Whoa...

So I went home immediately after school yesterday. Not even kidding. The kids left my room to head on to the busses and I was pulling out in my car before the busses even left.

I think the principal saw it, too. Oops.

But what can I say? It was a goal of mine to never throw up in front of my students - ever. And I wasn't about to ruin that goal yesterday.

I got home and barely had time to change into sweats before I crashed on the couch and broke out in pure sweat. Yup. The fever. And it hit hard. I was asleep (with only the slight wakings when I was burning up but refused to take off the blankets cause I knew the chills would shortly follow) from 3:30pm to 7:45pm when my smart-because-he-decided-to-stay-at-school-while-his-wife-was-flippin-miserable-and-contagious husband finally walked through the door. I took some NyQuil around 8:30 and was out again until 6:00 this morning.

Wow, right?

Felt a lot better when I arose, though I'm now echoing the coughs of my students and my voice sounds like I've been a smoker for 20 years. Just sayin.

Speaking of sick, I have not had a single class today where less than 6 students were absent. That's right. In one period, I had TEN students - yes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! - absent. Most of them from sickness.

What do you do here? I've felt chastised by the facebook posts of a few local mommies who pleaded, "If you're sick, STAY HOME! Stop spreading it to our healthy kids! You're not doing anyone a favor by bringing your baby with croup to church!" Granted I'm not letting my sick kids go to school sick. I'm going to school sick. But I'm taking precautions - staying away from students, not touching anything, wiping down things I may have touched, etc.

And let's face it. The only reason I'm doing it is the fact I don't trust subs. I've had little experience with them yes, but when you get a note that says, "We didn't have time to get to your lesson, sorry," from a sub, you lose all confidence. Just sayin. It's more work to try to prep for a sub that DOESN'T know your students like you do. You'd almost rather go to work sick.

But guess who's putting in sub requests as we speak? Me. I was asked by the school librarian to attend a Librarian's conference with her in March. Woot! So that's one day (funded by the school, so even better). Also, requesting a sub for the teacher fair in March as well. Then, I'M GRADUATING! Yup. It's happening. Just so happens that CRTs (end of level tests) are happening the same week, so I'm holding on that sub request until I know for sure that my absence won't fall on an English testing day.

Did one of the other teachers advise me to skip my own graduation? Yeah. Have I already thought about it? Yeah. But how many opportunities am I going to have to celebrate my hard work as a student? 5 years of hard work!? I think I'm going to go for it - plus I have the feeling that navy blue cap-and-gown will suit me just perfectly.

But today is going really well - I love that my students still love to read. Whoa... I wonder when some people lost that and how I can prevent it...

Happy Weekend!