Pet Peeve #2

Dear Long Hair Football Players:

You are totally disgusting. Your gross hair repulses me. I don't understand why you can't take your job seriously enough to keep a normal length of hair. Clay Matthews, I am talking to you. You were just on Leno and I wanted to rip your hair out of your scalp. You twirled it all around and when you whipped it back over your face, I saw your gross manly face peering out from long luxurious locks and I threw up in my mouth. Troy Polamalu, I am talking to you. I can't even imagine what foul creatures must be lurking behind those curls. You are repugnant and I wish some hoodlums would jump you and remove your hair with scissors.

Wow. Statue.

Dear Church That Just Erected a Statue:

Here's what I think about you: you wasted a bunch of money. Honestly, I think as long as people have need, a church has no business wasting money on stupid stuff like statues or stained glass windows. It's one thing if it was donated, but if you bought that thing... what a shame. The only thing God cares anything about is our hearts. He would rather have the love of one person than a ridiculous piece of metal.

Maybe somebody created it as an act of worship or to show gratitude. I get that. That makes sense. So, please tell me that's where it came from. Please tell me someone created it out of love and to honor the freedom God has brought to their lives. Please tell me it was donated. Just please don't tell me that you took money from some family to purchase this disturbingly gigantic statue. Unnecessary.

Pet Peeve #1

Ok, people. I presently have 540 students. This is my sixth year of teaching, which means that I have taught over 1100 students. I am pretty good with names, I think. Well, Lisa will probably read this and completely disagree. It's true. Those little guys... 1st grade and under... they are tough. For the most part, though, I know my kids names.

Mya and Sarah teach kids named Sayuki and Yuki and Tayuka (I don't really know this as a fact - I am guessing) I can imagine it's probably pretty tough at first to match names with faces. Knowing their names, in itself, is a challenge.

Even harder is memorizing the exact spelling of every child's name... C-A-I-T-L-Y-N or K-A-T-E-L-Y-N or K-A-I-T-L-I-N. A-I-D-A-N or A-Y-D-E-N or A-Y-D-A-N. What about J-H-A-Y-D-E or when I've got a H-A-L-L-I-E pronounced Hayley or a H-A-L-E-Y pronounced Hallie or a Braden and Brendan in the same class? Michayla Mikahla MiKayla McKenna Kenna Kennedy. How about twins? And then there's the nearly identical siblings. GEEZ!!!! Considering this predicament, I'm pretty proud when I can name 95% of my students right off the bat.

So you can imagine my lack of compassion when a parent mentions how her daughter will be devastated that I spelled her name wrong on a sheet that was to be posted on my door for two days. Devastated? Really? She will have her feelings hurt. Oh, precious. How could that nasty music teacher have dared spell your name wrong? Now, I understand that I need to have correct spellings on printed items like programs - it's precious grade school memorabilia for Pete's sake. But I am not going to spend the ridiculous amounts of time to look every child's name up in each class to find the exact spelling on a piece of paper that is notifying a group of children of some minor detail. Really. That is a waste of taxpayer money. So if your daughter is so sensitive about her name being spelled wrong, you might want to tell her to tighten up her bootstraps and to grow a pair because she's frankly lucky that no one is calling her a doodyhead or divotface.