Every day I give the kids I teach a "phrase of the day" and recently I noticed a disturbing trend: the phrase of the day corresponds directly with what I am feeling at that time. You could catalog my day-to-day existence based soley on the phrase of the day I assign. It's uncanny.

for instance, the beginning of last week I was feeling pretty damn good. I had a three day weekend coming up, I was excited and carefree. The phrase of the day? "Take it Easy." I had the kids repeat it after me, and I felt my spirits rise with each repetition.

Take it easy.
Take it easy.
Taaaaakke it eaasssyy.


The next day was Tuesday, the worst day of my workweek, but I was still riding high off monday, the phrase of the day? "Nevermind" hmmmm. I see now that I was becoming distracted. It got even worse the next day when I assigned the phrase "Something's come up." What the hell kind of phrase is that to assign to a group of delinquent 16 year olds? Something's come up? I must have been spaced out. I imagined people coming up to me to ask me questions, and my dismissive reply was "ohhh, sorry, something's come up." I assigned similarly mediocre, flighty phrases for the remainder of that week, things like "forget about it." I admit it, I was completely checked out.

The next monday I was pissed. Mondays suck. The phrase of the day? "Knock it off." I told the kids that this is what I would be yelling at them when they refused to stop their inane gibbering. I said that it meant to shut up, and stop doing whatever they were doing. I got a little out of hand in the repetitions:

Knock it off.
Knock it off!
KNOCK IT OFF!

The next day was Tuesday again. Uh oh, worst day of the workweek, and I was slipping fast. I couldn't help myself. The phrase of the day actually came from my supervisor. I asked him how he was doing, he looked tired. He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, and said "I'm fed up."

BING! Phrase of the day!

The repetitions were particularly fun:

Me: I'M FED UP!
Kids: I'M FED UP!
Me: I'M FED UP!
Kids: I'M FED UP!
Me: I'M FED UP!
Kids: I'M FED UP!

Now, of course, life is strikes and gutters, so things get better, and then they get worse, and then better, etc. etc, but it's true that these phrases of the day are like the mood rings of our childhood. I have complete power over these phrases, so they can be as insane as I want. Tommorrow's phrase of the day? I'm honestly considering "Is the Pope Catholic?"

Either that or "Big in Japan" which I looked up and found out is slang for "a failed act." Ouch.