mmm... saturdays

I slept in until 7:30 today. It was glorious. I feel so good.

It was a little disconcerting to arrive as the college library opened, and I will leave when they close... 9 hours later. Granted, I took a two hour lunch break with the lovely Jasmine. But seven hours is still a lot of homework time, and I don't really feel like I produced all that much. I will have finished two bigger projects, though.

I get to play games with the girls in my group tonight. Hurrah! Something to look forward to!

And there are kids from Malawi coming to my church tomorrow. Have I told y'all that I'm going to Malawi for January? Well, I am. God willing. I'll be doing my multicultural teaching experience teaching AIDS orphans. I know. Crazy intense.

I need to finish up this paper in the next 25 minutes. Happy Saturday, everybody.

today in school...

I wrote my first discipline referral to one of my favorite students.

I found out one of my students was arrested this last week for dealing cocaine.

I taught my first mini-lesson. Kind of. If Go Fish (conjugating the verb tener) counts as a lesson. They seemed to like it.

My mentor teacher was surprised that I'm not nervous to get up in front of the class. I told her, no! not if I have a plan!

Conversation of the Day

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you really need a haircut," said a boy in Sunday School.

"Ummm... ok. What way should I take it?"

"I don't know. Not the wrong way."

"Ok. Don't take this the wrong way, but you need a haircut too."

turning a grr situation into a contented sigh

I discovered today that I have yet to buy a textbook for class. It will cost me $88. Ah well. So I packed up and drove to the college bookstore, only to discover they are closed on Saturdays. Too bad I have to read 100 pages in said textbook before 8 a.m. Monday morning. I drove to a nearby bookstore just in case. They didn't have it.

So, I bought two poetry books instead.

And read Sherman Alexie poems at stoplights.

If you have never read a book at stoplights, you haven't lived.

ooh, a challenge

In English class today, I looked over to see a student beating his head against his textbook.

I asked, "Hey, so, Billy, are you ok?"

"Uh huh."

"Are you bored?"

"Yeah. Really bored."

"You're good at English, though. I read your essay and it was great. Do you like it?"

"Yeah. I almost joined AP, but didn't. It's just this class. It's boring."

"Well, I'll think about it and see if I can come up with ways to make this stuff more interesting."

The next time I'll be in class, we're going over Of Plymouth Blah Blah and a slave narrative of the ship voyage. Both deal with racism, cultural misunderstanding, and perseverance. Ideas?

Creative Writing

I never took a creative writing class. I probably would have liked it. As it is, I'm not really good at it. I can write silly things, but nothing good and meaningful. Anyway, I observed the creative writing class, and the teacher made me participate in this activity:

Pick a topic.

Pick an APPROPRIATE topic.

Write a paragraph about your topic using words with only 1 syllable.

You guys should play this game. It's fun. It's also harder than it seems. I'm looking forward to reading them.

Here's my contribution about my house:

Our old, green house is too good for the likes of us. From the street, you see a cool porch and the warm yard - good thing the rose bush lives on in spite of us. Once through the door you can see that no calm, dull souls live here. The two who live in art - who breathe it in and out - have made their marks with prints and paints and the bright orange chair by the green wall. The one who tries to teach small kids (as small as they come) has her glue and paints and books with dogs that run spread out on the floor. And then there is me - my books, my mac, my school stuff piled on the side so we can dance.

Quotes of the Day:

My education classes have officially begun! Here are two goodies from class:

"Those of you who are single... well, maybe you have a dog for company."

"The first kids I taught really suffered, and I hope I don't see them on the street."

1 Confession, 2 Complaints

Confession: I snuck out of school right after 6th period. Technically I'm supposed to stay until 3 in my classroom (what classroom?) to help students (what students?) with their questions (what questions?). I left.

Complaint #1: I am already behind on my homework. "What?" you may ask. "Mary has never turned in a late assignment in her life! Are her limbs broken? Is she suffering from a hemorrhagic fever?" No. The lovely professors forgot to include the due date with the assignment ("these will be due in the fall semester" is what the syllabus told me). Now I'm behind. I planned on doing it last night, but I had to go to the night class they informed me of, oh, at 4 p.m. yesterday. That's right! Two hours before class started. I am slightly frustrated with the lack of organization and communication.

Complaint #2: It's cold today.

To remedy above complaints, I am planning on some hours curled up in a coffeeshop with the biggest hot coco they'll give me, whispering sweet nothings to my mac as we do my homework.

a couple quotes:

As seen in junior persuasive essays:

"The school gets prophets for selling soda, and not just for having the machines."

"In conclusion, starting school late can be a good thing or a bad thing for many reasons."

more school thoughts. sorry. it's my life now.

I love grammar class. I am finally in a room with 9 people who hate apostrophe abuse as much as I do. It should be fun.

After school I had a chat with one of the English teachers. He's the brusque cusser who makes fun of everyone (including himself), so the muy serioso teachers go crazy and the jokers fall in love. I'm somewhere in between. But in the course of our conversation (about classroom management/discipline), he said, "Now I know you'll appreciate this because you're a strong Christian..." We had never talked about faith. Or really anything except for some surface joking around about how I was running an errand. I'd like to think that my faith is evident through even my basic interactions, but more likely he assumed I am a believer because I go to a Christian college. It was interesting, anyway.

Freshmen are super entertaining.

I graded a Spanish project today - it was a shield the kids had to fill in with pictures of their favorite song, car, food, season, and sport. They were graded on neatness and completeness. It reminded me of a conversation with my Dour Anonymous Commentator in which he told me those projects were his Least Favorite Ever. I was gracious to the kids because of it. Thanks, DAC!

That's all for today, I think. Now, off for a jog, a room cleaning, and a drive to Seattle for a wedding!

cont.

A cause and effect chain:
I took a vitamin.
I puked.
I felt too sick to drink my coffe.
I have a headache.

Yes, if I take vitamins in the morning, they make me puke. I thought somehow my grown-up body would be more mature about vitamins than in the past. I was wrong.

We had the first spirit assembly today. It made me smile. High school kids are so funny. It's a little strange to be welcoming the freshman class. They came in the gym through a tunnel - all 400 of them. They just kept coming! All the movement (think herd of cattle) made me slightly dizzy and nauseated (see above). But then there were 48 in my graduating class. Anything over 100 is intimidating.

The kid I didn't like transferred out of the class. I feel illogically guilty.

Favorite quotes of the day:
"I am just a really really unique person, so I don't have strong opinions about that crap!"
"So, like, be respectful or whatever."

nighttime

Ok, I know the clock tells me it is 5:45 a.m.

But it's nighttime outside. It can't be morning yet. This is just plain silly.

school-related thoughts

1) I like high school kids. Except one. He said some inappropriate things in class, and I'm not looking forward to teaching him. Of course, it's the second day. Maybe I'll change my mind.

2) I'm getting rid of the link on my myspace for school/student/it's-just-a-bad-idea reasons. If that's how you're getting here, write down the address somewhere else.

3) Pretty sure I've heard the f-word more times in the last 48 hours than in my entire life before. Don't these children have a vocabulary of more than 8 words?

4) A senior (TA, no less) asked me what the word "intellect" meant. Then 3 more students (juniors) asked the regular teacher. Shocked and appalled.

5) My grammar class starts tomorrow night. This is good because at least it didn't start last week causing me to miss the first day out of extreme negligence/stress-induced amnesia. This is bad because it makes my day tomorrow last from 7 a.m. sharp to 9:30 p.m.

6) I bought some sweet new dry erase colors (boysenberry, lime, forest green, and ocean blue - nice and soothing).

7) I HAVE AN ENGLISH TEACHER! and she is pretty darn cool. She has great rapport with the kids (aforementioned juniors and senior), and I'm excited to learn from her.

8) The skaters have been the nicest to me so far, followed closely by the goth kids. Funny how sometimes stereotypes are backwards.

9) When do teachers go the bathroom? Ever? Is this a habit I have to give up?

back to work

Ok, my two weeks off from blogging has ended officially. My excuse? I was going through a rough couple weeks. I came home feeling rested and ready to go, and... sat around for two and-a-half weeks with nothing to do. My roommates worked their regular-houred jobs. I saved up laundry so I would have something to do the next day. I don’t do well with a lot of unstructured time. Idle minds, you know?

But the good news: I started school on Wednesday! I went to teacher orientation/inservice/whatever they call it at 7:30 and stayed all day.

Question for the teachers: Will I learn to love playing ice-breaker games at 7:30 am?

Three best parts:

1) My spanish mentor-teacher is amazing. She is welcoming, positive, intelligent, and organized. I love it! And she seems to like me - partly because two of my roommates were some of her favorite students ever.
2) The staff is so much fun. They laugh, talk to strangers like me, and seem to like each other a lot.
3) My new school's colors are red and black - just like my high school AND college. Hurrah!

Three parts that are causing some stress:

1) The English department ignores me completely, and keeps putting off assigning me to a teacher.
2) Actually, #1 pretty much covers it.
3) See #1 and multiply by 8.

It will all work out, I'm sure. Dear Jesus, make me patient. Love, Mary