Gosh. I haven't updated my rants, have I? Well, I've had a lot of papers due. A lot of tests. And bronchitis, don't forget bronchitis. I have many loads of crap to rant about but...I honestly can't remember any of them.

Hmmm. There's always work. Yeah, let's rant about work. It'll probably be the last time for awhile, because I gave my two weeks notice at the daycare. It was a really hard decision. It's always hard to quit a job...especially when you've never exactly quit one before. (Let's not get into my employment history, shall we?) But this was so hard, because I love the kids, I love them so much. I think about the kindergarten class, or those my four Chinese kids with the nearly identical names, and I want to run into the office and say, "Hey, uh--can I have that back, please?"

But I can't stand the employees. I thought a daycare would be the *one* place, that would be organized. They take care of kids, for crying out loud. They have to submit stuff to the government and do background checks. But no. It was possibly worse than B&N. At least B&N managers read books. The administrators don't even have kids. The teachers are awful. Working alongside them does two things--it strengthens my resolve to teach, so that at least one person with a brain will see a kid's potential and help them reach it. It also makes me want to run screaming to enlist in the Navy or something, the thought of working next to people like this and watching them fuck up children.

And then there's this bronchitis. I caught the bronchitis at the daycare. It's actually a kind that is "little kid" bronchitis. "Has...anyone around you been sick?" my doctor asked curiously. "I work at a daycare." "Ah, ok. Type 1 Bronchitis!" Which was good, I like bronchitis, it's better than some of those dieseases that were floating around the place. Ghiradisis--does anyone know what that is? I don't, it just said to go to the ER if you had flu-like symptoms for more than three days. Which is also the symptoms for anthrax, which is definitely not comforting.

But here, I have a very contagious illness and they hassle me when I call in. You would think they would not want me to spread it to the children and the other employees. But, you are also talking about administrators who do not wipe the runny noses and rub the backs of coughing, hacking kids, so they don't get it. They don't get sick and they don't see the result of grouchy, sick kids. Because they sit in offices ordering food, paying for it out of petty cash, and chatting on the phone. Who put struggling, single mothers on probation because they forgot to call in because they fell asleep after being up all night in the ER, with a child with a 107 degree fever.

As a result, I'm unemployed again, right at Christmas. This, I did not expect at all. I had fantasized about working in the history department. Even though I loved the kids, from day one doing some of the icky things I have done, I thought about sitting in a clean office. Wearing my nice clothes, listening to loud rock albums on my discman. And of course, they are not hiring...no retail job will take me because of my schedule. No place on campus will take me without the no-need workstudy, which was revoked because I had an "off-campus" job.

Ugh. I have to go do homework. Life gets better and better. I can't wait for winter break.

Beth