Coffee anyone?

I'm on my way out for coffee with some of my sisters... and I really mean coffee. For years I'd go "out for coffee" with my friends and get ice cream, hot chocolate, or a smoothee. But now I have to say, I crave different coffee drinks.
Here are my top three:
peppermint mocha (reminds me of the holidays!)
raspberry mocha frappachino (WOW I cannot spell!!) (This one reminds me of NYC in the summer)
peppermint mocha frappachino or peppermint chocolate mocha frappachino....
looks like I'm stuck on the mochas. YUM!

I think I may have a different post on here about this whole coffee thing, but it's a cool new thing for me :) Heather was in Baltimore for about a year, and she came back with the same addiction. Our friends who stayed home haven't quite made the transformation, but we're working on them :)

Happy Hunting!

What a holiday this day is in these parts! I subbed today, and in 3 out of my 5 classes, more than half of the students were absent. The halls were noticeably quieter, too. I only remember it being a big deal like this one time while I was in high school. Maybe the 15th was on Saturday and Sunday for two of the years I was in school.... who knows. I came home from school and already heard a bunch of success stories. Way to go, hunters!

I'm already in 100% holiday mode! The ring tone on my phone is a holiday song, I've started my shopping, I'm listening to Christmas music, and last night my sister and I did some stamping for Christmas. I'm definitely ready for them this year!!

Happy Sweet Sixteen to my cousin BETS! She passed her driver's test this morning, icy roads and all. Congrats!

I'm feeling a little jealous of some of my friends who are still in college... they get a whole week off for Thanksgiving. No such luck for local high/middle schools. We just get Thursday and Friday off (but I'll DEFinitely enjoy it!).

A CT story: Last year my friends Tamara and Katharina wanted to see an over-the-top Christmas lights/decorations house. So one evening last December we drove all around our town, searching for the most gaudy spectacle we could find. It took us awhile, but we found a really good one. I wish I had photo of it! (It's something I don't understand...) Also, I was super excited to see all of the holiday decorations in NYC. It seemed like Christmas was going to be an amazing time to be in the city. Hate to break it to you, but it's over rated. There were definitely some really cool decorations (things you probably don't see anywhere else), but it wasn't as *magical* or beautiful as I thought it would be.

I love swimming!

It's pretty much my favorite.

Sooooo, when I had the opportunity to go one last time (?? not sure if that makes sense) this year, I JUMPED! Literally. Molly has this thing going with two of her friends. They made a deal last March to go swimming at Hippie's (in the Valley) at least once a month for a year. So on Sunday Heather and I joined her and we went swimming! It was painfully COLD, but it made us feel oh-so-alive. So it was well worth it! Oh what a feeling! and oh yeah, did I mention it was dark out? and I had never gone swimming there before? and we had no flashlights or lights of any kind? A little creepy.

All fall it felt like I had to go swimming one last time to finish off the summer. I guess I did it, but a lot later than I expected. I love swimming! and I get to go in about two months in the gorgeous Caribbean Sea!

I realized something about myself one day last week while reading some old posts on here. I'm spontaneous! I don't know if I have always been, or if living in CT brought that out or what, but I definitely am. I look back and can hardly believe the last-minute things we/I decided to do. I'm very proud of that! A lot of people would be content living in CT and going into the city every once in awhile. But we aimed higher: we had bigger goals: the whole mid/north east coast! and some pretty sweet activities in the city too. Lots of these decisions were made during Saturday night phone calls. Example: "What should we do tomorrow? I heard Philadelphia is only like three hours away! So's Boston." ..... "Pick one!" And some of these were Sunday morning phone calls "I don't feel like just going to the beach today. Let's drive up/down the coast and find a cool town to explore." or my favorite: a couple of times I was feeling homesick, or couldn't imagine missing out on something at home. So I went home. Twice I bought a plane ticket in the evening and was on the plane early the next morning.

Anyway, it's a trait I never thought about for myself, and I'm kind of proud to say that I'm flexible enough to do something at the drop of a hat!

Congrats to the CHS Vball team on winning their quarterfinal match tonight!! They won 3-0, and now head to the state semi-finals on Friday afternoon. YEA CHS!

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!!

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!! :)

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!

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!

Fall, fall, fall!

Today I'm feeling really nostalgic about Connecticut and NY. I think it's because I woke up this morning and watched the TODAY show for about five minutes. Bruce Springsteen was having a concert on the Plaza and it brought back a barrage of memories from all the times we went there. So then all day on and off I've been thinking about all of the adventures I had with Sarah, Tamara, and Katharina in the first few months, then Ellen joined us, and about a month before I moved home, Gillian became part of our group. I can't believe I won't be seeing any of them for such a long time. Who knows when the next time will be. As Katharina would always say in the last month or two that we were out there: We knew we'd have to say goodbye and leave. I just think we didn't think it was going to be so hard. The actual saying goodbye wasn't too bad for me, but now thinking about everything is making me so sad.

What a strange thing. To meet people, become really good friends with them, spend all of your free time for almost a year with them. Then say goodbye and not know when you'll ever see each other again. :S


Life's good in Michigan :) I know so many days when I would call home from CT, I would be sad about things I was missing out on. I get to go to all of the CC meets and football games and see most of my family every day. I don't take that for granted and I love being with all of them. I also get to spend some weekends with my friends. I don't have to get phone calls on Saturday or Sunday morning to hear what everyone did...

I'm teaching high school math right now, for another five weeks. (It'll be 9 weeks total.) MAN, is it ever exhausting!! But I'm really enjoying it. I felt like a total math geek this morning during one of my classes because I was so excited for the lesson. I was just pumped about the topic (limits), and I let my students know. I think some of them looked at me like get over it and get on with it. :)

This chica's exhausted!! and I'm helping Liz with a wedding tomorrow -- no rest for the weary! Just kidding -- I don't have to set an alarm for the first time in over a month -- so I'm EXCITED! :)