Why Microsoft sucks and other Monday tales.

[sister_luck]

There was good stuff today (more on that later) but most of the day can only be described as Monday suckitude.

Let's recap:

After deciding against pulling an all-nighter to finish my marking I still didn't get a decent night's sleep - woke up twice and maybe managed five hours shut-eye which is not enough for an old woman like me.

The morning was freezing cold and I had a hard time de-frosting the car-windows: Scraping and spraying didn't work too well on the thick layer of ice, so I had to use the environmentally-unfriendly method of letting the engine run with the heating on full-blast.

That made me late for work.

Then I killed a rabbit. I saw it in the headlights, it froze, and I hit it. With the icy roads I didn't want to brake or swerve to avoid it. It all happened much too fast anyway. It was awful. This afternoon I discovered some bits of fur stuck to the rearwindow wiper.

First period, my students were doing an exam - which I still had to copy. The photocopier was out of toner. The secretary helped out and used the other machine which is usually only reserved for important admin stuff.

One of my students uses a laptop computer because of health issues. When I tried downloading and printing her essay on our staffroom computer I re-discovered why I steer away from Microsoft products. Word 2007 files cannot be opened with older versions of Word. Luckily, she managed to find another computer in the building that had Word 2007 on it, so she could print it out for me.

Also, I feel like I'm getting the stomach bug that has been floating around. This morning a charming little boy informed me that he had to get a sick-note: "I've got diarrhoea". Fine, I thought, but don't stand so close to me. Another girl told me her neighbour had thrown up during break and she suggested it might be a good idea to have a bin close to their desks for the next time. The girl in question, on the other hand, maintained that she was okay and that she didn't want to go home. She made it through the day without any major accidents.

All in all, I can now laugh about most of these episodes (except for the rabbit of course).

In other exciting news, St. Nikolaus came to school today accompanied by an angel and Knecht Ruprecht and the little ones were delighted. That was heart-warming and funny, too.

Comments

[lijability.livejournal.com]

Who is Knecht Ruprecht? Just wondering, I have cousins named Ruprecht/Rupprecht.

Usually rabbits are quick enough to get out of the way. So maybe this one was having problems.

I had a deer run smack dab into my driver-side door once. It got up and ran away. Then there was the buck that was out on the road and I drove by it very slowly (about 5mph/11kph), even looking it right into the eye as it passed my door. Then it put it's head down in and tried to ram my car with it's horns! It was the rutting season, testosterone makes you do the wacky!

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia to the rescue: Companions of St. Nicholas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companions_of_Saint_Nicholas). Rup(p)recht is an old-fashioned first name.

In the Rhineland tradition, Knecht Ruprecht usually has a rod and a big sack, and wears dark farm-hand type clothes. Just 50 km away from here, where my stepmother is from, he is known as Hans Muff.

In the past, he was the one you threatened the kids with when they weren't behaving themselves.

Fortunately, I've never had an encounter with a deer or wild boar on the road before, but about a year ago, a low-flying pigeon got right into my car's path. Its feather came out at the other end - I had a colleague in the car behind me and I felt really sorry for spraying him with pigeon feathers!

[comava.livejournal.com]

How nice of St. Nikolaus and Schmutzli (as we call him here!) to come visit the children even though it wasn't the 6th! :)

I'm sorry your day was hard. But it's over now and hopefully you'll sleep better tonight!

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

By the end of the day, I was able to laugh about (most of) it.

It's a school tradition - die Fünftklässler bekommen einen Weckmann (gibt's die auch in der Schweiz?), auch wenn der ja eigentlich zu Sankt Martin gehört.

The angel is one of our music teachers, Sankt Nikolaus is another teacher who is the right sort of bodyshape and has a nice deep voice and our headteacher dresses up as Knecht Ruprecht and hands out the baked goods.

One of my colleagues was fooled by Knecht Ruprecht's costume and mistook our headteacher for a much younger colleague - apparently, that made her day!

[comava.livejournal.com]

We have Weckmänner but we call them Gritibänz. Also the kids get nuts and gingerbread and chocolate and tangerines, it's all tradition here too, although I don't know if the teachers dress up everywhere. :)

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

The school tradition is the dressed-up teachers plus the Weckmann - and I'm not sure how many secondary schools do that for their Fünftklässler - we didn't get a visit from Sankt Nikolaus at my Gymnasium.

Do you get your Gritibänz for Sankt Nikolaus or for Sankt Martin?

[comava.livejournal.com]

We get them for December 6th, St. Nikolaus. I think most of the primary schools here probably celebrate in one way or another with the schoolkids but I don't recall any such think at my Gymnasium either!

[lijability.livejournal.com]

LOL! That sounds just like my cousins!

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Are they scary, too?