It's Beginning to Feel Alot Like Christmas

LeDario.  Born on February 2nd and one of the odder students I have taught.   Sports a kind of cool old school 80's fade but always has a strange, far away look in his eyes.  Writes compulsively, big essay length tomes instead of doing any class work.  Steals compulsively.  Steals things of no value just to annoy others, like your lunch.  And then he doesn't eat it, he just hides it somewhere where it will rot.  The remote control to the overhead projector that is mounted to the ceiling.  The springs from staplers.

Christine.  Born on February 2nd.  When I began teaching her I asked her all day elementary teacher if she had Asperger's. 
"No," he replied, "she is just fucking creepy and scares me sometimes". 
"Don't look at me!" she hissed at the other students when entering the classroom, walking stiffly yet rapidly to her chair in the corner, head erect but somehow pointed at the ground at the same time.  Seething.  Hyper intelligent, yet again large glassy eyes that don't seem all the way there.  Presented a highly articulate self written treatise in front of the entire school about how much school sucks and bowed primly at the end before leaving the stage, in front of smiling kids and parents that still actually like school.  

"Alec, I have met some of the weirder people this year that have the exact same birthday as me...."
"Wow, Bill's birthday was just like a day or two after yours!".
Alec's boss is bizarre.  Sings out loud randomly.  Talks to people like there are retarded as if he is just trying to get his ass kicked.  Will not say anything directly to anyone, just pontificates loudly into the air, slowly parsing his words out into even chunks. 
"Weirdos," we said in unison.
"Another weirdo birthday". 

The first week back from Christmas break we ended up missing two school days because of weather.  Two weeks ago Atlanta experienced a well-publicized "storm" that shut the city down and called for an early dismissal from school and an additional three days off.  I worked on Monday and am now on my second snow day and school is called off again for tomorrow.  We have a previously scheduled break for next week, no school again.  It is kind of awesome, but a little weird.  The kids see a cloud in the sky on the rare days that we have classes and pull out their phones, assuming school will be called out.  We have no momentum.  It feels like teaching in Mexico. 

There is a fifteen foot cliff about nine feet away from the side of my house.  It is filling with ice and snow.  Though the recommendation from the City was that the dig-out for the basement of the new house, that is being built next to my really old house, happen rapidly and that the retaining wall for the basement would be built within a matter of days to prevent erosion and destruction of my foundation, these smart builders decided to do the dig the day before everyone knew that a major storm was going to shut Atlanta down for days.  They won't even work if it is cloudy outside, so it was pretty obvious they weren't going to come out in this shit storm.  I feel dizzy when I look through the windows of my house into the pit.  It feels like the house is sliding....

"William S. Burroughs, February 5th!  Another weirdo birthday!".