Boredom Pays

You know what's great? School on Saturday. No, wait. That's not it. You know what's great? Being paid for going to school on Saturday and basically surfing the internet all day. There, that's better.

I'm currently filling in for the 11th grade chem teacher, who's attending a PD meeting in Queens, by sitting around in the chem classroom while the students I had last year are using highly variable amounts of effort to complete their science fair projects. Every now and then I get a question, every now and then I help someone work through a problem with their experiment, but largely I just sit and surf, while occasionally chatting with the students who aren't actively engaged in anything. I'm not honestly sure why some of them showed up, since they don't seem to have anything to work on. One poor sap got here at 10 AM only to find that his partner (who was bringing all the materials) wasn't showing up.

I like that I'm getting paid for this, but I'm seriously starting to get bored out of my mind. Thankfully, within the hour I can go home and do as little as humanly possible. I need some time to recover from the crazy nights I've been having recently. Thursday, Art-History showed up in the city out of the blue and we hit the St. Andrew's pub for some scotch and dinner. We discussed our post-Xmas plans, which the bros and I have been debating now for some time. I have now formed the humble opinion that if our goal for New Years is to party and get drunk and have a good time, this is something that we can do most anywhere, so we should do it in a place with the least expense, most convenience, and highest number of bars per square mile. This mythical place is, of course, New York. It has all the above advantages, plus the fact that my apartment can accommodate guests (thanks to JimmyLuke's air mattress and my couch), saving hundreds of dollars that would otherwise be spent on hotels. Plus, it's significantly closer to all of our final destinations, post-New Years (Africa for Chnepr, Baltimore for Art-History, and --this is easy-- New York for me). Also, here we have the option of including other locals who are known to us in our revelry (party bus from Bethlehem, anyone?). A point to consider. Still, after all our discussions, Art-History seemed set on Vegas with his girl. To each his own, I suppose.

After our scotches, there was the opening party for BourbonSamurai and Quantum's new theatre company. Art-History gladly tagged along, and the evening quickly devolved into varsity-level drinking. I managed to avoid getting completely hammered, since the promise of a school day the following morning required eventual sobriety. Nevertheless, yesterday morning I did not have my "A-game" for my first lesson. Thankfully my teaching improved as my hangover lessened and by the end of the day I was ready for the weekly pilgrimage to No Idea that evening. Drinking commenced again, but once again it was of a lesser degree. Spreading my drinking out over two consecutive nights, though undoubtedly resulting in more total drinking, apparently is effective at lessening the rate of drinking.

So after two (relatively) late nights, I'm actually in pretty good shape as the kids muddle around in the lab and try really hard to get their experiments to work. The girls who are trying to make perfume are only getting stuff that smells like vomit. The guys trying to work the supernova-finding program have only found one so far. The water wheel group makes a big mess, but not much else. But at least they're having a good time, working through their problems and finding innovative solutions. And who knows? "Puke," by Calvin Klein, could be a major fragrance this spring.