Monday, October 29, 2007

The countdown

Four more days of school!! sort of... then I'm back to regular subbing. I'm not looking forward to it because I'm enjoying having my own classroom and classes. But it'll be sort of nice not having all of the extra hours of homework (grading and lesson plans). we'll see what comes next.

"Halloween weekend" was pretty good. Some pretty creative costumes!! It's always fun to see what people come up with. Sunday was lots of fun down there. The ladies at church served a delicious meal after church, then we did a little bit of shopping (Target and Michaels, stores that were a 5-minute drive away when I was in CT!) and I got STARBUCKS!!!! Liz, Shelmz, Hez, and I went there and absolutely enjoyed ourselves. Just being in that store brings back a flood of memories... although that one is a lot bigger than pretty much any one in New York or Connecticut.
At Michaels we saw a lot of Christmas craft stuff and decorations. Now I can hardly wait for the Christmas season!! Last year I missed out on a lot of the pre-Christmas things, so I'm going to soak it all up this year!

Seeing as this was my life in Connecticut blog, I guess it's okay to write about a few things concerning my time there. It was normal to drive ten minutes to get to the grocery store. Or 20 minutes to Wal-Mart was close! (seriously, it was right next door!). We'd drive half an hour to a coffee shop and then decide not to go there, and turn around and go home. Or we'd go to Coldstone Creamery to get ice cream "real quick" and it was 15 minutes away. the boys' school was 10 minutes each way without traffic, and it felt like it was really close too!
Some other things seriously were close (the train station = 2 minutes, the post office = 2 minutes, Tamara's house = 2 minutes, the gym = 3 minutes, the club = 4 minutes, one of the hockey rinks = 5 minutes). Now I drive almost 30 minutes to and from work every day and it's starting to feel like a long commute. What I could do with that extra hour every day!! And even though Wal-Mart is only 20 minutes away, I don't just run there to pick something up. I go if I have a list. Or on my way home from work or something.
It's all about perspective!!

Monday, October 22, 2007

Flying and vacations

If you want to go to the Caribbean, I guess you can't really have one without the other. So even though I may not be ready to get on a plane again in January, I'm going to... so I can have a sweet, awesome, FUN vacation with some of my sisters and my mom. YEA! :)
Seriously, right now the thought of flying puts me in a bad mood... but as Katz said, it'll be much better flying with other people and when you're going somewhere really exciting. Hopefully I'll just be able to put all of the negatives and bad experiences in the back of my mind by then.

YEA for vacations!! :)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Teaching...

When you're a teacher, I think you hear just about everything. Sometimes I cringe, sometimes I laugh, sometimes I'm completely confused, and other times I have to turn around so the students don't see my reaction. Still other times I have to reprimand, assign detention, etc.
Some things from today:
*When one of my classes started, I said we have to get through yesterday's homework quickly because I'm really excited about what we're doing today. A student said "That's nothing new! You're always excited about this stuff!" (I thought about that, and I think it's the highest compliment I've heard from a student!)
*"Since this stuff is so confusing, we shouldn't have to learn it and we shouldn't have homework!"
* One student: "I really like your necklace!" Followed by (from a different student) "It reminds me of Jesus!" (the necklace has four circles of different sizes on a long chain with some beads or something.)
* A student had to remind me "Ms. H, I think you should learn to laugh more! You'll live longer...plus we all like your smile." Of course this was in the class that I have to be the strictest, otherwise we'd never get anything done.
* A vendor walked into my room during lunch today and asked me "Do you know where I can find a teacher?" Ummm HELLO! Teacher right here!
* Some students were acting like my classroom was a court room today. (I'm not sure where they got all the info about what goes on inside a court room...) They reminded each other to call me "Your Honor" and when I said we'd do some of the homework in class if everyone participated (otherwise it would all be homework), they said I could no longer be the judge because I was bribing people...
* At the end of the hour in one class, a student had a joke for me. I'm leery of jokes because I'm not sure if students really realize what is appropriate for school and what isn't. I trusted this student, so I listened. "Why can't dinosaurs talk?" me -- "I don't know, why not?" ---- student: "Because they're dead!" I acted all sad and said "WHAT?! They're dead? Since when?!" he didn't appreciate that...

there has been much better and much worse, but that's it for today (that I can remember). I haven't had any lame homework excuses. when they don't do their homework, they just fess up. I'm kind of at my wits end with that (students not doing their homework), but I'm not sure what to do about it. That's a whole tangent I could go off on, but this isn't my teaching blog. so I'll stop.

exciting news: I'm going to be an aunt!! I'm super excited! I really really cannot wait!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

I have some time

So I thought I'd come on here and update a little. Wow! Two in a week after taking almost two months off! :)
I'll be teaching for the next 4.5 weeks - today is the halfway point of my job. The other day in the teacher's lounge I was trying to convince some of the teachers to take a 3 or 4 month leave this winter so I could teach their class. They were all for it, except it doesn't work that easily... I guess it has to be a legit reason. Darn! So I'll be back to square one in a little bit, except with a little more experience under my belt. I wonder if I'll continue dreaming about math even after I'm done...
I'm going to be busy with Liz this month doing weddings! I think we have one Saturday off -- and my cousin is getting married that day. So it's at least 4 weddings in a row -- now through the end of October. Busy busy busy!

One of the other math teachers came into my room the other day with a joke someone forwarded to her. We had a good laugh over it, so I'll share it with you.

e was arguing with i. They weren't getting anywhere, so 'i' said to 'e' "Be rational!" and 'e' said to 'i' "Get real!"

explaining a joke totally ruins it, so if you don't get it, just ask me sometime. (Hint: It's MATH)

YEA for the bridge construction being done!!! I could hardly believe it today on my way home from work. Here I was expecting to wait in a big long line and go around the loop... but the left lane was open! Sweet!