Things About My Day. And Math. (Swearing Inferences Contained Within, FYI)

Today I was the 5th grade teacher. That was a first. The thing about teaching is that you have to actually teach things. Like math. If you don't already know, math and I get along about as well as long haired cats and ice water. And the thing about 5th grade, is that the math is...complicated. Especially when you haven't done math for the better part of a decade and the last math you did do consisted of lucky-guessing my way through a multiple choice challenge test of the Last Algebra Course I ever had to take in college. Because I was failing it. (PS - If you have no idea, the answer is most likely C.)

So anyway, today I was the fifth grade teacher. If your child (and, incidentally, one of mine) grows up with ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to find the volume of a cube, you can blame me. And also, if they are TERRIBLY CONFUSED for All of Time about mixed numbers and improper fractions, I will also accept responsibility. Because math.

I learned a lot today in the 5th grade. Like how wet-erase markers work on dry-erase boards. But how they don't come off. And how taping holes in a plastic cube and submerging it in a bucket of water is probably not the most efficient way to calculate volume. (That one was not my idea, BTW.) I also learned the the people who write curriculum, particularly 5th grade science and math, are total A-Holes. (I apologize for the swearing inference here, to all sensitive parties, but sometimes, sweating inferences are entirely called for.) Like, CAPITAL A. I learned that adjectives are way more fun, and much more flexible than measuring centimeters or multiplying decimals, because slinky and moldy can apply to almost any noun, and doctors could be deaf and holes might be invisible.

Fifth grade was a great mental workout for me. But I think it exhausted my brain for the day week, since I came home and shook up a box of Trader Joe's Tomato Soup after I took the cap off. Because math. Turns out TJ's tomato soup is pretty awesome, even as a facial masque, and makes a pretty decent dinner with grilled cheese and a coke & whiskey. Served in a snowman mug, because, well, The Holidays.

The good news for Northport is that the 5th grade class is actually a pretty decent group of mostly nice kids. Except for the one that cried during fractions. Because math. All I wanted to do was cry with her, and apparently that's not acceptable for teachers, even substitutes. I will admit that we spend part of our time allotted to math on finishing our adjective pages, because they were WAY more fun, and because math. But we managed to get it all done, regardless of what the a-holes who wrote the curriculum in cerebro-code say. We successfully discovered the cube with the greatest volume, which wasn't the one we thought - in spite of multiplying decimals. (PS - sneaking math into science is pretty much the meanest thing I think any curriculum a-holes have thought of.)

Now I am home, and with the help of my snowman mug I will launch into the first of several articles that I need to have written in 20.5 days. But there's NO MATH, no wet-erase markers, dry erase boards or cubic centimeters. Just adjectives.