6:50 - 7:20: Drive to work. No time for coffee.
7:30 - 8:10: Staff meeting. Present a 20-minute lesson based on Marzano's work.
8:25-10:30: 1st period, then Advisory. Set up a few more conference appointments.
10:30 - 11:30: Write referral, contact parent(s) x 5. Attempt to work, only to get pulled into other drama. Get nothing of my own done. (Sorta my fault. Sorta.)
11:30 - 11:55: Get pizza for lunch meeting. Set up room.
11:55 - 12:27: Lunchtime "Student Voice Seminar" in my room. Chow down on pizza while leading meeting. No time to sit. Thankfully, students cleaned up so room was ready for third period.
12:27 - 3:20: 3rd and 4th period. Emailing back and forth with parents.
3:20 - 3:45: Find out I'm double-booked for conferences. Debrief with principal and student per referral from earlier. Eat one more piece of pizza. Leave the other one for my one and only scheduled break in conferences at 6:45. Cherish the thought of that one last piece of cold, cheesy Hot-n-Ready Little Caesar's. Get ready for conferences.
3:45: Student-led conferences start (20 minute appointments each). I had 13 scheduled; one no-show. Due to double-scheduling, extra time spent with kid who plagiarized, and talking shop with freshman parents, no break was had!
4:00: Realize I have to go to the bathroom.
4:15: Voice totally lost due to several coughing fits and fear of collapsed lung. Drinking plenty of water to help cough is not helping my need to pee.
6:30: Only break scheduled disappeared due to double-booking. Tried to escape to pee but crowd of parents clogged my escape route. Student finds small number of ants in middle of classroom floor; an uncommon site in my classroom. I'm surprised but think nothing of it.
6:45: Behind schedule. Hands dry from washing them so many times. Hope I don't give too many germs away.
8:15: Last family leaves. Finally can go pee. ...
Throat is throbbing, headache from coughing. My stomach had been growling for two hours. Oh yeah! The pizza! Turn off all lights, grab my stuff, chug some cough syrup, and make my way via cell phone glow to my back door. Grab that piece of pizza in the dark and take a bite. Doesn't taste right. Turn on back light to discover that ants beat me to it. Ah! Ants in my mouth! Now I'm almost puking AND coughing. Wash my mouth out a dozen times. Still starving but now imagining ant parts stuck in my teeth.

Call Hubby and find out that a school that a couple friends work at halfway burned down. No one was hurt, but much of the school was lost.

At least, at the end of the day, I can say that I'd rather have ants in my mouth.

(Side note: still horribly sick, as many of us are. And still can't talk. Hubby has been praying for this day for years.)

No offense intended for any of my vegan or vegetarian friends. :)

The past few days were spent at McMenamin's Grand Lodge at a LFEE conference. I won't go into details, but I will say this: it was an interesting mix of really fantastic discussion about equity (concerning race, SES, and culture) and really uncomfortable "sharing of feelings"-type group hug stuff. And yes, there really was a group hug at the end. My discomfort with personal contact alone were enough to make me cringe, but add in H1N1 and I was practically having a panic attack. However, it was very validating to see how far along MACA is, especially considering we're only in our third year. Basically, we rock. Go Hellbenders!

In other news, and partially sparked by discussions at LFEE, I'm having issues dealing with my past culture and the culture I belong to now. And issues deciding what/who I want to leave behind and what I want to continue dealing with. Am I a coward/weak if I go one way? Do I have an obligation to make a certain choice over another? Am I part of the problem or the solution? What am I doing to better myself and other people - and is it doing any good? *sigh*

Hi!
The weather has turned a little colder. I'm so happy!

My shoulder froze up again, sadly. The in-laws have definitely come in handy yet again... I had run out of Valium.

Total drama with some kids at school is keeping me busy. Whilst snooping this afternoon Liz and I ran into some students downtown (totally skipping) - and instead of avoiding us they came by to say hi. Sometimes, after having such a fun and kooky conversation with students outside school, I feel guilty when I turn them in later... but something tells me they knew it would happen anyway. Plus, I don't think they could hate me.

Did a lot of talking again about condoms and sex and douching and all sorts of nastiness today. Taught the kids how to roll a condom. As one friend puts it, "You're definitely not teaching in a Utah school." No doubt, thank goodness. Studies show that kids will start having sex at the same age regardless, but that if they've had decent education about it they'll have lower pregnancy/STD rates. It's a tricky subject to teach, so I give plenty of disclaimers and I choose my words carefully... but it's nice to feel I might actually be doing a service to humanity in some small way.

Hubby makes the best dinners!

I'm terrified of swine flu. I need to get both the shots. There's kids at school whose family members are being diagnosed. It's totally hitting us. I'm terrified. !!!

Last week I went to see my grandparents. I also saw my aunt and took a day trip to Yellowstone. It was such a nice trip, regardless of the 30 hours I spent in the car (hence my shoulder). Also, I saw one of my oldest friends, Ariane, in Boise. Such great times were had by all! I posted pics to my flickr account. :)

They've begun bringing me apples. Anonymously.

I have a cold, and I thought about calling in sick today, but the biggest thing holding me back? I wanted to go to school. Because I'm enjoying it.

This is Sex Ed week in Science. I might extend it through next week as well. My original intent was to try to embarrass them as much as possible, but not only are they unflappable, but they also ask really good questions. We spend an entire hour Monday discussing sex and sex myths. I get the feeling that they know they need to know this stuff, but no one's really talking to them about it. It's kinda sad. Fortunately for me, I'm enjoying it immensely and I'm going to take the Praxis to add a Health endorsement.

Usually I have my iPod playing music either when they're coming in the door at the start of class, during work time, or during their break. I realized that I should take note of Heather's class and have a specific song I play during class clean-up at the end of the period. Lately, especially because of the number of illnesses going around (60% of the staff are stricken), I've had them clean all the surfaces in the room. So, to make it more interesting, I brought in the Benny Hill theme, "Yakety Sax." Hilarity ensued. Not only are my students awesome enough that they immediately knew where the music was from ("This sounds like the Benny Hill theme!"), but a few of them began mock-chasing each other around the desks in appropriate style - even making it look like sped-up film. Ah, MACA kids. They're the best.

So, for your viewing pleasure:

Poor Hubby. He seems to have caught a wicked cold - not an easy feat for a man whose immune system fights a hard battle. What's more amazing is that I am not sick - a testament of how unpredictable my own system is. Granted, I've been teaching for a few years now, so it's had plenty of time to build itself up, but usually it's a safe assumption that my first month of school will be filled with orange juice, cough suppressant, and snot. This year it seems it's Hubby's turn. I guess it's his first real exposure to the petri dish that is public education. Poor Hubby.











Speaking of Hubby - his student teaching placement fell through at Newberg. I quickly made some arrangements with Laurie, and about a week later James was starting his practicum at MACA. Since he started about a week and a half ago, I've seen him very little during the day... lunch, usually, and maybe we see each other in the hall once or twice. What's great is that he's pretty much just taken over Paul's first three periods already - he was antsy to start teaching and he's getting some really good experience. Most days I forget that he's in the building until I walk by his door and have some momentary confusion. At first, I thought it might be weird, but it hasn't been at all. Students pretty much all know that we're married, but still whenever a student asks, it's become customary to rotate through relations. "He's my uncle." "He's my first cousin once removed." "He's my P. O." They get mad every time but they should really just learn to stop asking if they already know the answer.

School is still going remarkably well. It seems that the critical mass has finally figured out what the school's about, and now we just need to focus on the really tough kids. Every day I'm pleasantly surprised by something new.

Yesterday was the most treacherous day at work, however... One kid tried to pierce his ear and mangled it pretty good (which, in my opinion, you deserve if you're stupid enough to do that), two more kids cut themselves, one kid puked in the other science room, Liz's movers had not one, but two vans break down, a staff member had her wallet stolen, and Courtney (math teacher) sliced her finger open and had to go to Urgent Care so they can stitch her up. She knicked an artery in her finger, which needed to be tied off itself before they put six more stitches on top. The trooper even came back to school for the last period!

New year!

Okay, I think I'm back.

School started last week, eerily stress-free and easy-going. James says he's not surprised all the kiddos are behaving well, polite, and doing their work without complaint - after all, this is the third year and we've spent two years working on developing that culture. However, it's about two years early by my calculations (based on other new school start-ups). Not sure how long this will last. Usually the kids are worse at the beginning of the year and you force them into submission by late October. It's really creeping me out.

I forced James to pose for some pictures a few weeks ago, as we have only a handful of us and most of those were taken sometime around when we got married. It's close to four years now so I figured it was time for an update.









I also got a car, finally... It had everything on my list, plus a few bonuses! The old one actually sold for $600, so really, we only spent $200 for that car for 2 years. Nice.









New favorites: Dutch Bro.s Skinny Carmel Lattes, hair straightener, True Blood, 30 Rock, Kozy Shack chocolate pudding, and my hand-held steam cleaner. Dragging Hubby to Lincoln City to eat at Mo's.

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