disorder, discussions, and illegal electronics

I am so glad to be done with over half of the essays I've had to grade this week. I guess sometimes it's good that students don't turn their stuff in on time; otherwise, I would be going crazy right now. Today we had our first test, but I think I'm going to hold off on grading that until this weekend (after grades go in), so the kids have enough time to worry about their essays that haven't been turned in or other classwork they've missed. These kids need organizers. Not that it would really matter, though-- part of their crazy mess is developmental. It's starting to rub off on me: I question my spelling and I'm a complete disorganized mess (well, not complete... but way more disorganized than usual). I even searched all over for a student paper I wasn't sure I left somewhere around here or at the oil change place or at school. I'm not even sure he turned it in-- I can't remember. I should have organized my crap better. I really hope I didn't lose his paper, that would be horrible.
Which brings me to how I spent my lunch today. First, let me explain the class schedule, so that everyone can know what the heck I'm talking about. We have an 8 bell (blocks, but everyone here calls them bells) every-other-day block schedule. On odd number days, we have our 4 odd bell (1,3,5,7). On even number days, we have our even bells (2,4,6,8). I have plan 4 & 7, cafeteria duty the last half of 6th bell. The way the lunches work is so: 4 lunches(roughly 500 students/lunch) during 5th/6th bell, which makes 5th/6th about 2 hours. (It's about 1hr, 40-50 min on early release days because of the lunches. Early release days are like half days, except you get out at 12:05 instead of 2:05. They still serve lunch and we still do professional development, but just not as long--yes!! I like it) Anyway. My 5th bell, since we are in a Academy C room, has the second lunch: 11:58-12:28. This means we're in class for a little over a half hour, go to lunch, and come back for an hour. It's kind of nice. usually, I go try and eat a quick snack in the work room, talk to Chandra for a while, and then check my groupwise e-mail and clean up anything before the kids come back. Today, though, one of my students hung back and asked if she could stay in the room. I've seen other teachers do this, so I wasn't bothered and I let her hang out there while I ran around the floor for a while. When I came back to the room to check my e-mail, we started talking about school, the system, how people act and why, etc. It was really nice because she sits in the back and kind of keeps quiet. It doesn't help that my 5th bell has a lot of needy, attention loving kids (who I love, but they take me away from those quiet kids, ya know?). It was a nice way to spend a lunch.
This morning, however, sucked. My first bell has some cool kids in it, but they're hard to get focused on the task at hand. Right near the end of the test, as we were getting ready to transition into the intro activity for short stories, one student who I wrote a pass to the bathroom came immediately back in saying, "They're coming to do a random search!" The poor girl had already been waiting about 10 minutes to go! haha. Right after she entered, the school police officer and two security officers (one male, one female) walk in and describe what's going to happen: It's a random search; they're searching for electronic devices like cell phones, ipods, cd players, etc.; you can refuse because you have (some) rights, but it'll be 10 days out of school and some sort of court procedure or administrative meeting (I can't remember what they said). They pull up students one by one, wand them down, make them pull up their pantlegs, shirts (only half-way up and I think they only did that with the guys), went through their bags... it was fun. One student jokingly refused the search, then said he was going to do it. About half-way through the search of the classroom, he got up, grabbed his stuff and left. He will now miss a lot of work because of that. Great. It was an interesting experience, for sure.
But today had a lot of good things: the amount of essays I've had to grade has gone down, grades have gone up due to students turning in late work, grades being caught up, class sizes are levelling out (but unfortunately I have two new students that I don't know what to do with-- we just finished an essay and a test! what am I supposed to do with them?!), we're starting a literature unit next, and my classes are generally getting better behaved as we fall into a nice routine. Oh! And I got major kudos from two experienced teachers on my Reading Minute idea. Wooo!
Non-school related good things that happened today include: finally getting an oil change (and finding out I need a belt replaced- a very important belt! I'm getting it replaced tomorrow.. otherwise I risk my engine getting messed up), getting my digital camera in the mail (!!! it's amazing!!), and getting to rest a little while with Jackie and Gabriel. Gabriel has a weird skin breakout again, but not flea related (whew!) and has found a new sleeping spot-- on top of the big bookcase. Whenever he jumps down, it's crazy. He manages to make a big BANG!!#%!#%! sound (seriously-- little punctuation marks pop up. He's magic). Jackie has been a lot more cuddly and has, in her own way, been following me around and laying in ways that say, "Admire me! I am adorable!"
Bottom line: Things are good, my car no longers groans or creaks, and I am caught up enough to be organized once more. Whew.