Long week

I kept meaning to blog some over the past week, but I never got around to it. Here's a quick recap...

• Yesterday, the 27th, was our 10th Wedding Anniversary. Darryl has been gone all week and was gone most of yesterday, too, so we didn't really do anything to celebrate, but...we are going on a week-long trip next Friday. I would tell you where we're going, but my mother is convinced a crazy blog stalker will follow us there, so I won't tell you now. We're very excited about it, but we will definitely miss Amelia. :)
• I had my teaching observation/evaluation this week. I was so glad to get that done. I hate being observed. It isn't that I'm doing anything that I shouldn't be doing, but you know how sometimes you have one of "those" days, and I always fear that I will be evaluated on one of those days. Glad that's behind me.
• Amelia has been spending some time in timeout at her daycare this week. Apparently she likes to pull kids' hair. My favorite account of this is that apparently one day she and her buddy Jake were playing in a playhouse on the playground. Jake tried to leave, and she pulled him back by the hair. Oops.
• I took Friday off as a personal day but still took Amelia to daycare. Unfortunately, I spent most of the time trying to catch up some on my grading. The pile never ends.
• I missed having Darryl around this week. I don't know how single moms do it. Amelia was pretty good, though, so I can't complain too much. Little else got done, hence the personal day Friday.

That's about it...

Bath Time=Fun Time

Weekly Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions apparently don't work for me. The weight I'd hope to drop by mid-March is still on my body. I kill a lot of time doing things like surfing the net and talking with co-workers after school instead of grading and getting work done. (I definitely think talking with co-workers is a good thing, but sometimes I probably do it because I'm procrastinating with the work that needs to get done.) On top of it all, I'm tired most of the time. Darryl marvels at how I start snoring (yes, I just admitted to that) within a minute of my head hitting the pillow.

I'm going to try these things this week:

• I am going to make an effort to walk/exercise every weekday this week, weather permitting. I've actually been pretty good with this lately.
• Along the health and fitness line...I'm trying these exercises that are supposed to minimize the "mummy tummy," which I still have 16 months after Amelia was born. Basically, the exercises--from what I gather--consist of repetitions of sucking in my gut (thinking belly button to backbone) 500 times a day. I think I've done 300 today and I can feel it. We'll see if it works.
• I'm going to try to be in bed, lights out, by 9:30.
• I'm going to focus on work in the afternoons until I pick up Amelia.
• I'm minimizing my Internet surf time to maybe 15 minutes a day. This is HUGE, people.

I'll report at the end of the week and let you know how it goes...

Standardized Testing :(

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I'm not looking forward to this week.

The juniors are taking the state graduation tests this week (and for you non-teachers out there, the reason the tests are taken the junior year instead of the senior year is so that students can have multiple chances to pass...). We've been required to review, review, review the tar out of these tests. Our pass rate, especially in Language Arts, has always been pretty high, but the administration wants us to have more students with scores that exceed the standards. These juniors are notorious for not doing that well on standardized tests, so I'm curious to see what the scores will be. Last week, I pretty much turned the review into a competition and awarded candy to winning teams. I'm not too good to resort to bribery.

Anyway, testing typically throws everything off kilter. Gotta love it.

I can't believe I'm quoting Forrest Gump here, but "that's all I've got to say about that."

LOST

I am finally caught up on Lost. I thought I had two episodes to watch, but apparently last week's was a rerun. (Am I crazy, or was the whole point of the show's starting in January so that they would not run repeats?)

Anyway...I'm completely confused. What do you do to make a show that is already confusing even more confusing? Have them jump through time, that's what. I'm glad they are finally stuck somewhere, though, even if it appears to be the 1970s.

I did enjoy the last episode, however. I may be in the minority, but (spoiler alert) I think I like Sawyer with Juliet instead of Kate. I thought the way they had kind of "joined" the Dharma Initiative was cool, too. I think we'll find out some interesting things...or in typical Lost fashion, we'll probably get some questions answered but then have a dozen more questions to ask.

One last thing: This last episode did answer a question I'd had this entire season, which was whether or not 3 years had passed on the island as was the case for the Oceanic 6.

Any thoughts from the Lost viewers?

Not a whole lot to report

Well, as the title of this blog post suggests, not a whole lot has been going on with us lately. We enjoyed some warm weather for a few days and Amelia and I went walking some in the afternoons, and then by the time I had gotten in the routine of doing it, the weather turned cool and rainy.

School has been hectic as usual. I need to grade but have no motivation to. My "bad" class has been a little better since the post I now will call the "post of despair." They're no angels, mind you, but they haven't driven me to the brink of insanity again.

I caved and bought some Girl Scout Cookies today--Thin Mints and, because they were out of Samoas, I settled for some Tagalongs. Then later we went to Barnes and Nobles, and lo and behold, the Girl Scouts there had Samoas. Now we have three boxes of GS cookies. This isn't good, y'all.

Let's see...I really have nothing to report. I'll end with a cute pic of Amelia. I was doing a couple of things in the kitchen this afternoon while she watched Sesame Street, and when I looked over at her, this is what I saw:

A little entertainment news talk

I haven't blogged about TV or celebrity stuff in a while, but two events this week have prompted me to do so:

--The trainwreck known as The Bachelor. Up until the finale Monday night, I think I had seen, oh, maybe 20 minutes or so of this season. I didn't even watch the whole finale, just the last 40 minutes. Then I felt compelled to watch the After the Final Rose special because it promised "the most dramatic twist ever." For once, ABC was right. This was the most dramatic twist ever. As I'm sure you've heard, not only did the dude break up with his "fiancee," but he then had the audacity to ask the girl he dumped to take him back. Are you kidding me?

There's nothing I can say that hasn't already been posted and blogged. I know one person who is probably glad how this turned out: Brad Womack, the dude a couple of bachelors/bachelorettes ago who dumped both finalists at the last rose ceremony because he didn't see himself with either one, and he got a lot of flack for that. Compared to Jason, Brad comes out smelling like a rose. (I couldn't resist. Get it? Smelling like a rose? Ha!)

--Oh, Rihanna. Seriously, you are taking Chris Brown back? Sadly, I know this is probably the case of many abusive relationships. Can someone talk some sense into this girl, though? She's cute, has an already impressive career...is this the best she can do???

Okay, time to get ready for school now...

A Day for Two

Darryl had to have an upper-GI test done early this morning (he's fine, no worries), and--thank goodness!--the daycare was open, so Darryl and I had kind of a nice day (medical procedure aside) just the two of us. I was able to get a good bit graded while he was at the doctor, and then we did a little shopping, had lunch at La Madeleine's, and came home. I was able to finish up laundry, fix dinner, and take a nap before picking up Amelia. It was a nice day.

In other news...I'm seriously considering watching the finale of The Bachelor. Y'all, the most "dramatic twist" is supposed to take place tonight. Tonight!!

Food, Glorious Food!

We've had a good weekend so far. Technically, this is going to be a 3-day weekend for me because I'm taking Darryl to have an upper GI test done tomorrow.

There's talk of a snow day Monday, and for once, I'm hoping it doesn't happen because that would mean that Amelia's daycare would likely be closed and I would end up trying to entertain a 15-month-old for probably at least an hour and a half in a waiting room. That would not be good.

We've been trying to be better about eating out so much lately, but we failed miserably this weekend. We went to three new restaurants, and all were really good and places we would go again.

Friday night, we went to Gladys and Ron's Chicken & Waffles. I had actually been to a different location before and enjoyed it, but this was Darryl's first time eating there, period, and it was the first time for all of us at this location. Darryl enjoyed some fried chicken with the "fixins," and I had the smothered chicken and while it was good, I think my arteries might still be a little clogged. Amelia gave their waffles and their black-eyed peas the thumbs up. That girl LOVES black-eyed peas something fierce.

Saturday morning, we got up pretty early (meaning we were out of the house before eight) to eat breakfast at a place called J. Christopher's. Darryl's office had a breakfast catered from there, and he's been talking about it ever since Tuesday, when he found out the name of the restaurant. The breakfast was super yummy. We both had their Blueberry Crunchcakes, which are these delicious blueberry pancakes with some granola thrown in the batter. Yum! I want to go back and try their Coca-Cola ham served on a bed of cheese grits.

Yesterday afternoon, we ventured out once again to eat, this time to an English pub whose name I can't remember. The funniest thing about this restaurant is that Amelia had some mac n' cheese that she rocked her world. She'd stuff it in with both hands and throw her head back and laugh and go "mmmmm." And it was super cheesy, so she had it EVERYWHERE. Our food was good, too, but not as good as Amelia's, apparently.

Then last night, I made chicken pot pie. After all out gluttonous eating out, I've decided to try to cook for the next four or five days at least. And it was good too.

Then last night, I decided to do the Wii Fit. Probably a good move, right?

I'm down from the ledge

So I got a couple of emails after my last post, basically from dear loved ones who think I may be "going off the deep end." (Now that I type that, does that expression make any sense? How do you "go off" the deep end?)

Anyway, I assure you I'm not going off the deep end. Do I have a bad class? Um, yes. Perhaps the worst I've ever taught. My plan is to start writing these kids up, and if that doesn't work, I might have to bring out the big guns. (I'm not really sure what the "big guns" will be. Too bad it can't be actual big guns.)

Some other questions I've been asked are these...

1. Have you considered a career change?
Yes, I have. However, before I completely change careers, I'm willing to try teaching in another, ahem, environment. But, hello, economy--hello, teacher hiring freezes. That kind of knocks out teaching somewhere else AND doing something other than teaching.

2. Have you considered being a stay-at-home mom?
I'm going to say something that I hope is not taken the wrong way, but I don't think I could be a 100% stay-at-home mom. I think I would go nuts. I love my daughter, and I really, truly admire women who are stay-at-home moms, but I also think I need a "task" outside the home.

It's also true that while I'm not really rolling in the dough, I do bring in a decent income to supplement Darryl's main income, and that has allowed us to do some pretty cool things. Could we change our lifestyle so that Darryl's income would be enough? Probably, but may I remind you...hello, bad economy. Not exactly the right time to ditch a career.

3. When did you stop loving teaching?
I don't think my love for teaching has stopped. I've told Darryl that if I could go in a teach a class like my fabulous 5th period (not to be confused with the horrible 6th period I wrote about yesterday) all day long, I would look forward to going in to work everyday.

There's an expression that I've heard teachers use on occasion that goes something like, "Teaching would be awesome if it weren't for the students." Sadly, there is some truth to that. I'm finding that apathy is reigning supreme with most of my students. And that, my friends, is a problem that I think originates at home, and there isn't much I can do about that.


So there you have it. I promise I'm better. Today is a new day. Even better, tomorrow is the weekend.

Teaching Woes

That's right, two blog posts in one day.

This one--I'm hoping, anyway--is more cathartic than anything else. Read it if you want. If you don't, I don't blame you.

Here's the deal: I have a class that is killing me. I would say of the 25 students in there, perhaps 3 of them actually care about their performance in the class. The others appear to hate my class and me and are even at the point that they are doing whatever they can to annoy me and take me closer and closer to "the edge." Some of them come in and immediately put their heads down on their desks before we've even started, so it doesn't matter what we're doing; they just simply don't care or aren't interested. And they have attitude..."this is stupid," and "why do you make us do this stuff," and "this class is pointless" are frequent comments. It isn't like I'm giving them busy work or anything like that; I try to make assignments meaningful. But I'd also like to add that we don't do a whole lot of "outside the box" things because they wouldn't do them. I had all kinds of cool things to do with the novel Huck Finn last semester, but only about 4 of them read the book...so what do you do? Punish the 4 who read by making them do all the work?

So this week, we tried something new. I divided them into groups, and each group looked at two poems by the same poet and had to do a tic-tac-toe-type grid that required them to look at lit elements, theme, and other things, and then each group would teach the poem to the class. The group time went somewhat okay (not as well as my other two English 3 classes, though), and I was a bit encouraged because at least they seemed to be working. Today for the presentation part, however, the first group went, and their presentation was, in a word, crap. Flat-out crap.

When they were done, I just berated the class, but my tirades have no effect because this now happens once every couple of weeks. I know a lot of this is my fault because I didn't follow the good ole teacher rule about starting out tough and easing up later. I think I'm going to have to start writing them up, but I honestly think it will do nothing except make them hate me more. But then again, what do I have to lose?

And here's the big kicker...at the end of the day, I use this class to evaluate my worth as a teacher. It doesn't matter if every other class has gone well or if I've had a great discussion the period before. I remember this class, and this class makes me feel like a failure.

Today it was so bad that when the bell rang, I went to the restroom because I could feel tears swelling up in my eyes. I spent my time in the restroom fanning my eyes so I wouldn't cry and then face my 7th period with red-rimmed eyes. I got my act together and finished my day (and thank goodness my 7th period is a fun bunch), but still...I'm dwelling on this 6th period class.

Oh, and with these feelings comes the thought that every day I take my daughter--someone whose life I can have a true impact on--to a daycare for someone else to keep so I can teach kids who don't give a rip. Yeah, that makes me feel golden.

So, I'm not posting this for a pat on the back and a "there, there...you're not a bad teacher" kind of comment. But if you've been there or know an obvious solution that I'm missing, let me know.

And I promise I'm not about to jump off a bridge or anything. I'm just kind of hating the teacher in me right now.

Emerging from the craziness

I didn't blog yesterday. At 9:00, I realized I could either go to bed or blog, and I chose bed. Sorry.

I'm realizing that I'm in a better mood and that things don't get to me as easily if I'm somewhat well rested, so I'm really making an effort to be in bed by 9:30. Anyway...

I mentioned in my last post that things have been crazy. As far as work goes, we've been getting ready for a visit from these people. Now, I don't know to what lengths your school prepares for these visits, but our extremely Type-A principal (and I feel okay typing that because I would say that to his face, and he knows it anyway) has been treating it as though President Obama himself were going to be coming into each and every classroom. Anyway, the visit was Tuesday, and apparently we "passed," so that's good news. I spent all last Saturday cleaning and organizing my classroom which is something that needed to be done anyway, but I felt I needed to do it before the committee came.

In addition, my juniors have been writing research papers. Any teacher who reads this blog knows what a painful process that can be. I was somewhat encouraged when we started the assignment and my students all acted that they were fully aware of what parenthetical citations and a works cited page were (they usually act as though I'm speaking a foreign language), but when drafts were handed to me with neither of those, I just wanted to bang my head against the wall. The papers are done now, thank goodness, but I realize that I now have 80 research papers waiting for me to grade. Yippee!

On the home front...Darryl's good. Amelia has been a little sickly and irritable lately, but we have discovered that she is cutting her molars, and a doctor's visit revealed she has an ear infection. For the record, I'd like to say the child never has an ear infection when she shows all the signs--pulling the ears, refusing to eat, etc.--but has one when she shows no signs whatsoever. Last night she really started seeming like her happier self; I'm wondering if it has something to do with the fact that she tried cheesecake for the first time. Man, she loved that stuff. Goodness knows cheesecake can put a smile on my face.

So anyway, add all that stuff to the normal routine of having to get up early, teaching all day, doing laundry, emptying and loading the dishwasher, trying to keep the house in a somewhat decent presentable fashion, spending some quality time with family, catching up on TV (which deserves another post soon), and such, and life has just been busy.

And this update wasn't really all that exciting, was it?

Super crazy

I realize I've been a bad blogger and that it has been over a week since my last post. The past week has been super crazy and hectic, and when I've had a free minute (and those have been very few), I've either wanted to sleep, catch up on the bazillion hours of TV on my DVR, or just spend time playing with Amelia.

Just wanted you to know I am still alive and maybe, just maybe, I'll get a chance to blog tomorrow. I know it will be hard for you to sleep now because of the excitement...

And just to prove that Amelia DOES smile for pictures...

She loves the piano. (I want to clarify that I am not suggesting that she is going to be a professional musician. I realize most kids love to bang on a piano.) It's all fun and games until the meltdown she has when we remove her from the piano. Anyway, I took these pics yesterday. Too cute!

Happy Valentine's Day...And What a Difference a Year Makes

Here's a pic I took of Amelia last year for Darryl's Valentine's Day gift:

And here's a pic Darryl took this year for my Valentine's gift:

Where has the time gone?????? Why do I feel the need to burst into "Sunrise, Sunset" right now?

Anyway, we had a really nice Valentine's Day. We spent a good portion of the day with Amelia, but then my parents arrived during the late afternoon (on their way to the mountains) and kept Amelia so we could go out to dinner. After dinner, we went to Barnes & Noble and proceeded to grab some random magazines and books and look at them leisurely at a table in the "cafe." We figured the theatres would be packed, and I haven't yet convinced Darryl that we need to see Slumdog Millionaire, even though my last movie pic (Benjamin Button) was far superior to his (the icky Valkyrie).

I should also add that Darryl fell asleep before 9:00, and I fell asleep watching The 50 Most Shocking Divorces on VH1...before 9:30.

It was a good day!

Scenes from a Toddler Valentine's Party

As you can see from this picture, a Valentine's party for one-year-olds is a pretty kickin' time:
There were four other children at the party, and their excitement level was about the same. (By the way, Tim, that's RM's kid who is "sweet as candy.")


Amelia is obviously annoyed with me in this picture. I think she just wanted to enjoy her Valentine cookie without the flashbulbs of the "mama-paparazzi."


This is when the Miss Crankypants part of her personality took over:


Here's Amelia receiving a valentine from her friend Tanner. While all the other toddlers were passing out their valentines (usually to the wrong people, but oh well), Amelia was perfectly content to sit and collect her spoils.

You see that cute little blond girl with the curls? That sucker in her hand...yeah, she TOTALLY snatched that out of Amelia's hand, ripped the wrapper off, and stuck it in her mouth. I've got my eye on you, missy.

And this shot is just so you can see her cute Valentine's shirt. With a large potato chip crumb at the top. (The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.) And yes, I'm aware her hair is in her eyes. However, Amelia REFUSES to wear a hair clip of any kind (she will pull it out in about 2.5 seconds), and I refuse to cut her bangs because she would then have a mullet. Some of my "been there, done that" mom friends told me to wait it out, so I am.

I would end by saying a fun time was had by all, but judging from these pics, do you think that would be an accurate statement???

Too much funk

I haven't posted this week for two reasons:

1. I've been busy.
2. I'm in a funk.

I do have some things to look forward to this week, however. Amelia's Valentine's Day party at her daycare is tomorrow, and those parties are always cute (and, I'm sure, just for the mothers' benefit). I'm having dinner with a girlfriend tomorrow night, and this weekend, my parents are coming up and Darryl and I are going on a date for Valentine's Day.

And oh, yeah...this weekend is a long weekend.

Love is all around.

Call me catty...

A girl I could not stand in high school (because she wasn't very nice to me) just asked to be my Facebook friend.

And I "ignored" her.

It felt good.

The dumbest conversation I've ever had with a student

I have a kid in my honors class who recently transferred from another school. He has done nothing so far to make me think he is remotely honors material.

We had our test on Julius Caesar today, and every student finished before the bell except for this kid. I noticed that during the quote identification/significance section of the test, he was writing something on notebook paper. I assumed it was his answers, and he just preferred to write on lined paper.

Well, he turned in his test and left the notebook paper on his desk. I asked him to turn in the notebook paper, too.

It was all the quotes from my test.

I took it from him. And here's the conversation that followed:

STUDENT: I can't take those home and study them?

ME: Why do you need to study them? THIS is the test.

STUDENT: Well, I know I would know them if I studied them. Can't I take it home and come back and finish the test tomorrow?

ME: Um, no. You've known about this test for over a week, and every quote on here is a quote we went over several times in class. You are supposed to study before a test, not after it.

STUDENT: Seriously?

ME: Yes. You should have studied for this test, and obviously you didn't. How is that fair to the people who studied, paid attention, and were ready to take the test today?

STUDENT: So there's no way I can make this up? Not even for half credit?

Seriously, y'all. Does this kid have a lick of sense????? I've never had a kid say anything this bogus to me in my life.

The Funny and the Not So Funny

Not So Funny: Yesterday morning, I was completely dressed, running ahead of schedule, and was about to walk out the door. I reached in the fridge to get my lunch and knocked over a jar of salsa, which fell to the floor and spattered salsa ALL OVER my pants. Fortunately, that did NOT set the tone for the rest of the day. Yesterday, salsa incident aside, was a pretty decent day.

Funny: Amelia was hilarious when I took her back to daycare yesterday morning. She had been gone since last Tuesday because she was sick. Anyway, when I walked in with her, she practically ran to her teacher and hugged her. Then she went up to each kid in there (at the time, there were only 2 or 3), as though to say, "Hey, what's up? Did you miss me?" Too funny!