HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom!

Happy Birthday to my dear Mom!

Par-tay

Here a couple of photos from my birthday the other day. I eliminated added sugar from my diet about 9-10 months ago, so no cake! My family got creative...

Kristin, Heather, Heidi, Liz, and Leanne making my "cake."

The finished product. It was delicious!!! and my sister Julie said This is a great party because you can eat tons and not feel bad because it's all good for you!

Quickly

It's pretty late (way past my bedtime!) but I actually have something to share.
The students were trying to figure out how old I was. Here's a couple of quotes:

• "Miss H, you don't look a day over 35!!"
• "Is it your eighteenth birthday?!"
• "Well, you graduated from college three years ago, so you must be 23 or 24"
• "There's no way you're 29, so you must be 27!"
• "You're not in your thirties yet, so you must be in your twenties, but not older than 25..."
• "wait, don't move around so much. I'm trying to figure out how old you look."
• "If we guess it, will you tell us? 22? 23? 24? 25? 26? 27? 28? 29?" Me: "Yep!"

That's high school logic I guess.

I have great students. I've enjoyed them the past couple of days. For the most part. and I have to get to bed so I'll enjoy them tomorrow!

PS Kristin, I'll get the pictures up this weekend :)

I'm (day) dreaming of something tropical

Your Ideal Island Vacation is Fiji

On an island vacation, you prefer to get the full beach experience. And for you, that means staying somewhere with few people and lots of beach. With over 300 islands, you can find your own private spot in Fiji. Relax by the crystal clear water, or venture off to find a waterfall.

What's Your Ideal Island Vacation?

Heart

Yesterday I gave an update to my econ (senior) students - kind of the schedule for the week, because it's different than usual. (Usually it's vocab Monday, book game Wednesday, test day Friday and other various things in between)
After telling them, one of my students said "Whoa, you DO have a heart!!"

It made me smile.

And in that same class, I goofed up on something... and they caught it (not much gets past them). There must've been something in the air, because someone said "Way to go, Miss H!" and they started clapping.

Again, they made me smile.

Dreaming up Lesson Plans

Literally. I think of lesson plans in my sleep. I wake up in the morning and have great ideas for some of my classes... and I use those ideas and they work out great! It happened a couple of times last semester and now three or four times in the past couple of weeks.

What am I doing wasting my time working while I'm awake? :)

Winter/January Blues

Hope no one is getting the January blues! It's so cold out there and there hasn't been a whole lot of sun lately (that I've seen anyway)... so hope you're all handling it well. Keep yourself busy and stay warm!

This last week of school was one of my toughest. I'm not sure if it was just because I'm mentally exhausted, or Tuesday kind of threw everything out of whack, or I have a different schedule, or what. It felt like it was never going to end! I didn't have time to eat my lunch at lunchtime three of the days, so I ended up eating it during my prep hour at around 1:45. Maybe that added to it. and I had to leave school early a couple of the days for appointments so I didn't get as much work done as usual.......

But now it's Saturday, a whole glorious day to spend on non-school things.
Enjoy your weekend!

Did I tell you?

I'm going on vacation for my spring break with these ladies! We're heading to the big city (aka my favorite city, NYC, the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps)for a long weekend... tickets: check. Hotel: check. Now we just have to wait until April 3rd!

Happy Birthday, big brother!

Happy (I won't put the number) Birthday, Jim!! Hope you aren't working too hard today, and that you're spending some quality time with Lynne -- celebrating your big day!!

I am hopeful!

Being a history teacher on a day like today, I can't help but be hopeful. Are you?
He has so many promises to keep, such high expectations to go into. I don't know if it's possible for anyone to fulfill the expectations that are out there for him. I'm not envious, I'll tell you that much. No matter how awesome it'd be to live in the White House (can you imagine?!!! the HISTORY!!!), I can't begin to imagine the person it would take to be the leader of the most prosperous, powerful nation in the world. at a time like now.
I'm interested to see this change.

It was especially fun being a history teacher today. My students were sooo into it! "Who is that now?" "What are they talking about?" "What are they doing up there?" etc. and other things like "Bush wasn't invited to the lunch?!! I'd be MAD!"

Most of them thought George and Laura Bush were probably sad today. I told them I think they're relieved and ready to move on. Happy to "just" be American citizens.

In other news, I LOVE teaching Econ. So far. It is just so interesting! some of my students have already started commenting "I didn't know you could apply econ to every part of your life!" and other things like "are we supposed to be thinking like this in our regular lives?"
I think it's going to be a great semester!!!

All over again

So basically I have to do what I just did all over again and it'll be the end of the year. and I'll have survived year one of teaching. The year they all say is the hardest, worst, and most challenging.

So far, I've survived

• 17 weeks of lesson plans.
• 17 weeks of figuring out something different to do every hour for six hours a day
• My first field trip
• My first parent-teacher conferences
• My first formal observation
• Teaching a class that has no curriculum -- you just have to "teach local history" or "teach current events"
• Two presentations in front of the whole school
• One month of strict, strict discipline
• Two snow days :)
• Running a school-wide election
• Working with IEPs

Ack!!! I just realized I have to go --- I'm gonna be late for something... finish this later...

Thoughts

I didn't mean to take such a long break... our internet at home was down for about a week, then school started again. and for awhile I didn't want to update until I uploaded my pictures, but when I finally did that, the internet was down.
HAPPY 2009!!! A couple weeks late.

• The four-five days while everyone was home was hectic!!! Going, going, going not just for Christmas, but the two days before and after also. Visting, games, games, visiting. Home videos from 1989 and beyond. Just awesome!
• A couple of pretty great get-togethers with friends. Friends who have been there since, oh, about second grade. :)
• New Years was fun this year. I talked to a couple of the people we went to NYC with last year, so we had a good time reminiscing...
• This post is boring.
• The first day back to school (Jan. 5) was a SNOW DAY!!! what a way to go back to school! I was ready to get back to work... but I'll never complain about a free day off.
• EXAMS this week. That's a first for me. I've taken my share, but never given them before. It's hard to guage how long it is going to take them to take it. If it's too many short answer questions. If I was way too easy on them. If it was at all challenging. Or way too hard. Two down, four to go -- Wednesday and Thursday are half days so we teachers can have some time to grade the things. If you think it's hard taking one, imagine making it, then grading 100 of them in a week. :S
• The good news is that after this week, I'm

HALFWAY done with my first year as a teacher!!!!

• I've been going over and over in my mind my reflections on this first half of the year. I think I should write them down and get them out. Maybe a future post on here. We'll see.
• Snow. whew! I don't remember a January with this much snow before.
• My New Year's Resolution is to not work more than eleven hours a day. I'm not doing so great so far, but it'll get better. Right?
• I'm sad I missed John and Tahnee's wedding this past weekend. It would've been way too quick for me so I had to stay home.
• On the plus side, though, I had some quality time with Jules (snowshoeing), Katz, Peter, and Heidi.
• Hope the winter blues aren't hitting anyone -- try to make some time to get outside and enjoy this beautiful snow!!