Its Only 365 Days
WHITE ELEPHANT TRAUMA
White Elephant Table: My gift is the super cute one in the back-ish, wrapped in silver with the beauitfully handmade bow, I might add, by yours truly. I also have the plaid wrapped gift on the far top left with the origami star I also made myself, hollah.
So this is how this went...I was number four and I picked the dirt devil, whoo hoo right...nope, co-worker decided she would steal it from me, and I ended up with the mind bender puzzle which I hate...not so much because its a bad gift, but because I....f-ing...hate...puzzles. I'm a total right brain person...hello photography, cooking, art, music...math, science just give me a case of the fuzzies. I don't understand it. It frustrates me, and I tend to give up on it and feign stupidity rather then try to work through a problem. I blame it on my fifth grade math teacher (read about him below if you care about my emotionally scarred childhood). Anyway, the party was great, we had a really good time, and we're ready to do it all again.
Fifth Grade Teacher...he was a doctor of mathematics, who had a son who was in my grade level. Well for some reason, I tested in to higher math, so I got sent to the gifted classes, and of course, he was the teacher. Dr. Hall (name changed*) was a tyrant. He wanted all eyes on him, mouths shut, you only speak when he speaks to you. He kept his classroom at a cold 65 degrees so no one would ever be able to sleep, and any infraction, or anything he felt was an infraction, you had to sign the dreaded log. The log meant that you had detention and would not only miss recess, but you'd have to spend it with him, doing MORE math.
He also had this policy whereby he would call on any student who did not raise their hand. So even if you had no clue whatever the hell he was asking you about, you better raise your hand and quickly, or you'd be called to the board to work problems in front of the class and since no one could speak, you could feel their eyes baring down into your back, some praying for you, others breathing sighs of relief that it was you and not them. He hated 'dumb' students. I mean, it was a gifted class, but any student he felt wasn't cutting it, he let you know, and you were gone, and booted back to the 'regulars.' I actually thought at one point, what if I just acted really dumb, maybe, he'd cut me from his class, but he had an uncanny ability to detect bullshit, so he would say, you're slipping, and you ARE smarter then this, see me after class, and it woudl be more math, more pratice, more, more, more. On top of that, he had my brother two years prior to me, so he already knew my parents, so I was stuck.
I dreaded going to that class everyday. I remember I used to sweat just standing at attention, yes, at attention, as you waited for him to seat you in his classroom. Oh, and did I mention, you BETTER have your homework, which he stood at the entry way to class collecting. If you didn't have it, he would torture you the entire class. An example would be something he'd say like class, who can work the long division of problem number 6 (everyone would raise their hands quickly out of fear), and he would walk slowly to your desk, and say, so Ana, how about you work this problem seeing as how you could not be bothered to work it out at home, lets try it now. Gawd forbid Ana should get it wrong, because he would say, that's wrong, try it again. Still wrong, he would wait, and make you try again until I mean, everyone would break down, or cry or freak out, because he would not let you sit down until you got it right and he wouldn't let anyone else help you solve the problem.
Now, that's just us, the students...his own son, he was three times as hard on. Dr. Hall was a big guy but his son was a scrapper, and you could tell there was a bit of a dissappointment there. So anything his son did, he would ream him for. He made his son practice sports, his violin, his school work, constantly, and made him constantly try and proove himself to him. You really felt bad for the kid...especially the day Dr. Hall was PISSED. He had small beady eyes already, but this one day, he turned completely red after his son failed to figure out some problem and a lot of students had forgotten their homework, so he flips out, grabs his son, picks up his son in his desk, and throws him a few feet. Stunned, scared, silence, fear, those were the words running through my 10 year old brain and of those around me. No one moved, dead silence. That is one of those times in your life where you can say, you've never been so scared in your life. His son just began to get red and then cry and we just sat their, as his dad just stopped and walked out of the classroom.
Geezus, I'm freaking out just recalling these memories which I've repressed quite well, for a long time. My 6th grade year at an entirely new middle school, I could not go to the board. I sat at the back and could not stand my math class because instead of make me work harder and learn to do math more efficiently, Dr. Hall scarred the crap out of me and made me believe I could never do math right. People think I make this man up, but on facebook, there is an "I survived Dr. Hall" group where everyone who had him as a teacher logs on and tells their own Dr. Hall is a crazy math maniac story. I saw him once as I passed by the school when I was in middle school and I swear even though I was across the street, I could hear a low growl.
WHITE ELEPHANT TRAUMA
White Elephant Table: My gift is the super cute one in the back-ish, wrapped in silver with the beauitfully handmade bow, I might add, by yours truly. I also have the plaid wrapped gift on the far top left with the origami star I also made myself, hollah.
So this is how this went...I was number four and I picked the dirt devil, whoo hoo right...nope, co-worker decided she would steal it from me, and I ended up with the mind bender puzzle which I hate...not so much because its a bad gift, but because I....f-ing...hate...puzzles. I'm a total right brain person...hello photography, cooking, art, music...math, science just give me a case of the fuzzies. I don't understand it. It frustrates me, and I tend to give up on it and feign stupidity rather then try to work through a problem. I blame it on my fifth grade math teacher (read about him below if you care about my emotionally scarred childhood). Anyway, the party was great, we had a really good time, and we're ready to do it all again.
Fifth Grade Teacher...he was a doctor of mathematics, who had a son who was in my grade level. Well for some reason, I tested in to higher math, so I got sent to the gifted classes, and of course, he was the teacher. Dr. Hall (name changed*) was a tyrant. He wanted all eyes on him, mouths shut, you only speak when he speaks to you. He kept his classroom at a cold 65 degrees so no one would ever be able to sleep, and any infraction, or anything he felt was an infraction, you had to sign the dreaded log. The log meant that you had detention and would not only miss recess, but you'd have to spend it with him, doing MORE math.
He also had this policy whereby he would call on any student who did not raise their hand. So even if you had no clue whatever the hell he was asking you about, you better raise your hand and quickly, or you'd be called to the board to work problems in front of the class and since no one could speak, you could feel their eyes baring down into your back, some praying for you, others breathing sighs of relief that it was you and not them. He hated 'dumb' students. I mean, it was a gifted class, but any student he felt wasn't cutting it, he let you know, and you were gone, and booted back to the 'regulars.' I actually thought at one point, what if I just acted really dumb, maybe, he'd cut me from his class, but he had an uncanny ability to detect bullshit, so he would say, you're slipping, and you ARE smarter then this, see me after class, and it woudl be more math, more pratice, more, more, more. On top of that, he had my brother two years prior to me, so he already knew my parents, so I was stuck.
I dreaded going to that class everyday. I remember I used to sweat just standing at attention, yes, at attention, as you waited for him to seat you in his classroom. Oh, and did I mention, you BETTER have your homework, which he stood at the entry way to class collecting. If you didn't have it, he would torture you the entire class. An example would be something he'd say like class, who can work the long division of problem number 6 (everyone would raise their hands quickly out of fear), and he would walk slowly to your desk, and say, so Ana, how about you work this problem seeing as how you could not be bothered to work it out at home, lets try it now. Gawd forbid Ana should get it wrong, because he would say, that's wrong, try it again. Still wrong, he would wait, and make you try again until I mean, everyone would break down, or cry or freak out, because he would not let you sit down until you got it right and he wouldn't let anyone else help you solve the problem.
Now, that's just us, the students...his own son, he was three times as hard on. Dr. Hall was a big guy but his son was a scrapper, and you could tell there was a bit of a dissappointment there. So anything his son did, he would ream him for. He made his son practice sports, his violin, his school work, constantly, and made him constantly try and proove himself to him. You really felt bad for the kid...especially the day Dr. Hall was PISSED. He had small beady eyes already, but this one day, he turned completely red after his son failed to figure out some problem and a lot of students had forgotten their homework, so he flips out, grabs his son, picks up his son in his desk, and throws him a few feet. Stunned, scared, silence, fear, those were the words running through my 10 year old brain and of those around me. No one moved, dead silence. That is one of those times in your life where you can say, you've never been so scared in your life. His son just began to get red and then cry and we just sat their, as his dad just stopped and walked out of the classroom.
Geezus, I'm freaking out just recalling these memories which I've repressed quite well, for a long time. My 6th grade year at an entirely new middle school, I could not go to the board. I sat at the back and could not stand my math class because instead of make me work harder and learn to do math more efficiently, Dr. Hall scarred the crap out of me and made me believe I could never do math right. People think I make this man up, but on facebook, there is an "I survived Dr. Hall" group where everyone who had him as a teacher logs on and tells their own Dr. Hall is a crazy math maniac story. I saw him once as I passed by the school when I was in middle school and I swear even though I was across the street, I could hear a low growl.