change of plans

Yes, if you are visiting us again, you can see that I am no longer a substitute teacher. With the economy that way that it is, and with districts cutting teachers left and right (recently a local district cut a couple hundred teachers..with the explanation that probably more than half will return...but in the mean time, what do the parents think? What do those educators do about finding a job doing what they love?), I figure if I can't teach them, I will drive them there so someone else can.

Yes, people, you heard right. I am no longer the substitute. I AM THE SCHOOL BUS DRIVER. Today marks day five of driving my own route. Most of my students are bilingual and usually are speaking Spanish on the bus. I do know some of the naughty words but have only heard "shut up" in Spanish. My biggest peeve is that they seem to like to stand up and change seats while I am driving. Nope, not on my bus. I already have a nick name for one student. Chris the chip. You see, last week, someone was crunching away so I asked, "Who is eating?" No one answered so I asked again. "Who is eating potato chips?" Finally one student said that he was. I then said to him, "Here's the deal. If I find one chip or crumb on the seat or the floor, you won't eat again on my bus. Deal?" He shook his head in agreement. After dropping everyone off, I checked my bus for kids and much to my surprise, I did not find one morsel anywhere. The next day, I was sure to give a kudos to him. He just smiled at me. Today, he was eating chips again. I laughed and said, "Chip boy is at it again, huh?" He laughed and told me his name was Christopher. He then added that I could call him Chris the Chip.

Oh, yah...I almost forgot. The last few kids were on the bus and they were chatting away. The only two words I could understand ... brace yourselves... the ONLY TWO WORDS I could understand with the Spanish chatter were:

JUSTIN BIEBER.