Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Dinner!

Joey was walking home from school last week when he noticed a dead mouse on the side of the road. Sometimes in the winter we'll get mice in the house. They like our woodpile, and the garage, and when it's very cold they can make their way inside. We set traps every year and Joey has seen his share of dead mice. In fact, we have some poison traps set up right now. They are little boxes filled with yummy poison. The mice are supposed to grab dinner, then scoot off to their homes to die. I know, sad. Joey thought it would be funny if the dead mouse on the side of the road somehow ended up in our little poison box, under the kitchen sink. So, he did what anyone would do. He picked up the mouse by its little mousy tail and carried it home. He brought it inside, probably carried it up to his room and chased his sister around with it, then he carefully placed it behind the sink. Where it sat. For a week. In my kitchen. I probably opened that cabinet door 500 times. I'm sure I pulled out the garbage can 5 times, to take the bag out and put an empty bag back in. That whole time I never noticed the stinking rotting corpse. I already knew I was the most unobservant person in the world, but now I also know that my son is a scheming, secret keeping stinker. And, his fingers are disgusting.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

I don't teach anymore. I just go to meetings.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

You should put this in your blog

Sometimes I love that my family reads my blog. Especially when they are telling me what a wonderful, talented person I am. And then other times...
Sometimes I get yelled at for revealing deepest darkest secrets. Sometimes I get told, don't you dare write about this in your blog. I might overhear a perfect mom say to her darling daughter something like, "if you ask again I will rip out your throat" as she calmly packs a healthy lunch. Now, even funnier than that comment is the fact that darling daughter just went about her business, not the slightest bit concerned that her mother had just threatened her with a violent death. And you knew, you just knew, that in five minutes, or maybe ten, she was going to ask again. Without a doubt. I would love to have written about that little exchange. But nooo. Not allowed.
Sometimes I get told, "why didn't you blog about this?" That usually happens when I do something that highlights my idiocy. Like walking across a freshly seeded and newly sprouting yard. And not stopping when I realized it, but continuing to walk across, just faster, because everyone knows that if you walk faster the delicate little baby grasslings won't get as damaged. Apparently that story is worthy of blogging. Apparently I should write a whole essay on why I am so clueless that I can happily wave hello to the yard owner, while I trample his newborn grasses to death, as he watches in horror, before shouting out, 'hey! what are you doing?!" Who knew.

Did I tell you that I love my kids?

I wasn't sure if I did or not. Because I do. I actually feel a little guilty because mine are obviously the best students in the whole building, and everyone else must be really really jealous. Let me tell you why:
They laugh when they are supposed to. Now, I'm not the funny teacher. The math/ science teacher is the funny one. But sometimes I am funny. When I try to be funny I like people to laugh. I don't think that's asking too much. Sometimes I feel like I am saying something funny, something hilarious, and no one laughs. I hate that. But my kids, my little darlings, they laugh.
The second reason why I love them more than anything is that they participate. They are engaged much of the time. Let me give you an example. We are doing projects on Native Americans. We are filling out a graphic organizer/ study guide thing as we listen to each presentation. After the presentation I would ask for questions from the audience, then I would ask my own questions to make sure that each student got the right information from the presentation, and wrote it down on the graphic organizer. Then I would remind each student to make sure the organizer was filled out correctly. After the 2nd or 3rd presentation, they just took over. They asked all the questions, the presenters didn't wait for me to call on students. They wrote down the answers and I didn't have to double check anything. I could have left the room and they would have just carried on. Perfection.
On Friday, we do our weekly current events. I try to encourage questions, and discussion, and try to constantly lead away from story telling. We still had a lot of story telling, but, I was loving their questions. Even more than the thoughtful questions, I loved when the students had answers available because they actually read the article and understood it, AND, one student not only read the article but he also watched a news segment about it. Multiple sources! I was giddy.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Do you love me?

I have two classes. I try to treat them exactly the same, but I think I love one a little more. I don't know if it's because they are my homeroom and have bonded with me more, but they are the greatest kids ever. Not that the other class is awful or anything, they just don't seem to get me. They don't laugh. They don't seem interested in what we are doing. They just stare off into space. I cannot figure out what I am doing differently with the other class to get a response. A great example is spelling tests. I give the word, then a sentence, then repeat. I love making up ridiculous sentences. The majority of my sentences are about what a wonderful teacher I am. For 'bomb', my sentence was, "I am so tired of students coming up to me and saying, 'Mrs. B, you are the bomb' ". My homeroom loves it. They giggle, and act offended, and are always on the verge of all speaking back at once. The other class doesn't even look up from their tests. Two, maybe three, look up questioningly and try to smile. As if they're unsure of my seriousness. I wonder if they feel loyalty to their own homeroom teacher and don't think they can like me too much. Or maybe they just see me as the idiot I am.
I was told early on not to expect the students to like me. If they do, great, but if not you still treat them the same and you still teach them. Screeched I hate you's are a badge of honor. The good ones can twist those I hate you's into grudging respect by the end of the year.
I haven't gotten any I hate you's. Which is good, because I still want them to like me. I want them to like me bestest of all.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Champagne and Hummus

I finally got around to starting one of the books I bought from the Hinckley Garage Sale. It's The Best American Nonrequired Reading of 2004. So far so good. I am still reading Kavalier and Clay, which I have been reading all summer and have renewed 27 times from the library. I am not quite halfway through it yet. The only reason I started this new one was because I found myself with 30 seconds to spare and I had forgotten Kavalier and Clay at school. Anyway. Partway through my reading I came across the previous owner's bookmark. It's a piece of notebook paper ripped from one of those small notebooks. It has a shopping list on it:

chicken breasts
apricot.....................................berries
................................................. melon
cottage cheese
................................................ bread
veggies/salad stuff
hummus
potatoes................................ lunch stuff
rice........................................ fondue cheese
.............................................. tomato soup
brownies/cheesecake........ french bread
ice cream............................ tenderloin
............................................. shrimp
wine
beer..................................... dessert!
champagne
............................................. Al's stuff


I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight. Who is Al? Why do you need brownies and cheesecake and dessert!? Don't those two items already fall into the dessert! category? Which items are for your party and which items are just because you're there? Is this list for Rego's or Giant Eagle or Top's? Or is there some cool grocery store that I don't know about yet?
This list is from the woman who would have been my best friend if I was the type of person going around talking to complete strangers, instead of the burying my eyes in the sidewalk kind of person that I really am. She's even cooler now that I know she buys beer. And wine. And champagne. And fondue cheese. All on the same day.

Care for a mint?

I was walking down the hall today with a co worker. He was telling a story about getting his car repaired, and I was politely listening. At one point, I laughed. I don't remember why, there wasn't a joke told or anything. But I laughed.
When I laughed, the tiny sliver of a red hot cinnamon mint flew out of my mouth and landed somewhere on the speckled linoleum. I wasted precious moments, looking for that mint. I don't know why I spent so much time looking for it. Maybe I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't stuck to my knee or anything. When I did finally find it, I just kicked it to the side with my shoe. (Did I have to tell you I used my shoe? Is there some other accessory I might have used to kick something?)
Our walk was halted while I looked for my mint, and as soon as I found it we were on our way again. He had stopped mid-sentence in his tale of repair, but he found his exact spot and finished off once we started walking again. Just picked up right where he left off. He never laughed. Not even a chuckle.
That just seems odd to me. I would have laughed at him. I would have giggled,
"you all right?",
"you need some help with that?",
"whoa, what's going on here?"
Something. Anything. How can you not acknowledge when some idiot lets a mint fly from her mouth? Seriously.
Staples Coupon Code
Staples Coupon Code