do not scar?" Well, at least one parent has a sense of humor. I will say though, that in this litigious world, that's probably not something that I would want in print. I did like the fact that the same parent said that my friend K was being "boondoggled." What a great word! The word boondoggle worked well in Napoleon Dynamite and it worked well in that email. I'm going to make that one of my new catch phrases.

One of my favorite parts about being a teacher is that when you work with people, you never know what you're going to get. One day, you might get a bizarre email from a parent and the next you might have a kid write, "the ongoing war was taking its troll on the soldiers." No joke. Then again, you might also pick up some of their germs. Seems that's what I got this time around. I have the answer for that parent. Keep sending your kid to school. Sooner or later he will come home with some illness, and that's torturous enough. My current illness is keeping my head from functioning properly, so I'm going to spare you a long, cold-medicine induced post.

I hope you're doing better than I am. I'll see if I can bring myself to write more tomorrow since I'm not going in to work. Perhaps I'll find some material to comment on as I work through my disaster relief fund. Keep the suggestions coming and stay well. I'm not.