Parent /Teacher/ Entire World Conferences. But It's Private, So It's OK.

Look, all I'm saying is that we need to think a little bit more about the way technology affects our lives. We all know that news travels faster than - you know - EVERYTHING, but I fear that we don't recognize that OUR news is the news that is traveling.

Yesterday I had an issue with a teacher at the high school who chastised my daughter in front of her friends, because she had the audacity to come in after school and turn in a paper that had been due 3 hours earlier.

You know, I get it. Work should be turned in on time. But when my normally thick skinned daughter came back to the car and burst into tears? Really? I had to do something.

I came home, left a voice-mail for the teacher, and had a return phone call within about 5 minutes, at which time he gave me his idea of what had happened, I told him how I felt about it, and though it was a somewhat difficult conversation, I think it was diplomatic - on both our parts- and after about 15 minutes I thought we had come to a consensus about what needed to happen in the future.

(and if you think the fact that I am talking about an English teacher means that I'm going back to fix that last run-on sentence, you don't know me at all)

It was a fine conversation. At the end of it he actually thanked me for calling, and I thanked him for the discussion.

How interesting then, that by the time I got off the phone and talked to my daughter about the phone conversation, (what, maybe 10 minutes?) By the time that happened, she flipped on her facebook page to find several messages about the incident, and events that were going on in the classroom DURING our phone call.

Apparently, he had listened to my voice-mail on speakerphone. With students still working in the room.  And then, he proceeded to call me back immediately. Not on speakerphone, but his entire side of the discussion took place in front of her peers.

*AGAIN*

They, in turn, then started posting facebook messages to ask her if she was ok? and was she really crying? and let her know that -- boy he seemed angry while he was talking, and apparently he wasn't as satisfied as I was about the way the conversation had ended.

Then other kids started chiming in about things that had happened during the day, and apparently Mr. English (not his real name- in case you were wondering about the odds of that happening!) had a pretty bad day yesterday all the way around.

It doesn't excuse any of the things that happened, but it does give me a reason to cut him some slack.  For now.  Depending on how today goes. 

My point, though, is ---
I kinda think that from here on out, I am going to assume that very little I say is private, or will be kept that way.  Between texting, twitter,  facebook, email, blogging, youtube, speaker phones, and whatever the newest, latest thing on the horizon is - I think you can pretty much guarantee that what you say is available to the world.  And will be around for a long long time.

Dangit.  Because this probably means I'm going to have to learn to think before I talk.

See? Spiders ARE Scary.

Personally, I think the bars should start out a LOT higher. But they got it mostly right.

(Thanks, Dave!)

see more Funny Graphs

We Only Looked For Week and a Half

If you're ever looking for a really amazing place to hide something?
Try the back of your desk drawer.

Inside a Kleenex box.

Near Miss

Last week I was running around on my errand day trying to get lots of different things done. And I was doing a pretty good job of it, too.

Costco, grocery store, taxidermist, dry cleaners - - just checking them off my list.

Had to run in to Linens N Things to see if they sell spare parts for my blender. They don't. (Does anyone know where you can get a new bottom piece for an Osterizer blender? I need the whole piece with the blade thingy. Don't ask why, k?)

So I'm entering the store and this older man came right up into my space - and when I say "my space" I reserve anything within a 1 foot diameter of my shopping cart - -anyway, he came right up in front of my cart, and wanted to know if I'd seen the stop sign out in front of the store.

He then

1. started chewing me out for running the stop sign.
2. informed me that if he hadn't jumped out of the way, I would have hit him there at the stop sign.
3. wanted me to come with him to look at the stop sign.

I apologized and told him I was glad he was OK. And then I maneuvered my cart around him and tried to be on my way. But he followed me around for another few minutes ( I think it was about 357 minutes, but I wasn't actually keeping track) telling me that I need to watch for stop signs and still wanting me to come and actually SEE the stop sign.

Yeah, like I haven't seen enough late night reruns of Law and Order, The Closer, and the Entire CSI trilogy of series' to know that a little field trip with a stranger is NOT A GOOD IDEA.

So I walked away briskly, sorta lamely calling, "Sorry!" again over my shoulder, and looking for a new exit strategy in case the walking away thing didn't work.

Was I supposed to do something else? Because too-close-creepy-man obviously did not think I was responding appropriately. I have no idea what he wanted, unless it was to get me outside and then push me into oncoming traffic.

Which I really didn't have time for.
Errand days are much too busy for that.