back to work

i was very thankful to be well enough to go back to work today. the kids all seemed to miss me, and i got hugs even from the little rat-bastards. one kid even brought me a cake, which i forgot about until just now, and is sitting in my file cabinet at work. oops.
it became clear to me about an hour in that i was not nearly as well as i thought i was. the day just got harder and harder. i had a racking cough, and i didn't have the voice to properly assert myself. plus, the drugs, while necessary, make me drowsy.
two boys got in a fight in front of me in the line at the bathroom. one of the boys got into a fight in my room previously. he gave the other boy a black eye today. i was in the process of writing them referrals, when a teacher came in and told me that it was my turn to go sign my evaluation. i took my referrals and went to speak with the principals. i told them about the fight, and they calmly and reasonably explained to me that they didn't want to have discipline problems referred to them or reported to them because it takes power out of the teacher's hands. but they also said that the school has a zero-tolerance policy. (lies). this is such bs. i don't know how they can be so wrong. they also told me that teachers were abusing the referrals and sending kids to the office for fighting when it was just a small slap.
was it ever ok for you guys to put your hands on another student in school? even if it was "just a small slap?"
also, i gave the kids their writing topics for the new assignment. they were all happily working on getting character names (which was exceedingly difficult; they couldn't grasp the rules) when i told one girl that she had to change her character names. one of them was 50 cent, and the other was pimp. i re-explained the rule about "no real people." so she said "what's wrong with pimp?" i told her very calmly that it was inappropriate. she didn't understand. she said that her dog's name was pimp and she wanted to name her main character pimp.
this girl's mother's answering maching plays "milkshake" by kelis. laugh now, you wouldn't think it was funny if you could see the kid. she's obese and a nasty piece of work.