Budding Electrician

This is the pencil sharpener in my classroom.

This is the pencil sharpener I bought with my own twenty dollars, partly because my students needed one, but mostly because it looked cool.

This is the pencil sharpener that made me so happy the day I sat in my classroom with the lights off and the windows open, listening to whiny boys with guitars, and sharpening about 75 pencils to perfect, gorgeous points.

This is the pencil sharpener that has now become the bane of my existence. This is the pencil sharpener that frequently goes on strike. (Design flaw--shavings get stuck up in the top, and we have to unplug the thing and then, in an almost obscene way, empty the shavings.)

This is the pencil sharpener that a student broke last Thursday when I had a substitute.

This is the pencil sharpener that I FIXED yesterday. Like, cut wires, and then twisted them together kind of fixed. Look at that pretty pretty pencil point!

So, if this teaching thing doesn't work out, I'll pursue a career as an electrician. I did install a dimmer switch in the bathroom this summer. It is, of course, upside down. (Thanks for pointing that out, Matt. M Cubed is on the way toward becoming M Squared if you know what I mean.)

Electricians get the summer off, right?

(Oh, and I'm just joshin' about that M Squared thing. I adore the Matt, and who else would turn the light off when I fall asleep with it on? Mitch is terrible about that kind of stuff.)