Testing, 1, 2, 3.

For the past couple of days I have been proctoring state standardized tests for homeschooled children in the city of brotherly love. This has been quite the experience, to say the least. Nothing like taking 300 kids who are used to working at home at their own pace and cramming them in a room for two days to quietly take a high stakes test. Ummm, yeah. It actually went well, all things considered. Although this was technically all about the kids, lets have a moment of selfishness where I pretend it was all about me and my amusement.

First off, we had an incident of grafitti. One of the awesome staff members of the hotel where the test was taking place kindly took me aside to explan how there was some new artwork in one of the bathroom stalls. Oh, geez. So, using skills gained from watching Law and Order, I quickly devised a plan on how to investigate the situation to determine the offendor. Since the "artwork" was in the boys bathroom, I could cut the list of students pretty much in half. My next plan was to take a picture of the graffiti and compare it with the scrawlings on the scrap paper of the students. This handwriting analysis would surely determine the offendor, right? I am so good at this, I thought to myself, all those years of watching TV really paid off.

So, off I go to snap a photo and examine the artwork with my specially trained, investigative eyes, hypothesising about what I will find on the other side of the stall door. Vulgar language? A nude drawing? Nopers. The kid wrote his own damn name. Darnit. Then, when confronted, he admitted to it. Double darnit. All of this investigative talent just wasted on a case fit for an amateur. Oh well.

Moving right along, I would like to now discuss something that may be controversial. Trust me, my comments are purely observational, I am not trying to be judgemental. I think that was disclaimer-ish enough, so here goes. It seems as though we have a lot of students who are really religious. Many families came to the test with all of the women and girls only showing their eyes. I know it is customary for some Muslim cultures to cover their hair so they are not drawing attention to their beauty and luring poor stupid men into wanting them. I get that. I really do. Same reason nuns and biblical women cover their hair. I know for sure that I would be a lot less hot if I wore a big robe and didn't show my gorgeous fake blonde hair. If all women did this, we would probably have so many more inventions and cures for more diseases since the scientists would not be so busy checking out Dr. Hottie's ass when she bent over to get the bunsen burner or checking out Dr. Milf's cleavage as she scrubbed out the test tubes.

With that said, the first day of testing, I was extremely distracted because the word "ninja" kept popping into my head. I had an insatiable urge to say the word ninja. I swallowed my urges, but this was SO INNAPROPRIATE of me. Then, I started thinking about Michael Jackson's kid named Blanket because I think I saw him (her?) wearing one of those veils a couple of times. I had to get over this! So, I started engaging in long meaningful conversations with the covered women. They were really smart, terrifically funny women with whom I had more in common than not, so this was very enjoyable...and after I spoke with each of them, it became easier and easier to not ask them childish questions like "do you ever trip over your robe?" or "isn't it hot in there?" or even "how do your kids know if you are really their mom, or just an imposter who stole her shoes?". I am glad I had this experience, because I really do feel like I grew up a bit in my ability to look past physical appearances and focus on what is inside. Whew! Another disaster averted.