It's Bloggeriffic

A story about yoga.

2010-07-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

I can't decide if I like yoga or not. I have a bad track record with yoga. One year in college, I think it was freshman year, I convinced Kate to go to a yoga class with me. We went every week for maybe 5 or 6 weeks. And then we went the next week, I got there late and led the two of us into the room where everyone was already in the middle of doing it but suddenly I didn't recognize the people and worried we walked into the wrong class. So I did what any normal person would do--I bolted out of the room and never returned. It would have been too embarrassing to go back. Who runs out of a yoga class and then shows their face again?

Fast forward 9 years, I decided to hit up a yoga class at my gym one night this week, for no other reason than nothing else to do and I sensed Kate needed a break from roommate time now that she is living in the dining room. I certainly did not need yoga to help me relax this summer, as I'm pretty sure if I became any more relaxed I would just be dead.

The kind of yoga is this class is vinyasa, which I learned means that all the poses flow from one pose to the next. That was good because you don't really stop in between to give your arms or back or whatever a break and resulted in a few sore muscles the following day. But the whole thing is kind of weird to me. Maybe I'm just not into the whole "spiritual/in touch with nature" part of it and prefer to do calm relaxing things on my own and not a gym floor with 10 other people? But after an hour of flowing from downward dog to warrior 2 and triangle pose (except she used all the Indian names for these so I was totally confused for an hour...) we lied on the floor while the teacher rubbed her hands over our faces and pushed your shoulders to the floor. It was really weird and took every bit of my concentration to try not to laugh. But I was eventually pushed over my limit when she then rang a little bell several times, I guess to signal that the quiet time was ending. It sounded like a dog bell. I don't know, I suppose I might try it again another week. If anything, maybe it'll be a good exercise in self control to keep myself from laughing in awkward situations.

2010-07-06T19:28:00.000-04:00

Summer.

Summer is great.

Summer is even better than great. It's my favorite.

Flip flops, long days, warm nights. Green stuff growing all over the place (I mean outdoors, not moldy food), not shivering under 6 layers of blankets, spending lots of time outside. What's not to love?

Though I have to admit, I'm kind of excited to go back to school. I know though that come August 24th it'll be hard to remember I ever said that. It's just that I'm a routine-loving kind of girl, and my summer totally lacks routine. During the school year, I know pretty much what I'm going to be doing down the exact minute each day.

But this summer? Well, I go to bed not knowing exactly what I'm doing the next day. I might get up and if it's not too hot, read on the roof deck in my pajamas. Or make an iced tea and wander around the neighborhood. Or go for a bike ride downtown. Or stay up late to watch David Letterman because Taylor Lauttner is on. Er... did I say that out loud?

Anyway, I've got most mornings free, except for a few weeks later this month and in July when I'm babysitting in the morning. But I've got mornings to kill for now, and then a couple of hours of babysitting or tutoring in the afternoons. It's great, but I do like a little more structure. I need a project, or a goal (other than packing up and getting ready to move, because it's 87 degrees in my apartment right now and just typing is making me sweat).

Anyone have a project suggestion, or just need a personal assistant for Monday, Tuesday, or Friday mornings??

Today

2010-04-07T21:04:00.000-04:00

Today it reached 90 degrees. In Boston. In the first week of April. It was just a few weeks ago that I was bundled up in a winter coat because it was snowing. I went skiing 3 weeks ago. Today I wore a tank top and skirt on the roof and questioned why I don't live in a place that has warmer weather more of the year.

Today during the middle of teaching my writing lesson I tried to balance a big thing of chart paper along with a bunch of posters I had taped up to an easel, when some of the posters began to fall and I needed several hands to help pick everything up.

One of my sweet girls said, "You have a lot of stuff!" This is the conversation that followed (all whispering, but within earshot)
N: It's because she's a mom.
E: No she's not a mom!
N: Yeah, that's why she has so much stuff.
E: No, she's 25 years old (Not sure where that number came from)
N: Oh.
E: And her name is Stacy.

Also today, I discovered my new favorite way to eat oatmeal! I have a big bag of frozen blueberries (that I picked over the summer, so they're huge and delicious and not from a supermarket). I slightly defrost them, then cook the oatmeal in the microwave. Then I stir in a little strawberry preserves, and mix in the blueberries to they are pretty much thawed, but still kind of cool in the middle.

DEEEE-LICIOUS!!

Hip Hop Hooray

2010-03-22T17:09:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's HIP HOP hooray.

I've found the perfect thing to get my mind off of the little monsters that I call my students. I think about them while I eat dinner. I think about them while falling asleep. I often think of them when I get up, and during the night I tend to plan lessons in my dreams. But twice a week, when I go to my Turbokick class, I get a whole hour where the thought of school does not enter my mind once, and it's fantastic.

My class turned out to be much different from what I expected. I sort of expected more kickboxing, less hip hop. It was the opposite. But I haven't run crying from the room yet. I watch myself doing moves called "Soldier Boy" and "Check your watch" in the mirror, and just giggle at myself. It has set music and we learn a routine to it. In fact, here's the part we learned last week:

FYI, that very first move right after the sirens is the move that we call "Check your watch." Doesn't it look like that's what they're doing? This is week 4 out of 8. The teacher said we can wear costumes when we learn the whole thing, but I think she might have been kidding.

Just in case, though, I'm hunting for a sequin hat and some black high tops. And perhaps a new set of students.

Persistence

2010-03-16T17:12:00.000-04:00

This post has no point. Then again, do any of mine really have an important point?

On with it anyway.

My whole life, I've wanted to like oatmeal. I don't really know why I've been so persistent about it. Maybe because both my parents really like it and eat it a lot, and my mom always raved about how much she liked oatmeal. So when I was little, each time my mom made oatmeal, I asked for some too. I wanted to get what she got out of oatmeal. I tried it sweet, with cinnamon or sugar (brown sugar, regular sugar, and all combinations). I added raisins. I tried it with just salt, like my mom ate it. Nothing.

Finally, maybe 6 months ago, I started to like it. I found the perfect combination of salt and sugar. And then I began to ween myself off of some of the sugar and salt, since the two tablespoons of sugar I was dumping in the bowl sort of negated the healthiness of the oatmeal. And now I've gotten to the point where it's a filling, but mostly healthy snack or breakfast that I eat at least 4 times a week. I LOVE OATMEAL.

So naturally, I've been on the lookout for other oatmeal ideas since I like oatmeal for what it is finally. I tried stirring in about a tablespoon of strawberry preserves---delicious! I also read about adding some peanut butter and fruit. I'm thinking about trying some bananas with it.

Anyone know any good oatmeal ideas from one proud oatmeal lover to the next? I'm a bit sad that it took me almost 28 years to finally like the stuff.

Consensus on the census

2010-03-07T19:15:00.000-05:00

I'll bet you didn't know that last week was a special week---Census in schools week! How fun! There's a week for everything! It was a Massachusetts Department of Ed thing (though maybe it was happening in all states?), pushed down to towns and cities because Massachusetts was one of the most under-counted in the last census. It was then pushed down on the schools from the superintendent because the city where I teach was one of the most under-counted in the state. It's no surprise, really; the city is a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. Almost all of my students have parents who are immigrants (and many of my students are too), but I have no clue how many of them are legal.

So, I taught a few lessons in the afternoons about what the census is, why it's so important to do it (new schools! playgrounds! enough hospitals!), and encouraging them to tell their parents all about it. We spent most of the time talking about what happens when the census takers come to your house and the fact that they only want to count you and don't care if you're a citizen or not.

I gave my class a few small census-related homework assignments, the last of which they had to interview an adult about the last census. One-third of my class chose not to do their homework, because my class blows. Out of the rest of them, some had parents who weren't living in the country yet, a few reported that their parents filled out the last census and wrote about that, and the rest found out various reasons why their parents didn't complete the last census. Sadly, a bunch wrote that their parents didn't have time or didn't know it was important. And one, THE one who gets me through each day because she actually wants to learn, and whose parents I assumed knew the importance, had a disappointing interview. Her response to the question "Did you know that your answers to census questions are kept confidential and not shared with others?" "My mom said it is a liy." And furthermore, "What did you learn during your interview?" "I think it is to count poeple but if you didn't come with immergration papers after the census they cent people to their countrys back." It's awfully frustrating knowing I took time out of our jam-packed day trying to get the kids excited to encourage their parents to take part, and this is what we're working with.

Also, there's like 60 something school days left, and I couldn't be happier.

Also part 2, I'm watching Ryan Seacrest interviewing Miley Cyrus on the red carpet Oscar before-show. Who knew she sounded like such a redneck?

In like a lion

2010-02-28T19:52:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is March! MARCH! Hooray!

I've been looking forward to March 1st for a long time. Like a month or so.

March is the first month where there are days that, while they don't exactly feel like spring, hint that spring will eventually come. February 28 is so cold and snowy and wintery, but March 1 is an entirely different kind of day in my book.

Daylight savings starts this month! I am 128 times happier when there is more sunlight at the end of the day.

March is the month where baseball gets going! Spring is coming!

March 1 is the day I get to go to my 3rd (of 4!) conference training thingy for this social skills program at my school. It's the most relaxing and fun training, and it's made better by the fact that I can look at the clock and know that my students are in literacy, or math, or whatever, and I don't have to be the one dealing with those hellions. I mean children.

March 1 is the first day of my kickboxing class! If you had asked me to tell my thoughts on the gym 3 months ago, I would have said "Blech! Gym! Stupid, stupid gym!" But that was because I had been paying since December '08 but hadn't been since April '08. And for those few months that I DID go, all I did was run on the treadmill and it was really boring. But then in January I discovered that there are fun classes that I love. And then mid-January I discovered that I don't really care if I look like an idiot prancing around the room because at least I'm moving and sweating. So when they announced there would be a new kickboxing class, and that it's a "fusion of hip hop dance and kickboxing," I got excited. I'm going to look like an idiot and I don't mind!

Ahhh, March.

Coming to terms with the Olympics, and old age

2010-02-20T18:02:00.000-05:00

I'm totally in Olympics mode right now. It's been timed perfectly with my school vacation last week. I've been up hours past my regular bedtime, crossing my fingers for the kind of cute ice skater clad in Vera Wang spandex, who looks like he also takes part in the Jersey Shore "GTL" routine.

I suppose he's a little tanner than you should be in February, and he uses more hair product in one night than I go through all year, but there's something oddly irresistible. No? Just me?

I've always liked the Olympics. Unlike the World Series, NBA championship, Stanley Cup, etc., I like that it's more of a world competition, not just the U.S. competing against ourselves. I dreamed of competing in gymnastics for a long time (and was pretty convinced I had a shot until I was about 9, and already taller than most of the famous gymnasts--I wasn't bothered by the fact that I still couldn't do a split). But even once I realized I was not going to be representing my country on the balance beam one day, I liked the idea that other people did that and looked up to those athletes who worked so hard for years and years to do it.

This year though, I've been watching all of the athlete profiles and realizing that there's very few now who are older than me. And the ones that are in their late 20s, or god-forbid---30! Well, the commentator has to talk about how this is their last shot, or how they retired 3 years ago but decided to give the sport one more shot in Vancouver. I'm realizing that the next time the winter olympics are held, there will be almost no athletes older than me. When did this happen? And why can't I retire at 23 also??

Thinking (Or trying to find anything to do other than school work)

2010-01-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

Thoughts for the new year:

I still haven't decided whether I'm going to say "Two thousand ten," "Twenty-ten," or maybe just "Ten." How are you going to say this year?

How do we talk about the last 10 years? The 2000s? That doesn't seem right. Life was so much simpler in the 1900s.

I just realized I started my blog just over 5 years ago now, in December of '04.

It has snowed almost non-stop for almost 3 days now. Why couldn't it be timed so that I could have a snow day to ease back into school?

I am dreading (DREADING) going back to school tomorrow. February vacation isn't really that far away, but man, my class blows.

I'm also dreading having to wear real clothes tomorrow. I've worn some version of fleece or sweats almost non-stop with the exception of drinking hours each evening for the past 4 days.

I like making desserts because I love eating desserts. To close out 2009, I tried to make a fancy-ish dessert for a New Year's Eve party. I told one of the party hosts how I was making a really fun dessert. It took me several trips to multiple stores to get all of the ingredients. It took hours (really) to make a part, cool a part, make more, chill it, etc. And then, it came out terrible. So terrible looking AND tasting that I did not even take a picture, but dumped it in the trash and bought cookies on the way to the party. I've never felt like such a dessert failure.

If I actually focused on doing work for like an hour or two, I might actually be done and not feel like I'm spending all of my last day of vacation working. I'm going to go try that.

You're a virgin who can't drive.

2009-12-28T17:40:00.000-05:00

Ah, vacation time. I love it. Only a few things planned between now and next Monday. Most of my plans involve alcohol, french fries, or my credit card.

Here are a few recent, random pics.

Wednesday was the last day of school before vacation. Six or seven students gave me some lovely presents, ranging from an angel ornament with a jingle ball on it (it looks great on my menorah) to a beat up, dirty polar bear stuffed animal that one of my girls must've found in her room and decided to hand to me. But one of my favorites was from a sweet girl who gave me "diamond" earrings. I have my "Oh my gosh, those are BEAUTIFUL!!" routine perfected. I'm dreading having to wear them to school one day though. It's just a guess, but I suspect my ear lobes will not react too nicely to them.

Secondly, I got a nice reminder on the day before vacation that I need to review abbreviations with my class. Either that, or at least one of my kids thinks I'm a man.

And lastly, I had the rare opportunity to not only go out for dinner and drinks last night on a Sunday, but to also stay late enough for trivia. Our team, Way Harsh Ty, placed 5th, which was really quite remarkable since we were among the smallest groups playing. We had a strong start, but sort of fell off in the second half, as you'll see from one of our answer sheets that was decidedly not turned in.

In case you're wondering, the question asked for the name of the computer virus that wrecked PCs at the beginning of 2009.

The one where I don't complain about work so much.

2009-12-22T20:07:00.000-05:00

It's Last-Day-Of-School-Before-Vacation Eve. One of my favorite nights of the year. My gifts for the teachers who help me ~~do battle~~ teach in my classroom each week are all wrapped up, I have 26 freshly sharpened winter pencils ready to give to my kids, and I have not a smidge of work to do tonight.

I have a fantastic day planned tomorrow, with an all-school assembly during reading workshop, my kids' biography project presentation in our "living museum" during literacy tomorrow, and an astronomy video during writing and math. I am as giddy as, uhhh, someone about to be off until January 4th.

In some ways, I feel like I have been in school forever and ever and ever. (And ever and ever and ever). I never thought this day would come. But it also kind of amazes me that it could possibly be Christmas vacation already. That could be because we are still spending at least 2 recesses each week practicing classroom routines like lining up since we still can't manage to do it like 3rd graders. Anyway, the year always seems to zip by when we come back in January. MCAS will be a mere 3.5 months away when we come back and we'll be getting into full panic mode, making the weeks go by even more quickly.

It's practically summer, even though you wouldn't know it by the slushy/salty/icy mix covering most of my car.

The Trifecta

2009-12-15T17:39:00.000-05:00

Winter is officially upon us.

How do I know? Afterall, it hasn't snowed more than a few inches, which quickly melted away. My ears haven't burned from coldness in the walk to my car. I have not yet fallen on ice.

I know that winter is here because I ended Halloween season this evening by tossing the remaining 2 pumpkins in the trash, thus bringing on winter. I LOOOOVE Halloween and have a hard time finishing it. I also don't like putting stuff away. Therefore, it was not all that surprising that Halloween decorations adorned the apartment during the holiday apartment last weekend (hey, we called it a "Holiday" party...we didn't say anything about a winter holiday party).

See?

If you look closely on the window sill, you can see the trifecta of holidays, merging as one massive candy/light-up-stuff/sparkly fest--the pumpkins, menorah, and candles for Christmas. And if the camera had turned just slightly left or right, you would see a nutcracker near a Halloween bowl of candy corn, a Christmas village next to rubber duckies in Halloween costumes, and of course the massive tree.

I like having pumpkins in the house; it's all outdoorsy and they hold on to the tiny last bit of summer since I watched them grow all summer. I like how the menorah looks with candles in it, and it smells like childhood when they go out each night. And the apartment always feels kind of empty when the Christmas tree finally gets kicked to the curb sometime in mid-February. Which makes me think, would it really be so bad to keep the symbols of the trifecta of holidays out all year round?

A funny

2009-11-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

I tell a lot of stories that involve me being stressed at work (and before and after and on weekends) but this is a funny one.

I have a kid with hearing aids who also needs an FM system. She plugs little pieces into her hearing aids, and I wear a special thing that has a mini-microphone attached, and it amplifies my voice and blocks out other noise for her. I have to set it to a certain channel, otherwise she can't hear me.

The other day I was teaching a lesson when one of my annoying boys would not stop talking about wrestling with his reading partner. I had to stop in the middle of the lesson to speak with him, so I was wearing the FM system still. Well apparently there's a kid on the other side of my school who ALSO has an FM system to help him hear his teacher, and it's set to the same channel. So in the middle of his lesson, he raised his hand and told his teacher "I can't think because someone is talking about wrestling!"

We're working it out with the audiologist.

Back up to 27 students. Oh my.

2009-11-02T18:07:00.000-05:00

If you've read this blog over the past two months, you know I'm having a sucky school year. The behavior problems are unbelievable. At any given moment, I have a girl sitting under her desk whistling (the fact that she even sits at a desk, while they rest of my crew sits at tables, is an indicator of big issues), a boy who is swearing at kids in Spanish, another boy who is growling but doesn't realize it because of his ADHD, and another boy who is stealing all of the magnets off of my board. And really, that's not even all of the behavior issues. On top of it, most of my kids are reading on a 2nd grade level (I teach 3rd), and I have kids who still count 10 plus 4 on their fingers.

It's no secret my class is a bit of a disaster. This class has been declared the toughest class in the school.

So why then, when a new student showed up last week, was the student put in my class? A student with autism and major autism-related behaviors? A student who really needs a one-on-one aide, but is the second student in my class who needs one? I don't even get a one-on-one aide for either of them!

Dear god I may not make it until mid-June. Anyone want to take my 27 little angels for a week or so? They're awfully cute. Please leave your name and which week you'd like in the comment section.

Homophones: 2009 Edition

2009-10-22T17:12:00.000-04:00

My class was doing literacy work in small groups this week. One of the groups had to do work with homophones and part of their assignment was to make a list of homophone pairs.

I stopped by their table just in time to overhear one of my lower students, who had previously looked totally stumped, say "OH! I know! Like 'we' and 'wii!"

In mostly unrelated news, I finally redeemed the points I earned on my credit card and purchased a Wii. I'm all antsy waiting for it to arrive. I needed plenty of things and there were certainly much wiser ways to spend all of the points, but judging how my school year is going so far, I'm really excited about being able to punch stuff while "boxing" after school soon.

BAM

My new best friend.

2009-10-20T17:53:00.000-04:00

I have a new friend. I love my new friend. I could not get through a day without my new friend.

My new friend is my classroom timer.

It was taking my kids forever to transition from one thing to the next. Asking them to put a book in their cubby and bring a folder back to their seat was like asking them to travel to Pluto and back. "See you next year, Ms. G!" In the morning they'd come into the classroom, walk to their cubbies to put things away and get out their materials, but then they would just stand around their cubbies and talk, yell, and push each other. I would stand by helplessly trying to herd them to their tables like sheep. Or goats. Can you herd goats?

But now--

Now I set a timer. "YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO PUT YOUR LITERACY FOLDER IN YOUR CUBBY AND MEET ME ON THE RUG. THE CONSEQUENCE IS DEATH BY STONING." Ok, so I'm not actually allowed to stone my students, but I do take away recess if you're not where you're supposed to be when the timer makes it's ear-piercing, incessant, beeping noise. Suddenly, my kids are zipping around the room with a purpose. The trouble-makers try to chat with my good kids, and they ignore them or tell them, "Don't talk! I don't want to miss recess!" I love it when they keep each other in line.

I'm thinking of trying out the timer trick in my own life. Could it get me to clean up my room a little faster? But what do I take away if I don't get recess?

Your faces are getting old.

2009-10-15T16:19:00.000-04:00

I've run into a problem with my new class.

Last year, I taught the two-way language program in my school. There were two 3rd grade classes in the program, so I taught one class in English, while a Spanish teacher was teaching the same thing to the other class, but in Spanish. We stayed with each class for a week, and then swapped. I loved my kids last year. They were awesome. They were sweet. They were hardworking. They could read.

But I hadn't realized how great it was that I got a different class each week. On Friday, a couple of them could be getting on my nerves, and I loved the fact that I kicked them out the door and wouldn't need to see them in my classroom for an entire week.

Well this year is different. Not only is the bulk of my class not sweet, not hardworking, and several cannot read, but I have to keep them until June. There is no swapping classings. And frankly, I'm getting awfully sick of seeing (some of) them day, after day, after day.

It makes me a little nervous about having children of my own one day. Are you allowed to swap out with a friend for a week?

3rd Grade Orthodontics

2009-09-30T18:01:00.000-04:00

Today "Javier" walked into the classroom and told me that he got something new for his teeth. He didn't use the word retainer, but based on the glimpse he showed me, I assumed that's what it was. He talked funny all morning with it, and I was a little bit suspicious, but he seemed a little embarrassed by it so I didn't ask to see it. He went to gym with the class, came back, and sat through 45 minutes of literacy before he asked to leave the rug to get a paper towel to put it away since, "The dentist told me I don't need to wear it all day." When he came back to the rug and I realized he had it wrapped up in his pocket, I asked to see it. That's when he began to move a little slower and as he unwrapped it he told me, "The dentist gave me one that looks sort of like a paper clip, I don't know why..."

And sure enough, he had bent and twisted a paper clip and stuck it in his mouth.

My lecture on why you never put paper clips in your mouth (especially for 2.5 hours at school) may have included some graphic details meant as scare tactics.

On a side note, remember how yucky retainers were??

A turn toward the good?

2009-09-29T18:43:00.000-04:00

If you're friends with me on Facebook, you may have seen the good news.

One of my students (who is also one of my most difficult behavior-wise) is moving across the country tomorrow. If you were wondering how I felt about that (or even if you weren't, I'm going to tell you anyway), I think the huge smile on my face during his last school day today would let you know how I felt. He's a smart kid, and I know that if he came to school caring about his work on the days when we take the MCAS tests this spring he would probably pass and help my class' scores. But the fact that instead of participating in class he chooses to quietly swear in Spanish at other students who walk by him, makes baby noises during lessons that cause the rest of the class to fall to pieces, and does sexually inappropriate things to fences during fire drills makes me thrilled to have said goodbye for good to him this afternoon.

My class is by no means going to be the star class starting tomorrow. I'm down to 26 students, and I have 5 that I have serious behavior concerns about. One was suspended last week for a fight. Another boy stabbed a girl with a pencil while he was with another teacher. And a girl complained to me that another boy was talking about licking genitals today at recess. (In case you need a refresher, I teach 3rd grade. These kids are 8 and 9. How they know about oral sex, I have no idea.)

But I'm hoping and praying and crossing my fingers that tomorrow is a better day than any of the last 5 weeks have been.

Most days I wish this was allowed in public schools.

Homework is not optional in the 3rd grade.

2009-09-01T20:25:00.000-04:00

Dear 3rd graders,

Here is a list of a few things you might not have known about 3rd grade. Maybe I forgot to tell you this information during the first week of school, or maybe you never learned about this in second grade. But this is how things run up in 3rd.

1. Homework is not optional. I know you said you have to go to church after school so there wasn't possibly any time for you to do your work, but school ends at 2:20 and you probably go to bed at 8:30. Church is not 6 hours long.

2. We have math homework every night. We have reading homework every night. Please don't ask me 8 times during the day, "Do we have math homework tonight?" Yes, we do. Every day. Until June 11th.

3. You may not take a running leap as we walk down the stairs as a class, in order to jump down the last 5 steps in a single bound. Maybe you like to do that at home, but there are 6 kids in front of you in line, and if you land on one of them I'm in big trouble.

4. When someone tells a story to the class about their old school named St. Mary's, it is inappropriate to yell out, "That's like Bloody Marys!"

5. Similarly, when I'm reading a book to the class, and I get to a funny illustration with people kissing on a roller coaster, it is not ok to scream with utter disgust, "They're making out!!"

6. I spent a lot of days in our classroom this summer, carefully figuring out how to set everything up. They didn't even pay me! See that poster that you're peeling off the wall during my math lesson? It took a long time to make and put up on our walls. If you draw on it or peel it off the wall, you won't be having recess today.

7. And on the same note, you'll be losing recess if you spent the entire lesson pinching the boy next to you. This isn't kindergarten.

8. Please, please, please be nice to your teacher. There are 27 of you. That's a lot. Your teacher is tired.

Three more days

2009-08-21T18:04:00.003-04:00

I went to the beach 3 times and the pool once in the past 7 days. That can only mean one thing--summer's just about done and I'm in a panic to get in as much time in the water as I can.

The past week or two I've actually been getting kind of excited for school to start. I like having a little more of a regular routine, even if that routine starts at 5 each morning. I also got my classroom set up early (it's done!) and it was so much easier than last year. I was getting anxious to get kids in there already and see if my second year in 3rd grade is any easier than my first.

But then last night I went to an "end of summer party" at a coworkers house, and naturally we started talking about horrible kid stories. Someone would say a name of the kid, and nearly two thirds of the time I follwed up with, "Oh man, she's in my class." I've got an interesting mix. I knew I would have a really low class since I'm getting half of the sped kids and half of the ELL kids in the grade. But it turns out I've got at least two who aren't reading at all yet. I know what to do with first graders who can't read, but I'm not entirely sure what to do with 3rd graders who can't read. I have one that stuck her tongue in an outlet last year (I told my dad about this one and he's nicknamed her "Sparky," which is probably how I'll refer to her here). I have another who, in first grade, asked to go to the bathroom but ended up at the 7-eleven a few blocks from school. I have two kids who had "accidents" of the number 2 variety last year. I've got a bunch who are barely adding and subtracting. I've got another girl about who I've been warned can be a real bitch, and that she's bigger than me.

It's going to be interesting. I've got 3 days left.

The Living's Easy-ish

2009-06-30T20:49:00.000-04:00

Ah, here it is. Summer vacation.

It doesn't really feel like it's summer vacation. I wore jeans and a sweatshirt today. And yesterday. And probably the day before. And for about 75% of this month. It's cold and cloudy and rainy and I hate it. Tomorrow is July and I still haven't been in the pool or to the beach.

But it also doesn't feel like summer because I'm not really working, which is surprisingly a very unsettling feeling. The past few summers I was either taking classes and doing some kind of teaching internship, or I taught summer school. While it wasn't exactly the same as during the regular year, it still felt like regular old work to me.

This year was the first year that I could maybe squeeze by financially during the summer without needing to have a full time summer school position. Oh, and I was totally stressed and lazy and unmotivated this spring to apply for any sort of summer school job. And after working the hardest I've ever worked over the past 10 months, did I REALLY want to spend the only 2 month break still writing lesson plans?!

The past few weeks I put together a few days of regular babysitting. The idea of wearing a t-shirt and flip flops and spending my day with the under 7 crowd, putting on sun screen and playing "ice cream store" and reading books sounded perfect. Today that's exactly what I did. (For the record, I played "ice cream store" for a total of close to 2 hours today...I ate a whole lot of imaginary rainbow slushes and the three year old special: Rockety Trout ice cream sundae.")

I'm just not really sure what to do on the days I'm not working. It's weird. Even though it's nice not having any kind of schedule, I feel like I should be doing something. I went up to the roof to read before dinner last night and I had an unsettling feeling in my stomach, like maybe I had literacy tests to correct or a math lesson to plan.

I'm sure I'll get used to this.

Probably sometime mid-August.

Just about when I have to get back into it all over again.

P.S.: My mom and I ran a race this weekend! Naturally, I rewarded myself with a snickers bar and 1/5 of the cookie dough from the batch I baked.

Laundry list

2009-06-23T19:49:00.000-04:00

In the past 36 hours I have...

-Given somewhere around 50 hugs. Some students didn't give hugs, but others went for seconds.

-Used a "firm voice" to tell my students their behavior was completely ridiculous and unacceptable for the last day of school.

-Canceled one of the fun games I had planned yesterday for the last day because my students were behaving so unacceptably.

-Gave my students a pencil, and eraser, an envelope, and my home address so they can write me a letter this summer and don't forget everything about letter writing that I taught them this year.

-Told two students, "No, you cannot visit my house this summer now that you have my address. But you can write me a letter! And you can visit my classroom when you're in 4th grade!"

-Got my class' results for our No Child Left Behind state testing for the reading portion. Found out my class did awesome, at least relatively speaking. The scores would probably be horrifying for an affluent, English-speaking district, but in my district the scores were pretty good. My students were great, and they worked their butts off (not counting our miserable day yesterday).

-Emptied out every single cabinet/closet/bookshelf in my classroom.

-Put the contents from every single cabinet/closet/bookshelf into boxes.

-Moved said boxes to my new classroom. Built up muscle. Do you know how heavy math textbooks are?

-Unpacked the boxes and then repacked their contents into new cabinets/closets/bookshelves in my new classroom.

-Decided my new classroom has a much nicer view outside than my old classroom.

-Received a dozen red roses from student G., a dozen white roses from E., and assortment of flowers from K., and gorgeous peonies (my new fave flower recently) from my very sweet roommate.

-Received a whoopie pie (also from very sweet roommate) that looked like cookie monster eating a cookie. I would have taken a picture, but I have since destroyed it with a fork and my mouth.

-Got a round of applause from some of my school's students at the teacher appreciation luncheon today, and a trophy from the parents. It's spending the summer in my desk so I don't forget to put it in a prominent place on my desk next year!

-Ate some really, really yummy Central and South American food made by parents at the luncheon and decided I need someone from that region to adopt me and cook for me. I looove pupusas and tamales!

-Finished being a first year teacher. Thank god.

Sugar Overload

2009-06-21T08:47:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I had a giant bag of Skittles and a some lollipops next to me while I did work. I ate so many of both that my teeth started to hurt. The good news is that today I have no desire to have any more Skittles. But that's probably also because I ate all of the red and purple ones.

That's all.

2009-06-16T18:08:00.000-04:00

I love to play. I think that's probably why I still babysit on occasion and I have a bin of toys in my bedroom. It's no different at school. Third grade isn't really very fun, like I remember it when I was 8, long before the days of No Child Left Behind. In fact, I have specific intructions that our last day of school on Monday needs to be academic. I'm not there to babysit them and play a movie and color, so I'm told.

So when a fun day comes along, it's a ton of fun for my students, and for me too. Today we had field day, which is really just Field 90 Minutes. When you're nine, that feels like a long time though. I played along for a lot of the games and had a blast, and my kids thought it was so funny. One told me that she didn't know old people could jump rope. She had the nerve to say that she thought old people start getting really weak bones and joints. I've written her report card already, but tomorrow I'll get on the computer and make a few adjustments.

Then, on top of an already fun morning, this afternoon was the annual student-teacher basketball game. My kids that were playing have been trash talking me for the past few days, but they were SO excited that I was going to play. They loved seeing their teachers and principal in gym clothes and running around the gym. I did a little trash talking myself right before I stole the ball from one of my top math students. I definitely don't remember getting to do anything like that when I was little. I wish they would have the game more than just once a year next year. There were 50 students who were at school until 4, getting exercise, connecting to their teachers in another way, and not just plopped in front of a totally inappropriate tv show (Family Guy? Not meant for 9 year olds.).

The best part? The teachers beat the students, 44-41. And Ms. G. scored 8 points.

Directions for making your friends get totally pissed off at each other

2009-06-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

Directions for making your friends get totally pissed off at each other:

Ingredients:
5-10 friends
beer, preferably cheep
deck of cards
attitude

Procedure:
1) Get bored "just drinking."
2) Decide to play a drinking game from college.
3) Choose "Asshole"
4) Spend 15 minutes trying to remember the rules. Then realize that 6 different colleges are represented and everyone played with different rules.
5) Quickly decide which rules to follow and begin playing.
6) Get angry with each other because someone can't remember the rules.
7) Get angry with each other because someone else misinterpreted the rules.
8) Get angry with each other because it's no fun being the asshole.
9) Get angrier still, because it's no fun being the asshole 4 times in a row.
10) Make an asshole hat out of beer box for the asshole in an attempt to lighten the mood.
11) Cut eye flap in the box so the asshole can see when they deal cards.
12) Feel shocked when the asshole doesn't think it's funny.
13) Remember that there's a reason that people in their late 20s don't play drinking games. Get cab and go home.

Guess what I did Saturday night?

Changes are coming

2009-06-13T08:30:00.001-04:00

I've been stressed out all year (which is pretty apparent looking at the few times I've posted during this school year). Besides the regular stresses of my first year teaching 3rd grade, I've been worrying all year that I would be one of the new teachers getting axed due to budget cuts.

A week ago, I met with my principal for my year-end review. I asked if he knew if I had a job and where I'd be (word on the street was that they were planning on moving people to new positions). He told me he loved the job I've been doing in the bilingual classroom at my school, and wouldn't think of moving me for a few more years--if I felt like I wanted a change at that point.

I breathed a giant sigh of relief. I finally feel like I know what I'm doing and I know I have plans for how I want to do things different next year. It's so unlike me to make plans this far ahead. Because I teach in the bilingual program, I knew exactly which kids from 2nd grade would be in my class next year, and spent some time talking to the 2nd grade teacher and hearing all about who needs to sit right by me at all times and who is already reading at a mid-third grade level. I got really excited. I had a job. And I knew how to do it.

Cut to this week. We had a staff meeting after school on Tuesday, where they announced some giant changes to improve special education at my school. They're restructuring all of the grades pretty drastically to include classes that are inclusive of students with special needs. I zoned out for a good portion of this because it wouldn't affect me in my bilingual program. The principal said he'd come around the next day to tell people verbally where they'd be next year. Ha! I already knew!

Well, shortly after the meeting, the principal came to my classroom to tell me I was being moved. I'm going to teach one of the inclusive classrooms in 3rd grade. I was totally stunned. I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything to the principal during our entire conversation. Just nodded my head.

I was so upset. I worked so hard this year to learn how to balance the two classes that I teach...how to deal with the transitions each week, how to keep 46 students straight, and how to work with the Spanish teacher.

My new class will have 5-8 students with IEPs, which basically means they're required to receive some sort of services for special education. My class this year? 0 students with IEPs. My class next year will have half of all of the English language learners in 3rd grade. My class this year? 0 technically had the label ELL, though some of them were labeled that last year. My class next year will have half of the serious behavior issues. My class this year? Mostly angels (until spring fever hit). Why he thought I can do this, I'll never know. I don't have a whole lot of confidence in my ability to teach this class well right now.

The good news is that since I'm not licensed in SPED, I'll have a liasson whose job it is to help me plan for my sped students. I'll also have a whole lot of people coming into my room to work with my sped kids. The other good news was that because my class and another 3rd grade class would have ALL of the students with IEPs, the English language learners (uh, there's a lot in my district...), and a good chunk of the behavior issues (again, a lot in my district...) I would have a very small class--about 18-20 students. Most classes in my school this year have 25.

But this changed again yesterday, when I found out they had to get rid of one of the "regular" classes in 3rd grade. Now I'll actually have 27 students. I don't know what to even think.

27.

That's a lot. It's a lot even in a town where all the students speak English and have parents who read with them every night and 9 year olds don't deal with issues like wondering when their dad who was deported to South America is coming back.

But throw in 5 to 8 sped kids on top of that? Awesome.

The ugly, the bad, and the good. In that order.

2009-05-15T18:17:00.000-04:00

I had one-of-the-worst-turned-one-of-the-best days at work today. The 3rd grade had our state testing (hooray for No Child Left Behind!) in math on Wednesday and Thursday, thus finishing all of that awful testing for the year. It's been a long, long road, and we've been getting ready since late fall first for the language arts testing in March, and now math. My kids have had it. The tests are exhausting. They feel a lot of pressure from me because I feel a lot of pressure from the math lead, and from the principal, who's feeling a lot of pressure from the superintendent. It's not a fun time to teach in an urban school district that's not meeting the NCLB standards. One of my kids cried during the test yesterday. It wasn't fun.

So today they were just a mess as a whole. It was absolutely ugly this morning. They're normally a pretty well behaved group, but they were so rude and so disrespectful, just yelling out inappropriate comments or talking while I was teaching. In the middle of literacy I tried to do the math to figure out how many more hours I have with them until the end of school.

But then this afternoon (after we sat on the wall and missed 5 minutes of recess because we were rude and disrespectful to Ms. G.), the 3rd graders were treated to 5 extra minutes of recess, a popsicle party, and then thirty extra minutes of recess. My kids were SO happy, and so grateful to have a popsicle and stay outside on a gorgeous afternoon. They chatted with me and I heard which Pokemon character was Y.'s favorite, the fact that E.'s dog is a beagle named Rocky (I've heard this story at least 5 times now), and that R.'s abuela (grandmother) had just three haircuts in her life.

And then we played. I joined a game with a bunch of other 3rd graders. It was this weird version of catch with 2 teams, but you try to throw the ball so the other team can't catch it (it took 5 minutes of me tossing it to kids on the other team until someone from my team finally told me that you didn't want the other team to catch it). My kids think I'm ancient and found it hysterical that I was running and jumping and throwing a ball. One asked me if I was embarrassed. Uh, should I have been? I made a particularly good throw and all of my girls came over to high-five me.

At 12:30, I reluctantly took them in, as we had been outside for 50 minutes already. I whined that I didn't want to go in. It was so much fun actually playing with my kids. I figured the afternoon would be a disaster since they had just spent the better part of 30 minutes eating popsicles and running wild with their teacher. I was instantly regretting my offer to the Spanish teacher to teach my writing lesson to both classes (that's 46 kids in all). But, I got all 46 (hot, sweaty, somewhat smelly) 3rd graders on the rug and interested in a lesson about writing memoirs, and had a fantastic afternoon as well!

Which was good, because my outlook on 40 more years in this job was looking pretty dismal this morning.

Blaaaah

2009-03-24T18:45:00.000-04:00

I have not been here in forever. I've been feeling a tad overwhelmed. And when I feel overwhelmed, I don't do anything. I always wished I was one of those people who does something productive, like clean like crazy, when they feel they have too much going on.

I've hit what I'm calling my "Spring Slump" at work lately. I can feel the burnt-out-ness (?) coming on at full speed, and it makes me nervous. I have a hard time thinking I can make it through one more year of this, let alone 40 more years. I had been spending too much time doing work, and decided I needed to relax that. I'm still there from roughly 6:40 until 4 or 4:30, but I just can't bring home as much work as I used to. It's a bad cycle though, because there's work I NEED to do, so then when I get to work the next morning, I run around like a mad woman trying to get stuff done.

Oh, and I haven't written ANY lesson plans in close to a month. I'm supposed to do them each week for the following week. At some point I have to play catch up, and as of now I anticipate that taking days.

We're doing massive prep for MCAS, our state standardized testing. Third grade gets tested in reading comprehension for 3 days next week. My kids are exhausted, and sick of practicing, and starting to feel nervous. It's not their fault. We've been pracicing for ages now, and the whole climate of the school has changed in preparation for it. I met with the principal and got my official test administrator's booklet, and learned the 75,839 things I can screw up with that would result in me losing my job. We also had a meeting today to plan a pep rally for the students to get them all excited and feeling confident that they can do well. At one point it was suggested that all the teachers wear cheerleader uniforms and chant with pom-poms. Luckily, I'll just be reciting a poem and wearing a silly hat.

I need to do something more productive than blog...

3rd Grade Valentines

2009-02-14T17:01:00.001-05:00

On Friday I found out that it is fantastic to be a teacher at Valentine's Day. I had heard rumors that in my school, V-Day is bigger than Christmas. One teacher told me about the time a student gave her lingerie as a gift. I wasn't sure what to expect going into it on Friday.

It was interesting. We don't have time to have parties, so my kids only got to exchange Valentines during our 10 minutes of recess, but it still resulted in two kids declaring it "the best Valentine's Day ever!!!"

And as for me? I walked around with an interesting assortment of "gifts":

-A giant box of chocolates
-A medium box of chocolates
-A small box of chocolate
-A delicious bag of chocolate
-Delta cookies (those ones that you get on your flight in coach...)
-Roses from 2 kids (one came with a vase and ribbon)
-Mary Kay lipstick
-Peach-scented antibacterial hand lotion
-A chocolate rose
-4 stuffed animals
-Two Valentine's Day pencils
-Two lollipops
-An origami heart
-A dozen or so Jonas Brothers/High School Musical/other teeny bopper Valentine's Day cards

And my favorite, a glass rose, which looks something like this:

It's hard to imagine, but it looks even more awesome in real life.

I don't know what to do with this stuff (minus the chocolate...I've been eating it all morning...)

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

2009-02-02T20:19:00.000-05:00

I have a quick story to tell from work today. Maybe it's not actually funny to the general population, but if you happen to be a 3rd grade teacher you might like it.

On with the story.

In math, we're wrapping up division this week and are practicing how to divide when there's a remainder. So I gave my kids this problem:

There are 46 students in Ms. Gross' and Mrs. Peter's classes. We want to go on a field trip, and each bus can hold 20 students. How many buses will we need?

I wanted my kids to realize that we would need three buses, because we couldn't (despite wanting to...) leave 6 students behind.

So one of my kids raised her hand and said we would need three buses and gave a great explanation. But then a clever boy with a good sense of humor raised his hand and said,

"But Ms. Gross, maybe we should just get a van instead."

Man oh Man

2009-01-20T17:25:00.000-05:00

What a day for our country.

I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm clock--at 4:30--and couldn't fall back asleep. I've never been so excited for a political event. I felt proud at what I did, in coloring the little circle on my ballot and helping make today happen, but even more so, I felt really proud of our country today.

Normally at school I try to downplay special events, like Halloween, or report card day. It's not fun try to teach 23 eight- and nine-year-olds when they're all riled up. But today I did my best to get them all pumped up. I wanted them to realize what an amazing thing today was. I wanted to be able to recognize the importance of today, and be able to tell their children how they got to watch it all happen.

We watched Obama get sworn in and listened to his address. I tried my best to sum up his big points in 3rd grade language as he spoke.
A lot of them got it. Many are already sensitive to inequality, and racism, and prejudice. We've read a lot about civil rights this year. And many, perhaps because we live in a hugely blue state, have a weird obsession with Obama and think he's just about the coolest guy. The fact that he has kids around their age is just the icing on the cake. Most of my students wrote letters to Obama last week, and had a solid understanding of what would happen today. I was really impressed when we talked about the inauguration afterward, especially when one of my students described how Obama spoke about all of us being "keepers of the nation."

And now I'm watching them walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, with thousands and thousands and thousands of people screaming more that probably any celebrity. It's a far cry from when I saw him way back when at a rally last winter. That night, it had been taking too long to get everyone through security and into the convention center where he would speak, so they eventually decided to let us all just run in.

This is so cool.

I've enjoyed watching Bush's time tick down on this website. It was fun to see just mere hours left this morning when I was getting ready for work.

We kicked off the excitement first thing this morning with my morning greeting.

2009 IS A HIT

2009-01-12T19:07:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my first post of the new year!

So far, it's been a good year. I've been running into it full speed ahead. I was super-productive last week in work, and came up with a few organizational ideas that I think will help me keep my head from feeling like it's about to fall off each afternoon. Due to a conference, professional development day, MLK Jr. Day, and jury duty, I'll have 4 day weeks almost all the way up until February vacation, and from there we've got the lovely state testing due to No Child Left Behind, and then it's practically the end of the year. I can smell the salty air at the beach already.

On the New Year's Resolutions front, I've been--for once--meeting my goals. I've learned to cook three new things so far this year. My favorite has been these chicken meatball things and a tomato sauce from my new Greek cookbook. I wear my apron everytime I cook, which makes it even more fun.

And my annual resolution to be healthier? I definitely haven't cut down on candy (it's just that there are so many Lindt balls in the apartment...), but just now I got home from...

SIGNING UP AT A GYM!!!!

I have always been so anti-gym because inside is a place where I like to be lazy, and I would so much rather get outside and play and run. But it's been so cold, and the sidewalks have been so icy and snowy and slippery, so I've had excuse after excuse after excuse. I've run maybe three times since my 10K in October. Then I found out that there's a gym really close to me that I didn't know about, and it has a pool! I'm going to start going tomorrow I think, but I'm really nervous. I've never really known much about gym etiquette. Are there rules I should know about? What if I can't figure out how to use those fancy schmancy machines? Is it weird if I don't like to strip down to nothing in the locker room? Do they really mean it when they say you have to shower before going in the pool???

I'm feeling all reflective.

2008-12-31T10:09:00.000-05:00

2008 is just about dunzo. I'm spending my last day of the year in my favorite fleece pants from 10th grade, sipping coffee to keep me going into the wee hours of the morning, and eating pancakes while I watch 8 inches of snow pile up outside my window.

I'd say it was a good year. I made what turned out to be a good career move that ended up with me teaching 3rd grade, which is a goal I've had since I was 8. I bought a new car, and started on the long process of paying off car loans and grad school loans (not fun, but the sooner I start, the sooner I'm done!). I learned new words and phrases in two languages (including "wash your hands," "sit down," and "Do you have to pee?" in Hebrew for my days teaching at a Jewish preschool, and relearned a lot of Spanish vocabulary to help out at parent conferences at my new school). I ended a relationship that was not going to go anywhere, and felt good about it eventually. I officiated a wedding ceremony. I ran in my second 10K. I was more careful to use sunscreen. I read several really good books (and some really bad books).

I like New Years a lot, but this year it seems like it all of a sudden happened and I didn't even see it coming. We all procrastinated on making plans, and then I just got back from Florida a day ago and realized there were still no plans. We worked something out last night, and I think it will be fun.

Every year I make the same new years resolutions...exercise more regularly, eat less candy, talk to my brother more often, and be nicer to my parents. They're not really resolutions, I think, because it's stuff that I should be doing and I'm aware of it all year, but then another year goes by and I realize that I'm still going through a bag of mint M&Ms in under 3 days, and snapping at my parents on the phone because I'm tired and cranky. I suppose I'll still keep those as my resolutions this year because I think they're good things to do, but this year I have a new resolution: learn to cook one new meal each month. I think it's totally doable. I probably cooked more new things my senior year of college because it was the first time I had a kitchen, and because Losure was constantly cooking up weird concoctions. I actually even started on this goal a little bit early! I got a gift of a Greek cookbook and a cool apron last week, so last night I made some Greek potatoes and chicken with lemon. It turned out tasty...even Kate ate it! I have a bunch of other cookbooks that have sat in dust on the shelves for a long time and I'm sure I'll take them out soon, but I'm especially anxious to dive into my Greek cookbook because it has a bunch of recipes that the old Greek ladies on my term abroad in Athens used to cook for lunch!

Happy Oh Nine!

Ouch?

2008-12-23T17:20:00.000-05:00

This is going to be embarrassing.

A little back story.
This weekend, Kate and I watched one of my top 3 favorite celebrity chefs, Paula Deen. I love her because she somehow manages to get 3 sticks of butter and at least 1 pound of bacon in every single recipe. Paula made some amazing looking Creme de menthe brownies, so Kate said I had to make them if I had a snow day again on Monday. Of course, Monday I had a snow day, so I shoveled and shoveled and shoveled and shoveled, then chipped away at ice with a dinky plastic shovel for an hour, and then I made two batches of brownies. Half of one batch went to a teacher I work with, and the other half of that batch went with Kate to work (for all I know, she ate them all in the car on her way to work). The second batch, the really good ones because Kate reminded me to mix in the Andes mints before putting the batter in the pan, and because they went in a smaller pan so they're really thick, stayed with us at the apartment.

I got home today, grabbed a shiny knife, and went straight for the 2nd batch of thick, minty brownies. Only I couldn't get the knife through. Muscles I didn't even know I had in my shoulder and arm were totally sore, rendering me unable to get the chocolately goodness.

I hacked it out with a fork instead.

Snow day Part 3?

2008-12-22T21:43:00.000-05:00

I got my wish, and had another snow today today. It was pretty great, except for the 45 minutes in the morning, and hour in the afternoon, that I spent trying to break my car free from the ice cube it was stuck in. Last night the plows pushed a ton of slush all around my car, and since it only got up to about 20 degrees today, my car remained frozen in ice until some very nice man saw me chipping away with my plastic shovel and looking angrier and angrier by the minute. He had an ice pick with him, and in 5 minutes he had all of the ice chopped so I could shovel most of it away. I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

All of the cities around the city where I teach, including Boston, have already cancelled school for tomorrow, but mine still hasn't. I've become kind of greedy. It would actually be a good day to be at school...we have an assembly in the morning, I planned on playing a few games of vocabulary bingo and have awesome eraser prizes, and I have a writing project I wanted to finish up before vacation. I also got a bunch of wintery/Christmasy pencils to give them. Third graders LOVE fun pencils. And if i that's not present enough, I also have a ton of homework to give my kids over vacation. I kind of hate the thought of them sitting around for almost 2 weeks and forgetting everything they've learned in math in the past month if I don't get to give it to them (I'm not the only mean teacher! All of the 3rd grade teachers are giving the same "vacation math packet!") To top it off, I have a lot to do in my classroom and to pack up with me to work on over the break, so it would be nice to get all of that.

However, despite all of that, I've kind of thought how nice it would be to spend another low-key day at home, even though I'll have almost 2 weeks of vacation after tomorrow. Plus, it's going to be really really cold again, and my pink fleece pants are just so warm. That little kid excitement of "SNOW DAY!!!!!!" when you find out the news is still in me too. Typical of my "I'll worry about it later" mentality, I can't really be bothered yet about thinking that I'll be making up all of these days at the end of June when I'm antsy to get to the beach.

2008-12-20T17:19:00.001-05:00

I spent today in mourning.

In the morning, when I woke to about 9 inches of snow, I mourned over the fact that I no longer drive this beastly thing:

That picture of course is not my car.... but I no longer drive my Explorer because it...

A) Was purple
B) Had several big dents on the top and side from where a tree fell on it last year during a winter storm
C) Had a busted rear bumper from an accident last spring

So now I drive a little red Corolla, and I have no idea how to drive in snow without 4 wheel drive. And I hated the fact that I had to spend a long time actually shovelling my car out of its parking spot. After previous snowstorms, I could just half-shovel out my car, and the beast-ness of of car would get me out of any snow bank.

Eventually I got over missing my old car and went to get a hair cut. And then I spent the rest of the day mourning my hair, or lack thereof. I have pseudo-bangs now. And right before I head to Florida next week to see my entire family who hasn't seen me since I was 13 and again had bangs. Excellent.

More snow again tomorrow. Is it too much to wish for another snow day on Monday, to make this a four-day weekend?

Gross Out

2008-12-16T17:28:00.000-05:00

There was projectile vomit in my class today, on my floor, during my math lesson. It was awful.

Just wanted to share.

The joints are getting achy.

2008-12-15T18:55:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like being around children to make you feel old.

--When we studied place value in my class, the kids had to show the year that they were born using place value blocks (you know, like the small cubes to show 1, then 10 of those cubes in a line to show ten, then 10 of the sticks to show 100, etc?). As I gave them paper for homework I thought, "How fun! I want to do it too!" But then their homework came back the next day, and all but a few who were born in 1999 just drew two big squares, for 2000. Most of my class was not alive in the 1900s!

--One of my students was reading a biography of Rosa Parks, and jumped out of her seat to come over to me. "Ms. Gross! There's a picture of President Clinton giving Rosa Parks an award in 1996! That's before even my brother was born!"

--I told my class that I didn't have a cell phone until I was in high school. Their jaws dropped open. Despite the fact that I teach in a very low income city, more than half claim to have a cell phone.

--Today in the computer lab my class was looking at an historical society website for the city I teach in. There was a massive fire in the early 1900s that destroyed more than half of the city, so most of my students spent their time reading about the fire. I still have a lot to teach them about our city's history, so this was mostly brand new information, and they were fascinated. One of my girls came over to me, so excited to make a connection, and told me it was like when the Twin Towers fell down. She told me with amazement that her mom was actually alive then (like I had no idea...) and had told her how everyone was so sad.

My Sunday, in pictures

2008-12-07T21:07:00.000-05:00

Christmas has arrived here in Charlestown. Kate came out of her room earlier than usual this morning, already dressed and showered and much happier than usual, so I knew today was the day we were getting our Christmas tree. We again took advantage of our tall ceilings and got and 8-9 footer. It's pretty. Kate says it's a boy and his name is Simon.

We took out our box of ornaments and decorations. Some of them are 4 years old already.

We listened to a Christmas playlist that Kate made. It included some of my favorites, like Dominic the Italian Donkey!!

Then Kate began putting on the lights.

Kate really got in the Christmas spirit, as you can tell. She didn't like me taking pictures.

After the lights, we made sugar cookies. While they were baking, we finished with the rest of the ornaments. It's one snazzy looking tree. Unfortunately, I still don't really know how to use all of the settings on my camera.

I took pictures of a few of my favorites.

By the time we were finished, our cookies were ready to eat!

The End

Whew.

2008-12-02T17:41:00.000-05:00

Oh Thanksgiving. I'm glad you're over.

I don't remember the last time I ate so much for 4 consecutive days (yes, my family stretches the binge eating to last about half a week). I wasn't just stuffing my face with food either; I was stuffing my face with the unhealthiest food I could find. On Saturday, with 2 days of eating under my belt and 2 days left, I was too full for lunch and had to get ready for a giant dinner with more company, so I had a very nutritious lunch that consisted of garlic bread and stuffing. YUM.

To top off this weekend, I can't think of a time when I was more relieved to get back to my own apartment and routines. Eric and Katherine were visiting, so I was obligated to stay at my parents' house and take part in lots of family stuff (like meals and museum trips), and it was a lot of time together.

My mother. Drove. Me. Nuts.

After listening to her talk non-stop with E and K about their upcoming wedding, I've decided I'm never getting married. There's no way I can go through all of that.

After it all, I wasn't as sad to go back to work as I should have. But then my principal decided to kick off the Monday morning back by observing me, unannounced, for nearly 40 minutes. During which I have a really hard time making sense because all of the blood goes to my head and I can't concentrate. Oh and then? Someone in my class wrote "Carla is a bitch," with spelling mistakes, on the girls' bathroom wall. And since no one will confess, all 45 of them are missing recess until the culprit is found. Once the kids were gone though, I kind of had to laugh. Carla can kind of be a bitch.

Breaking News

2008-11-26T21:23:00.000-05:00

I have just moved Thanksgiving up one place, surpassing Halloween as my new favorite holiday.

"BOSTON -- Tom Brady says he's doing well in his recovery from knee surgery.

The New England Patriots quarterback made an unpublicized appearance Wednesday with his girlfriend, model Gisele Bundchen, at the annual Goodwill Thanksgiving dinner in Boston where they served food.

He told Channel 5 that he's "doing well" more than two months after a season-ending injury to his left knee in the opener. He also said Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday."

Why did the police arrest the turkey?

2008-11-26T21:11:00.000-05:00

It was suspected of "fowl" play.

Hahaha. I've got more.

Why can't you take a turkey to church?

Because it uses such fowl language...

I can't help it. I love Thanksgiving, just about as much as Halloween.

Can I do this too?

2008-11-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

You may have already seen this, but Kate pointed it out to me and has been quoting lines from it for the past 72 hours so I thought I'd share in case you missed it.

What do you do when you don't want to pay a bill?

Bad Teacher

2008-11-24T20:40:00.000-05:00

I changed my mind about what I was going to write about tonight. Last week I got an unusually large number of "You're the best teacher in the world Ms. Gross!!!" cards and signs. I'm not sure why the big increase, since I actually thought I was kind of mean last week, but my only guess is that we had a lot of indoor recess because it was so cold, and the girls got bored and made me pictures. Some of them were good, and flattering (my hair looks awesome in one...) so I thought I'd post a few of my favorites.

But then today happened, and I didn't feel worthy of posting all of the greatest teacher ever pictures.

My class went on a field trip to the science museum with the rest of the 3rd grade. We're only allowed to bring two parent chaperones, which is kind of lousy because I had six parents who wanted to come, and two who took the day off only to find out that I couldn't have them come. It is also kind of lousy because it means that I have to split my class into three groups of 8 kids each, which is a lot to ask a parent to do, especially in a place like the crazy museum. Luckily my kids are pretty well-behaved and I knew I wouldn't have any trying to climb up walls.

Well, shortly before we had to meet for a show with the rest of the 3rd grade, I was waiting for my little group to use the bathroom, when I heard/saw another group from my class screaming and running toward me down the escalator, with no parent in sight. As they got closer I heard, "A. is lost! A. is lost!!" The chaperone finally appeared, and didn't seem at all concerned which made me extremely upset. What made me more angry was that she also had not told any of the museum workers that there was a missing kid, and had no idea where she had actually lost the kid, and couldn't tell me how long ago. She speaks mostly Spanish, so her daughter translated for me when I asked the last place she had seen her, but her daughter told me it was the room with the computers (great, since every exhibit has computers...). It turned into a big hassle where I had 4 museum employees with me talking to the other guys on headphones, and then got her paged. Finally I took my kids to the show, where I found out that another 3rd grade teacher had found her wandering by herself (thank god for my school's uniforms) and took her. It was great that it all worked out, but I was angry for the rest of what had been a nice trip so far, and I was definitely not so nice to my kids for the rest of the time (and counted them every minute for the rest of the day). When I got back to school I had to tell the principal that I lost someone, and then called the student's parents, so it was all not fun since I knew I was the one responsible, but it was a bad chaperone who could have been a little more careful.

Let's see if I get any "Great teacher" posters during tomorrow's rainy indoor recess.

Turns out I'm STILL not 19 anymore

2008-11-23T21:39:00.000-05:00

I'm in a fantastic mood. I only have two days of school this week (and Monday is a field trip all day to the Museum of Science), and then it's Thanksgiving, which is my second favorite holiday. Also, this weekend I got a cable box in my bedroom after a year of having 8 channels in my room, so it's amazing (what's even more amazing is that I'm completely inept when it comes to hooking up anything TV, VCR, or DVD related, but somehow I hooked up the cable box at 3AM last night while wasted, and it works). Aaand, we got a DVR in our apartment at the same time. I haven't really fooled around with the DVR aspect of it yet, but that's because we got like 300 (literally) more channels somehow with it. I have a feeling we'll have them for about a week and then Comcast will pull them out from under our feet and Kate will cry for days because she misses her 90210 marathons on Soapnet. Anyway, it's enough little fun things to make a Sunday a lot better than usual.

This little baby equals a whole lot of lazy mornings in bed from now on.

I had a crazy Saturday night yesterday, which was not at all planned to be that way, but always seems to happen when all of us get together with Jeff's friends. After a fancy birthday dinner (where I was the classy one guzzling Bud Light while others enjoyed their wine and margaritas), I joined up with Kate and Caitlin at BHP. We hadn't been there since July!! I ordered the first round of Bud Lights from a new bartender, but not draughts like usual. The old bartender walked over and said, "What prompted the change?" and explained to the horrified new bartender, who thought he had screwed up, that we always order Bud Light draughts. Anyway, Caitlin, Kate, and I enjoyed some girly talk for a little while before joining up with Jeff's crew, where the night turned sloppy due to our regretful decision to play Shoulders and Never Have I Ever. I'm not sure how we ended up playing both, or why we didn't seem to care that we played Never Have I Ever for a solid 2 hours in the bar. It's clear some of us lack social skills.

Anyway, I again realized I'm too old to have nights like that. I slept until 10 today (hours later than I can usually sleep on a weekend), and spent the entire day horizontal on the couch, with a nap for half of the Pats game.

Happy endings, like at Friendlys

2008-11-16T16:46:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I find myself believing that as I'm watching a movie, the events in the movie will be different from the last time I saw the movie. The first time I realized that I did this was when I watched Titanic for the second time, and Jack was clinging to the chunk of ice. I had a faint glimmer of hope the ending would be different, and that he was going to get rescued, and then he and Rose would both get on some boat and get back to dry land and marry and have babies. But he froze to death on that ice cube, again.
This weekend I watched The Break Up. I saw the movie a year ago and it made me sad because I thought it would be a fun cheesy romantic comedy and Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston would finally get together in the end. And then the don't. And then they meet up at the VERY end, and they STILL don't get back together. So, when I watched it this weekend, I couldn't help but feel optimistic when they run into each other in the last minute of the movie. I thought, "Hooray! Maybe this time they'd realize they were both right for each other! They'll move back in together! They'll make babies! They'll be happy!" But that didn't happen this time in the movie either.
Am I completely crazy? Does any of this make sense? Is there anything else I can find to do to put off doing all of my work for school any longer?

I have a big crush on Vince Vaughn in this movie.

Bicycles

2008-11-09T19:23:00.000-05:00

I'm sort of in love with the Obamas. I kind of want to be in their family. I have a little bit of a crush on Barack, and I haven't felt this way about a president since I was in fourth grade and had a crush on Woodrow Wilson. Yeah, I'm not sure about that one either.

Many of you may already know the website Barack Obama Is My New Bicycle but while I procrastinated writing this week's lesson plans tonight I found a whole bunch of other "bicycle" website that exist.

My favorite is Michelle Obama Is My New Bicycle because she apparently read Good Night Moon and tucked me in, but John McCain Is My New Bicycle and Ron Paul Is My New Bicycle are pretty good too.

The arthritis makes it hard to flip quickly.

2008-11-09T17:59:00.001-05:00

This weekend I pretended I was 19. Only it was very apparent that I'm not anymore.

I got signed up to be on a flip cup team and play in a flip cup tournament at a bar. It seemed like a fantastically horrible idea.

The day started early. We had to be at the bar by 2 on Saturday. Getting off the T I knew it would be a bad situation, when we ran into a group of people, who could barely pass for 21, in uniforms. Head to toe fluourescent pink. Black sweatbands. Logos on the front of their shirts. Names on the back. One had was designated the captain with a "C" on his shirt. And then we saw another team, wearing matching t-shirts, and again with sweatbands. Kate and I had been considering wearing t-shirts and sweatshirts, because it seemed like that's what you do when you start drinking at 2 on a Saturday.

We got into the bar and realized that the average age was about 22, which was a solid 8 years younger that the majority of our team. Naturally, there was a team of guys from Union. And naturally, the wore their Springfest t-shirts, and they were loud, and they were good. There were 32 teams in all, and we found our competition listed on the brackets. We had about an hour to wait until our first round game, so we enjoyed a few pitches of PBR to settle our nerves. All we could drink until 6 PM! What a great idea!

We finally got to play our game, and luckily we played against the team that was closest to our age. They all wore fake mustaches for some reason, and matching t-shirts.

We killed them. Each round was best of 7 games, and we won handedly 4-1.

By that time we were feeling a lot better. The beer was kicking in, and we were feeling more confident and a whole lot less nervous. Then I went outside while Kate smoked and realized, it's sunny and 3:30 and I'm drunk.

We played our second game against another team that barely looked 21, and again had matching t-shirts with their names on the back. They killed us, but they weren't good. The girls, Kate and me, held our own. The boys looked like they learned to play flip cup yesterday. We got swept.

But we still had two hours left in the competition, so we enjoyed our "free" pitchers of cheap beer and became just a group of people getting wasted in the middle of the day. We stumbled out of the bar at 6 and found the closest place with nachos.

I passed out shortly after 10 o'clock. I'm definitely not in college anymore.

I'm feeling patriotic today.

2008-11-05T18:14:00.000-05:00

What a day. I was excited about the idea of having our first black president, but hadn't quite realized how powerful it would be to see it actually happen. Two years ago, I never thought we would see a black president "this soon." For the first time in awhile (with the exception of every 4th of July when I get a patriotic spike), I felt really good about our country today. It's good to finally elect a president that I voted for.

Yesterday I gave my kids a homework assignment of finding out who is elected president. Before they were even in my room this morning they were yelling out who was chosen (of course, some were too excited about this, and neglected to do their actual spelling homework..). I hadn't talked too much about the election with them because it's not something that's covered in the 3rd grade curriculum and I have zero time to teach anything that's not in the curriculum. Surprisingly though, they knew a lot about it and were really interested. So, I shut my classroom door and deviated from my planned literacy lesson, and we had a great ten minute talk about when Obama will become president, why we have government, vice presidents, why other countries have kings, etc. We talked about why he made history, and why it's important that our country has its first black president. Because I teach in a city with a gigantic Hispanic population, I'm not sure if my class realizes that they're all minorities. But with their knowledge about the election's impact I'm guessing more than a few parents have emphasized their happiness at finally getting a president other than an old white guy.

Oh, and good job to Massachusetts voters for not getting rid of the income tax. I'd like to keep my job next year.

Obamaaaaaah!

2008-10-29T18:36:00.000-04:00

Wait! One more post!

I went searching on youtube for a video I saw on Molly's facebook page about a baby chanting Obama at a rally.

But while I was looking for it, I found a whole lot of videos of babies who are big supporters of Obama. In fact, there's a whole "Babies for Obama" world out there.

Here's one of my favorites.

Followed closely behind by this one:

Getting the little people pumped up

2008-10-29T18:20:00.001-04:00

Have I mentioned recently how excited I am that Halloween is so soon? Most teachers dread Halloween, but I'm really looking forward to it for a few reasons.
1) I've spent two years teaching at a school where Halloween wasn't celebrated or recognized. I wore my Halloween socks to school the second year when I was feeling braver, but hid them under my longest pair of pants.
2)I love the holiday, so I love that my kids are excited! I'm kind of feeding into it by reading Halloween poems with them on Friday, and buying them Halloween pencils for a special treat. We're not allowed to have food in the classrooms, and pencils are a hot commodity for some reason (they get stolen constantly), so I figured some ghost pencils would be really fun.
3)We're having a pumpkin contest at school! My school has some of the lowest test scores in the state so we don't get to deviate much from the curriculum and do fun stuff, so I'm happy that I get to do something that helps make school fun. Granted, we'll be staying inside during recess to decorate our pumpkin and write a biography, but it's kind of chilly this week anyway. But the biggest reason is...
4)Halloween is a Friday night. I won't have to see my kids until 60 hours after the initial candy rush.

Pilgrims and Pirates

2008-10-27T17:28:00.000-04:00

My monday got off to a funny start. I was teaching writing to all 46 kids, and surprisingly had a good conversation going about writing captions to go with pictures in non-fiction. We were looking at a picture of a Pilgrim family having a meal, and we were brainstorming ideas to write for the caption. The end of conversation went something like this.
Boy #1: "The family is eating dinner."
Me: "We need to be specific. Look closely, what are they eating?"
Boy #2: "Turkey!"
Girl #1: "There's pie!"
Girl #2: "The Pilgrims are eating guacamole!"

I had a hard time not laughing. Sometimes I forget that almost the entire class comes from a family from Central & South America, until one suggests that the Pilgrims feasted on guac.

Thank you god for Squanto, and for our tortilla chips and guacamole.

Last week I changed my mind about my Halloween costume. I was really, really excited about the mummy idea. But then Kate told me it's going to look bad. And since Kate clearly knows all there is to know about Halloween, I decided to look for something different.

I headed out to iParty. The costumes there are ridiculous. The women's costumes were so slutty (I didn't really want to be a sexy convict in an orange mini-skirt), and the men's costumes were just rauncy. I actually looked in the teen section thinking they might be a little better, but they weren't. I don't think costumes were this bad when I was little, but maybe I don't remember. My mom made all of our costumes (the best was the year when my brother and I were a frog and a penguin), and once I got too old for full-body costumes to look cute, I still made my costumes by piecing together stuff I already owned or buying individual parts.

Anyway, I eventually found a pirate costume I liked. Except they had it in two sizes, and both seemed like they'd be too big. So I continued wandering, until I found the same costume in the girl's section, right between two costumes from High School Musical. Minus the fact that it shows a bit more of my belly than I'd like if I'm not at the beach, the costume is great. I headed over to target and picked up a "pirate pack," which includes a hook hand, sword, earring, and eye patch. Now the question is, do I bring the hook or the sword? I'll need one hand for a beer.

Dilemma

2008-10-22T18:11:00.001-04:00

Every once in awhile I see stories on the news of those bad, bad teachers who have bad, bad relationships with students. Now with Facebook and Myspace and everything, it gets even trickier because teachers are friends with their students on those sites, and lines get all blurry. Everytime I see those stories I feel thankful that I am never planning on teaching people older than 12, and should therefore never run into this problem.

But yesterday I got a Facebook 'friend request' and then a follow-up message from a name that sounded familiar. I then realized it was a former summer school student. This student is on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, and was 13 when I taught him 6 summers ago. This past summer, he attended a summer program at the school where I was teaching summer school. I recognized him immediately, but didn't know if he'd recognize me until he walked right up to me and said, "Hey Stace!" He has an incredible memory, so it shouldn't have been that surprising.

So. Yesterday he sent a nice facebook message telling me how he graduated from high school, and about the lifeskills program he's attending now, and how he enjoyed summer school. I'm certainly not going to accept his friend request, but I can't decide whether or not to send him a message back. I want to tell him that I'm happy to hear that he's doing so well, but I don't want to cross that line by sending an email to a former student, even though I know there's no chance of being his teacher again. Can you do that? Is it a bad idea? Am I better off ignoring him, or is it harmless to send a message back?

Costumes

2008-10-14T19:28:00.000-04:00

I love love LOOOVVVVE Halloween. And I don't understand people who don't like the holiday. You get to eat lots of candy for weeks before and after the date, you wear costumes, and you have fun, crazy decorations like spider webs. Also, you can do the "fun" kind of scary things, like the Simpsons Halloween special, which is scary but not really scary, so you can still fall asleep at night and not worry about someone climbing in through your window to get you.

However, when I reached the age of adult Halloween parties, I realized that I never got the memo that girls are supposed to dress...differently. I finally got the hint when I watched "Mean Girls" a few years back, and Lindsay Lohan set me straight. Even so, I've spent the past two years arriving at Halloween parties and then realizing that I had the most clothes on our of all of the girls there, with th exception of Caitlin, because she and I had planned our costumes together. There was a few years of dressing up in a gigantic whoopie cushion costume, then my 4th/5th grade girl scout uniform, and then last year I topped it all by being a nun.

Yes, I'm standing with an abortion doctor in the 3rd picture.

So last November 1st, I decided that my goal for the next Halloween would be to wear less clothing. I stressed out all Sunday trying to think of something good, and I think I came up with it. I'm going to be a mummy, but not one of those mummies that's wrapped up head to toe. I got what I think is a good idea here:

I like it because hopefully I'll be the only mummy at the party (I had been planning for months to be Sarah Palin, until I heard there was going to be another Sarah Palin there, and that the girl had dressed up as Tina Fey last year). And I think I can make the whole costume for $20 or less, depending on what I find for a skirt/shirt to go underneath the wraps. Oh, and I get to use a glue gun to make my costume!

What do you think? Any other ideas???

2008-10-10T17:22:00.001-04:00

I'm bad with this blog thing lately. By lately, I mean the last year and a half.

But I'm writing because I have big news. You know how some people all of a sudden have a huge enlightening religious moment? Like, someone accepts Jesus? Well, last week, I reached my own enlightening moment. I accepted fall into my life. I spent almost 26.5 years (yikes...someone asked how old I was the other day and I said 23) thinking that I hated fall. And I did. I hated that summer was over. I hated to put away summer clothes. I hated being cold all the time for about 6 months, and having numbs hands and feet constantly. I hate when the leaves change color because it means they're just going to fall off. I hate that summer vacation ends. I hated saying goodbye to flipflops.

But last Friday, I walked to downtown to meet up with Caitlin and Jeff for drinks and Sox. I liked that it was cool, but not too cold and I was comfy in my fleece and not getting sweaty for once as I walked over the Charlestown bridge like I did all summer. And I was thinking about the fact that I had just bought pumpkin muffin mix, and had a bunch of apples to make applesauce with. And, I was excited that I was heading the next day to Philadelphia to essentially kick off Halloween season by going to Molly's sister-in-law's birthday costume party. I had also just bought a lot of candy corn and broke out the Halloween candy bowls. And, I was really excited that I was going to watch the Sox in a playoff game. There's something especially cozy about seeing sox fans all bundled up at Fenway like they're getting ready to hibernate after a hot season. Plus, if Sox fans are all bundled up, it means good things for the Sox and the length of their playoff run. All of a sudden I though, "Wait, I like fall!" I was excited about lots of things happening, and not freezing, and I decided that fall isn't so bad.

It also helps that it got into the 70s today. I'm off to watch game 1 of the ALCS...go Sox.

2 down, 178 to go

2008-08-28T19:03:00.001-04:00

So today was the second day of school, and it's great so far. With the exception of one boy and one girl who I think will drive me crazy by next week, my class is awesome. Someone even picked me flowers/weeds at recess this afternoon. My lessons have mostly been going well, and with the use of some minor threats, I managed to keep all 23 of them absolutely silent for five minutes as they waited in the hallway taking turns at the bathroom today. I've made a huge deal about how great it is to be in third grade because you're so grown up, and so they're all excited about the planners I gave them to write their homework in, and even about the fact that I'll be giving them homework every night and on weekends. Being 8 or 9 is just about the coolest thing ever.

The only little glitch in today was when I was collecting my class on the playground after recess, and all of a sudden my sandal broke. I felt just a wee bit unprofessional about the idea of walking around wearing only one shoe even in my own room, so I hobbled around for the next 3 hours trying to grip the sandal with my toes. It wasn't pretty. I tripped on the rug twice during my math lesson, which led to gasps from my suck-up table of girls and "Are you ok Ms. G???"

Even Miss America falls. At least I stayed on my feet.

Eats leaves and shoots

2008-08-22T16:59:00.004-04:00

I can't stand when people older than 12 make silly grammar mistakes. At the top of my list is when people add an apostrophe when changing a word to plural form. But I also get irritated when people mix of your/you're, their/there, and its/it's.

On the other hand, I LOVE finding typos in published stuff that's supposedly edited, like books and things like that.

So, I found THIS pretty amazing. These guys are pretty cool, and one is from my old (and Obama's old) neighborhood!

This post isn't going to be interesting to anyone but me.

2008-08-21T20:18:00.000-04:00

I've been very sad that summer is ending. It means getting back into a regular routine (for some reason I treated summer school as a pretend job--going to bed late a lot, and getting a little lazy about my teaching), and it also means the sad goodbye to warm weather and summer clothing. Today was my first day back at work, filled with new teacher orientation and training and meetings up until next week's first day of school. While I was getting ready this morning all I could think about was "Oh goddddddd how can summer be done??!?!" (I whined a lot in my head). And I wasn't excited about going back. But then I got there, and hadn't really thought about the fact that I'd see some friends at work who also got new positions over the summer, or the fact that there were a few new teachers at my school that I hadn't met yet. So it turned out to be a lot of fun! Plus, I'm kind of a sucker for corniness, as are many teachers. The superintendent of course realizes this and began his speech with some inspiring message and stories and quotations, and so now I'm all eager to get my students in the room and start changing the world.

But wait. The day gets even better. I decided to do a little bit of work in my classroom after the meetings, and when I got in I found that a brand new rug had been delivered to my room for meetings on the floor (and it's so clean and pretty...) and all of my classroom supplies had been delivered. I had a gigantic mess of brand new dry-erase markers and erasers, pencils, pink erasers, pens, crayons, staples, tape, and all that other fun stuff. Plus a big pile of 3rd grade composition notebooks (they're red!) and math workbooks (which smell amazing, like new workbooks do).

Clearly I've been on vacation for far too long if this is the kind of stuff that makes my day.

Mishmash

2008-08-13T22:11:00.001-04:00

I haven't blogged in a long time (again) because I've had 80 thousand thoughts going through my head and couldn't decide what to write about, so I wrote about nothing. So, I decided it was time to get my thoughts out, only it's going to come as one big rambling mess right now.

Kerrin's wedding was this weekend. And it was weird, because it was Kerrin! Becoming a wife! And I've known her since we were 7, and I went to her 8th birthday party, which was a "tea party" theme and we had to come in our mom's dresses. Her wedding kind of felt like that--dressing up and pretending and having fun while doing both. But Kerrin looked amazing and the wedding was beautiful and my dress didn't fall down and expose everyone, so I'd consider it a success. Plus, I stayed away from beer all day (minus one in the limo from the church to reception), and I managed to drink steadily for almost 12 hours. I think I'm on to something.

I like this one because it looks like I'm a stunning 5'9". But Caitlin and I are actually the same height--I was just standing on a step with the other two.

Around hour 5 of drinking, a ride on the playground airplane was just about the greatest thing ever

In other news, I feel like I'm bipolar these days, or maybe have multiple personalities. I have different thoughts about my new job going through my head about 85% of the day lately. But I go back and forth between "Ohgod-ohgod-ohgod-ohgod-ohgod-ohgod-ohgod-ohgod" to "I think I can do this." But during the "Oh god" stretches, it's a pretty awful feeling. I keep thinking of stuff--some big, some little--that I hadn't even realized I had to do before the first day of school. Like, I should probably put the kids' birthdays up on a door in my room to make it look a little more homey because I'm keeping most of the bulletin boards naked for the beginning of school. And that's easy, but it'll take a little bit of time to write down 46 names and birthdays. Or a bigger project I realized is to sort through all of the books I'm putting in my classroom library and categorize them by content and difficulty. I'm not that familiar with a whole lot of 3rd grade chapter books, so that's going to take way more time than it should.

Finally, I'm so stressed out, and when I get stressed out I don't pick up after myself, which only makes me feel more stressed out.
In case you forgot, I did the same thing during the end of each semester of grad school, as seen below:

Now ordinarily I might make an effort to clean up a bit more so as not to make my roommate jump out the window, Swiffer in hand, but my roommate is off in China for the week. Just like the old pictures above, I've created piles all over the apartment. I've got a pile of books the principal left me about teaching English language learners, another pile with binders of the 3rd grade curriculum in my city, and piles of mail I need to sort through, plus a bag of veggies from my parents' garden, and stuff I haven't unpacked yet from this past weekend. It's a disaster. But I figure that Kate will be so tired from a week without pima, that she won't even notice until the middle of next week. Just as long as the piles don't creep down the stairs to her room.

Choo Choo

2008-07-28T21:17:00.001-04:00

After almost 8 months away, I've decided to get back on the blogging train. I can't say that I know it will last, as I tend to start lot of activities in the summer when I feel ambitious (puzzles, avid reading, exercise) only to drop them in September. But I hope to write at least more than once every 8 months, if just to ensure I don't become illiterate.

I was mostly inspired by Molly to start writing again, because in my hiatus, Molly started her own blog about what's happening in her life. And Molly is pretty influential in my life. Like the time she asked if I wanted to wear her nicotine patch, and since there was that one time when I took a few puffs of a cigarette, I said yes. You can't be too careful when it comes to addictions, afterall.

Last week I got a new job. I'm going to be a third grade teacher in less than a month, which is completely exciting and completely horrifying at the same time, and my brain doesn't really know what to do with it. I was ambitious with my teaching in what I wanted to do in the classroom while student teaching and shortly after finishing grad school. But then I spent two years (cough, preschool, cough) realizing that I was working in a place where I could do little work and get by, while still looking like an ok teacher. So I'm trying to adjust now to the idea that just "getting by" doesn't exactly fly in a public elementary school. Nevermind a public elementary school where 80% of the kids don't speak English at home.

I'm also thinking back to my elementary school days, when third grade was my all-time favorite grade because I loved my teacher. And I wonder what my class would think if they knew their teacher was spending her summer with nights like this:

July has, for some reason, been filled with an unreasonable amount of flip cup, beirut, and nights that end with pictures like these.

December stuff.

2007-12-09T20:38:00.000-05:00

The holiday season has hit the apartment, as evidence by the fact that I somehow get a mouthful of Xmas tree needles nearly every time I grab a handful of mint M&Ms.

The tree has finally finished "unfurling." It's huge. And it looks pretty cool.

See for yourself.

Kate did all the hard work. I ate M&Ms.

It's big!

The flying pig is my favorite again this year

Right after we took this picture, we sang Christmas carols around the fireplace.

And, it's the 6th night of Hanukkah. Bring on the presents.

It's going to snow soon!!!

O (giant) Christmas Tree

2007-12-02T21:35:00.000-05:00

Today Kate and I went to Home Depot, the land of Christmas trees. Our new living room is gigantic, with enormous ceilings, so we looked for the biggest tree we could find.

We knew instantly when we had found one that was a solid foot higher than the rest, and so big that the two of us could barely get it to the car.

But when we plopped it in the living room, and cut off the ties holding it together, we realized it was the most gigantic tree, ever. Seriously, out of the history of trees.

I've glanced over at it periodically throughout the day as it's unfurling, and each time, it has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. I'm worried that some branches will make their way into my bedroom by the time I wake up tomorrow.

Really. It's huge.

We elves try to stick to the 4 main food groups...

2007-11-29T23:58:00.000-05:00

Did you know that Kate and I are having a housewarming/holiday/potluck party on December 14th? Did you know that it's going to be a classy party, because we're classy girls, and because we don't live in the dumps anymore? Did you know that we're going to have a large Christmas tree? Did you know that Kate will be wearing an ugly Christmas sweater? And did you know that there's a high probability that the two of us will be performing this dance that evening? Turn the sound up when you watch the video...it's pretty amazing.

Turkey is just so good.

2007-11-18T23:56:00.000-05:00

October through November is my favorite time of year, outside of the spring and summer. I have a hard time deciding whether Halloween or Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. But I'm pretty excited about the upcoming three-day work week, and three pretty tasty dinners planned for next weekend. Is it wrong to get so excited about a week revolving around food? I didn't think so either.

It was a pretty eventful day in the new apartment. After weeks of worrying whether a new couch would fit in the apartment, it made it in, with minimal damage! And Kate and I didn't need to manuever it through the doorway, instead watching some manly men lift it over the staircase and slide it in. And I got to see Kate do a U-turn with the moving truck. That was probably the highlight.

There are still piles of boxes and trashbags scattered around each room of the apartment, but it's finally starting to come together! It's so good that it's making me want to skip work just so I can sit at home and look around the apartment all day. Perhaps you should visit with a bottle of wine in hand, or a Miller fridge pack?

'Ween 2007

2007-11-02T00:35:00.000-04:00

I love, love, love Halloween. It reminds me of being a kid. And what's not to like about lots of candy? And dressing up? This year I got a costume at the last minute, and as a result, I was a nun (Molly, I'm practicing for your wedding!). After being a girl scout last year, and a nun this year, I'm going to try really hard to remember next year that girls aren't supposed to wear that much clothes on Halloween.

We're sort of all moved into the new apartment, and I was pretty excited to potentially have trick-or-treaters this year. I went out and got a lot of candy a few nights ago, though I realized about an hour later (after I had eaten a good portion from each of the bags) that neither of us would be home for most of the trick-or-treating hours. But I was still pretty happy to hold down the fort from 5:30 to 6 last night. So when the doorbell rang and I heard a pack of noisy kids outside, I was a bit disappointed to find 5 kids ranging in age from about 11 to 16, one without a costume and holding a plastic bag from the supermarket, and people who appeared to be parents, videotaping the whole thing. I think I need to move to the suburbs by next October.

Shipping off to Boston

2007-10-24T00:47:00.000-04:00

On Sunday night I knew that the Sox were going to win and go on to the World Series when I found my watch in the washing machine. It had been missing for almost a week, and it stresses me out to not know the time constantly, so I knew things were headed up when it turned up there.

Anyway, I know I haven't blogged for a month and a half. But the idea has made me hold my hands to my neck and feel like I'm going crazy, so stop bothering me now that I am.

In the past month...

I came close to throwing children in my class out the window at least 24 times. My class is so bad. It makes me hate children. At least children under 5. My devil child who speaks only french and hebrew has decided he loves to run up to other kids when they're standing and waiting at the door, and crash into them to smush their faces into the glass. He also keeps trying to climb a tree on the playground to escape, and he has a grip of steel so I have a hard time pulling him off of the tree.

I got a new apartment! I've been slowly moving somethings in, but I move in officially this weekend. I'm excited because my new place has a closet INSIDE my bedroom, and the kitchen has a disposal. Also, we live down the street from Stacey Street. I'm guessing that some day I'll have too much beer and think it's a good idea to bring my Sharpie down the road and cross out the "E."

I ran a 10K. That's 6.2 miles! I did it with my mom, and 7,000 other women, and we surprised ourselves and ran the whole thing without any walking. Sadly, I had gone for runs only about 5 times in the past two months, and I hurt in a bad, bad way for the following two days.

I went to Philadelphia this weekend and helped Molly and Danny pick out wines and champagne for their wedding. That's one long car ride, but the wine was excellent. Plus, Molly and Danny made me pumpkin pancakes before I had to leave. Thanks guys!

It's an early bedtime for me tonight. It's the last night before late-night world series nights. GO SOX!!!!

Back To It

2007-09-05T22:27:00.000-04:00

I went back to work last week, but today was the first day of school. I should have been ready. I came off of a four-day weekend. I spent three of the days at the beach, and one day at the pool, playing wiffle ball and darts and water polo and eating. But can anything really prepare you for 18 preschoolers? No, not really.

It's a pretty cute class, with the exception of 1 or 2. I've got a pair of red-headed twins, one of which looks a bit like Conan O'Brian. I've got a little punk kid who thinks he's king of the classroom. I've got a spanish speaker who spent the first half of the morning crying to me in spanish, but turned off the tears when I told her we were having apples for snack.

And then I've got a devil child, who I'm sure will replace the void that last year's Biter left in my heart. This kid is hard, but to make it worse, he speaks 2 languages: French, and Hebrew with a French accent. I am 0 for 2 in those languages. He spent the day pushing kids off of chairs, hitting kids with shovels, and wandering around the room and taking out every single puzzle when I had corralled the 17 others into morning circle time. When I wasn't looking, because I was dealing with the kid who had just been pushed off his chair by Devil Boy, D.B. had climbed up onto the kid-sized fridge, which is a good four feet tall. He was just hanging out, getting a bird's eye view of the room. I'm hoping that once he realizes that more than half of the class also speak Hebrew, he'll start playing with other kids, and aggravate me a bit less.

But even with all of the other nice, sweet kids, I forgot how exhausted I get at school. I came home, had my afternoon snack, and napped for nearly two hours. And I sort of feel like I should be in bed by 8 to rest up for tomorrow.

Reading is FUNdamental (so says the poster in my school)

2007-08-22T16:54:00.000-04:00

I'm a bit of a hypocrite. I spent two years getting a master's, focusing half of that time on getting certification to be a reading specialist. It was pretty much one year of hearing "Kids need to read read read read read read read" to become better readers. I feel like with that certification under my belt, I should be a huge reader. But I'm not. I have a "reading season," which is generally from about June through early September, depending on the weather--I like reading outside. So far, since I finished my regular teaching in June, I've read 6 books, which is considerably greater than the mere two or three books that I read for pleasure through last fall, winter, and early spring. The problem is that everytime I try reading inside, there are way too many other things to distract me, or the couch is too comfy and I wake up an hour and a half later. Another problem is that I was so totally turned off from reading during high school. I don't like being forced to read something.

Anyway. I know I'm not a ravenous reader at the time being. And I actually kind of thought I generally read less than a lot of people. Maybe I just have really smart friends? But this article completely shocked me. One in four adults didn't read a single book last year?! That fact alone made me think about how dumb our country is, but a few quotes in the article hammered that idea home:

"Fiction just doesn't interest me," said Bob Ryan, 41, who works for a construction company in Guntersville, Alabama. "If I'm going to get a story, I'll get a movie."

"I just get sleepy when I read," said Richard Bustos of Dallas, Texas. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.

On another subject completely, I chugged an iced coffee at 5pm today, severely breaking my "No coffee after 12pm" rule, as well as my "Coffee needs to be sipped slowly through the course of several hours" rule. Around 6 tonight, my hands were shaking, I was sweating all over, and my legs needed to be moving to a rhythm that matched my heart rate. Bill and I walked to Harvard square and back so I'd be able to sit at dinner without looking like an antsy four year old. It was ugly. And, nearly 7 hours later, I have a feeling I won't be falling asleep anytime soon.

Ballz

2007-08-22T00:58:00.000-04:00

Hooray for vacation! The weather's been lousy so far. But I always feel like I should be outside and active when it's nice out during the summer, so it's been really nice to be mostly lazy for a few days. I've been reading a lot, and it's making me feel really smart. I've also done a fair amount of shopping. I picked up new sneakers, which I think look fast. I'm going to test them out tomorrow morning. I'm hoping all of a sudden I can run a 19 minute 5k. They're magic shoes.

I've also done my share of drinking. I played Taboo in a bar, and Caitlin and I lost a beirut game to a pair of 22 year olds, making me feel very old and useless.

I went to what was perhaps my favorite Sox game so far last Friday. It started off great because it was a makeup game from the first weekend of the season, and it was a one o'clock game so I got to skip the last day of summer school. I told them it was a "family celebration." Which was sort of true, right? The whole afternoon was much sweeter knowing that I should have been working. The day was great. We had amazing seats on the third base line. The weather was perfect, sunny and not too hot. I got to see Manny up close:

And I got to see Papelbon pitch. He's southern, but cute:

During the 6th or 7th inning, I looked up, and the jumbotron even said "The Red Sox welcome the Gross family to Fenway Park." I know it wasn't us, but it was still neat.

But the best part was during the 8th inning. We were all hoping that we'd get some foul balls in the seats we had (my dad wanted to bring his glove, but I told him he'd look dumb. I had to have the same talk with my mom, who wanted to wear a fanny pack instead of bringing her purse). At the bottom of the 8th, David Ortiz hit a really high foul ball. It was up in the air, and seemed to be headed directly toward us. As it was racing back to Earth, I knew right then that was how I was going to die. So naturally, I ducked behind my dad and screamed "OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD." When I opened my eyes, it had landed on Caitlin's seat (she had also instinctively moved out of its path), so I grabbed it, along with two or three men. I yelled "I have it I have it!" and the other guys eventually let go, and I looked and realized I had David Ortiz's ball!

My mom took this picture right after I got it. You can't tell, but I shook for a solid 15 minutes after.

You can however see the big man in the red jersey behind me, who was pretty pissed that I got the ball. When the kids behind me wanted to hold the ball, he said that you could probably see his fingerprints on it.

And here it is!

I have a very exciting hump day planned for tomorrow. I think I might have a lunch date with Kate, and if so, I plan on stopping off at the Apple Store to touch an iPhone. I've also decided I miss having actual photo albums (that aren't online), so I'm going to get a lot of pictures printed out. I should get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be exhausting.

Remix

2007-08-16T23:40:00.000-04:00

I've got this boy in my class this summer who I'll call Teddy. Teddy's 11, he's very cute, and he likes to have the back of his neck scratched. He likes Barney, Sesame Street, and he LOVES Teletubbies. He is crazy about meatballs and chicken. Teddy is definitely autistic though. He has a pretty hardcore obsession with watching people walk in flip flops, and he has just a few phrases that he says. This summer he's been working on things like counting how many spoons are in a pile, or sorting out pictures of girls, boys, and himself.

But Teddy is pretty amazing on the computer. Still, I was completely shocked on Monday when Teddy was using up his free choice time on the computer, and all of a sudden I heard a song that was not at all like the sesame street songs I usually hear him playing. I went over to find out what he was doing, and saw that Teddy had gone onto Youtube, and found this:

Teddy was extremely thrilled with himself, as were two other kids, who looked on, mesmorized, at the jackpot that Teddy had found online. Since then, all week, anytime Teddy earned computer time, he's been on youtube, searching out teletubbies. I've caught him finding Teletubbies videos that range from "YMCA" to "Shake That Ass Bitch," which sadly I had to ask him to turn off. It was awfully good though.

Annnnnd....

2007-08-08T18:38:00.000-04:00

A very Happy Birthday to Ms. Caitlin Melia, who turns a whopping 25 today. That's a pretty high number, but I'm happy to report that Caitlin is aging well. Caitlin is one of the most dependable, trustworthy people that you could ask for as a friend, plus she can tell you which nuts have the most protein! (You'd never guess the answer...)

Happy birthday!!

There is freedom within

2007-08-08T18:12:00.000-04:00

What a great weekend. I kicked it off by taking Friday off to go to a surprise "Ladies Luncheon" for my aunt's 65th birthday. And that kind of blew, but it was nice to get a day off from the biter trying to pull my hair. Doesn't she know it messes up the curls?

On Saturday, I went to Caitlin's dad's 50th birthday bash, which just reminded me how lame my family is. It was pretty nice sitting around, chatting with the Medway girls for hours, sipping on Sam Summers and chowing down on good bbq food.

We're a pretty hot group.

And Sunday I did a little reading in my pool lounger, and then headed off to a Pete Yorn concert! Pete was, once again, amazing. But it was way different from the other PY concert I went to, and it was all due to the fact that Pete Yorn opened for Crowded House. Don't know them? Sure you do. They had the 80s one-hit-wonder, "Hey now, HEEEEY NOW, don't dream it's over..." So, Kate and I were easily one of the youngest people, and enjoyed being in the company of people in their 40s and 50s who were thrilled to relive their 20s and 30s for once magical evening.

Here's Pete. Our seats were awesome, but my camera isnt:

Look! He's playing his harmonica in a song I really like.

Here's Crowded House, singing I song I didn't know:

We sat there in our chairs, drinking $8 beers during the Crowded House portion of the evening, while people that were our parents' contemporaries were standing up, singing along, and giving us mean glances like they wanted us to stop saying bad things about their favorite band, or at least use quieter voices. Oddly, they didn't seem to appreciate each time Crowded House began the introduction to a new song, which we of course didn't know, and Kate and I just started singing:
Kate:"There is freedom within..."
Me:"There is freedom without..."
Together!: "Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup."

I don't even get what the lyrics mean. But Kate tells me it's about the Berlin Wall going down?

Then the night changed when they played "Don't dream it's over," and we were definitely not ashamed to stand up and sing along. The Australian group of guys sitting near us, who thought that Crowded House, being that they're an Australian band, were just about the coolest thing ever, turned around during our favorite song and asked if we were huge fans. So we got a picture with one of them. His neck was thicker than my leg.

Here's Kate, singing along:

Don't laugh. If you were there, you would've sung along as well. It was pretty awesome.

BUT. The best part of the weekend was finding out Saturday night that my brother and Katherine got engaged!! I am so happy for them, but wish that they would move up their wedding plans to like, September. That's not too much to ask now, is it? Anyway, congrats Eric & Katherine!! I need some updated pictures of you I realized.

Foaming at the Mouth

2007-07-31T23:36:00.000-04:00

In case you're looking for a significant other to spend your life with, check out fiance.com.

Mail order brides from Russia!!!

Here is one of my favorites:

A lovely 25 year old who enjoys theater and doesn't like loneliness. I'm not sure exactly which of my friends she'd be the best match for, but I'm sure she'd make one of them very happy. Just take a look--

What a looker that Ekaterina is (really, that's her name).

As I was perusing my daily celebrity gossip, I also found out that the dad from TLC's "Little People, Big World" was arrested for DUI. So after chuckling for a minute at his mugshot, I took the quiz, "Which Roloff Kid Are You?" and found out that I am most like Zach Roloff. I thought it was pretty neat, because Zach is a twin, so we have that in common, even though I'm not a little person.

That's my counterpart on the left, and his twin on the right. I like playing on bales of hay too! This is so cool!

Today at work one boy hit me in the hallway as a 19 year old custodian looked on, and the biter (summer version) tried clawing me to death when I let me guard down for a minute to find scotch tape. It'll be a miracle if I make it out of summer without rabies.

Kwik-E-Mart & Lobster Don't Go Together

2007-07-26T19:53:00.000-04:00

I'm kind excited to see the Simpsons movie when it's out, and even more so since I found out that the Somerville Theater will be serving beer ("and wine for the Marge-types") during the movie.
So in honor of that excitement, I jumped on the bandwagon (for something new and different) and simpsonized myself. Here's me:

Here's me as a Simpson

I had trouble saving it, because otherwise you could've seen the capri pants that I'm wearing, which are almost identical to pants I actually own, and I'm also standing in front of Springfield Elementary School. In my Simpsons world, I probably have a biter in my class.

Time to go pack...I'm off for a mini-vacation tomorrow!

Is it shiny? Then YES!

2007-07-26T00:23:00.000-04:00

I like the iphone, and the commercials always get my attention. And just last Friday I saw some girl flashing it around in a bar in Harvard Square.

But for now, I'm pretty far away from getting my own, for two reasons. First and foremost, I love my phone. It's small, and it's the shiniest phone I've ever seen. I don't know why the Krazr never took off like the Razr did? The other also significant reason for not getting an iphone right now is that I like to eat nachos from Christopher's at least once a week, and I'm not sure if I'd have to cut that down to like once a month or something if I got an iphone. When I worked out my pay in preschool, I didn't work in enough of a nacho allowance. I didn't know just how much I needed the 'chos at that point.

(FYI if you haven't seen me in awhile, I didn't balloon up to a deuce and a half. I just like nachos, and I eat a lot of spinach to balance it out.)

But back to the point. This is the closest I'll be to flashing around my own iphone:

Book Review

2007-07-25T00:31:00.000-04:00

I just started a new book today, The Average American Male. I'm almost halfway through, and I can't decide if it's written for men or women. It's written by a guy, and is fiction, but describes life from a male perspective. Anyway, it's funny fluffy summer reading (which I was pretty anxious to get to, after many nights filled with horrible dreams of being chased by the Taliban in Kabul while reading A Thousand Splendid Suns and dreams of savages roasting babies over a fire during The Road)... it's one of those books that as you're reading, you're pretty sure you can actually feel brain cells dying off. If you're like many of my female friends and have read "My Horizontal Life," then I think you'd like this, as it's pretty much the male version of that book, though slightly less well written (and you didn't think that was possible!). Oh, and another fun thing about the book is that it's one of those that was published with different covers, so you get to choose what color you want. I picked red!

And that is how Stacy does a book review.

Jigs and stuff

2007-07-19T23:46:00.000-04:00

It seems I spoke too quickly the other day on the lack of biters in my class. The student I had initially dubbed "The Scratcher" can now also be called "The Biter," as she bit me yesterday. And this isn't a 4 year old, it's an 11 year old. I sort of wanted to bite and scratch her back, but I'm pretty sure they'd ask me to leave work, and it wouldn't work out well if I didn't receive another paycheck until September.

I went to see an outdoor concert downtown tonight. Which got partially rained out. The opening band sang two songs, and then the main act went on and sang three, but at that point there was no power (it was pouring) and so they did it acoustically. On my way there, I was walking past the common, and these two guys with a camcorder stopped me and told me they were filming a documentary (and their friend was laughing hysterically at this point) and told me they needed three people to do a leprachaun dance. One of the guys was trying to get a homeless man to do it. And when I said no, they told me I had to do it because they were going to give that man a quarter if three people would do the leprachaun dance. I politely declined, right around the time the homeless guy stormed off and one of the guys yelled, "But we're gonna give you a quarter to do it!"

The scarier part for me though was that for just a half second, I thought, "Well maybe I could do it if a leprachaun dance is like the 'midget dance' I used to do everytime I rode the elevator with Kate going to psychology department at Union." I can't help it. I get excited with cameras.

Have I mentioned how much I love summer?

2007-07-15T23:47:00.000-04:00

I missed a couple of weeks on here. The weather got nice, and I have a thing for sitting outside, walking outside, eating outside, drinking outside, etc.

Here's what's going on, in my faux-photo-essay.

To appease a roommate, I made good use of my free time and made rice krispie treats. But I didn't stop there. I carved them into a special shape, added some frosting, and voila--Shrek rice krispie treats!

Charlotte came to visit. I think her English accent got worse. Another reason for her to move to this side of the pond.

Charlotte gave me a really cool piggy bank for a belated birthday present. His name is William.

Kate wanted people to see a "classic" movie from the early 80s, "Against All Odds." Based on the DVD's menu picture, you'd think that it was porn, but that's only part true.

Not everyone was as excited for the movie viewing as Kate was, so we turned it into a drinking game. Pete especially liked having to drink whenever Jeff Bridges had his shirt off. I liked drinking best whenever there was a shot of Mayan ruins. Here's Caitlin with her first beer when we started the movie shortly before 5 on a Saturday afternoon:

I started teaching summer school. I have a little class of four autistic middleschoolers. I don't have any biters like in preschool, but plenty of other behaviors to keep things interesting, like an aggressive 240 pound boy. I've also got a scratcher, so it's been quite fun to have scratches all over my hands for the past few weeks, rather than bite marks. I don't have any pictures.

Last night Caits and I went to the Sox game.

I got a new t-shirt earlier in the day to celebrate the fact that Dice-K pitched!

My camera can only zoom in so far.
But here he is in action:

Following the game, I drank a bit too much, and made one of my more interesting drunk purchases shortly after 1 AM. While out last night, Caitlin and I made plans to go to the beach today, so I decided after getting home last night that it would be a good time to buy some beach chairs in the 24 hour CVS in Porter Square. I ended up being that girl who's drunk shopping. Beach chairs are hard enough to manuever when you're sober, let alone making your way through the store aisles after a night out. Then I couldn't find my credit card, and then when I did, I dropped it. Then I realized how ridiculous I must look to the people waiting in line behind me, so I started laughing, but ended up snorting. I don't have any pictures of the CVS disaster either.

Anyway, I need to cap off a great summer weekend with turning on the AC and heading to bed before 9. I'm reading a dark, kind of scary book, and I'm anticipating that I'll wake up sometime around 3am with dreams about being chased in the woods, so I might as well get an early start to bed.

I hate it when Bon Jovi songs get stuck in my head.

2007-06-24T23:42:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back from an only mildly painful trip to Florida to visit family. There was enough familial gossipping and bickering to keep me north of Washington DC for at least 16 months. I did spellcheck and can assure you that I have the correct spelling of gossipping, despite how funny it looks.

I ran my third 5K race this morning, which was exciting for me, who refused to run a mile during the fitness tests in high school, and instead walked the track with my friends. Granted, it's only 5K, but now I'm starting to think about bigger and better things. We'll see. It starts to get hot in late June, and I start to slack off on running. Oh! And Bill Rogers ran this morning too! And I finished before him! It's partly because I ran in the 5K part of the race, and he ran in the 7.5 mile part. But it's also partly because I ran like the wind. (On a just slightly breezy day.)

AND, in other big news, I start my summer job tomorrow. Tomorrow I have teacher orientation and meet the assistants in my classroom, go over some lesson planning, and read some paperwork for my kids, and then the first day of summer school starts for my four autistic middleschoolers and me on Tuesday. I'm nervous though, because I'm the teacher this time (with my own desk!), and I'm worried it'll be pretty obvious, pretty quickly, that I have no clue what I'm doing. Whatever, I wasn't the one to hire me.

I can't get Bon Jovi's new song about making memories out of my head. It's a pretty bad song.

Burning a hole.

2007-06-12T02:07:00.000-04:00

I was googling pictures of screwdrivers tonight because I have a mental block against which kind of screwdriver is the Phillips head one, and I came across this horribly disturbing picture:

I know it's not real, or the man would not look so calm, but it definitely looks real, and is gross.

When did it get to be mid-June? This is crazy. I have some gift certificates that I got from the kids in my class, and I'm trying to figure out what to buy with them. One is a mall gift certificate, so the opportunities are endless. I'm thinking some new summer clothes? I just got a few new bags for my birthday, and I'm not really into shoes much, but especially not during sandal/flip flop weather, so clothing seems like a decent idea. And another big one I have is for Target. Part of me thinks I should just use it for my next trip there, so I'd end up spending it on boring stuff like contact lens solution, but then I think that it sounds a lot more fun to buy myself a present. Today I eyed a chocolate fountain in the appliance aisle.

That seems like a bad idea, for so many different reasons. I also thought about a coffee maker. I don't think that's in my best interests either.

Who's got ideas?

It's Summer!!

2007-06-08T19:50:00.000-04:00

I'm on vacation! It's summer! This afternoon I said a sad goodbye to most of my kids (and just pushed a few others out the door), cleaned up my classroom, & took off for the summer.

I'm off to enjoy many Coronas on Pete's roof deck.

I need money.

2007-05-23T00:58:00.000-04:00

It's no secret that I like toys, and I like my pool, and I like toys that go in my pool.

Pete gave me a heads up about the most incredible toy, although I'm pretty sure it won't fit in the pool.

14' Inflatable Iceberg

• Splash in and cool off on those sunny summer days on this gigantic floating iceberg
• 20W’ inflatable provides enormous fun as kids and adults climb to the top and slide 14’ down to the water
• Chill out on top or play all day long; great for groups or fun with a friend

I'll let you play on it if you'll cough up the $5999.99. Thanks.

Old

2007-05-20T14:42:00.000-04:00

Crazy couple of weeks. I got a teaching job for the summer, and my summer is going to kind of blow, as it's going to be hard and it's also a long commute. But in two months I'll make what I make over the course of about 4 months of preschool. So I'm excited that I don't have to move home quite yet. I also had a job interview in a decent school system. I took the day off for the interview a week and a half ago, and told them I got an eye infection from my contacts. Since my eyes looked perfectly fine, I decided to wear my glasses to work for the remainder of that week. It was awkward. I was asked back for a second interview & to teach a lesson, and had to go into work about 4 hours late during the next week. I told them I had a follow-up visit with my doctor. Luckily, the antibiotics I was on really seemed to do the trick, and I can wear my contacts again.

I turned 25 this weekend too, and I didn't cry. Mostly because I pretended that I was turning 22 and made everyone say that, and I think that after 3 glasses of wine, some girly shot, and a few Miller Lites, I started to believe it. I got the coolest t-shirt ever from Molly, and (inappropriate or not) I wore it out downtown last night.

There are only three weeks left of school for me, but with days off it works out to only 11 days with kids, and one of those includes a full-day field trip to the farm. My class has been absolutely nuts lately though, so if a few of them don't shape up in the next week, I'll be feeding a couple select children to a goat.

I have to go clean up the mozzarella sticks & nachos that seemed like a good idea around 2:30 last night.

Fun with Swedish

2007-05-09T01:41:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week, but I'm all done with parent conferences this week, so that's nice. I finally put together my new IKEA bookshelf, named Flärke, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, though I skipped a step and Kate had to walk me through a few other steps. I don't like that the directions are all in pictures. I need the words.

My room's a total mess since my old bookshelf is still in here, and all of the junk I had tried hiding in piles on either end of the old bookshelves now has to sit in the middle of my room until I figure out what to do with it. But it makes me uncomfortable to have to get ready for work in the morning when my room is a disaster. So this morning, as I was sitting miserably in my room eating yogurt, I noticed I had yogurt on my hand. I didn't have a napkin, so I licked it off.

It was lotion that hadn't been rubbed in. And it tasted really, really gross.

Blech.

Tomorrow's a stressful day. But I get to call in sick.

I'm wearing one white sock and one pink.

2007-05-02T21:39:00.000-04:00

It's been a long week, and somehow it's only Wednesday? This week I'm holding parent conferences, which I'm very mixed about. It's nice to have another teacher cover my class for the first half hour of the morning, but the downside is that then I head back into the classroom to start the day, and the room has been torn to shreds and at least one child is trying to climb the wall. There are two particularly challenging boys in my class: The Biter, and another little boy. I had back to back conferences with their parents this morning, and it was a killer of a way to start the day. The only exciting part was when the biter's parents began to argue with each other during the conference, because one wasn't letting the other talk. After those lovely conferences, I headed back to my room to be observed by this woman who is getting my school ready for its re-accredidation. She stuck around for three and a half horrible hours, and every time I actually paused for a minute, she pounced on me to ask me things like which areas do I think are strengths of my classroom, or how did I think my morning meeting with the kids went? Meanwhile, the Biter used my moment of distraction to sneak over to Noah's cubby and steal his Batmobile, resulting in shrieks from across the room. It was the second observation of the week, as the assistant director had already spent the first half of the day in my room yesterday. And I know that it's sort of part of my job, but I'm pretty sure there's no other job where you have to sing and dance while being observed by your boss.

No wait, I take that back--maybe if I were a showgirl I'd have to do that.

But it's pretty humbling having adults watch as you do the "Super Scary Monster Dance."

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

2007-04-29T23:36:00.000-04:00

Hmm it's been awhile since I've written. I'd say it's because I've been so busy, but I'm not sure that's it. I had to go back to school this past week, and the week after vacation is always rough. The kids were a bit nuts, my classroom was a mess after the vacation teachers used it, and a parent felt entitled to be a brat one afternoon.

I saw Blood Diamond last night, which absolutely horrified me. It's made me pretty depressed about people in general, too. Then today I saw The Departed. Another good pick-me-up kind of movie. Too long though. I checked out about 6 minutes into it, once I saw that the movie was two and half hours long. Together, those two movies I'm sure will spark a long string of nightmares, as my biggest fear in life is people chasing me with guns.

One more week until the 20 mile Walk for Hunger. Who wants to donate?

A recent IKEA trip left me with a chair and a bookshelf in 84 pieces, and after the chair took an hour to assemble, I've decided to leave the bookshelf in Kate's car until she gets sick of it, takes it out herself, drags it upstairs, and puts it together for me. I don't like that IKEA directions are in all pictures, and no words. Knowing it's sitting there in the box waiting for me is stressing me out more than you'd imagine.

Oh god.

Our weird neighbor has pounded on the door on and off for the past hour and a half tonight...

2007-04-18T01:37:00.000-04:00

I finally entered 2007 this weekend after I purchased my own DVD player. I had been living off of VHS and other people's DVD players for a good 24.5 years now. I was so excited about the fact that I have my own now, that I popped myself on the couch on Sunday and watched 3 movies. Three! That's a huge record for me. It also helped that I drank way more both nights of this weekend than I have since senior week of college 3(!!) years ago. There was even a power hour thrown in one of those nights. Who does that after the age of 22?

I'm on April vacation now, and I'm SO enjoying watching movies with my fancy new DVD player (I picked out the sleekest and shiniest one). I've never actually LOVED watching movies, so this is exciting. I went out and got three more, and have been watching some that are already in the apartment. I'm up to 4 and a half movies so far (I fell asleep yesterday during Pursuit of Happyness). Then, this afternoon, I discovered that it can also play cds, so I rocked out to two CDs while I cleaned the apartment from head to toe. It was great, especially when Phil Collins came on (thanks for the mix, Kate!)

I very lately decided to do the Walk For Hunger again in about two and a half weeks. It's 20 miles of fun on a Sunday morning, so how could I not? If you feel like you'd like to thrown in 5 dollars, let me know, or just do so online--and thanks!

http://www.projectbread.org/site/TR?px=1012980&pg=personal&fr_id=1070

Here's my very first walk during high school...we did a lot of sitting that year.

How long does dip last?

2007-04-10T00:47:00.000-04:00

I just spent 20 minutes chowing down on some Ruffles potato chips (so salty...) and dill dip that we bought in a drunken debacle as we returned home from the concert/bar on Friday night. I thought the dip tasted a bit odd and different from a few nights ago, but thought that maybe it just should've been stirred. As I closed it up, Kate told me that it wasn't the dip that she bought, and guessed that it was probably the last one I bought, for the Superbowl. Ew.

It's definitely not April outside, but it's getting there. I've got the day off tomorrow, and I'm heading out to buy a new Sox t-shirt in the morning, since tomorrow's the home opener! And I'm totally thrilled because I've got some decent seats on the 3rd baseline this weekend. I'm going to get a hot dog AND popcorn I've decided.

I need something good to do next week during April vacation--ideas?

Wings Over Somerville

2007-04-04T19:48:00.000-04:00

That's the name of a new fast food place just down the street from us. Their logo is a giant W with wings on it, looking sort of like a new airline logo. I'm wondering how many Saturday nights it takes us until we decide it's a good idea to test out the local eatery.

I thought it was a total sketchy place, based on their logo and the fact that they call themselves "The Wing Professionals," but I went searching online for a website so I could post a picture of the wings. And I found out that it's a huge chain, with Wings over DC, over Ithaca, Hartford, Ft. Lauderdale, Columbus, East Lansing, and at least a dozen others. Weird.

In case you couldn't figure it out, from this pretty useless post, I've been on vacation for two days. Back to work on Thursday, and my roommates couldn't be happier.

Woah!

2007-03-30T20:24:00.000-04:00

Weird thing. I watched the Daily Show yesterday because Philip Zimbardo was on, and that brought me back to the old days as a Psych major. Zimbardo's a big (and totally creepy looking) psych guy from Stanford, and he started off by telling Jon Stewart how cool it is that he was on the Daily Show, and then, in a "surfer dude" voice, said his students would say "It's so totally awesome man," or something to that effect. Jon Stewart said, "Students at STANFORD talk that way??? I can see UNION College, but Stanford?!"

Then there was a big laugh from the audience, and J.S. said something like, "What? Is there someone here from Union?" But it was still a fun, though not very complimentary acknowledgment to my alma mater.

Here's the (long) link. It's in the first 30 seconds, so you don't need to wait very long.

Clickme

Tomorrow's my final ski day of the winter! Then, it's less than a month and a half until the pool opens, so that's exciting. And I don't really have many days that I actually have to teach in that month and a half, so that's equally exciting.

Also...

A very, very happy 26th birthday to Molly!!!! Sure, she's pretty old now, but Molly knows how to have adventures like no one else I know. Plus, she's really good at Photohunt.

...and a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Molly and Danny!!!!

Fill in the blank: Kate should be in a ______.

2007-03-26T00:45:00.000-04:00

I'll get to the answer momentarily, because we went to the most amazing bar ever last night. It combined two of my favorite things--drinking with friends, and board games! The bar, right in Kenmore Square, had shelves of board games. After a pitcher of Stella and a round of shots, we delved right into a game of Chutes and Ladders. I forgot how much I enjoyed that game. You don't actually have to do anything.

After that, we played Taboo, which I LOVE. I can never get anyone to play that with me, or any of the other games I have stored away, but bring out the Bud Light and nachos, and you've got a captive audience that's willing to play an hour of Taboo. I spent awhile on Pete's team, and we were pretty good, right down to when I picked up a card, and for the first clue said, "Kate should be in a...." and Pete yelled, "CAGE!"

Which was, of course, the correct answer.

This is a song called Closet.

2007-03-21T20:02:00.000-04:00

I'll start by saying oh my god, I love Pete Yorn.

Monday night I saw him at the Avalon, in probably one of the top two shows I've ever seen. Following Kate's lead, we pushed way into the front and center, and we were really, really close to him, and all of the hair on stage (5/6 of the guys on stage had hair that was my length or longer). Pete played all of the songs that I would have included if I could create my dream setlist, even one song that I really wanted to hear him play but thought there was no way he'd play. Unfortunately for Caitlin, when he played each song on my dream list, she got poked by me to tell her how excited I was to hear the song. Not surprisingly, she got fed up and left a bit early. :) Or something like that.

I took mostly pictures of the guy's head in front of me, but here are a couple:

The night ended way way way too late though (it was capped off around 12:30 by a stop in the 24 hour CVS for a new hair dryer), and I've had to get coffee every morning this week as a result. My roommates think that is not cool--caffiene has a pretty strong effect on me.

sunday night again?!

2007-03-19T01:42:00.000-04:00

Unlike a lot of holidays, I think St. Patrick's Day is one holiday that gets more fun as you get older. Well, at least for a few more years for me, before it becomes another day where I just put on something green and pretend I'm a rare Irish Jew. I'm not sure why I like to get into the holiday so much, but by 2 in the afternoon yesterday, I had already baked shamrock cookies and met a guy in the liquor store who reeked of alcohol and asked if I wanted to go to Southie to fight him and have corned beef & cabbage. (I politely declined.)

This week I have a date at the bristol lounge in the four seasons downtown. I'm definitely a jeans & flipflops at BHP kind of girl, and ended hitting up two different malls today in search of appropriate attire. I settled on some new tan pants & a black shirt that's a pretty typical stacyshirt, but with a bit more sophistication. Last night I poured a beer on my Columbia jacket, which means I'm definitely wearing my dressy coat too. And, I'm finally going to wear my new-ish pointy black shoes, which means that I'm going to have to wear them tomorrow morning as I get ready to go to work, because I need all the practice I can get walking in them.

Do they serve bud light at the Four Seasons?

gross.

2007-03-15T01:04:00.000-04:00

Today was a good day, for a few reasons.

The biter got strep throat & was out of school. How long does that knock one out, by the way? Can I expect a biting/spitting/whining/hitting-free remainder of the week?

There have been no new cases of lice in my class for a week now. We got a bit of lice in my room 10 days ago or so. It was sort of really gross, but it was a good excuse to wear my hair in a pony tail every day, and get rid of all of the pillows in my book corner that drive me crazy.

And, it was like spring today. I know I've said this before, but I'm all for global warming as long as people don't start burning up or anything while I'm still around on Earth. I never saw Gore's movie though. I have a feeling I should, at least to help get me not so excited for abnormally warm temps. Today, for the very first time in the 2 1/2 years that I've lived in this lovely apartment, I got to sit out on the porch and read after school. It was SO great. And long overdue.

Yesterday I watched Tyra pop an audience member's zit on her "show."

I'll spare you from the details about what happened, but it was horrifying.

2007-03-09T01:10:00.000-05:00

So, want to hear one of the better stories from recent weeks in my classroom? Sure you do.

This one involves the biter (again, obviously). (And in cased you missed an earlier post, the biter is a 4 year old in my room, who I affectionately call the biter here due to the fact that he bit me a few months ago).

But first, the background information. I leave school at 3, and the assistant in my room leaves at 4. But some kids stay until 6, so from 4-6, they combine the three preschool rooms and have one or two other teachers. All of the kids go in one of the preschool classrooms, which is attached to my room by a really short hallway with a bathroom.

So shortly after 4 yesterday, they had a sub in the combined preschool room. She was doing a little group circle with all of the kids. The assistant director of the school walked into my empty classroom, and found the biter in there, by himself, and naked. Where were his clothes? They were in the bathroom, in the toilet. Yeah, the biter had decided to leave circle, go to the bathroom, strip, try to flush his clothes (flooding the bathroom in the process) and then figured he should play alone in my classroom for a bit. He's precious.

I went swimming twice this week, and am going skiing this weekend, and ordinarly I'd be impressed with all of my activity, but I ate a bag and a half of those chocolate eggs this week, and almost a whole bag of jelly beans. Just thought you'd want to know. I seem to remember posting about a jelly bean problem shortly before Easter last year, too.

I hate your guts, Tyra

2007-03-05T01:09:00.000-05:00

Seeing or hearing Tyra Banks makes me want to punch a wall. And then punch her face, knocking her teeth out. And then scratch her until she bleeds.

I'm reminded of my hatred for her because America's Next Top Model was on tonight. But what I really hate about Tyra Banks is the Tyra Show.

It's where she talks about herself for an hour, to guests and audience members who probably don't care. And, she pretends that she is just a real, down to earth, everyday sort of girl.

I just don't know how her show has lasted so long (more than 1 episode).

And then...

2007-03-03T19:48:00.000-05:00

And then my car broke down on the way to work yesterday morning. Not just died, but made a grinding, deathly sigh as it died. In the middle of Comm. Ave, during rush hour. Then I waited 45 minutes from AAA to come, and after 45 minutes they called to say that actually, their first towing company couldn't come, so they would send out another one, so it would be another 45 minutes to an hour.

Then, after an hour and a half, I stood outside in the pouring rain while the guy towed my car, and then continued to stand out there while I waited for the T. And then when the T came, one of my dollar bills was wet, and it jammed the fancy new Charlie Card machine, and the driver yelled at me. AND, she asked some other guy to pay for me.

I got to school two hours late but was there just as my class was lining up for the costume parade, and things only got better from there.

I got a chocolate chip muffin for the T ride home. I'm pretty sure it had extra chocolate chips in it, too.

I had a great afternoon nap while it rained, with the nap blanket--my favorite.

And later last night, I went out with Pete and Caitlin & had a lot of cheap beer, and a pink kamikaze. And nachos! With cheese dip and sour cream!

Annnd.....

Maybe you heard, but yesterday was ALSO the 25th birthday of a Mr. Michael Losure.

When he's not reliving his youth of doing synchronized swimming to "The Little Mermaid," Losure can typically be found spilling non-washable liquids, puking up lasagna and alcohol in a sink, or listening to "Mm Bop for 2(?) days non-stop. Happy birthday Losure!!!

Insert lyrics from the Disney musical here

It's been one of those days.

2007-03-02T00:31:00.000-05:00

Excuse me while I go on a self-pity rant.

My contacts case just fell in the toilet.

One of the kids in my class shrieked--literally, shrieked--for almost 10 minutes because she thought she had fish sticks for lunch, and it turned out she had pasta.

One of the kids I babysat after work declared me a mean babysitter because I refused to let her eat her lollipop before dinner.

My car has had some rattley noise going on for a few weeks, and on my drive home today it started to smell like burning.

And I went to this giant teaching recruitment fair, with like 35 schools there, and a bazillion people looking for jobs, and half a bazillion of them were looking for elementary jobs. I got to have a mini-interview with an elementary principal. Upon which I froze. He pretended to be mildy impressed with my reading background, asked to hear about my reading philosophy, and I went totally speechless and started grabbing for words. I can totally sit here in my apartment and spew out an ok philsophy that sounds like I know what I'm doing, but I'm pretty sure I started with something about how it should be fun. He asked about reading assessments I've done, and my mind went totally blank. It was really, really bad.

But in better news, I'm having a second costume parade of the week at work tomorrow. My class did one on Wednesday, and the whole school is doing it tomorrow. Wednesday I dressed up like a queen, and tomorrow I'm going to be a baseball player. Getting in costumes in March sort of makes me want to stick around in this school for another 5 years.

Before I head off to bed, I have an etiquette question for you. So, say you have this neighbor, who is sort of crazy, doesn't pick up social cues, and makes you gigantic lasagnas. Then, say you read on boston.com that he was arrested (with two 19 year olds) for breaking into an MIT faculty club, in an attempt to pull another "MIT prank." And that he was facing up to twenty years in the slammer if convicted. Twenty! And then say, hypothetically, that his court date was this week. What's the polite thing to do? Do you make a lasagna as a nice gesture? Do you leave a sticky note on his door, "Good luck, don't drop the soap?"

Drama for 14 year olds, and me

2007-02-23T02:28:00.000-05:00

First of all, does anyone watch The OC anymore? I tuned out awhile ago, partly because I began watching Grey's, partly because I got bored of it, and partly because I'm 24 and figured it's probably time.

I decided I had to watch tonight though, since it was the last episode of the series (apparently I'm not the only one who quit watching?). I have a lot of good memories of watching with some Mich Lights at our apartment in college on Wednesday nights before going out to Chet's. And it wasn't just a girls' night...ahem, Pete, Losure, cough cough. Anyway, turns out I had missed roughly 19 major storylines (Seth's mom getting pregnant, Julie Cooper getting engaged, Ryan getting over Mischa Barton's tragic death and dating someone else, etc. etc.). But for the final episode, those clever people over at Fox pulled out every twist imaginable. It included some stuff in the present, like Julie Cooper's wedding, but then some other guy calling and saying don't do it, for him and for their son (what?!), and Ryan going off to Berkeley. And some stuff in the past, like Ryan's flashbacks to first moving to the Cohen's house and picking up the pieces from his almost tragic childhood, and some stuff in the future. I like when shows pull everything together so you can get comfort in knowing how imaginary people are in the future. And in case you were wondering, Seth and Summer get married, Julie is happily married with a son, Seth's parents have a new daughter and move out of their house, and Ryan becomes an architect or something, and as he's leaving a worksite, he sees a boy obviously from the wrong side of the tracks, and obviously it is just like him (right down to the similar zip-up jacket from when Ryan was first "rescued") and it ended with Ryan asking the boy if he needs help.

I like it when it goes full circle. I also liked The Lion King for that reason.

Also, did anyone else think it was weird that Anna Nicole's 5 month old baby got custody of her dead body?