Snow Day!

Ahhhh....snow.....

So hard to remember that we have to go to school tomorrow.

But, we won't have to shovel off our cars! Yippee!

flashback

It's a bad sign when the first thing you remember about the morning is your husband's groggy voice saying, "Ummm...honey?"

I looked over at the clock, and it read 8:03 - EIGHT-FREAKIN'-OH-THREE!!!

For the record, I have to be at school by 8:20 at the latest, and, though very close, my school is still 10 minutes away. YIPES!

Luckily, the alarm clock is purposefully set a bit fast so that, in the event of an emergency, maximum adrenaline-fueled potential can be reached as quickly as possible.

Boy, did it work this morning! I made it to school by 8:15...thanks mostly to the fact that it was really 7:55 (still safely in the 7s!), not 8:03 when I woke up. That, and I got rid of all the non-essentials in my morning routine: showering...blow-drying...finding socks...It was a day that was best spent with oblivious six year olds, rather than hyper-critical 10 year olds.

Phew. We all made it through...all but one, really...I, once again, don't want to go into excruciating details, but suffice it to say that the crack team of administrators and special education teachers (one in the number of all these pros being trained in physical restraint) descended on my room en masse, and central office already knows my name (after just 62 short days in my new district! Go me! Hey...I just realized that the year is just over 1/3 done...hence the report cards, I guess.).

Appropriately enough, our ILA focus for the day was identifying characters' emotions. We read Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which always makes me happy, and we all wrote our own stories based on Alexander's...ours had an added page about what you can do to make yourself feel better after a day like that...sadly, the main target of all this (humming) feelings, nothin' more than feelings type instruction had already been whisked away by the time we got this up and running. Sigh. Won't hurt the rest of 'em though! Some favorite excerpts from my students' terrible (etc.) days: my dad ate my candy bar; I came out of the bathroom, and my class was gone; I had a bad hair day; my brother gave me a wedgie (ha!)... and their ideas for feeling better weren't to shabby either (although our demonstrations of a friendly pat on the back got a little out of control...but made for a nice segue into our science lesson on two types of forces: pushes and pulls.).

Argh. So, now I have another meeting scheduled about my explosive-ish kiddo...tomorrow features one at 9:00 and one at 10:45...both about the same kid...everyone seems baffled.

He never did this last year.

'Course not. All me. So sorry.

Yay PBS!

Anne of Green Gables is on! It's the first episode!!!! Yay for Marilla and Matthew! Yay for Anne! Yay for Rachel Lynde!!! Wee-hoo!!!

I am set until 7:00.

A marathon.

Sure, that means it must be pledge season, but it also means that I'll get to see Gilbert Blythe.

Sigh. Still dreamy.

Maybe I should make a pledge.

Sounds like...

So, here's a snippet of our Thanksgiving charades...all of the choices were quotes from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." A change from last year's quotes from Shakespeare, but a fitting sequel, I think.

I was going for "nimbly," here, people. They had the "-ly", so I tried to get "rhymes with him" for "himbly," and then straight on to nimbly.

Not so lucky.

This was a better strategy than acting out "nimbly," though. I'm just not nimble enough to do that.

the booger of damocles

Directly excerpted from an email I had a kiddo dictate to me to send to his mom:

"And then I made a noise in my nose. And then I made a noise that included my throat. And then, I took boogers, and I held it over C--'s book. Then, Ms. S told me to get a tissue, and I went to the sink. Then she said, "Please get a tissue." Then, I went behind her desk. Then, she said, "This is a tissue," and she handed it to me. Then, Ms. S said we should email you."

Oh, boy yes...we should.

If I wasn't already paranoid about confidentiality, I'd include the whole thing. Suffice it to say that the first line was, "First, I was lying on my desk pretending to swim."

What a day.

wah-wah-wah

Ok, so a blog is almost universally recognized as an appropriate place for whining about life.

But, today I'm taking a break.

So, what else to write about, then? I'm at a loss.

Hmmm.

Cheese is good.

Yeah.

Nope. I got nothin'. "Heroes" is on, though. Saved! Off I go...

basically

There was this one time, after i'd just been dumped long-distance by a big ol' jerk, that i was all sad and lonely and sorry for myself...

I was standing in the kitchen, talking on the phone with my mom, having just eaten 3, day-old, powdered donuts ('cause that's where I was, folks), and she told me that she knew I'd be okay because I was, in my heart of hearts, a happy person.

I just don't deal well when I'm sad. Every part of my life starts to fall apart because of one aspect that's out of control. And then, I feel bad because more and more of my life is out of control. Yurgh.

And we got a bigbigbig dumpster to get rid of all the accumulated detritus of garage construction, so my hubby wants to purge the house of all the random bits of junk that we've managed to squirrel away in unseen corners. That's admirable, and I love the idea of it...but then, I start digging through closets and drawers...finding little scraps of the past.

It's sad. Or maybe, I'm just sad.

And then, I just want to throw everything away.

but I don't WANNA!!!!

So, I'm not too much for complaining about what is, for very good reasons, a job where the expectation and the emphasis are on confidentiality above all things.

So, please enjoy the following bit of Zen-like empty space. Imagine what I'm not saying.













So, there we go. That was my week. Other than that, though, things were great!

to the tune of frere jacques

Three day weekend, three day weekend,
Glass of wine, glass of wine!
Hubby made us dinner, hubby made us dinner,
Feelin' fine, feelin' fine!

YESterday

Yesterday, I parked in my garage for the first time! Many glorious and wonderful photos are coming your way.

Woo-hoo!

And they said it would always remain a garage-to-be...it is a garage-ish no more!

Grrr...blargh.

Worst day.

High point? Indoor recess, so I played my recess CD (left over from my old school, where the gym teacher used to teach them the electric slide and other faboo group dances as part of a dance unit (then, they could dance together at assemblies...and everyone knew them, which was pretty awesome. Did you know there's a dance to "Cottoneyed Joe"? I know 500 kids in central CT who could teach it to you...)). This CD is pretty rockin'. It features such hits as: The Macarena, The Twist, The Hokey Pokey, The Electric Slide, YMCA, and The Chicken Dance. Anyway...if you've seen that "Being back with people who understand you: priceless" commercial, you know what recess was like: awesome. What is it about disco, though? Why will it never die?

Neither will air guitar, though, which kind of makes me feel better.

Low point? Being called a loser by a seven year old. Yeah, though...I am. And I'm mean (Am not!), and I never listen (Do too!), and I always tell him what to do (Hello? Job description?). There were assorted other low points, but that one definitely wins.

thinking about thinking

I tried to teach my fifth graders about metacognition sometime during my first year teaching. Slow was I to recognize the difference between teaching them about it and fostering their ability to do it. [Hmmm...Yoda-like I feel today (and it's not 'cause of the wisdom).]

So, here I sits today, thinking about thinking...thinking, that is, about my distractability and incoherence lately: who is that? what's going on? why are you here? what does the letter 'y' look like...good question!

I am astonished by the difficulty that I'm having getting into a new groove, and by the randomness of the synapses that my brain seems to be firing off as some kind of emergency response: will remembering my high school locker combination help? How 'bout a sudden desire to learn how to write screenplays? Then there's the little synapse in the back, jumping up and down, screaming "Pick me! Pick me!" and frantically waving its hands until I finally call on it only to hear, "I forget what I wanted to say." Or worse, "I have to go to the bathroom...and can I get a drink?"

And I want a fuzzy blue sweater...reflecting a deep inner desire to be a muppet, I think.

And a fence for the backyard, so I don't go crazy about the dogs.

And a garage.

Okay, never mind this particular post. That's enough of that.

Betchyer bottom dollar...

How old was Annie in the movie? She was about 10, don't you think? Molly was closer to 6...man, that's little, 'cause, y'know, Pepper had to carry her at least 52 blocks on the way to Daddy Warbucks' mansion.

I only ask because I feel so removed from my last experience with 1st graders (back when I did my internship to get my masters)...10 year olds, I feel like I have a pretty good grip on; 6 year olds, not so much...in spite of my field agent's wonderful research efforts.

But, no matter what I know or don't know about 'em, school starts tomorrow...I've written and rewritten three different what-if-driven versions of my plans for the first week...I've read up on early literacy, on-sets and rimes, decoding by analogy, and the DRA - state standards, teacher's editions, curricula: check.

And, as you can tell, I've got a serious case of the first-day jitters. My thoughts are so disjointed

so disjointed


ummm...

yeah.

And that is why teachers write lesson plans.

la de da de dum de doodlee - whosh!

That is the sound of summer. June is full of that special 'yay' feeling of early summer; July is the month of the stir-crazy-ness; August is over before you realize that it started.

This year will be a year of firsts for me, and not just first grade. I'm having an informal open house for my class about a week before school starts, which no one ever did at my old school; I'm working in a rural-ish town; I'm teaching kids how to read, rather than reinforcing things they already know...all sorts of stuff. And it all starts a week from Tuesday. Actually, I guess it all starts on Monday. That's the first day for new teachers. It's wierd to be counted among their number, but I am definitely new. I don't know where anything is; I don't know anybody; I'm not quite sure where the staff bathroom is (I hope it's on the tour); I don't know where all the specials are (I found the gym, though! That's my first one...); I think the cafeteria is right near the office, but I'm not sure...the list goes on. And yet, add to my list of firsts, I'll be mentoring a second-year teacher who's doing his portfolio this year. At least he won't need me to show him where the music room is. Maybe I can ask him.

To the Hogwarts basement I go...

That explains why the Ravenclaw passwords in the latest book made me so tense.

The sorting hat says that I belong in Hufflepuff!

Said Hufflepuff, "I'll teach the lot, and treat them just the same."

Hufflepuff students are friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working. A well-known member was Cedric Digory, who represented Hogwarts in the most recent Triwizard Tournament.

 

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

everything on a pizza

Whenever I cook something that's mostly made up, I have a tendency to google the idea first. It's kind of a safety measure, I suppose. Even if I don't end up following the recipe (and I've never not found one...what does that tell ya?), it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one to attempt to cook a particular thing in a particular way. Today's efforts were so successful I feel like sharing...though fans of Mr. Rogers will recognize that it is useless to talk about sharing my yummy food with you when it is impossible to actually do so.

Nevertheless, maybe you can make it yourself...and I apologize, because I didn't measure everything.

So, I started with basic pizza crust. Want my recipe? Email me! To that, I added some dried rosemary, garlic salt, (enough of each so it smelled good...sorry, mom) and parmesan cheese. And then, I let my breadmaker handle that part.

When the dough was ready, I spread a teeny bit of dijon mustard on it (thanks, google!). I was disappointed that I didn't really taste the mustard in the final result...maybe more than a teeny bit is called for.

On top of that went a can of recipe-ready diced tomatoes with mushroom and garlic. I know, fresh tomatoes are better, but I didn't have any...and this was "pizza for which I don't have to buy anything" night.

Then, I sliced up five leaves of fresh basil and threw those on top of the tomatoes.

Next, a small can of sliced black olives.

Then, the part that made me google this. I was out of mozzerella, but I had brie (How much brie, you might ask...well, as much as was in my fridge...a bit more than half a wedge of brie, I guess). I cut the brie (after taking off the rind) into little, bite-sized pieces.

Didn't quite cover the pizza, so I added some grated grueyere and parmesan.

22 min. at 400 degrees; let stand for a few minutes before attempting to eat it.

Yummy!!

Not as much fun? Fried pickles...but I'll keep trying!

sigh

Ok. I know. Summer vacation is the best, most wonderful thing about being a teacher. Everyone in the business world drools with envy at the mere mention of such a thing. Got it.

But here's the thing.

Sometimes, it gets boring. Shhhhh...don't remind me about this post in the midst of darkest February. We'll just pretend I never mentioned it. However, it must be admitted that, come July, especially with a new school and a new grade looming on the horizon, I'm feeling restless and unsatisfied. Y'know that feeling you'd get at camp (VT or TL) where the only thing you could work up the energy for was to sit on the porch and read? All around you, people were doing fun summer-time things: hiking, boating, swimming, identifying the moons of Jupiter...and all you wanted to do was sit. And then, one day, it was the last day and there were so many things you hadn't done! That's how summer feels.

If I were an Australian shepherd, all I'd need to feel like I'd gotten the most out of my free time would be an empty ginger ale bottle. Even then, though, the lingering doubts: what if the empty ginger ale bottle under that chair is even better than this one?

So, today I bebopped into a nearby urban-ish enclave (the one in the middle of this town and the town where I used to work) for a change of pace. I walked on sidewalks; I practiced not making eye-contact with fellow pedestrians; I read my book at a table outside a coffee shop; I ate weird vegetarian food and drank organic wine. It was nice.

Didn't get rid of the nagging guilty feeling I have about how much preplanning I should be able to get done over the summer...but, it did make me feel better.

You Are The Hermit

You posses a great deal of wisdom and the ability to see people for who they are. You are always looking ahead at the future, developing visions. A loner, you tend to travel by yourself through life, seeking your own truth. You don't crave material things or fancy titles. You have no baggage. Your fortune: It's possible that there is a unknown guiding figure in your life, ready to help you. All you have to do is find this person and seek their advice. It's also possible that you need to start seeking the meaning of your own life. Either way, there's some deep thinking you need to undertake, and it needs to be done soon.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Summer blockbusters - Yay! I went to see Transformers this evening.
Wooden dialogue: check!
Wackadoo holes in the plot: check!
Crazy, straight-to-video-game catch phrases: check!
Laws of physics: abandoned!

But my favorite thing was this: in the midst of this apocalyptic clash with a technologically advanced race of super-robots, bent on human destruction (or at least, the destruction of, say, Detroit), there's only one scene involving an actual appearance by the President of the United States - and you only see his (bright red) socks...and all he does is ask (in a thick, quasi-Texan drawl) for Ding Dongs (in a way that betrays his overtly sexist nature). That's it! I guess that's what happens when the President's popularity numbers sink too low: even his fictional counterparts don't get any respect.

I'm very happy about that. I may try to insert the phrase: "How 'bout some Ding Dongs, sweetheart," into conversation as frequently as possible from now on. And, I think it'd be fun to think up other lines for the President's socks to deliver in up-coming summer movies. C'mon, my legion of readers! I challenge you to think of things both sexist (or any-ist) and dumb for the President's socks to say...Prizes will be awarded!

Prizes!

Argh!

For years, I've blindly stuffed laundry into the machine, washing everything with the same settings, only occasionally giving in to the pleas from the garment care instructions for a particular water temperature or line drying.

And it worked! I swear, for years, it didn't seem to matter what I threw in with what, or how I washed things or dried 'em...The laundry gods were smiling upon me. I mean, I don't wear a lot of white, so maybe I had an artificially inflated sense of optimism about laundry, but hey...it was working for me.

Recently, let's say within the past two years, my laundry karma has gone all out of wack. Red socks end up in loads of pastel delicates washed, inexplicably, in hot water, and sent straight to the dryer. Dry-clean-only dresses end up wrapped hopelessly around the agitator-thingy in the middle of the washer. Crayons get left in pockets...it's a bad scene. I've been accused of plotting these things purposefully (dying a load of my hubby's socks a lovely shade of pink, for example), so as to avoid being asked to do laundry for all but the bravest souls in the household (umm...that'd be the dogs, I guess).

So, today, I (being my father's daughter) found a rack of pretty sundresses hiding out at the local discount/salvage store and bought a few. I tossed 'em in the washing machine when I got them home (throwing in my favorite sundress for good measure, 'cause, hey, it was sundress-washing-time!). I tried! I used the delicates cycle, and cold water...and they were all similar shades (if not identical...). None were white! So...this one that had a pattern of darker colors around the bottom bled onto the others. Seems, perhaps, predictable, but I am SAD!

I spent some time googling this problem, and am now dutifully soaking the two bled-onto dresses, preparing to re-wash them. But, so far, the soaking doesn't seem to be doing any good. Sigh...I won't give up on the process yet...but SAD!

Anyway, this seemed the perfect topping for blarggity blogging. Tips and sympathy (and emergency supplies of cotton sundresses!) appreciated...

hmmm....

so.

Didn't take long.

My darling hubby met me at Rm. 30 this morning, where, in true morning-person style, he had packed every remaining box into his car before I even managed to buy coffee. Last of all, we packed up the no-name Beta fish (who accompanied me to drop off the paperwork I wrote about yesterday), and drove off into the sunset (or, sunrise, geo-realistically speaking).

And that's that. The hubster also managed to save all my computer files (something that wound up taking more f'nagling than I'd've thought) on something I could easily bring home with me. Then, we took a moment to mull over the changes in computer memory capacity within the span of our lives thus far (I am an MS-1 Computing Engine...).

So, I'm officially moved out. Now, to move in! My new district just finished up today, so I hadn't bothered to set up a time to go over there yet. But, as the hubby pointed out, it's 10 minutes away, so I probably won't mind making round trips...

And now, I'm firmly ensconced at home with my pups, indulging in junk food and a 'Charmed' marathon (first season...with Pru in all her witch-tastic oldest sister glory). I know my seester will confirm that this is exactly what life in San Fran would be like if my Paganish household were to make for the west coast.

Mmmm....bad TV and Oreos. Sounds good, but I'm noting a disturbing early-summer trend toward couch-potato-hood. I will blame it on the scattered showers, and chilly temperature (68 degrees!).

I promise, later summer posts will be full of productive reports about the splendors of first grade, the social studies units I have planned, hiking, canoeing, and quality dog-time (I ever tell you about how I always thought there was probably some German cognate for "quality time" that was related to the "Qualitatswein mit Pradikat" that my parents would buy? Qualitatsteim mit Parents. Or something.)

sum-sum-summer time

So, we're three days into summer vacation, and I'm taking a day off from packing up fifth grade to bask in the warm, glowing, warming glow of having absolutely nothing to do.

Except get everything still in Rm. 30 out.
And move into my new room.
And plan out some whiz bang 1st grade lessons.
And drop off paperwork at the new BOE.
And clean up the house (man, we've been busy...and lazy).
And (our summer project) train the dogs to be relatively reasonable when someone comes to the door.
And laundry.
And, y'know, stuff.

But not today...except maybe the paperwork.

I've been filling me supremely fill-able time by reading (100 Years of Solitude), drinking lemonade, and watching odd movies on the WE network. I liked "Lucas." How did I miss this most excellent 80s movie? Charlie Sheen...one of the Coreys (Haim?)...Winona Ryder (in her big screen debut!)...quintessential 80s angst about fitting in, getting the girl, the haves, the have-nots...Not so much fun is "Skipped Parts" which is on right now. It is not an 80s movie...but was made in 2000 (an aughties movie?). It, too, is about the perils of a young man's coming of age, but, set in the 60s, doesn't have nearly as well developed a sense of authenticity in terms of the setting or characters.

Ah...look at that...it only takes three days for me to work up a sense of righteous indignation about daytime TV.

I'm afraid I don't recall...

I signed my contract today, making me officially a first grade teacher (yipes!) in a tiny district only ten minutes from where I live...as opposed to a fifth grade teacher in a rather large district an hour from where I live. More on that later, I am sure.

The strange thing today was getting my fingerprints taken at the local PD for the requisite background check. I don't mind the background check. The town is entrusting me with a roomfull of teeny-tiny chirdlen. I'd do a background check on me too. So the fingerprinting wasn't strange. What was strange was that as I sat in the lobby, with all the other people getting hired to work with small children, I began to feel stressed. "What if they find something in my background check?" I found myself wondering. I sat there and pondered it for a bit, "What if I've forgotten something?"

Let me just state for the record here, there is nothing that I need to worry about that will possibly turn up in my background check. Nix, nought, nothing.

But I found myself, sitting there, feeling vaguely guilty, trying to reassure myself that I'd most likely remember any sort of major crime spree.

I dunno. I blame politicians...everyone from Oliver to Scooter...who's ever cited a failure of memory when called upon to defend themselves against alligations of some serious crime. With their testimonies in mind, it seems perfectly reasonable to assume I may have done something...traded some arms, blown someone's CIA cover...and just forgotten all about it.

discount flowers

I bought hedge-clippers today and attacked the thorny growth that's been flourishing between the rosebush and the edge of the porch. Rosebush overgrow by brambles...good-thorny versus bad-thorny, I guess. There was also this huuuuge weedy thing there. I shall look it up later to see what it was. I felt sort of murderous as I hacked everything to pieces, but after I was done, the rosebush, and all of its supposed-to-be-there friends, looked much happier.

I went down to the local cheaper than cheap store to buy hedge-clippers. It's the sort of store where you can buy silk flowers for ninety-nine cents, a flashlight for about five bucks, socks, a chocolate bar, fireworks, a hose, catnip mice, film, ceramic mushrooms, questionable looking food items. . .and, well hedge-clippers. Today, they also had a large selection of annuals. Tired looking snapdragons, petunias, and salvia all looking like they'd been left in their little seedling-planters for several weeks too long. So, of course I bought ten bucks worth. I planted a bunch in the huge front plot (notable both for its size, sandy soil, and abundance of rocks). I filled in some of the spaces between the bushes we bough last year with an eye to how big they'll be in five years or so. I hope they'll do ok...sandy soil or no, it's got to be better than sitting in a teeny tiny planter.

I do love snapdragons.

math is funny

Today, I cracked my students up with the following math problem (names have been changed to protect the compulsive):

Amelio observed a squirrel outside his house. The squirrel buried 82 acorns to prepare for winter. The squirrel forgot where he buried half of the acorns. Then, other squirrels stole 10 of what he had left. Amelio felt sorry for the squirrel and gave him 15 acorns. How many acorns does the squirrel have now?

Amelio, easily the tallest and most mature looking kid in the bunch, tried gamely to read the problem out loud, but just couldn't make it through. He got to "observed a squirrel," and started snorting. It was all downhill from there. The class collapsed in collective giggles.

I think it's great that, here at the end of the year - with middle school looming on the horizon and everyone trying hard to look their coolest - they are unable to maintain their preteen cool in the face of a hapless squirrel.

It may not have helped so much that the math problems we were doing today were being pulled ceremoniously from the floppy felt top-hat that I wore when I played the mime last year in "The Fantasticks". Ah well...I pretend I disapprove of the laughing, happy children (I've even been heard to say, "You know I don't approve of laughing, happy children!"), but actually...
I do kinda like'em that way.

oh yeah!

and i bought a new fish.

a beta.

they can swim in anything.

their wild-born relatives live in the sewers of southeastern asia.

or so i've heard.

i bought him some plants...fake ones (lest i start killing those, too!).

he only has 35 more school days to go.

wee-hoo!

Hey, so, we taught Puck to roll over! (I was going to start that sentence with, "I'll bet you didn't even know we were trying, but...however, the ramifications of starting anything that way on a blog read almost exclusively by my female relatives was too amusingly horrific to allow...even though I would have cleared up any misunderstandings very quickly with, "We taught Puck to roll over.").

That reminds me, I once came home to a message on my answering machine from my seester saying, "Congratulations, you're an Aunt!!"

Turned out, she and her boyfriend had just purchased a dog...but, for about 2.3 seconds, boy oh boy...I was like, "I didn't even know they were trying!"

Hence, the caution in today's posting.

The unexpected consequence of training Puck to roll over has been that it is now much harder to get him to lie down. He lies down, and quickly flips himself right over.

To say "flips himself right over," actually paints a rather inaccurate image.

He actually flips over in two halves: front, then back. This is easier to manage, primarily, I believe, because his back half is so much heavier than his front half. He needs momentum.

He's incredibly ungainly, our Puck. Rolling over, it sounds like he's going to knock the house down: kathump...scrabble, scrabble...THUMP. Add on to that his uncontrollable excitement knowing that someone's about to ask him to roll over (or lie down...what ev'), and his uncontrollable excitement at having actually acheived the task, and gadzooks, you've got yourself quite a show: jump, hop, pantpantpant, kathump, scrable, scrabble, THUMP, hop-hop (grin)...or something like that.

Whatever it is, it is the exact opposite of gainly. But, it is purty darn cute.

went shopping

Ah, for the clearance rack.
For fifteen dollar pants.
For the twelve dollar sweater.

I tell myself I have an eye for classic style.

But really, I just shop for last season's clothes.

This winter I went to an after-closing-hours catered event at a poshy-posh department store with a friend. There where hors d'oeuvres. There were people with champagne and pomegranate martinis. There were artists there to personalize the children's Uggs.

It was bizarre.

Things. Deeply discounted things. Things cost lots of money.

I bought a $35.00 headband.

So, today I went shopping elsewhere.

Yippee!

bad to worse

oh...why do people think goldfish are easy pets? What strange cultural blind-spot causes us to collectively believe that providing the little guys with food and water will be enough to make them happy despite centuries of evidence to the contrary?

I actually bought fish medicine for my fishies before I left school on Friday...plopped it in the tank, and then I had to leave them alone for the weekend and hope for the best. We shall see.

On to happier things: In celebration of the 50 degree weather (!!) today, and in honor of the decision to spring forward several weeks early this year, I did a whopping amount of spring cleaning today.
I have:
Cleaned out a closet that had gotten to the "let's just pretend it isn't there" level of disorganization and uselessness (found some cool stuff, too!).

Dusted...not just vacuumed things off, but dusted! I even dusted off the way-high-up ceiling fan (having found the special duster for that - where else? - in the recently cleaned out closet)!

Rearranged furninture in the living room-ish area.

Cleaned out the kitchen cabinets (So long, three-year-old tea bags! Why do they even put the decaffinated teas in the variety pack?).

Cleaned out the refrigerator...and the freezer (So long, wow-this-recipe-makes-a-lot-but-it's -bad-to-throw-food-away waffles!).

Gathered up the cords to the stereo system with neat little zip-ties...ah...how satisfying.

Vacuumed up a scary amount of dog fur (Much to Puck's dismay...he doesn't like it when I say, "Wow, so here's our third dog!" and then vacuum it up...seems to him that we should offer it dinner and take it out to the backyard instead).

Went grocery shopping (Hey, that fridge looked really empty!).

Did laundry.

Helped a friend proof-read her cover letter for a job application.

Ahh....all that was left was to update my blog for my mom.

alas, poor fishy

So, I went into school today to take care of a few things (and to earn some Puritain work ethic points), only to discover my three goldfish thoroughly traumatized by the recent cold snap.

"We're going into a state of near hibernation," they said! "We feel awfully close to dead!"

Two of them perked right up when I turned on their light. ("Oh! It's not winter time on the tundra?").

One did not make it through the day.

I bought them a heater. I left them a slow-release food tablet.

Poor fishies.

We had a fishy for a college roommate - Anakin (we had another one - Obi Wan - but we think Anakin killed him...). He was left alone all of Thanksgiving vacation one year. In our defense, we thought the house would be used for vacation housing, but they changed it at the last minute. My roomie got to him first, and revived him by setting his bowl on the television to warm him up.

It worked.

And he didn't even become a goldfish version of the Hulk...or Spiderman...or anything! He lived happily ever after.

Hopefully, Xavier and Goldie will do the same...

made a neat pile...

left it by the door.

Sounds like the beginning of a groovy country song to me, but I may be the only one.

Anyway, I did make a neat pile by the door of my classroom before I left this evening.

And there it rests.

Ah well.

Must be a sign.

Woke up, got out of bed...

Dragged a comb across my head...or not, really, 'cause my hair is super short these days, and I don't generally comb it it all, except with my fingers...but I wanted to start with a "Day in the Life" reference, because, well, that's all I've got to write about.

I did wake up, and get out of bed, and make my way into town to the board of ed. where I participated in another training session for folks learning how to coach beginning teachers through the process of writing their portfolios.

Part of the fun of attending these training sessions, for me anyway, has been the opportunity to hang out with other teachers for whom their portfolio year was freakishly stressful, horrible, and just plain bad. It's sort of comforting to know I'm not the only one.

I just hope that when I'm assigned a beginning teacher to coach that I don't come across as too bitter, cynical, and/or jaded about the whole process to be helpful.

The nifty thing was that we got out a bit early, and I was home well before sundown for the first time in months. The doggies, not to mention the hubby, were a bit freaked out. In fact, the sun is still up. Zow-ee!

The weird part was that we got out before school was over. I had planned to swing by my classroom when the training was over, grab my plan-book, and check to make sure the fish in our new fishtank were all alive. Walking into the school with two hours left in the day seemed kind of silly, though. I didn't want to be greeted with cries of, "You're back! Great, we can use that sub for coverage in another room." So, I just came home. My daily schedule is so ingrained in my head, though, that throughout the drive home I found myself thinking things like, "I hope he's through with that second reading group by now," and "I wonder if they finished the spelling test."

I had bus duty today, too.

Bad, bad, me. Out on a bus duty day.

blargity blog

Ooh...I just rememberd another detail:

In December, we had a school "sing-a-long."

sing-a-long

think-a-loud

where will it end?

These are the people supporting me in my effort to teach my students "to look back in the text when they realize that they don't know the answer," (this, my dears, is the "essense of metacognition.")

Hmmm...I would have thought that realizing you don't know the answer was closer to being the "essense of metacognition."

This is why I need their constant support, I suppose.

Friday

I'm contemplating putting in an application in another school district. My friend was recently hired as an assistant principal there, and she loves to tell me about how great the teachers in her school have it...45 minute prep. periods every day, with an extra 30 minutes on top of that once a week...grade-level planning time, a killer union, small classes...the list goes on.

The problem is, I'm really invested in the district where I work now. It's a semi-urban district (frighteningly inner-city compared to the district I'm thinking of), and I can't quite imagine teaching a different population of kids. I've been in the district for four years now, and I'm begining to establish myself as something of a go-to-gal...I'm on some pretty important committees, and I've recently been asked to train as a mentor-teacher...so's I can mold the impressionable minds of newly-hired teachers in addition to the 24 impressionable minds already under my sway. It would be tough to start from scratch in a new place.

But.

Our school is labeled as failing under No Child Left Behind standards. As a result, the administration is constantly flailing about, trying to find ways to prove that we're doing all we can to get back in the good graces of the federal government: new language arts program: check; new math curriculum: check; newly-created supervisory positions for folks specially trained to harass classroom teachers: check and check; standardized testing: check...check...check...and check. The straw that is currently threatening to break this camel's back, though is a step past standardized testing: standardized teaching. Our ILA and math programs are very close to scripted, but not quite. They dictate what we'll teach, when we'll teach it, and how...but they don't go as far as other programs and actually spell out what words to use when we do it. Recently, our district decided to take on the task of telling us what words they'd like us to use, issuing "comprehension support questions," with explicit "rationals" for "think-a-louds" to use when discussing these questions with our students.

think-a-louds.

Now, I'm as hyphen-happy as the next person, but I don't think I've ever gone so far as to bcome hypehen -h-appy.

I don't think I'd mind so much if they weren't so bad at it.

I feel that I think-a-loud just fine on my own.

Sometimes, though, I must admit, I think-a-quiet.

an audience of one

Excellent "Wayne's World," reference, man!

ok.

big dork.

Anyway, it was one of my New Year's resolutions to write more often, and about the everyday things that make up life as me, rather than only writing when I feel all inspired'n'stuff. Added on to that was a vague notion that I might share the fact that I'm here...in the blogosphere...with folks besides my darling seester...all tying in with a general desire to stay in better contact with the folks I love.

Speaking of whom...I am periodically struck by such vivid memories...of life in the house...of my first classroom...riding in the K-car with my hubby in our pre-wedded bliss. Sometimes, the memories make me happy...like the hubby in the K-car...and sometimes they are so bittersweetly sad, because I miss the people in them...and maybe just a bit...the me in them so much.

So...on to that everyday stuff...

I got to school at 8:20 today, early for these last few months (which, as I write it, I realize encompasses pretty much the whole school year so far). I used to get there around quarter of eight. Then eight. Then 8:15. Then 8:30. I no longer panic when I pause in my early-morning puttering to glance at a clock that reads 7:30. I know my commute down to the minute. My 'panic spots' have shifted. I find myself thinking, "As long as I'm over the bridge by 8:10, it'll be fine," which correlates with "if I'm through the line for my coffee by 8:00," and "once I'm over the bridge, I just need to be passing Staples by 8:12."

So, I did, and I was, and there I sat...10 minutes early by my newer, laxer, standards...enough time to grab a cup of coffee, hug my darlin' hubby who came by to drop off lunch money (yup, still forgetting my homework and my lunch money), and correct some papers while I waited for my horde of Friday-before-a-long-weekend hoodlums to come in at 9:00.

Oh, but I had to guilt-trip my hoodlums today...my patented, "I always want to be proud to be your teacher," guilt-trip. You see, when I picked them up from the media specialist today, she was all a-frazzled by their lack of cooperation. I hate that. There's this feeling, when a specialist complains about your class, that she's really complaining about you. You are your class.

So, I guilted 'em a bit...but I really couldn't blame them. Who can concentrate on research skills when a long weekend is coming and snow is in the forecast for the first time this winter?

And then there was reading, and math, and a spelling test ("Boys and girls, if you get only one word right this week, please let it be 'education.' It is, after all, the reason we're all here."). After the spelling test we took a moment for state-mandated recess, though, it was so cold we didn't go out...I'm not sure if 15 minutes of in-class free time fulfills the new state law that requires us to ensure that our students participate in at least 15 minutes of daily physical activity. Oh well. I got a kick out of watching two of my munchkins play Boggle for the first time. G.O. actually brushed me aside, with a "Don't tell us any more!" after I gave them two 'examples' to get them started. Oooo, but I wanted to play. I got my recess fix by accepting one little guy's challenge to play Connect-4. We tied. I'll bet you didn't know that was even possible, but it is.

The little guy in question is one of my absolute faves this year...not that I have those...but he's just so him that 'there's something irresistable-ish about 'im.' He loves John Deere tractors, trains, and his cowboy boots from Colorado. He can be counted upon to tell me each day what the special is, what the lunch options are, and who's got the job as paper-passer this week. We've developed a running joke that he can read my mind, and he loves to demonstrate this talent, rubbing his temples with both index fingers, squinting in concentration, "Hey, I think...today...we have...MUSIC!" he'll say when he meets me in the hallway in the morning. "Maybe next we should have some....READING GROUPS!" But best of all, he has this golden, boy-soprano voice...and he sings all day. Sometimes he hums under his breath while he reads. Sometimes he belts a tune as he walks through the hall on his way back to the classroom. What does he sing? Broadway musicals. Yup. My earliest memory of him is of the day when, as a third-grader, he strode past my class as we waited for the bathroom singing, "Surrey with the Fringe on Top," at the top of his lungs. For his birthday, after the trip to Colorado, he got to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. Our days are filled with snippets of "Chim-chim-eny" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidotious."

It can be a bit distracting.

When it's just too much for the rest of us to handle, I catch his eye and put my hand on my heart.

That's our signal.

"Keep your song in your heart," I tell him, "not in your mouth." And he tries.

But today, waiting again for the bathroom, he just couldn't help it.

"I try to keep it in my heart," he tells me, "but sometimes the song just comes out."

We should all be so lucky.