A Story By Eric

Eric wrote this story a few weeks ago as part of a homework assignment. I just didn't get around to posting it until now.

"Once upon a time there was a jedi knight named Eric Crumpley. One day he had to face the evil Darth Mola Ram. Darth Mola Ram made Eric do his math homework. Eric just said "No!" and light saber dueled him. Eric choped Darth Mola Ram's arms off. Then, Eric made Darth Mola Ram do Eric's math homework for him! The End."

Again, I spelled everything the way he did and gave it the same punctuation (other than the quotes I put around the story itself).

"I Don't Like Recess"

I know. No one has ever heard a kid actually say that they don't like recess. Well, almost no one that is...

Sean doesn't like recess. He would rather just stay in the classroom and do work. I know that this is his first experience with school, but Eric liked recess from day one. Most kids do.

Yesterday, at parent-teacher conferences, the teacher told us that Sean is doing very well in school and is one of the few kindergartners that can read. She went through all of his scores from before school started and told us the things that he has already improved on. She then went on to her only concern with our sweet boy. He doesn't like recess. Most days he just sits next to the door and waits for her to come get them. One day she felt so sorry for him that she went out and asked him to help her make copies (he told me all about that the same day).

Yesterday, knowing that kids who don't finish their work have to stay in until it is done, Sean raised his hand when she told the class it was time for recess and informed her that he wasn't going to be able to go to recess because he hadn't finished the last line on his paper yet. She informed him that he would go to recess anyway. He was greatly disappointed. Who knows what he will try next to get away from the dreaded recess...

A Banana For The Teacher

A few weeks ago, Sean decided that he needed to bring his teacher a banana. It seemed to be a bit random, but I went ahead and put a banana in his backpack before he went to school. The next day he had this note from his teacher in his folder.

The True Downside Of School

"I like legos. My favorite pearson is my bro. I like playing pro street. I can't get better at vidio games when I'm stuck at school. I am a great runner."

Seriously?

The question has been asked, "Why would they need a graveyard shift at Dish Network?" All I could think of was all the lonely men out there ordering pay per views in the middle of the night. First off, I have to say, I have had as many calls from women as I have from men over the last two nights in regards to that. The thing that has surprised me though is the number of calls I have been getting about bills. I mean seriously, it seems like the perfect time to call and complain that a person can't pay their bill and it is totally unfair to have services suspending for not paying said bill (or should I say bills since they are usually about 2 months past due or have never completely paid their bill in full) is at about 3 am. OK, so you may be saying, "It isn't 3 am all over the country when it is 3 am here in Denver." I know that, but seriously last night we had call after call with little or no down time from about midnight until we got of at 5 am. To me it seemed like the majority of the people calling in were mad that their services had been interrupted sometime in the middle of the night.

One exceptionally crazy lady had already received so many credits on her account in the last few months that she was paying very little for her bills. She had made a payment on Saturday and was absolutely appalled that her cash payment that she had paid at Walmart had not posted to her account. I told her that it could take a few more days, and she insisted that I look up her payment by receipt number. (There is actually not a way for me to do that.) She barely let me talk enough to get her name out of her and eventually asked to talk to my supervisor so she could report me for not doing my job. My joy came when I heard him say, "You know Charlie (speaking of the founder and C.E.O. of the company)?" It seems as though she told him that she had spoken to the highest up person in the company and was supposed to get things a certain way. I don't know what all happened after that, but it made me giggle to myself.

The thing is, yes, Dish Network is open 24 hours a day, but who in their right mind is more concerned about weather or not they can watch TV than sleeping at those hours?

Like Father, Like Daughter

If anyone knows my dad, they know that he is quiet and shy. This is the award I got yesterday when I graduated training. Now I have proof (like I really needed it) that I am Bob Mitchell's daughter...and proud of it!

Group Projects

I HATE GROUP PROJECTS!

These group projects for school are getting to me. I hate them. I think it is dumb to make grown ups learn to work with others, especially since I am going to school only online. Doesn't that make it clear that I don't work well with others?

I would rather just be given the assignment a sweat over getting the work done myself without all of the aggravation of working with people who depend on others to do the assignment for them. When there are five people in the group, why should there only be three people working on the project? Oh, wait...maybe adding a comment here and there that really has nothing to do with the project (like, I am really not good at putting this stuff together) counts. Don't say that you will be the leader for that project or document writer and then flake out. Really, all the researchers are assigned to to is the research and proofreading. They shouldn't have to put everything together as well, and if they do offer to help, don't' say that you don't need help because you are getting it done and will have the rough draft posted soon. When the project is due on Saturday, the team should not be asking where the rough draft is on Friday. (Yes, I know today is Thursday. This happened a few weeks ago.)

I also hate that people can't tell the difference between being mean and constructive criticism. If you don't want the paper that you just worked on to be proofread and corrected, then don't offer to be the draft writer. I personally think that by telling someone that the fist sentence in a paragraph doesn't go with the rest of what is being said and suggesting that the sentence be switched with the first sentence in the next paragraph is not mean. I could have said that the paper just sucked and didn't flow well at all. Instead I made suggestions for improvement. I am not saying that it would have been written well if I had written it, but I would have taken the suggestions into consideration instead of writing back that the other person is wrong.

I know this is a minor problem compared to how hectic things could be right now, but I really needed to get it all out.