I love those smaller venues too. Like the ones they used when they did their little club tour. I don't remember which album that was for. But everything was so close. The only bad thing about it was no seating. It's nice you had seats. It is a bummer he cut so many songs and left the BSB stuff. I wonder if he thought people would rather hear that stuff then his own? Weird. You'd think he'd be trying to sell himself as a solo artist by just sticking to his own things. At least he's touring. No matter what, it seems like the fandom can always count on Nick to completely avoid a BSB drought between breaks.

I never understood teachers who yell and scream. It doesn't ever help. It doesn't have any effect on the kids who are misbehaving. They even laugh and look at it as a badge of honor. Meanwhile, it greatly dysregulates the quiet kids who do nothing wrong. I remember in second grade; my teacher used to yell and scream and even throw chairs and I spent most of that year with huge knots in my stomach and dreading school which was strange for me who looked forward to it all the time.

Hope you had a nice relaxing weekend. I am looking forward to posting my first chapter tomorrow. I hope that it is well received. Good luck with the skiing chapter. That's how I felt when I wrote about fly fishing. LOL Although that was long before FB and algorithms. Maybe you should go spend a weekend at a villa. 

Yeah, I do think some teachers assume that those kids just get away with doing whatever they want, when really it's that I try to pick my battles and let them have time to calm down when they need it instead of getting in their face and nagging/criticizing every little thing they do wrong.  That's how I've had the most success with difficult students, although they definitely still test my patience LOL.

The Nick concert was good!  I absolutely love the type of venues he's performing in, theaters with great lighting and acoustics and seats that are super close to the stage.  We were Row D, which I assumed was fourth row, but it was actually the second row of seats behind a very small pit section, so we had a fantastic view!  My pictures turned out so good.  He cut out a bunch of songs from the set he performed last year without adding anything new, though, which was kind of annoying.  I wouldn't have minded him changing up the set list if he was going to sing different stuff, but it was just a shorter version of the same show I saw last year in Nashville.  That was only the second show of the tour last year, so maybe he realized it was too much and cut back.  I'm sure it's an adjustment singing a whole concert solo when you're used to having four other singers on stage with you.  I was worried "You Shook Me All Night Long" was going to wreck his voice last year, so I'm not surprised that one got cut.  But it was disappointing that he cut out some of the other covers and solo songs and kept all the BSB songs he's been doing.  I really don't need to hear him sing Everybody, I Want It That Way, QPG, etc. by himself.  But it was still a really fun show, and he was amazing as always!  And in my post-concert depression, I bought tickets to see him again in Vegas in November, so I can't complain!

Congrats to your Mets!  I haven't been following the postseason all that closely since my Cubbies aren't in it, but I did catch their big win the other night and was glad to see them take out the Brewers.  It's always fun to see an underdog wild card team make it far into the playoffs.  I hope they go all the way!

Congrats on hitting 5000 too!  And posting your new story!  I'm enjoying a relaxing weekend at home and trying to get some writing done after half-assing it to keep the streak alive for the past couple weeks.  I'm writing about a ski trip when I've never been skiing before, so it's a hard thing to half-ass.  And now I keep getting Facebook ads for Aspen ski resorts from all the research I've been doing LOL.

I'm glad the parents are easy to work with and understanding. Whenever the flu or the chicken pox would go around, I used to secretly pray that the bad kids had it, but it never happened! It's like those kids were immune. Of course, they were also the kids who were never involved in any of the extracurricula r activities which sometimes took them out of my class. With the exception of band, which was MY activity. LOL

I always tended to get along best with the class that all the other teachers deemed impossible. I felt bad for them. They knew it, they always said it. "All our teachers hate us!" Because of a handful of obnoxious kids, they all managed to get that reputation. I don't know if this was the case with you, but when I would say those particular kids didn't give me a problem their teachers assumed it was because I let them do whatever they want. It was one of those things they liked to always say about the specials. "Well of course they're good for you! All you do is have fun!" I don't miss that attitude at all!

How was your Nick concert? Did you go to just one? You might have posted about it somewhere else. I haven't visited the other dots yet.

Steph have fun on your vacation. Are you going anywhere?

I finally managed to hit the 5,000 mark. It's the small things! And my Mets are actually in the playoffs. Which is unreal considering how badly they started off the season. Watch then accidentally win the world series! LOL I don't think we'll beat Philly, but I really hope we do! I hate them and most of their fans!

I'm sure your daughter does have stories, Steph!  I will say, things have gotten better the past couple of weeks.  Most of the kids have settled into a routine and gotten used to my expectations.  One of my two heavy-hitters seems to be done testing me and is much less argumentative than he was the first month.  The other one is still obnoxious, but he missed 3 out of 5 days this week due to a doctor's appointment and illness, so I had a relatively easy week.  It's amazing what a difference one child can make.  I hate to admit it, but my class and days are much more pleasant without this kid in it. 😬  At least his parents are supportive and don't make excuses for him or deny that there's a problem, which certainly helps.  It would be a thousand times worse if his parents were obnoxious, too!

Parents who don't want to parent are definitely a growing problem.  We see the effects of kids who have grown up with far too much screen time.  They have no attention span and can't handle being "bored" or not being overstimulated all the time.  And some of them are definitely lacking in basic skills.  I have 4th graders (9 and 10-year-olds) who can't tie their shoes or tell left from right.  And we've seen an increase in kids that age who frequently have bathroom accidents (both kinds) at school without any medical diagnosis that would explain it.  It's like some of them are not even being properly potty trained.  I never thought I would have to deal with that kind of stuff as a 4th grade teacher!  I understand why there is a teacher shortage.  I'm grateful to have good administrators and a good union in my district that try to make the workload more manageable, but even with decent working conditions, it's a difficult, demanding job.  And I've certainly heard horror stories and seen those videos from teachers in other districts who have it much worse.  I would never want to teach in Texas or Florida, for example!

I've taught many kids on the autism spectrum, and while some of them were a handful, most of them have been very likeable and often among my brightest students!  Sometimes I hear horror stories about students from their previous teachers, and then they turn out to be fine in a different setting with a different group of kids and teacher.  I had one last year that one of my former principals, who's now in charge of a different school, told me was the most challenging student he'd ever had in his 25+ year career.  After having this kid in my class all year, I wouldn't even put him in my top 5 most challenging students!  He had his moments, but most of the time he was fine for me.  He was a quirky old soul who knew a lot about pop culture from even before he was born, and he had a great sense of humor, so it was easy for me to find commonalities and bond with him.  Sometimes it just comes down to personalities meshing, even between adults and kids.

Yeah, everything I couldn't wash and didn't want to throw away is sealed in my (detached) garage until next spring.  Not risking it!

This one too!

There are a shortage of teachers here, but the budget has been cut for them so schools are really struggling and qualified teachers can't get work.  This country is spending money on the wrong things

Teaching is a funny field, either there are too many of them or a complete shortage. Here there seems to be a shortage in most places. It's tough. I can't even imagine training and being a first or second year teacher now.

Yeah, that lady is something else! Glad we're done having to deal with her.

Wow, I can't believe she said that, what a cheeky cow! She shouldn't be a pet sitter if she doesn't know how to look after pets.  I'm glad the vet took her details too.  And I'm glad you finally got all the things back.

My daughter is a teaching assistant, she was going to do the extra year in university to become a fully qualified teacher but has changed her mind at the moment because there just aren't any jobs for teachers here.  But the class she's in she does the majority of the teaching and trying to discipline the kids as they just don't get it at home.  All the teachers there tell her that teaching is not what it used to be. 

I agree with what you said, Steph. A few nights ago, I was scrolling through FB reels, and I came across a bunch of teachers who left their jobs in the middle of the year and most of them sited it was because parents just don't parent their kids anymore, so they spent a really large portion of their day babysitting them and taking care of emotional needs and the teaching became background. Texas seems to be one of the worst places to teach ever! Big surprise! Seems like they don't really do much in the way of training and in-services and instead expect the teachers to train themselves by watching hours of videos on their own time. I didn't know your daughter was a teacher, that's awesome!

The special needs kids I taught, especially the ones on the spectrum were some of my most well-behaved kids. It's those others that are just spoiled brats and feel entitled that are really the worst. Maybe it has to do with patience level. I had more patience for kids with special needs or kids I knew were going through something bad at home than I did for the kids who were just spoiled and not used to hearing the word no.

Speaking of annoying!

That lady finally brought back Chloe's stuff yesterday and she was kind of huffy. The first thing she said to me was "Well I thought it was really nice of me to give you guys a total refund for Puglsey even though I had him for two days and even helped get him to the vet." As if she was expecting applause or something. I countered and said, "Well it's a good thing we got it all worked out otherwise we would have come home to two dead animals, so yeah, thanks." Seriously lady? As it is, the vet actually took down this lady's name and made a mental note of it so if anyone came in and mentioned her as someone they were letting their pet go to, they would make sure they knew what she did. They were more annoyed about it then we were.