David's second week

After our heavy football loss last Saturday, I attended another game Thursday which was quite exciting and we won narrowly after losing then regaining the lead. Not knowing the finer points of American football I learned a bit by asking my fellow teachers why they didn't do this or that; sometimes there was no reason so we do have room for improvement. This was a tiring day because I had no breaks because of illness of another math teacher so I had his classes as well part of the day. Fortunately he returned today. My classes are still not settled and the computer system we use for entering absences has not yet caught up with the changes so there's still uncertainty about who are really my students. Today was still quite busy and this afternoon there was a fight involving three students which came out of a clear blue sky. It flared up and since we are not supposed to intervene I quickly found a school counselor but the fight had fizzled out in the 20 seconds it took to get back to the classroom. They were marched off and I didn't see them until the end of the lesson when they came back to make a convincing apology - some of them could win Academy Awards I think! Still teaching very basic stuff, necessary because of where the students are academically, even my 'calculus' students. I have permission to go ahead with a chess club and about 15 students have signed up so we'll start next Thursday. I will look for some sets or buy them from Amazon since the postage cost is not too enormous. David