Where is my turtle?

Chapter 2: The classroom

My classroom is a mess but don't judge me I have 30 students. 30 and not one of them is sane. Not one. That's right there all bat shit crazy. Bat shit I tell you. BATSHIT.

Not a, I'm running down the street with no clothes on crazy. More of an I'll ask the same thing 8 different times in a slightly different way or you know fight over one blue pencil when there are approximately 6 other blue pencils in the tin or a ill pull out all the plugs connecting the computer to the smartboard sort of crazy. You know, more of the annoying, delusions, I'm not crazy this is just my personality bat shit type of crazy.

So it doesn't surprise me when I roll over and see Philips pencil on the floor just waiting for someone to trip over it. He always leaves before me so I can never understand how his things end up back on the floor. When I ask him about it today he'll try and convince me that everything in the classroom plays musical chairs at night and that his pencil case stayed in this spot because it's protesting against the system it wants to eat more glue and maybe occasionally stick some up its nose.

*Students singing*: "Glue, glue, glue when do we want it? now! Where do we want it? Anywhere but not on the paper".

Since I'm on the floor I decide to admire the cycling. It's quite ugly the paint is peeling off in this really disturbing way, like when you get sunburnt and your skin starts to peel and you just can't stop thinking about it and end up slowly pulling at it till it just snaps off.

It doesn't help that the classroom walls are painted this ugly sort of slimy snotty green colour. The carpet is a grey-blue colour. It's the same colour as murky water and it smells, really smells, really smells, really, really smells. It smells exactly the way your finger smell after you pick at your toenails. You know that off cheese smell. Toenail jam is what it's called.

So I know that I'm just going to smell like toenail jam for the rest of the day. But that's ok because all the kids are in this class are going to smell like toenail jam too. Wooo hooo toenail jam team! And if you're very quiet, you can always hear little scratching sounds. That's because this place is also infested. That's right! Infested with a bunch of germ spreading whisker waging cockroaches. But I don't blame them for calling this place home. It has a great source of food. I mean I could roll over lick the carpet and survive on the food particles stuck in there for a good couple of weeks. I can just hear the cockroaches now.

Cockroach 1: " scratch, scratch- look at Ms Daisy rolling around on the carpet"

Cockroach 26: "scratch, scratch- it's so sad to see her rolling around like such an animal"

Cockroach 32: "scratch, scratch- I know"

Cockroach 1: "scratch, scratch- promise me you'll slap me out of it if I ever start acting like that"

Cockroach 32: "scratch, scratch-whisker promise".

Everything in this classroom is old and outdated. There are four windows in this classroom one doesn't open one doesn't shut and the other two make disturbing sounds when you try and move them. They sound like what I imagine a cat stuck in a dumpster trying to get out would sound like. We have two cycling fans but they spin in opposite directions. So if you ever want a headache all you have to do is lookup.

There's one storage cabinet that's older than my grandma but for the record, my grandma is not as old as you would think and the only thing keeping both the chairs and tables in this classroom from falling apart is all the dried up gum that's been accumulating underneath them for the last 15 years. To be honest, all the pink bubble-mint flavoured gum has only been there for about a year and a half. They're mine. Whenever I see a table or chair give a little wobble I make sure to stick some fresh gum there for support. The only new thing in this place is the smartboard and most of the time it's not working. So this place is a real palace, almost the Tajima Hall.