It's just one thing after another...

A woman has gone missing out on the tundra, so search and rescue is out there trying to find her. She's been gone since Friday. And back home, my aunt may or may not still be with us. I haven't heard either way. I said before that these things happen in threes, but this puts us up to five. Six if you count both the little girls that drowned.

Saddest day at work ever.

Two four year olds drowned in the lagoon yesterday. They were cousins and in the same class. They were sledding about a block or two from where they lived. They went down the hill and onto the ice and fell through. Someone saw the sled and the hole in the ice and got their binoculars. They saw something floating and called 911.

One girl was unresponsive, but the other had some life signs, but neither could be revived. The whole preschool staff went to the house today to offer condolences. If anything is more sad than a family sobbing the names of their dead children while clutching their last little preschool assignments, I don’t want to know about it. I have hugged many people that I don’t know today, but I do know that grief is one of those things you can’t do anything about but be there.

The subject is a line from an Emily Dickinson poem. It's a sure indication I'm upset when I start looking up Dickinson. There was a sign up that said 'Thin Ice', but they were four years old! Still learning the alphabet. The first thing you want to do is scream "Who was watching them?" but it's such a small town that everybody pretty much watches everybody, and these two managed to find a moment when no one was around, or going by, and slide just a little too far.

So it's about as sad as it can be, with the bodies coming back tonight, and another family gathering tomorrow. I'm just glad to be home!

So, we took the little guys on their first field trip today. We went down to the beach to let them beachcomb a little. They found rocks and shells, feathers and driftwood, and a few stranded sea weeds. It was windy and cold and the gray waves were crashing and we had police escort in case of bears. It was weird and stressful, but I think they enjoyed it. A few of the grownups mentioned that is was a shame there wasn't more stuff for them to dig up. Parents wanted to go out ahead of time, to plant things for them to find.

It wasn't until later that I found this.

Now, I'm just glad that we didn't stumble on that beach. Preschool is too early for that kind of trauma, though it might deaden the pain that comes in 4th or 5th grade when the reading list turns torturous. (Where the Red Fern Grows, Bridge to Terabithia, Diary of Ann Frank, The Yearling, Taste of Blackberries, Red Pony, etc.)

I already vented at slayersyrena about this and enjoyed it so much that I might as well gripe about it here.

When I started my current job two years ago, I had to go through a whole mountain of paperwork, because I was suddenly a teacher without actually being one, and I needed to get a provisional certification to be legal and not just a warm body with a Bachelor's Degree and no criminal record. I also had to promptly enroll in a program to get that certificate, which had to be a distance program since I am in Barrow, Alaska.

I did all that.

And the program I enrolled in just about drove me up the wall. Sooo much paperwork drama and hassle without actually being there in person to fix anything. There was much frustration and gnashing of teeth.

Then, the lady in charge of paperwork here put in her two weeks notice. A week later, she was fired and sent out with no one trained to take her place or anyone knowing what was going on. Shortly after, some wide-eyed little office person informs me that all that paperwork I filled out a year ago has vanished from the face of the earth and not only does the state department not have any legal reason to keep me employed, but maybe they never did....

SOOOOOO, I run around all crazy, fill out all the paperwork again, go get fingerprinted again, request all my college transcripts again (there's three of them), pay to get a copy of my Praxis scores again, get my proof of enrollment again, and then get the whole mess notarized, and include a money order (they won't take anything but!) for $191 for the certification fee. I mail it off with a sigh of relief and go back to work.

A week later, it's back on my desk. There was a form that wasn't included. Which one? Who knows, but after a minor email volley we found the one that was missing. I filled it out, got it signed, stuffed it back in, and sent it out again. Surely, I thought, I have finally done everything they wanted me too.

A bit later, I finally had enough of crazy program shenanigans and left it to woo some enrollment in another certification program. Hopefully, a sane and/or competent one.

Two weeks ago, a CO employee came scuttling into the classroom, all bug-eyed and borderline accusatory, telling me that the state had never received the packet and was I sure I had mailed it? Of course I was! I had the receipt from the post office and the notary, and for the money order! I waved it at her, borderline maniacally. But for naught.

I have to do it all AGAIN. So I did. I filled out the paperwork, got new fingerprints, got new transcripts, the works. The only thing I don't have is proof of enrollment from the new program because they need copies of my transcripts too. Since I had just recently sent a new set to CO, naive fool that I am, I request them back. It takes FOUR DIFFERENT EMAIL EXCHANGES for those people to finally TELL ME that they can't give me my new transcripts to send to the program, and I can't even have them to send to the state with the packet as originally intended, BECAUSE, and this is the part that paralyzed all my facial muscles for a few minutes, THEY OPENED THEM.

Transcripts are only official if they're still sealed! The state will only accept official transcripts! Just like they'll only accept money orders! WWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYY???

But I like my job. So I'll do it. It'll just take longer than I thought. Grarrr!

So, it's after 2 am, and I'm just getting back from the school.

I spent most of the day (yesterday that is)getting my class' memory books ready. I also made a pie. Then I went to the get-together with the pie. At about a quarter to 11 (pm) I left the party and went to the school to get the book printed. I figured no one would be there. I would have the printers to myself. Barring any unforeseen technical difficulties, I would be done by midnight. Right?

Wrong.

Now each memory book has about 10 pages, maybe more depending on the attendance and general levels of shyness of the child. If the kid's a ham, he or she will have a few extra pictures. If they walk around with their hands over their faces every time they see a camera, well, I'll take a few pictures of that just to be a jerk, but I won't fill the whole book with it. But anyway, thirty four students, roughly ten or so pages each. It's a big print job, which is why I was going in late at night so it wouldn't take forever with eight other teachers trying to use the color printer.

That was my logic anyway.

Tonight, Printer 119, for reasons of its own, can only print one page every three minutes, with a fifteen minute lull in between queues. I timed it. And it took a full frickin' three hours just to get all the files queued. Which is INSANE. There's no way it should take that long. Nothing else I've ever printed on that printer has ever taken anywhere near that long. By the end of hour three, I had had enough and left it to leisurely print its way through the queue. I'll go in check it again around noonish.

And while I'm griping, I REALLY hate that Dorito's commercial with the chick in that taxi eating late night taco flavor Doritos or whatever and everything around her turns to a night club. She eats those chips like they're made of glass and she doesn't want to cut her tongue. She eats them like she hates them. If you wanna sell chips, hire somebody who can at least take a bite of one without the squeamish daintiness that suggests they found this chip on the seat of that cab when they got in, but are being paid to eat it.

My first real meal of the day has had a tranquilizing effect. I'm settling down. Just an hour ago, I was not so serene.

I had the usual Tuesday at work. Not too bad. Still a little squirrelly. I had a light lunch in the middle of it and went to the post office afterwards. There I waited half an hour to buy stamps to mail the bills. Sigh. Annoying, but bearable. On the way home from there, the truck's fan belt goes out.

I manage to get the truck home before anything really hideous happens, but then I can't get the hood open to check anything. The hood will NOT open. No matter what I try. Grrr. I said, but after roughly 20 minutes sitting in the cold trying to make the hood switch work, I gave in and went in to call for help.

Help came! Two white knights. It took them three hours as opposed to the rest of my life it would have taken me. Yay for them!

And then I had to hurry to get to the auto supply to get oil before they closed. Didn't make it. Went to the gas station instead. They had some. This time, the hood opened, thank goodness. Went to pick up Mom at the airport and nearly ran smack the hell over two little grade school kids on a snowmobile who thought they had time to scoot across the road in front of me. They didn't. I nearly killed them. Scared me half to death. And they just sat there, grinning at me, as I went all over the place trying to stop on ice and not splatter those stupid grins all over the front of the truck! I was completely sideways in the road before I stopped, and by the time I got to the airport my nerves were just about shot.