So, it looks like it has been more than 3 years since my last post.  Wow, I suck at this!  Oh, well, what can I do?  I'm writing now because I figure it's worth a shot.  I have been stressed at work and it's starting to leak out everywhere, not just at work.  I feel like I have less patience with my kids at home, with most everything at home, and the littlest things get me fired up.  And it's not just the person at work that's bugging me, it's me, too.  I'm crabby at ME for allowing this person to get to me so much.  I tell Emi all the time that she has to learn how to let little things go, but I'm having trouble with that myself.   I have people I talk to, but I don't want them to start dreading seeing me and having to listen to me complain...again.  So, I guess this is an attempt to decompress a little, to have somewhere to go with all this.  Sorry to anyone reading this...you may want to find better reading elsewhere.
So, I'm irritated to no end by someone at work.  Not a student, an employee.  Someone who had been subbing but was then hired as extra help in January in a long-term sub position....except not technically.  She can't technically be hired as a LTS because she doesn't have a teaching degree.  She has a 4-yr, so she can sub, but not long-term.  She has 2 reading groups (where kids do their AR reading (silent reading)  or read aloud with her) and has 2 math groups with kids that I had been working with.  Basically she is a Title 1 aide, but she's getting teacher sub pay.  Why?  Because she had been subbing and they wanted her to take this position, but why would she if she could make more doing the other subbing?  So, they pay her teacher sub pay.  She does what aides do, but less of it.  4 groups a day, 2 recesses a week, and plenty of time to check Facebook, search for great ideas for her imaginary wedding on Pinterest, and play with her awesome, incredible iPhone.  This is enough to annoy me, but there's more.  She knows more about everything than everyone.  Just ask her, she will tell you how great she is, and how not great everyone else is compared to her.  She will willingly and freely talk about anyone, even if they are relatives or friends of someone she's talking to.  And she doesn't have very many nice things to say about anyone...except herself, of course.  The other day I walked in to the room and she said to me, "You're friends with so-and-so, aren't you?"  I told her yes, I was really good friends with that person.  She then starts ripping on that person.  After I just told her I was good friends with them.  I said what I wanted to say, trying to remain civil while imagining punching her in the mouth.  At least someone else was in there to witness this, which had never occurred before in any other situation like this.  All I could tell myself was that she couldn't help it, she's just that stupid, and that I was the better person for not getting mean back OR punching her.  She has a "better-than-everyone" attitude that she can't actually live up to, but I don't think she realizes it.  Miss Mighty Know-It-All constantly asks me how to do things...like subtract fractions.  Find the area of a circle.  What is an 'operation', as in Order of Operations?  And just asking how to figure out random problems that she can't figure out, even with the teacher's book.  WITH THE TEACHER'S BOOK.  She's a piece of work for sure.  I could go on and on....and on.  But I'll try to take my own advice and let it go.  Take a deep breath or two.  She just can't help it, poor thing.