Bah Humbug!

I hate Halloween. I know that Bah Humbug is more of a Christmas saying, but I LOVE Christmas.

I HATE Halloween.

There is very little that I like about the holiday. Wait, on second thought, there is only one thing that I like about Halloween: seeing cute babies dressed up in cute costumes! That's it. The one and only redeeming quality about the whole stupid holiday.

I feel bad that I hate it as much as I do, but I can't help the way I feel. The only reason I have this guilt about hating Halloween is that J loves it. In fact, I just asked him, "J, which do you like better, Christmas or Halloween?"

He said, and I quote, "Christmas has better gifts and better food, but Halloween is more fun. Especially when you get to scare the *snot* out of people. Plus it's kind of fun to see the different costumes." (*Word edited to protect my readers' delicate sensibilities. I think you can fill in the blanks.)

So you can see why I feel bad. I want to participate and share in the things that my husband likes. I play video games with him (the LEGO series is amazing!), I watch a lot of movies I normally wouldn't see, I watch sports with him, I go to rock and gem shows with him. I'll even go to the sporting goods store with him, or, if I'm in an especially kind mood, the hardware store. Halloween is where I draw the line, though.

For the last few years we've gone to my friend's house for a pumpkin carving party, but J does all the carving. I just go to socialize with my friends and to hang out with J. He gets really into it, too, and does intricate / detailed carvings. He's done neat stuff. I wish I had taken pictures. I think the coolest one he ever did was George Bush. It really looked like him, too! (J doesn't just cut out chunks of pumpkin, he does the shaving and shadowing stuff, too.) We took it to a friend's house, put it on her porch after dark, lit the candle, and then drove off. I called her from the car and told her to open her door to see something scary. That was fun. He's also done a cool one of the Tasmanian Devil. This year he chose a Transformer's theme. In the light it doesn't look like much, but when it's dark, it's pretty cool!

I wish I could be more enthusiastic about this, but I just can't. Yet another reason we should have children: so J can make a big deal about the holiday and have an appreciative partner in crime. I'm not against other people liking the holiday, I just can't.

Last year, I listed 10 reasons why I hate Halloween.

Here's this year's list.

10. Pumpkin guts stink.

9. I hate to answer the door unless I am expecting someone. I don't like opening it to the unknown. And don't tell me to just look out the peephole. I don't have one. I don't even have a window near the front door. It truly is the unknown.

8. Scary stuff sucks. I see no reason to celebrate vampires, monsters, or gory injuries. Yuck. Double yuck. Eww.

7. I don't need a reason to have candy in my house. If I buy candy I like, I eat it. If I buy candy I don't like, I eat it. I don't need it in my house.

6. The colors orange and black are not attractive together. Separately each has its own merits. Together though? Nobody looks good in those colors.

5. It's a hassle to carve a pumpkin and have to clean it up. Then, unless you do it the night before, the stupid things always start to rot and look icky before Halloween night.

4. If you choose not to dress up, people make stupid comments all day long. "Oh!! Your costume is SOOOO scary / hideous / funny!!! Where did you get it?" Thanks, jerk.

3. Grownups use it as an excuse to get together and drink. If you want to drink, do it. You don't have to put on a stupid costume to have a reason to get together with friends.

2. I always hated going door to door selling stuff. Halloween always feels suspiciously like that. Only instead of asking people to buy something from you, you're asking them to buy something for you.

And the number one reason why I hate Halloween?

1. I still hate dressing up, and I still hate to be scared.

One cause. One goal. One team.

Remember when you were in high school? Remember the rivalries with other local teams? There were only two high schools in my home town, and I remember intense battles, both on the courts and fields and off. We liked to win all sporting events, but when we could beat our rival school the victory was that much sweeter.

It's still the same. There are three high schools where I live and work now, and the rivalries between the three are going strong. Southridge is the youngest of the three schools, but that may make the rivalries even more intense. We don't have the long history the other two schools have, or the traditions that have been in place since the ice ages.

The kids are working hard on changing that though. Probably our best tradition, because it is entirely student created, run, and sustained, is the "Trash Can Clan." Four years ago, four over-the-top spirited and goofy sophomore boys got together and cut holes in plastic trash cans and spray painted them blue and gold (school colors), donned them, and headed off for a football game. They were an instant hit. From that point forward, they have had reserved front row seats at every game at every sporting event. I'm sure you recall what kind of prime real estate that is! And, in true Trash Can Clan tradition, they paint their cans differently for each game.

Last year, when the four guys in the original group were seniors, one of the clan was nominated for Homecoming King. He painted his trash can like a tux, and glued a tie on it because he was going to be down on the field for the halftime show. His female counterpart was all gussied up in her formal dress, and S was on the field in a "formal" trash can. It was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

The original clan members graduated last spring, but they came back for our first assembly this year which happened to be on the first day of school. They told the student body that they had held tryouts over the summer, and had chosen new seniors to wear the cans. Then they ceremoniously "passed the cans" on. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

I jest. But seriously, it was pretty cool to see.

There are other traditions that are starting, but the one I'd love to see continue just happened last week. October, as you are well aware, is breast cancer awareness month. In recognition of this, our kids held Pink Week. They did all sorts of cool things, and raised a lot of money for the Tri-City Cancer Center. In one week, KIDS raised $15,000 for a good cause. They wore pink all week long. It was great to see them all dressed up. They got pink hair extensions. They spray painted their hair hot pink. One of my freshman boys came to school wearing hot pink tights that his mother bought for him. Can you imagine that conversation?

Son: "Hey, Mom. Can you buy me some tights to wear to school tomorrow?"

Mom: "Tights? You know that's what girls wear under their skirts, right?"

Son: "Yeah. I know. I want pink ones."

That reminds me of the year my dad bought T boxers for Christmas. She wanted them for sleeping and lounging around the house in. But that was before they made boxers for girls...my dad was freaking out that he was buying his daughter men's underwear. But again, I digress.

Pink Week was a rousing success. My two favorite parts, though? The first is the fact that SHS teamed up with Kamiakin High School, our rivals, and worked WITH them on Pink Week. Students at both schools did fundraisers, wore pink, etc. Normally we would compete against KaHS to see who could raise the most money. But this time we worked together for a good cause. Their slogan was: One cause. One goal. One team. It still gives me shivers every time I think about it.

My other favorite part happened last Wednesday. The two high schools are 3.3 miles away from each other. The kids decided that in a show of support for those affected by cancer, they would form a human chain linking the two schools together.

That's right. They wanted to have 3.3 miles worth of people holding hands across town. How amazing is that? They worked with local police and media, and got it all set up. It was an early release Wednesday, so they decided to do it right after school. They split the route in half, so each school had to "cover" half the route. Then they split each half into fourths and assigned a class to each section (for example freshmen at SHS had from the Spirit Rock to the roundabout, seniors had from 10th to 4th Ave, etc.).

Teachers normally have meetings after school on early release Wednesdays, but our principal encouraged us to ditch the meetings and go join the kids with his blessings. I would have ditched the meetings anyway because two of my seniors (ELL students) wanted to participate but didn't have rides. But ditching with my boss' permission was even better! My friend Laurie and I took the two seniors to their spot and then joined hands with the kids. It was amazing to see how many people had come out to be a part of this event.

We found out later that employees from WinCo (a grocery store...I don't know if they are anywhere other than Eastern Wa?) who were on their break joined in as the line passed their store. They even got coworkers to join, too. Random people from the community joined up as well. I was holding hands with an elderly gentleman who was there with his wife supporting the kids. They had read about it in the newspaper and thought it was a great idea, so they came to be a part of it. A group of students from Moses Lake were in town for a leadership conference and stayed late to join in as well. The middle school that we passed by let their kids out early, and we had hundreds of middle schoolers and their parents join in, too.

The kids got lined up, and then the police stopped traffic on some pretty major streets. The community was so supportive! Nobody honked or yelled or anything. They either sat patiently in their cars, or they turned the cars off and joined up.

The leadership teacher at KaHS sent this note to our staff on Thursday, the day after the event:

"I got to my spot to direct students early and a van with a woman in pink showed up shortly after. She rolled down the window and asked me if she was in the right spot. I introduced myself and asked if she was a parent of a student? She replied, “No, I simply needed to be here.” She then told me that she had just been given her first dose of chemo and that even though she did not feel well, she felt she had to participate.” My daughter offered her a drink of water and she simply said, “No, your schools and students have done quite enough.”

It is an honor to work for, with, and among, a district that supports our students and community."

It was amazing. In spite of all their efforts, though, they were not able to complete the chain. They were so close, though! The police had to break it up early because they got calls about an armed robbery in progress. That just doesn't happen very often in this area, so it was a big deal. Most of our police force was with our kids...we didn't have "spare" cops to go handle the robbery, so we ended the chain early.

Remember the Trash Can Clan?? Well, here they are in all their pink glory. The two to the right are both in my class. They're neat boys! Very quiet in class, but not when they don their cans!

Here is a story by the local paper about the human chain.

Here is the news brief by the local paper about the armed robbery that abruptly ended our event.

Here is a photo gallery by the local paper.

With kids like this around, our future is looking bright. Check out the hair on the kid on the left! Both of these boys are in my first hour class. A, the one with the pink striped hair (that's permanent dye, by the way...he has sandy brown hair normally. He bleached it and put in hot pink stripes for Pink Week...it's faded to a pinky red color this week...), is in Leadership class and was one of the organizers of Pink Week. I'm so proud of him! K, the one in the truck, said that he was so proud of his classmates that as soon as the cops ended the line, that he and his friends jumped in the truck and drove the whole line giving people high fives.

One cause. One goal. One team.

***The pictures in this blog were all taken by Bob Brawdy, a photographer for the Tri-City Herald. I got these photos from the gallery at the Herald's web site.***

Pfunny...

Let's begin with two warnings:


1. TURN YOUR VOLUME DOWN!! I am including a clip from a television show, and I don't know if it is going to play on its own or if you need to press play. I want you to be able to decide if you want to hear the clip or not. You can turn it back up later if you so choose.


2. Uncensored political talk ahead! Proceed at your own risk.


Still with me? Then let's get started.


I just talked recently about how I don't like it when people push their political views on me. Well, this blog post is rife with politics...call me a hypocrite if you must, but consider yourself duly warned!


Have you ever seen The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? I've heard of him, but I normally avoid his show because he covers a lot of politics. I know his show is on Comedy Central, but still...it's politics and I'm not really interested, okay?


Until now. Oh. My. Goodness. My sides and my face hurt from laughing so much! Living in this ultra conservative area is sometimes (or often) frustrating for me. Especially at school. Kids don't think for themselves about politics...they just regurgitate what their parents or other people have told them. They say things without having facts to back them up.


For example, were you aware that Barack Obama is a terrorist? That he's Muslim? Anti-American? Gay?


Were you aware that John McCain is a war hero who is going to save the world? He's going to fix the economy and he's going to make the education system better by continuing No Child Left Behind. Oh, and in case you didn't know, he's a war hero. He's not going to take away our guns, either. And did I mention that he's a war hero?


I'll bet that you weren't aware before now. I know I wasn't. It's a good thing those kids let me know. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a government teacher during an election year. While it has the potential to be extremely cool, and a lot of fun, it would be aggravating to listen to the kids spouting off at the mouth with nothing to back it up. I mean, seriously. Barack Obama is anti-American? You've got to be stupid if you believe this. Who in their right mind would hate a country so much that he would run for president? Maybe it's just me, but I honestly don't give a damn what anybody else's religion is. For the record, Barack Obama is NOT Muslim (his father was Muslim, but not a radical Muslim by any means), but even if Barack were, so what? Most Muslims in this world are kind, gentle people. Sure there are some extremists, but aren't there extremist Christians, too? And whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Does it really matter where he goes to worship?


John McCain is in fact a war hero. He spent a long time in Hanoi, and endured a lot of terrible treatment. However, his past is not entirely without scandal. Just ask his first wife. You know, the one admits he cheated on repeatedly. And NCLB?? You've got to be kidding me. Kids moan and groan and complain about school and tests all the time. Well guess what, geniuses, you wanna know why you have to pass the WASL?? If you guessed NCLB, you'd be right. You can't have it both ways: if you're going to support McCain, quit complaining about testing.


I want a t-shirt about NCLB. Here's the front:





On the back, I want it to say this:




But I digress. I intended this post to be about The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He's hysterical. His political views are similar to mine, but even looking beyond that, he's just funny. If you watch the clip, be warned there is some strong language in it...and put down your beverage...you may just spit it out! I love his sarcasm. I love his line delivery. I love that he laughs at himself. I think I may just love him.

Well played

The slogan for the television show Survivor is "Outwit. Outplay. Outlast." Sometimes, teaching feels like a really long game of Survivor.

You know it's been a long day when two freshmen boys outwit you...and you find it amusing.


Let me tell you how it happened.

Typically on Fridays we have Silent Reading for most if not all of the hour. You see, I require students to complete 1000 pages of reading of their own choice for the semester. This is outside of the reading that I assign in class. For most kids, this is easily achievable if they actually read on a regular basis. It requires them to stretch a little, but they can do it. For those kids who have low reading levels, I modify the number of pages required.

In order to help them complete the reading assignment, I give them the SSR time during class. At first they hate it, but after a few weeks, they come to love it for many reasons. One, they always know what will happen in class on Fridays. Second, if they don't have much time to read at home, they have time to read during school. Third, it's a nice relaxing way to spend the hour. And finally, and this is the most important reason, it means they don't have any homework for my class over the weekend.

I do have some requirements, though. They need to come to class prepared with a book. I do have a ton of books in my room and I get a class set of newspapers on Friday that they are welcome to borrow, but it's best if they bring their own book. I prefer if they go to the library before Friday. I do allow kids to go one or two at a time, but never with their friends. Believe it or not, there are some kids who actually don't enjoy reading, and will do whatever they can to get out of it. Shocking, I know.

Well, this past Friday was a long day. I've been sick for about two weeks now, and each day is just about draining me of all my energy. I drag myself home after the last bell. Most kids are pretty sensitive to that, and most don't take advantage of it.

Two freshman boys in my fifth hour class, however, figured out a way to make my fatigue work to their advantage. These two partners in crime asked if they could go to the library together. I knew they wanted to go hang out in the library and just talk, so I gave my standard response, "No way, Jose! K, you can go first, and when he comes back, C, you can go." They tried to talk me into letting them both go, but I told them that they could do it my way or they could both skip the trip to the library and stay in the classroom. They relented, and K took a hall pass and headed off to find a book.

A young lady, who is not really friends with either of the boys, asked if she could go to the library, too, and I gave her the second hall pass.

Then I got down to the business of doing book talks. A few kids came and left to the library and the restroom, etc. They ask, I tell them who they can go after, and then they are pretty good about monitoring themselves and going in "order" so it's fair. I don't have to pay too much attention.

Well, about 20 minutes into class, I noticed that K was still not back from the library. And guess who else was gone? If you guessed C, you are right! Now, this typically would annoy me, but on this particular Friday, it made me laugh. The whole class was staring at me...but when we figured out that we all got duped by these two knuckleheads, they thought it was pretty funny, too. They knew that I had told the boys they couldn't go together, but somehow not a single person noticed that C had managed to get a pass while K was still in the library.

I called the librarian and told her that I had been outsmarted by two freshmen boys, and could she send them back to class for me? She did, I "lectured" the boys and the class about following directions, and tried to keep a straight face the whole time.

Well played, C and K, well played.

I'm still thinking about you...

I know I've been terrible about posting lately, but know this: I am still thinking about you! I check my e-mail daily, and I check "my blogs" daily, too. I just haven't found the time or the energy to blog myself.

But I'll get there. I spent one weekend doing nothing but setting up a bunch of posts to just post automatically. It was beautiful. I felt good about it, too.

Even though I haven't been keeping you updated, good things are happening around here, too. I've got several post ideas planned, I just need to find the time to sit down and do it now. There are posts coming, I promise.

But for today, I leave you with this teaser: One cause. One goal. One team.

J loves school

A few months ago, J and I were visiting his folks. His mom had just finished a huge spring cleaning, and was excited to share some of the stuff she came across with me. One of the things she found was a drawing that J had done way back when he was in kindergarten or first grade. She was working on some sort of art piece, and J was hanging out with her. He traced a picture of Batman, and then wanted to write a message on it for his mom. He was so cute!


When I scanned it, I did clean up some weird yellow discoloration of the paper. It was on notebook paper, which as you know is not acid free. If you look at the handwriting, and look at the tracing, it's pretty obvious he's a talented artist. All three of my MIL's children have pretty substantial artistic abilities. I, on the other hand, still can't draw / trace this well...

When you're awake at 3:43 a.m.

Did you know that when you are sick and awake at 3:43 a.m. ...

1. that your internet connection is extremely fast?

2. that your coughing doesn't get better just because you're sitting up?

3. that your cats will want to play because they think it must be time to get up?

4. that even though your head and ears are so clogged that you can hear nothing but the sound of your own misery, you can hear a 3:30 a.m. train blowing its horn several miles away? Even though you can't hear it during the day?

5. that if you decide to take a shower because you haven't showered all day and your hair feels gross and you feel gross and you think if you just take a shower you'll feel better, that you won't? (I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror as I was getting out of the shower, and I didn't even recognize myself...I look about as good as I feel...)

6. that while you are taking that shower your husband will knock on the bathroom door and ask what you're doing, and are you aware that it's 2:38 a.m.?

7. that there is nothing good on television? (And that's saying something...I am a huge fan of television that has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, including infomercials...)

8. that there's another train that goes by at 3:50? And a third at 3:55?

9. that because you never hear trains at home and now that you've heard three trains in a short period of time, it leads you to think that you may be making it up and that's just a ringing in your ears?

10. that you'll be inspired to write a random blog entry?

Don't bother me

I have a lot of pet peeves, but this one has come to the forefront recently, and it just won't go away.

I have pretty strong beliefs, but for the most part I keep those beliefs to myself. There's nothing more irritating than someone who tries to push their beliefs on you. In the past few months leading up to this election, I've bitten my tongue so many times I'm pretty sure I now have calluses. Whether it's religious or political beliefs you're trying to push, I'm not interested. I am quite positive that as strong as your convictions are, mine are equally strong. I'm not knocking on your door or cluttering up your inbox with my beliefs, so I'd appreciate the same consideration.

You see, regardless of who we elect as president, that's one of the beautiful things about America: I am entitled to my beliefs as you are entitled to yours. And I can guarantee you that no matter how much I love and / or respect you, you will not change my value system no matter how hard you try. I am old and set in my ways.

So go bother someone else.

From the mouths of babes, part 8

"His laugh is a breeze through my ears, his smile a roadblock in my path, his skin an untangible desert."

Okay, I don't even know where to begin, so let's just start at the beginning. This is a line from one of my freshman's essays last year. She was describing her crush. While this sentence sounds pretty good the first time through, I do have some problems with it on a closer reading.

First, if his laugh is a breeze through your ears, doesn't that sort of imply there's nothing in between your ears to stop it? Or even slow it down?

Second, I really like the roadblock in my path part. That's quality stuff. On the other hand, a roadblock implies that you stop and can't get around. If a boy you like smiles at you, it should make you pause and take notice...but you should be able to start back up again. Otherwise, he's in control, and girl, don't ever let someone else control you.

Third, I'm pretty sure untangible is not even a word. But I like what you're implying here. It's good you can't touch him...you're way too young for any of that monkey business.

Overall, a nice attempt at some poetic, lyric writing. But just because it sounds smart doesn't mean it is.

A personal best

Those of you who know me will vouch for me when I say that I am a jeans and t-shirt type of girl. I am not comfortable in dresses or skirts, and would rather not wear slacks if I can help it. I practically live in jeans and t-shirts and sneakers during the fall, winter and spring. During the summer it's t-shirts and shorts and flip flops.

That's why I am proud to announce that as of today, I have only worn jeans to school exactly four times this year. No, seriously. Four times. That's it. And, three of those four times I wore jeans and my "Go Blue or Go Home" spirit t-shirt. The other day I wore jeans and a blue t-shirt so that I would match my freshmen "team" for our field day. I managed not to wear jeans until the Friday of the third week of school when we had our first home football game.

It's not that I think there's anything wrong with wearing jeans to work. I just was tired of feeling like everyone else was always dressed nicer than me. So this year I decided it would be different. At the end of summer I started shopping. J even went with me one day and helped me pick out a few tops. My friend hemmed all of my slacks for me, so now I have enough pants to get me through a week and a half without wearing the same pair twice. I have all kinds of cute tops that I've collected over the last few years that are practically new because I never really wore them. So, I've been planning at least one day ahead, and keeping up with the laundry.

I am so proud of myself it's not even funny. But I do have to admit that I look forward to Friday "Sun"days at school and I can wear my jeans. (We are the Suns, so every Friday we wear school colors and they call it SUNday...cute, huh?)

We'll see how long this lasts, but as of now, it's a personal record for me!

He passed

He did it. It's official: Hiren is a high school graduate! A few months ago I did a post about graduation and how bittersweet it is for me. In that post I talked about Hiren and how hard he worked last year but was not successful passing the WASL which meant he was not allowed to graduate.

Because he didn't graduate last June, Hiren signed up for some classes again at SHS this year. He took the WASL again in August, but the results were not scheduled to come in until this month or even November.

He did not need any of the classes or credits as he already had more than enough to graduate, but he didn't want to sit around doing nothing. He thought he could take a computer class or two and another English class while he waited around for WASL scores to come back in. He was enrolled in my WASL COE (Collection of Evidence) class, and was working on more writing samples to submit just in case he did not pass the WASL.

That class is second hour, and I only have seven seniors in it. Well, yesterday, at the end of third hour I sat down to check my e-mail before my freshmen came in. I got a message from the Director of Language Arts. The WASL results came in yesterday, and before they even sorted them out to send to principals, she checked on Hiren's score because she knew I would want to know. He passed.

He passed.

He passed.

All on his own, he passed. I almost started to cry! I called the main office to find out where his fourth hour class was because I wanted to tell him in person. I found out he didn't have a fourth hour class, so I grabbed my cell phone.

I only had a very brief minute before the bell rang and I would need to start class, so I just dashed off a short message. It read "You need to come see me right now!" Then I turned off my phone and tossed it back in my purse.

Apparently he's got a new phone so my name was not programmed in yet. He called my phone number back, but I obviously didn't answer because it was turned off. When the voice mail picked up he realized it was me, and started to freak out a little bit. He thought he was in trouble.

He was about halfway out to his car to go home when he got my message. He immediately turned around and came back. When he walked in my room, he looked pretty worried. I was thrilled to be the one to tell him that he had passed the WASL and was officially a high school graduate!!

Huge hugs, a few tears of joy, high fives, and a bit of celebratory dancing later, he ran out of my room to talk to his counselor. Long story short, Hiren now has in his possession an official class of 2008 diploma. And a beaming smile that makes me want to do a happy dance.

The only downside to this amazing news?? I'm going to miss him.

I am so proud of that kid.

Miss

I'm not sure why I feel like I need to apologize when posts are simply so-so, but I do. I'm apologizing in advance about today's post. It was about a discussion that J and I had recently that made me stop and think. Because he had a question, I thought others may have the same question. I could be wrong, though, we'll see.

As a result of all the school stories in my blog lately, J and I had an interesting discussion the other day. He wanted to know if my kids really did call me "Miss" or if I was just putting that in the retelling of the story.

His question surprised me. I guess I'm so used to it now, that I don't even pay attention anymore. The kids DO call me "Miss" and that's it. When I first started teaching over here, I was taken aback by it. Nobody does that in Western Washington. They use your name. It seemed sort of odd to me at first, but nobody else seemed to be overly bothered by it so I didn't question it. It took awhile to get used to, but now I like it. I still don't really feel like a "Mrs." I much prefer Miss H or just plain Miss.

When I was trying to explain to J why the kids do it, I realized that I'm not positive what their reason is. Honestly, I believe that it started with our Hispanic population. In Spanish, women are often referred to as just senora or senorita. I bet that's where it came from. In English, that would translate to Miss.

Whatever the cause, I like it. Before I got married, my last name was Plenkovich. That's a mouthful for kids, so I always told them they could call me "Miss P." Then, after I got married, all of a sudden kids were using my whole name. That made me feel old. So Miss it is.

I find myself sitting on a fence

Recently I assigned my seniors a synthesis essay. A synthesis essay requires students to gather several resources on a single topic, and synthesize the information found within them. Because it is an election year, what better (and easier) topic than the impending election?


All the kids needed to do was choose a candidate to endorse, research where both candidates stood on the issues they personally found important, and then write their essay. Sounds simple enough, right? I should have known better.


I learned rather quickly that even seniors have a hard time writing essays on this topic. I made it very clear to them that they were not going to be graded on who they chose to endorse, but on how well they supported their arguments using the information they found in their research. As is always the case, they wanted to know who I am going to vote for. I normally don't tell kids, but this time I did. I told them that I tend to be more liberal, so I tend to vote Democratic. But I was quick to add that my husband tends to be far more conservative, so our votes usually cancel the other's out. (*Let me add to this lest my husband want to throttle me: J says he is non-partisan and will vote for the right man for the job. It still amazes me how often, for someone who claims to be non-partisan, he finds the Republican to be the "right man for the job." On the other hand, I have seen him vote for Democrats before, and he tends to vote how I do for school/education specific elections like Superintendent, school board, etc.)


Anyway, when I got the essays back, they were hard for me to grade. The area where I live is VERY conservative. There are far more Republicans than Democrats. This is not usually a problem with adults who respect each other's views to their faces. With teenagers, though, they have not all learned the art of diplomacy or even subtlety. They spout what they have heard, without even knowing if it's true or not.


Suffice it to say, very little about these essays ended up being enjoyable for me. Even putting my own beliefs aside, the kids really didn't perform well...they just don't write very well. We've had to go way back to basics, and I'm hoping that their next essays are better. They are in my school bag, I just can't bring myself to read them yet.

Because nothing else about those dang essays made me smile, I thought I would share my two favorite quotes with you. If nothing else, their naivete shows through, and that's funny stuff.

“When researching John McCain and Barack Obama, I found myself sitting on a fence.” (I bet that's painful...you should probably sit at your desk instead. Or did you mean you found yourself sitting on THE fence?)

“The first step to solve the problem (of immigration) is to secure our boarders first.” (Yeah, spell check didn't catch that one! And it's funny on many levels...)

Gift giving woes

My husband is incredibly difficult to buy gifts for. J is one of those people who believe gifts should be something you want, not necessarily something you need. No shoes, socks, or underwear for him, please! Instead, he wants power tools or video games. Fun gifts. I get that, I really do. The problem is that he will NEVER tell me (or anyone else for that matter) what he wants. I don't think he does it on purpose, but it drives me bananas trying to think of a gift for him.



This annoys me because giving great gifts is one thing I pride myself on. There is nothing that I enjoy more than thinking of the perfect gift for someone. It's great if they can point me in the right direction, but I always like to add that element of surprise...going a little beyond what they expected.



Because I know J almost as well as I know myself, I am usually pretty successful, I think, finding him great gifts. Finding gifts for the rest of his family, though, especially his sisters, makes me crazy. Seriously. His sisters are even worse than he is for suggesting gift ideas. For example, way back in June, I started thinking about gifts for H. Her 30th birthday was on July 6th. I came up with nothing. Nada. Zilch. So, even though we went camping with her just a few days after her birthday, we didn't have a gift for her. We've been trying to come up with ideas ever since. That was four months ago, people. She still hasn't told us what she wanted for her birthday. Can you imagine my stress?? I'll let you in on another secret: I tend to be a little OCD about deadlines. I feel terribly guilty if I miss a deadline.



On the upside, time works differently in J's family...they don't feel the same pressure to give or receive gifts on exact birthdays. They're okay with giving or receiving gifts months or even years later. And while I'm okay with receiving gifts late, I'm sure not okay with giving them late. So this peculiar habit of all three of them (J and both his sisters) makes me want to pull my hair out. They think it's kind of funny...and truthfully they probably find it annoying. But I can't help myself.



Way back in late June, early July, my friend talked me into sewing a rag quilt. I did, and I was totally hooked! I bought fabric for two more quilts. One of the quilts I intended to be a Christmas gift for H. So, when I finished her quilt about a month ago, I washed it and dried it, and folded it up to wait for Christmas.



About a week and a half ago, we got a phone call from J's mom. H had finished her seven week course and was coming up to Washington to get Sam, her dog. C was coming home from school for the weekend, too, so J and I decided to go and visit as well. We got to talking about gifts before we left. We were taking his dad the gift we had gotten for his birthday in September, and I said I would feel kind of bad giving Dad a gift and not H because her birthday was in July.



J suggested we take the quilt. Though it goes against my OCD nature to switch stuff around like that, I conceded because I really could not think of anything else to give H.



I took some pictures before we wrapped it up to share with you guys. I'm so thrilled with the way it turned out! I saw the camouflage print with the butterflies and knew I had to use it. My friend who talked me into the first quilt has an embroidery machine, so I had her embroider a square for me. It has H's name, her sign-up date, an Air Force logo, and the nickname her family gave her when she joined up: Lt. Dan.



It turned out so cute! And, of course, J just couldn't help goofing off when I asked him to hold it up for me to take pictures. He cracks me up!

TGI...T??

TGI...T??

Thank Goodness It's Thursday!! That sounds sorta weird, doesn't it? Well, today was the last day of school for the week. Tomorrow is a state wide professional development day. That means there's no school so teachers can go to all sorts of different seminars and conferences and develop themselves professionally.

Me?

I'll be sleeping in like a pro.

From the mouths of babes, part 7

This next quote needs a little bit of background information. The writing prompt was to talk about a lesson you have learned outside of school. While most kids talked about driver's ed or learning to tie their shoes, there were a few kids who stepped out of the box. This particular essay was about how this student learned how to be patient and kind from a kid he babysat. I'm not sure if he intended to be funny or if it just happened on accident, but I laughed right out loud when I read this essay.

"Bobby was blind. I became his babysitter after awhile and helped him at home. We would play games like hide and go seek. Bobby was always good at not peeking."

Hallmark cards rock, pt. 8

Here's another installation. I went looking for more of my favorite old lady cards at Wal-Mart, but came up empty handed unfortunately. I did find these, though, and I liked them a lot.



You can see the first part of my Hallmark card collection here, the second part here, the third part here, the fourth part here, the fifth part here, the sixth part here, and the seventh part here.



Enjoy!






This is so gonna be the card I give J for our next anniversary! With any luck he'll forget that he read it here first!




I'm going to cross out "Grandma" and write in "Auntie Bea" and send this to my mom or one of my sisters. My great-aunt Bea is the only person on my mom's side of the family who is shorter than I am. Everyone else is tall.





This is totally for T or L. These two ladies have to be sisters, what do you think?

A sweet tea party

C is a senior at UW this year. Last summer she took a pottery class. She's a very talented artist, so I knew she would be amazing at this. I was right.


Her final exam was to create everything necessary for a meal with anyone dead or alive, famous or not. She called J to ask him for some ideas, and we gave her what we thought were some great ones.


We thought she should have a meal with Salvadore Dali. That would be cool...and easy. If you messed up, it would still look like you meant it to be that way! I was picturing melting cups and plates. Forks and spoons with twisted handles. That kind of stuff.


We suggested Iron Chef Masaharu Moriomoto. We all love that show, and he's pretty much iconic. He IS Iron Chef. And Bobby Flay is too cocky. How cool would a pottery sushi mat be? And chopsticks. I was pretty excited about this one, but neither J nor C thought it was as great as I did.


We suggested Shakespeare, Beowulf, and a few others. As an afterthought, J throws out the idea to have a tea party with the Queen of England or someone like that.


Well, she did decide to do a tea party. But she wanted a tea party with her mom, her sister, and me. Each of the cups she created for us tells a story, a portrait of us, if you will. How sweet is that? Here is a picture of her tea party creations.





This is the tea cup she created for H. H is in the Air Force, so the blue represents that. The elongated tear drop shapes represent the shapes of air plane wings. It is footed and old fashioned looking, because H loves that kind of stuff. Elegant and delicate, that's her style.







This is the tea cup she created for herself. It is colorful, artistic, and unique, just like C. She used unconventional methods to glaze her tea cup, like salt to make the weird bubbling. That's totally her. She's a free spirit.





This is the tea cup she created for Mom. It's got earth tone colors and flowers in the arts and crafts style. Mom and Dad have decorated their whole house in this style. When her professor looked at this tea cup, he said that it was for a "no nonsense" type of woman. I'd say she nailed it.





Last, but not least, this is the cup C created for me. She is so creative! She knows, from the many tea parties we've had over the years, that I don't drink tea. So she made me a cup for the lemonade I usually drink instead. She got online and did some research about my background, and discovered that Croatia is famous for lace (who knew?), and their colors are white and burgundy. She glazed my cup white and burgundy, and wrapped it in lace to get the pattern.



I can't wait for our next tea party!

Tiger hunting

In yesterday's post I mentioned that my kids were reading "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. For those of you who don't know the story, here's a short synopsis I totally stole from Wikipedia:

Sanger Rainsford, a hunter, and his hunting companion, Whitney, are traveling to the Amazon Rainforest to hunt the Jaguar. After a discussion about how they were the hunters instead of the hunted, Rainsford hears shots, drops his pipe, and falls off of their boat while trying to retrieve it. He washes up on an island, Ship-Trap Island, that is the subject of local superstition.

He finds a Palatial Chateau owned by a Cossack hunter named General Zaroff and his Cossack servant Ivan. General Zaroff had heard of Rainsford as he is a big game hunter who read his book. Over dinner, General Zaroff explains to Rainsford how he became so good at hunting that he became bored and unchallenged with it. He then decided to live on an island where he captured shipwrecked sailors and sent them, with only food, a knife, and moccasins, into the jungle. Three hours later, he followed them to hunt them. If they eluded him for three days, he let them go, but he had so far managed to kill them all.

Zaroff tells Rainsford that he would be the next person he hunted. Rainsford runs into the forest and climbs a tree. Zaroff finds him easily, but decides to play with him like a cat with a mouse. Next Rainsford sets a tiger trap, which kills one of Zaroff's hounds. Finally, he set a trap with his knife that kills Ivan , but not Zaroff. As the hounds approach, Rainsford jumps off a cliff into the ocean. Zaroff assumes he has killed himself and returns home. Rainsford is there, having swam around the island. Zaroff congratulates him and offers to send him home, but Rainsford decides to fight him, and says "I'm still a beast at bay."

The last sentence of the book shows the General accepting the fight, saying that the loser should be fed to the dogs and the victor would sleep in the master bedroom's bed. Although it is not directly stated in the story, it is implied that the General lost and was fed to his hounds because of Rainsford's last words - "he had never slept in a better bed."


Anyway, it took us two days to read the story out loud together as a class. It's a great read, full of lots of detail and lots of action. It totally gets their attention, especially the boys. As we read, I stop and talk with them about the story. I model different reading strategies, and we make connections with the text. One of the things I do is ask them to predict. That's what good readers do, so we practice it.

Before we even started, I asked them what they thought the story was about based on the title and the picture on the first page. M, a 15-year-old boy, immediately pipes up with, "I think it's about hunting. And I think they are going to hunt tigers because that's a type of dangerous game!" I thanked him for his answer, talked over a few more guesses from other kids and got started.

Partway through the story General Zaroff is talking to Rainsford about how he has gotten bored with hunting because it's too easy for him. Then he says that he has imported a type of big game on to his island for hunting. I stopped and asked the kids what type of big game they thought it could be. M again puts in his bid for tigers. He said, "I really hope they hunt tigers!"

Once they found out General Zaroff hunts humans, they were appropriately grossed out and intrigued. The story went on, and at the end, M said, "Well, even though they didn't hunt tigers, this was a pretty cool story."

The boy was really looking forward to some tiger hunting apparently.

Anway, on Thursday kids were working on their maps of the island, and M was focused on his work all hour with his partner.

After school, I was looking their maps over, impressed with many, disappointed in a few. Reduced to hysterics when I saw M's map.

In the water surrounding the island, he added his own special touch.

A tiger shark.

Smart aleck

I know, lots of school entries lately. But you'll be patient, right? I don't have my own babies, so my students fill that void right now. And, I spend more time with them than anyone else during the school year if you really think about it.

Today, during fourth hour, kids are working on their maps of Ship Trap Island (from Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game"). They are using context clues to determine where the different locations on the island go. They think they are drawing maps. They are really doing a close second reading before I assign them another essay. This is the second essay in a month, the third this year so far. We've been spending a lot of time talking about how in an essay you need to include both facts (concrete details) and your opinion about / explanation of those facts (commentary). It's a hard concept for them to grasp, thus the second essay less than a week after they turned in the first. In fact, I haven't even graded the first essays yet. That's my task this weekend so I know where we need to spend more time focusing. I'm guessing we'll be talking more about concrete details, commentary, and conclusions. But that's just a guess.

I'm mean like that. Tricking them into doing some learning with a fun activity. That just tickles my funny bone!

Anyway, it's fairly quiet in the room. I'm walking around signing their daily reading logs (yeah, they have to read and write EVERY day for homework - I told you I was mean), when all of a sudden, there's a bit of commotion across the room.

L has killed a fly on his book. He’s pretty excited about it. I looked up to figure out what’s going on, and Y tells me, “It’s okay, Miss, he’s just killed a fly. It was on his book, though. There’s blood and guts and intestines all over it." Then, as an afterthought he added, "Oh, and pus.”

I said, “Did you really have to add that last one?? That’s gross, Y.”

He said, “Sorry, Miss. I was just adding details. Concrete details. Would you like some commentary, too?”

Smart aleck.

I love my job.