Stand Near Me and You Might Get Struck By Lightning

I obviously have one heck of an immune system AND a hard head. Room 9A is cursed, though. Tuesday afternoon I was doing my regular routine of sterilizing the classroom and I dropped the roll of paper towels. When I came up, I clipped my skull on the corner of the cabinets. I literally saw stars and a goose egg rose immediately. I felt dizzy and had a major headache. Plus, washing and styling my hair hurt for the rest of the week. Yep, bad luck incident #1 for the week. Mid week it became apparent that children were dropping like flies. By Friday 1/3 of the class had the flu. Nothing is sadder than a sick child. Luckily, I feel healthy and my headache is gone.

Friday afternoon as I stood in the doorway of my classroom and the hallway, the children trickled in from the restroom and made their way to the back of the class to get a board and marker. Well, I was looking around the corner toward the restroom, when I heard a thunderous THUD from the room and then silence. Anyone who is involved with children knows the moment of panic associated w/ silent children. You just KNOW something is wrong when 13 8-year olds are silent. (Remember, 1/3 of them are home sick. I usually have 19.) I look into the room quickly and the children are frozen, faces in shock. I don't really notice anything different until I look down at the ground and notice my 4-shelf bookcase on the floor, broken, and books EVERYWHERE. The story started unraveling. One of my larger students ran into it and it fell flat. Plastic baskets of used-to-be categorized books were everything and the bookshelf was demolished. It hit so hard that back of it busted out, 3 shelves came out, and 3 baskets were smashed. Pieces of plastic were literally ground into the reading rug. Nice. I spent most of the afternoon cleaning and thanking God that none of the children were hurt. I guess that's what I get for buying a bookcase from a yard sale.

The funny thing about our bad luck is that Friday night I had a dream that electricity was out in my classroom only. Could that be a psychic moment of next week? I surely hope not. I will post tomorrow about running related items. Send good luck to 9A!!!!