Noodle Chicken and Ketchup

My kids tried to kill me! It's true.

The last several days, I've been suffering from this acute pain in my back, a tiny area emanating pain through to the front of my chest, up the back of my neck, and into my head. It's really hard to breathe or even walk because of this. Carrying anything becomes excruciating. The remedy, I figure, is to pop asprin like tic tacs.

Yesterday I got ice cream with Mel and Liz. They both kept saying really funny things, and I, of course, responded with laughter. But it hurts so much to laugh that it came out in small gasps, like, "Ha ha, OUCH! (gasp) Ha ha, OUCH! (gasp) Ha ha, OUCH! (gasp)" Being the good, supportive friends that they are, they were rolling with laughter at the ridiculous way in which I was laughing. This, of course, made me laugh more. It was quite the vicious cycle.

But this week I am down to my last couple of days of teaching before one and a half months of vacation. Basically I'm on teacher survival mode. To top off the pain in my back and the anticipation of almost leaving, today the weather decides to dial it up to sauna setting, with the temperature in the 90's (farenheit, of course) and 75% humidity. I can swim in the air. And my school is too cheap to turn on the air, though there are units in every classroom. So body heat in the classrooms ups the temp even more. It's just lovely, let me tell you. By my last class today, I was exhausted and ready to make a run for it. Not literally, though, because I think if I ran right now I would die after about 2.7 seconds from dehydration.

My kids in this class, which is incidentally and thankfully one of my favorites, decided to subtly attempt to murder me. They didn't actually know about my back pain, but kids have a sixth sense for that sort of thing, you know? This week, I've started classes with a few riddles, then move on to talking about our vacation plans and one wish we could have for summer. Instead of answering my riddle, however, I got a loud, "What?" just before the class broke into a lovely rendition of "Noodle Chicken and Ketchup." I think it's at least part of some Korean ad, though it doesn't sound overly appetizing. As I wrote that, it doesn't even sound so funny, but when you're delirious, pretty much anything works. So I started my laugh-laugh-gasp, laugh-laugh-gasp routine. Is there anything more you can do to better convince a group of 12 year olds that they are up and coming comedic geniuses? I'd bet not.

The remainder of that class was various forms of the "Noodle Chicken and Ketchup" song with me trying regain my composure. It was a wasted effort. But class is now finished and, though my back is throbbing, I am sweating out the three liters of water I consumed today, and I may be starting to see double, it's been a great day. Plus I have only three classes tomorrow before I finish. I'm ready.