Two-Hour Delay

It was 50 degrees out yesterday, then today we wake up to the world covered in white. We have a two-hour delay so we can all have extra time to shovel out our cars and for the roads to clear a bit. I wish I had this option in my life: time out! I'm calling in a two-hour delay.

Just think if the average person who is about to commit a crime of passion would do that: just stop and hold that thought for two hours, and see if you still want to drown those kids in the bathtub. Or stop, put down that gun, and think if you really want to rape and kill that young college student and then off yourself.

I know this seems crass, but my journalism students were having a great "current events" discussion and we noticed how many of these crimes would qualify as "crimes of passion." Then we discussed how we don't teach relationship skills formally in school, or mention much about sex in general, other than how to avoid it. Are we serving our youth well with this attitude?

Mkay, that's a whole other book or blog...and it really fits into my "thresholds" theory in case I ever want to get off my ass and write that book.

I have today off anyway, so I could give a rats ass about the two-hour delay. All I know is that it is messing up my newspaper distribution. I can't decide if I want the sub to pass it out today, with no "reading time" or wait until tomorrow, when there will be more time and I will be there. See. These are the glamorous decisions of a public school journalism teacher.

Have I mentioned how much I love my new kick-ass computer? It's got a bouncy keyboard that is so fun to hammer on...and the 17" screen is glorious for those no-bifocal days.

So, the kicker is that during my two-hour delay today, and all day yesterday, I've been helping my husband build his teacher portfolio...where you gather 42 artifacts showing 8 standards and write a comment about each...this was mandated by the State, but the original idea was to pay teachers for their reflective time. Of course, the money didn't follow the mandate, and here we sit, plugging away. Perhaps they should have paused, waited two hours and then passed that stupid fucking law.

Crimes of passion...from murder to mayhem to educational accountability...these are the things I ruminate today.