PrivateTim

Yes indeed, hippo birdie two ewe

I doubt any of these kids are actually bad kids. They are junior high school kids which makes them a complete mess. They are in that time between childhood and adulthood. Their bodies are messing with them left and right, they are incredibly insecure about everything and putting down others is a classic reaction to insecurity. The situation escalated from the initial insults because there were no consequences for the initial push. It is the proverbial, "give them an inch" situation. If you come down hard on them at the start you can control the situation and direct them back to appropriate behavior, but once you have lost control it is hard to stuff that genie back in the bottle. In order to regain control you need to use more force and vigor than you would have had to otherwise used if you nipped it early. Believe it or not, kids want structure, discipline and direction. When you give it to them, they respond well. When you leave them to their own devices, they are a disaster.

Oh hell, she'd still make your squirt tears like a little girl.

If she can not be a "hard ass" she has no business working with junior high kids, especially in her role as a bus monitor where she is there to control them. She is not a "defenseless" woman (what does gender have to do with it anyway?), she is a person with the full weight of authority of the school system behind her. And what does age have to do with it? No way in h-e-double hockey sticks would my 82 year grandmother have put up with that BS. She'd have destroyed the little ships. Because Karen didn't nip it in the bud from the first comment, it went on.

Half of my family including my mother, grandmother, two cousins, an uncle and two aunts, are professional educators (or retired) and not one is/was in a private school. My aunt and her husband teach in very tough schools and neither one has discipline problems. My cousins are in better districts, but that doesn't mean it is easier, it can be harder in some ways. And given the amount of time I spend in public schools, I am well aware of what goes on and what teachers can and can not do. I know a bunch of kids who go to a high school where probably 30% of the school are gang members and probably 40% drop out, but these kids exhibit a level of respect and discipline that you wouldn't expect given all the negative things you hear about kids these days, but one of those "kids", now a Stanford grad, will be representing the US in London this summer. It is possible to be a strict disciplinarian without raising your voice, calling kids names or physically touching them. I see it work every day.

How would my Mom, the 30 year veteran professional educator, reacted? She'd have had the bus driver pull over the bus the while she disciplined the kids involved, moved them, and reported them to the school, done whatever she needed. Even my 82 year old grandmother, who spent 43 years as a professional educator, would have had no problem dealing with a freakin' 7th grader. As to what were Karen's duty and authority, here is her job description from the Greece Central School District website. So yes, she had the authority and duty to stop what was happening.

An adult supervisor of 7th graders has no excuse for being "bullied" by them. She is the one in charge. She is the one with the full power of the system behind her. If she can not control them and doesn't know how to deal with 7th graders than she is doing the wrong thing. That is the cold, hard truth. How could she protect any of the other kids on the bus if she couldn't control these kids?

Okay sorry, but adults, especially ones who are supposed to be supervising kids have to be a bit more hard nosed than this. Like a 13 year old could make me cry. The first one who said a thing to me about "you're fat", my response would be, "I might be fat, but I'm not spending next week in detention like you."

I like this look.... heading to the Rider Strong look.

I thought this was an interesting line, "Hot Jeff looked at me, as if he wanted to say something, but I ignored him, and he was hustled off anyway. " It sounds like Jeff maybe wanted to apologize to Will, but didn't get a chance. I don't think Jeff is a bad guy, in fact I think he is quite a good guy. I don't remember how he came to be in Father Tim's shelter, but it would certainly explain a lot of his behaviors. You are bound to be changed by the experiences that led you to the shelter and the experiences at the shelter. It is understandable why he wants a meaningful relationship, not just the usual shallow physical encounters of his age group. It also might explain some resentment towards Will who has all the support and privilege he never had and yet Will still felt persecuted enough to do what he did. That all had to have seemed silly, or more than silly, to someone like Jeff who experienced what he had. On a side note, relating to a comment in the review section, I don't remember surfers in 2000 having long hair, that seems more like a 70's, 80's thing. Top surfers like Kelly Slater, Colin McPhillips, Sunny Garcia, C.J Hobgood and Joel Tudor all had shorter hair.

In poopy diapers for most of them!

Sorry, but I've never bought into that "1990 is really part of the 80's" argument. It didn't work for the millennium celebrations and it still isn't

Ha ha, fun chapter for me. I hope Julian is reading still

As my father says..... when he was a kid only criminals and enlisted men had tattoos

You think that is bad.... how about this one?

Except of course that culture is also very regionalized and it also depends on the crowd you run in. No one I hung with liked Nirvana. My friends were much more REM and U2 with a few liking the old classics Beatles, Beach Boys and the Who, and when the mood struck, James Taylor and Billy Joel.

4 years and 10 years makes you 28.571428571428571428571428571429 % 80's and 71.428571428571428571428571428571 % 90's.

Dude, you were like 3 when the 80's ended, how could you miss them?

This might surprise you, but rich kids have no concept of money. What does Mary Ellen need money for? All her needs are met and beyond. She has a nice car, school is paid for, she probably has credit cards for any clothes she wants, travels when she wants, gets an allowance for walking around money and her walking around money is probably several thousand a month. She has never wanted in her life for anything and lives in a world of having "staff", drivers, maids, nannies, probably a cook. She understands intellectually that not everyone lives like this, but not really. I'll never forget my first road trip with my wrestling club when I was like 14 or so. Most of the kids came from pretty affluent backgrounds, but not all, we had a couple of kids from pretty modest backgrounds. We came back to the hotel after the first day of wrestling and a guy my age, Marco, cool Hispanic guy, says "coach, while we were gone someone made our beds!" A couple of the other guys kind of laughed because they didn't get. Marco had never stayed in a hotel before. He was the last of nine kids. His family didn't vacation in Maui or ski in Colorado or summer in Europe, they were just happy to have a roof, feed the kids and keep shoes and clothes on them. I didn't feel sorry for Marco, I felt sorry for the other guys and was slightly embarrassed by the life I had. I got over that part, but it was an epiphany for me and I never took my life for granted after that and never forgot that not every one has the same opportunities.

Such an interesting chapter and setting up future battles. I hope they don't mess up Wade's life or son too much. It would be interesting to see if Senator Danfield being retired would change Elizabeth.

Very few roles in opera for their talent, maybe Guilio Cesare. But in touching "Got Talent" shows, this one makes me cry every time.

I thought last years show was better, but then it would be impossible to top, "It's Not Just For Gays Anymore". I also liked last years musicals much, much better. The Book of Mormon was brilliant, How To Succeed in Business was an amazing revival. Once just didn't excite me, but Newsies did, Porgy & Bess is a great revival, but not JC Superstar, that is just a weird 70's thing.

Just what New Jersey deserves that BS play, two goals so far on a major penalty. Hope the Kings score two more.

Germany is ranked #2 in the world, Portugal is #5 so that is a big win for Germany and now puts Portugal and the #4 Dutch in a must win game if either hopes to advance.