Best part of my job? Spring break and I got a pedicure today.

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Work pet peeve? The fact that they might layoff 5,000 teachers/librarians/school nurses and still give us a 12% paycut on top of the 5 furlough days we are getting this year (just announced) and the 7 furlough days next year.

I'm pretty sure that's not actually a peeve.

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Well, it's the thing I'm most upset by. 5,000 people would be like laying off all of JPL.

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The only help I ever remember getting in school was grueling spelling quizzes. They served me well, in the end, but were fairly death-march-like.

What is your current stupid pet peeve about your job?

Clients who know that they pay in 4 session increments but who do not look at the calendar to accommodate for the 5 week months. I don't like having to remind them. Must find a fun way to do this...or at least a preemptive one.

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Wait! In 4th grade my mother helped me learn all the State Capitals. I still remember that Frankfurt is the capital of Kentucky because they sell frankfurters at the Kentucky Derby!

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Taking a business-related cell phone call ON THE TOILET. When the stall next to you is occupied.

Y/N?

And this, my friends, is why you should never talk on your phone in the bathroom. (Gross but hilarious)

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Well, it's the thing I'm most upset by. 5,000 people would be like laying off all of JPL.

Yeah, I'm saying it's Actual Badness.

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Was he supposed to be doing stuff throughout the year that contributes to it?

It is and he has been. He interviewed an expert on the history of the presidency and has been working on stuff. But he managed to fluff over the last checkpoint where the teacher makes sure he's on target and has somehow excused himself from finishing on time because of his mother's surgery.

It is a huge project, and the point of it (from my perspective) is to learn how to manage a big project, and stay on schedule. (Which, of course, he is not doing.)

Emmett's attitude about schoolwork is basically that it's a tithe he has to pay to do what he wants to do. He'll pay it - he does his homework without argument. But he doesn't give it his full attention, and he doesn't do it to learn. He's not invested in it.

To be honest, I'm sympathetic with that attitude. His workload at school is very heavy; as Gud notes the standards and expectations are much higher than they used to be. He already works harder than I did.

At the same time I want him to buy in to his own progress. It's a been a big discussion this year because he wasn't invited to be on the travel team in baseball - despite his talent and achievements - because of his attitude about practices. Not that he's a malcontent, or uncoachable or anything. But he doesn't use it as an opportunity to improve. He's not self motivated that way. It's what he has to do to play.

Anyway, iSearch has not been foremost on my mind because we've been juggling a bunch of crises and I blew the deadline.

I'm not even mad at him, really. I wouldn't have wanted to write a forty page paper when I was 13 either, and I certainly wouldn't have been capable without parental assistance.

But it's going to be a tough couple of days. Not just because of the work, but he's going to be emotional and upset and balking about it too.

But I hope I can put it in the proper context for him so that he sees that it's time to buckle down and grind through.

That is also a valuable lesson - how to dig out of a hole.

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That is also a valuable lesson - how to dig out of a hole.

Hint: Running around in circles while panicking generally does not help.

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That is also a valuable lesson - how to dig out of a hole.

Hells yeah. Would that I'd learned as much about how to avoid the hole in the first place, but that's a good second line of defense.

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