roll call: Mr. Math

if there's one thing that IMMEDIATELY turns me off, it's someone with bad table manners. and i don't mean the cotillion kind where you know what every fork is for, where the dessert spoon goes, and you cross your legs at the ankles (because at the knee isn't ladylike!) no no, i'm talking about basic EATING.

and simply put, Mr. Math is atrocious. the basics: he's 25, teaches math, still lives at home (not unusual these days it seems) and his mom still makes his lunch everyday. he claims that she just cooks it and he packs it into the lunch box, but that still doesn't really change much in my opinion. i will admit that i'm a tad jealous to have a homecooked lunch everyday but would never admit that my mom packed my lunch if i were him, nonetheless.

the school lunch break is 40 minutes long and homeroom teachers are encouraged to eat their lunches in the classroom with their students. mr. math doesn't have a homeroom (he, along with me, and one other teacher, mr. pool are called "support teachers" for the 7th grade year) so lately we've been eating at our desks.

Mr. Math eats in about 7 minutes. that is not a statement about the size of his lunch (at least 150% the size of my standard cafeteria bought lunch) or the urgency of his 40 minute lunch break. he shovels, literally shovels, as much food as is possible with chopsticks into his mouth. before even chewing twice, he's already loaded up the 'sticks with another huge mouthful. i'll leave the rest of the details to you, but know it's not attractive.

he spends the rest of his lunch break sifting through papers, books, clothes for soccer practice later, and who knows what else that has found itself balancing vicariously atop of the mountain that covers his desk, for, again, who knows what. that, or reading books like, "the history of math" or "math for making it in college." we've got a serious math lover on our hands. other 7th grade teachers have made comments that ALL he thinks about is math.

anyway, lately his desk's been particularly messy. just a couple of days ago he made a comment that the state of his desk was horrible. i haven't noticed a change since the comment, however.

as for me, i've actually taken to making a kind of "wall" between our desks. back in april, when he started and we ended up sitting across from each other, his things would inevitably creep their way over onto my desk. call me anal or what you will, but i can't stand that kind of unorganization and i promptly put a small file box in between us to hold my ground. his side of the mountain has grown with handmade cardboard box files stacked on top of each other and pretty soon i won't even know what's going on over there. at least i won't have to scowl and explain that i can't understand him when he talks to me with his mouth stuffed full of food.