I took Friday off for mental health purposes. It took all of January, coming home drained every day, and the cathartic watching of Ellen giving things away to brightly dressed women with no circles under their eyes, screaming their thanks on national television for the new iPod touch they had just received for me to realize that maybe i too deserved something for myself.

“your voice sounds lower,” my friend said. “have you been smoking?”

“no,” i sighed. “it’s just friday. it’s been a long week.”

I went to Oxford. I went to bookstores, ate sushi, saw white people in polo shirts, ate a bakery with cream of mushroom soup that looked like cat vomit (but ate it anyway because there was artisan bread as a side that i didn’t want to send back) and what did i get out of the trip- a new children’s read aloud and several extra hours of sleep. Oh, and maybe the motivation to at least get through to spring break.

But the best thing to come out of my day off besides the caramel spiced apple cider i had was the fact that NASA once again selected my classroom for their YAIT program. That’s Young Astronauts in Training, for those of you who have not read “How to Lie to Your Children and Manipulate Them Into Doing Independent Research Happily.” Chapter 3 focuses on science, and there are a few key pointers that i’d like to bring to the forefront:

• If you LEAVE for a “meeting” with an “important NASA official” the same day some “important documents” are “dropped off” at the classroom with the words TOP SECRET on them, it’s a good way to dupe children.
• If you feign complete and utter ignorance upon your return, students believe it. It helps if they think you’re pretty dumb to begin with.
• Official looking things like printed labels, color pictures, and binder clips never hurt.
• a.c.r.o.n.y.m.s.

So, three days in and my class has fallen for YAIT like the preteen population for Edward Cullen. Last year there was at least a glimmer of “but Ms. D, ain’t you been typing some…” before i had to just say “NO. NASA. I have nothing to do with what looks mysteriously like an EdHelper article!” This science project continues to be one of my finest moments in teaching, and the presentations are one of the most darling things EVER. I will be sure to take pictures this year, unlike last time, at which point I was just running around trying to prevent children from bludgeoning each other with styrofoam replicas of planets.

I don’t feel like a bad teacher. I don’t feel like an excellent one, either. I feel like I’m batting around .260. I’m not bad enough to send down to the minors, but in no way am i about to make the all-star team. Hell, I’m not even the one helping to get the team to the playoffs (CEK =  babe ruth), but i’m there. I’m part of the 6-4-3 every once and a while. I make a nice running snowcone grab every now and then, but I’m not really a web gem, you know? Probably not. I probably lost most of you around .260…