School's (just about) out for Christmas :)

Four more hours of school! I just might be counting down even more than the students.

I wore a (beautiful) Christmas sweater to school today, complete with a Christmas tree, beads, bows, and bells. One student, a girl who is rarely in a good mood, said "You just totally made my day when I saw you have bells on your sweater! My dad used to have one like that." (huh?)

Other students snickered, some said they thought it was really cute, another teacher said "Wow, your sweater is..... busy..." That one made me laugh. During one class a student asked his classmate where the ringing was coming from. He must not have noticed the (beautiful) sweater yet.

Tomorrow is the annual Christmas assembly, complete with letters to Santa, a Christmas play, and some caroling. Last year they kind of picked on me in the play and the Student Council Advisor told me today that I showed up in the play again. So we'll see how it goes...

Not Christmas related, but I had a great teacher moment today. The students (in pairs) had to choose a religion and write in a paragraph or two (concisely) how the religion spread. Two students were taking a long time with it and told me they were making it creative. I was looking forward to grading theirs and they surpassed my expectations. by far.

It's a song in the style of the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" tv show theme song describing the beginnings of Islam. I think I'm going to ask them to perform it so I can tape it and show future classes when we're discussing the foundations of Islam.

Sarah's Day

If you happen to see Sarah today or stop by her blog, wish her a very Happy Birthday!!

Sarah, I hope you're having a chance today to relax and enjoy your day. Happy Happy Birthday!

My first deer

I got my first deer yesterday, an 8-pointer. With my car :( Hit it, dragged it a hundred or so feet and then deposited it back on the ground. I couldn't stop right when I hit it because a car was coming up behind me super quickly and was about to rear-end us.

Luckily there were no ill effects (for me and my passenger or my car, the deer wasn't so lucky). I don't even have a scratch or a ding on my car from it. Can't quite figure out how that happened but I am THANKFUL!

Yay!!

I finished my final analysis paper so that means I'm done with homework for the next month. :) I'm pumped about that! It gives me a few extra hours every weekend to spend enjoying this snow.

Happy Birthday Heather!

Today is Heather's 22nd.... Happy Birthday to you!! We went out for dinner to celebrate and had some great laughs. What a fun night :)

In other news

• It was soooo nice having a few days off for Thanksgiving. Dave and I ended up going out of town to visit some family on Friday for the rest of the weekend so it went by waaaay too quickly.
  
• Back to school. and formal observation #1 for year 2. It's over, all of the meetings are over and it was successful. He (the principal) likes what I'm doing, I get to keep my job ;) Kidding. Not about keeping my job because yes, I still have it. But the stakes for this observation were not that high. Last year I got so nervous about them. This one I was able to relax and do my thing. Glad it's over and I'm hoping nothing out of the ordinary comes up before Christmas. Highly unlikely, but a girl can hope!
• I put up some Christmas lights in my room and the students are loving it. I like 'em too. If I don't get sick of them I just may keep them up longer. It makes my classroom cozier or something.
  
• This week is dragging by.
• Tomorrow DII basketball starts in these parts. Heidi and I got season tickets - can't wait!

Hope you're all taking some time to enjoy the season. I'm afraid it's going to go by way too quickly.

Thankful

Today I brought my United States History class to a welcome home ceremony for some local soldiers (they were in Afghanistan for the past year). It's one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed. There was so much joy and emotion - everyone made it back safely :) Wow! A great day to be an American! Sometimes it's hard to tell if things make an impact on high school students but today I know made an impression on them.

AMAZING! I'm so thankful to have brave, courageous soldiers serving our country and protecting us and our freedoms. THANK YOU!

The first break

We just about made it to the first break of the year -- three more days of work. Life sure is good. :)

I don't really have a post in me but here are a few randoms

• Dave worked this weekend but he's on his way back so I have a date tonight :)
• I scheduled my first formal observation with the principal the other day. It's going to be on December 1st. It's nice to get those over with and relax and enjoy being a teacher.
• Did I mention we have a contract? We settled a few weeks ago and it's the first one since I started working at my school. It wasn't the best but it sure is nice having one.
• I have two assignments left to complete for my online class. One is due next weekend and the last one the following weekend. It'll be nice to have a month or so off from doing that kind of homework.
• What's with this weather? and the apples on the trees. Has anyone noticed that - no leaves left but tons of apples still on the trees?
• Evenings this time of year are so cozy. They're long because it gets dark so early but I enjoy that when I'm inside and warm...
• Have you started your Christmas shopping? I've been working on it.
• I'm jealous of Katz, Heidi, and Greta. They're going east for five days on Thursday. They get to see David, Peter, Jim, Lynne, Braedy :) :), Bob, and Maria.

ENJOY your week!!

Happy Opening Day

Oops, it's been awhile. I've been really busy but today I have some free time so here I am...

For a minute I'm going to tell you what I've been up to in the last week. Wednesday was Veteran's Day and our school puts on a ceremony for the local veterans and community as a whole. That's one of the jobs of the high school social studies teacher, so that means me. This is my second year doing it and I really wanted to make sure it was heartfelt and meaningful so that the veterans could see that so many of us are really appreciative and thankful to them. It's a big task because you don't want it to be "so-so" or "okay." Needless to say, I was completely focused on that until it was over at noon on Wednesday. It went really really well. My students did an awesome job ~ I was so proud of them. There were many different pieces that had to come together to make it successful and all of the practice and preparation was worth it because it all did come together.

That was the big thing for the week, but once that was over I had to focus on training some of my students for a presentation the principal wanted for some parents on Thursday and Friday. Then I had two more presentations to do on Thursday afternoon and parent-teacher conferences were Thursday evening and Friday afternoon. Plus all the regular teaching, preparing, and grading. I was exhausted on Wednesday, hit a wall on Thursday, and by Friday my head wasn't really into it anymore.

Then Dave came home :) It's been a great weekend!! He was away for two weeks this time but might be here for longer than a few days (I'm crossing my fingers).

Michelle was up here for a week with the babies. It was so wonderful coming home from work to hold them and visit with Michelle. She went back today.

Now, happy hunting to anyone who is going out.