Wednesday, January 31, 2007

My little darlings

We've had some bullying at school this year. I brought the guidance counselor in to talk to the class. She's amazing and had them in the palm of her hand. She showed parts of a program that Oprah did in a high school. It was pretty emotional. The whole concept behind this has to do with finding out about your peers, because if you really knew them, really knew what hurt them, you would treat them better and wouldn't be so quick to bully, or harrass.
For the activity afterward, they answered yes or no questions. Many of them raised their hands and whispered to me, "am I a middle easterner?" I thought that was cute. One student who actually is middle eastern, seemed kind of resigned to being called an arab by some classmates. He hadn't put it together that that word was being used negatively. He didn't realize it had to do with his background.
I was expecting the girls to be effected by the program. They are the ones who are experiencing this bullying the most. It was the boys, though, that kept coming up to me to talk about it. One very gentle boy asked me if it made me cry. He admitted that he also had tears in his eyes. Another boy, my beloved A., the one who wants to marry me, told the counselor and me that he wrote on his paper about being made fun of. A lot. And he underlined the word a lot. And when he said that phrase, a lot, his voice cracked a tiny bit and his eyes got a little bright. That was hard.
So many times in school we get started with a project, or an idea, and it just kind of fizzles. There's always so much to do and much going on and we're always far behind. I hope we keep this up, though. There's so much work left to do and they'll be leaving me soon for middle school. They're not ready yet. I might just have to go with them.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Oh, and I got a new desk

Gary left this morning. As we speak he is somewhere in Minnesota, getting ready for his ice fishing tournament. I'm a little lonely. Time always seem to move slower when he isn't around. I find myself walking in circles around the house. I'm hoping to get a lot done this weekend, without him here to distract me. But that's my hope every weekend, and it rarely works out. There's already snow on the ground and more on the way. I can't tell you the last time I actually shovelled snow. Let alone anything as long as my driveway.
I have a fun filled day of Boy Scout pinewood derby racing ahead of me. I'm really excited about that. There's nothing I like better than feeling uncomfortable in a room full of strangers. I can't even take work with me because almost everything I have to do needs a computer. I'm thinking a laptop might be in my near future.
I'm looking forward to Saturday night, though. I'll be hanging out with my girls and all our children. We're attempting to share digital pics with each other while we munch on panini sandwiches and the kids chase each other.
I'm a little bit miserable because my tooth hurts. I think the dentist was a tad too rough because my gums and tongue are sore. My jaw is sore, too. I hope its not an infection or anything.
I always feel bad when i don't blog for a while, and then finally write one that is boring. I'm usually better when I write every day. I've thought about it every day, and even started a few entries,but never get around to finishing.
Want to know what you missed?
Bellydancing. Not what we expected when we signed up for the class, but still very fun. I'm convinced that bellydancing is for fat people to show off their voluptous bodies.
Observations. The big one is coming up. Little ones in practice until then. Imagine cramming all my student teaching requirements into one day, one observation and two interviews. That's what I have coming up and the only reason I'm not freaking out is because I've been too busy.
Report cards. Parent teacher conferences. Tutoring classes, teaching two and setting up another. Wasteful inservice meetings. Grant writing. IEP meetings.
Selling our house. Not selling our house. Building a new house. Not building, just buying another one. Or not. Boxes maybe packed.
Hermit crabs. One dead and replaced within 24 hours. Two that mostly do nothing except look grotesque when they finally manage to come out of their shell a little.
I feel distracted, like when I was pregnant and couldnt even finish a thought. When I do stop to think, my brain choo choos along, tallying all the things it could have done better. It'll calm eventually. One day I'll even look back on this time and fondly recall it. Maybe.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

To-do list

This is what I planned to do on vacation and what actually got done:
organize my house and give it a good scrubbing (I did, but it didn't last. Today I bought a new, much smaller desk so I have stuff everywhere that I am trying to organize. Plus the office/master bath is now being transformed into an actual bathroom so all office related materials are all over the place, trying to find a new home)
finish shopping and wrapping for x-mas (I did this, too, but only because my mom wrapped all the presents that I left at her house. Including her own present, which I had to unwrap and rewrap for a little suspense. I got lazy at the end and used many many gift bags.)
go back up to my room to get it organized and finish grading (Nope. I did nothing school related. Not a thing. Wednesday morning when we went back to school I still wasn't completely sure what I was going to teach that day. AND Wednesday morning there was a meeting I didn't even know about because apparently I was the only person not called. I found out just before and definately could have used that time to work on my room.)
write lesson plans so I can maybe get ahead a few days (One: read section of chapter 6 and discuss. Looser.)
read read read (I don't think that finishing a short book that was started months ago counts. I also don't think that reading Olive the other reindeer counts either, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading that to three of my favorite people. I'm still disappointed that we never made it to Eloise though. I do so enjoy drawing out my 'rawthar'. )
cook, and bake- recipes with long complicated recipes and lots of chopping (A little Christmas cooking. One not too complicated but yummy soup. One steak and cheese sandwich ring that took about five minutes to prepare and got absolutely amazing reviews. I spend hours creating the creamiest creme brulee and its so so. I throw together some roast beef and cheese in bread and it doesn't even last five minutes. Crazy family.)
get a haircut (No. Weirdly, two people at school asked if I had done something different with my hair. And I ran into someone just today who said he doesn't even know what I look like because I look different every time he sees me. That last part doesn't really have anything to do with a haircut but I threw it in simply for interest value. )

Reading

I haven't been reading much lately. I blame school. I blame a lot of things on school, including this past too stressful Christmas. I can get away with it for the rest of the year, but by summer I need to come up with a better excuse for my apathy.
I did manage to finish a book of short stories recently. I had started reading it over the summer. I really enjoyed it, I just never got around to reading it. I don't pay attention to titles and authors. It's the same way with music, I never bother to figure out who the song is by. After I read the last story (except it wasn't really a short story, it was non-fiction) I wanted to find out a little more about the author so I looked for some information on her in the back of the book. While there, I noticed a story by Sedaris and one by Thom Jones. The Sedaris essay was one that I had already read in another book, and while reading it for the second time I thought to myself, "hm, this sounds like that Sedaris essay, but not as funny" I am such an idiot. TJ's was very good as well. I always like his voice.
I recently picked up a book on grammar and another book of short stories by Dave Eggers. I only bought it because I liked the title, "How we are hungry". I like it so far and I'm trying to read slow and enjoy it instead of barreling through like I usually do. The grammar book tries to use humor so hopefully I can use it in school.
Maybe I need to start a reading log like I make my students do. 20 minutes a day. No matter what.
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