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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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?

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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.