You Want to Do What??? Riiight

Nothing goes as planned. Moldova is a living testament to this phrase. Monday is Halloween and I wanted to have a party with my students to celebrate. Our school's fall vacation begins on Monday, so I had planned to have the party on Friday, during the last two periods of school which are optional, meaning that only a few students actually have class during this time. I told the students to wear costumes and bring an apple to bob for. I had planned on having a balloon relay, costume contest, music, and pin the tail on the donkey (or wart on the witch). I was really excited about all this, and all of my students seemed enthusiastic when I mentioned it to them.
So today I was in the teacher's lounge in between classes and I happened to mention to another teacher that I was having a Halloween party tomorrow and she could come if she wanted. Having overheard me, another teacher jumped in and said that I would have to ask the director, because it was the last day before vacation and everyone goes home. I told her that I told my students and that they knew about it and were going to go home after the party. 'Oh no," she said, "the students go home after the 5th class, not the 6th and 7th (which was when my party was going to be), you can't have a party then because we have to go home." Well then. I went in search of the director to talk the matter over. She was not in. Neither was the assistant director. They would not be in until tomorrow afternoon, which would be entirely too late to be on the fence about a party that students needed to be prepared for. So the party is cancelled. Instead, I am telling the kids to visit my class during one of their breaks and I will give them a surprise. The surprise is a homemade sign for them to wear and some candy. Every Moldovan kids' dream, right?
So how was I ever to find out that there would be no 6th and 7th period classes tomorrow? Had the other teacher not chosen to speak up I would never have known. I would have prepared two lessons, anticipating two classes during 6th and 7th period and be pissed when my students didn't show up or when I learned of the cancelled classes. My counterpart is supposed to tell me these things, but she is too busy explaining to me how to write the grades, dates and assignments into the catalog every time she hands me one. Everyday it is the same annoying process. She approaches me with a big blue book for one of the classes. "Here is the agenda for . You have this class? When do you have this class?" I pull out my schedule and tell her. "Ok, and when do you have their optional class?" I tell her. "Ok, so in the agenda....on page you will write the obligatory classes, only the obligatory classes. Do you have a calendar with you? Ok, so you have them Monday and Tuesday and their optional class is Wednesday. Then you will write, starting from September 1st, every date for Monday and Tuesday, only, not the optional class. You will write the date, the grades on this page. On this page you will write the dates, the lesson, and the homework. Then in the back of the book...on page...you will write only the optional classes. Wednesday? Then you will only write the Wednesday dates starting from September 1st, with the grades on this page, and on the other you will write the date, the lesson, and the homework. Ok?" This is the conversation EVERY TIME she hands me a new catalog/agenda/register/whatever. The whole system is extremely archaic and simplistic, a toothless farsighted drunk quadriplegic could figure it out and get it correct. Really, it is the single must annoying thing I have to had to go through here in Moldova (if only that were true).
A homeroom teacher for one of the grades I teach approached me during the same break asking me about what I wrote in the catalog/agenda/whatever. Apparently, I didn't start from the first day of school, September 1st, and instead began September 29th. She was highly upset about it, since the agenda/catalog/whatever is more important to them then their first born. She insisted on knowing why I had written grades, lessons, and homework from the 29th and not the 1st like I am supposed to. I told her that I did not have that particular class till the 29th of September. I wrote my own agenda/catalog/whatever and so I know this to be correct. "Why didn't you have them till then?" "Because the schedule switched and changed until that date," I reply. That doesn't seem to shut this woman up. She is extremely upset and speaks louder so as other teachers can hear her and know she is upset. Only till another teacher speaks up, does she stop. The other teacher explains the situation and reason the same EXACT way that I did. But this time, the problematic teacher understands. I think the school is more concerned with being pretty and having pretty agendas/catalogs/whatevers and having all the classes written in starting from September 1st, regardless if you actually taught them then. I suppose I was supposed to make something up for the days before I actually taught them. No, my job is not to lie and fabricate lessons. That comes later, hahaha. Joking of course. Grrr. Maybe next time I should speak in a teacher accent to be more clear.