auction and shower
The auction day has finally come and gone. I am free to think of other things! I can't believe that there are only four more weeks of school. I can't believe how much we have to get done in those four weeks!
Today was also the day of Jen's wedding shower carefully planned and hosted by my sister. She did such an amazing job. Her theme was "Jen in Wonderland and the Mad Hatter Tea" (based on Alice in Wonderland). It was so amazing. The girls hosting it dressed as the Mad Hatter (Tina), the Cheshire Cat (Faith), The Door Mouse (Rachel), The Queen of Hearts (another Jen), The White Rabbit, and of course Jen was Alice...it was so interesting. They built an entire "set" for the party with backgrounds of painted cardboard cutout gardens, paper lanterns, a long mismatched tea table, and of course blue and purple Christmas lights. They followed the theme through in several ways ...for an example of the planned "chaos" they had us write our own thank-you notes at the beginning and played an introduction game at the end of the party. A good time was had by all. And if you are ever looking for someone to plan a party...talk to my sister, she does an amazing job!
Sleep Evades Me
I have been sleeping entirely too much since Thanksgiving due to sickness. But ever since Easter weekend I have returned to "normal" sleep patterns: cutting in half my usual needs. Tonight, sleep evades me. I don't think that I will even try it.
Twins
There is a great family story about my birth...actually now that I think about it there are several! But for now I just want to tell you about my twin. My parents had no health insurance when I was born...they never have until just most recently. So when the hospital billed them my father scrutinized each charge carefully. It is a good thing that he did because the hospital charged them for the delivery of
twins! My father went to the hospital directly to correct the error.
The hospital's response was, "Are you
sure you didn't have twins?"
"If we did then you shorted us a baby!"
Needless to say they reversed the charges.
I, however, have held out hope that perhaps I have a misplaced twin out there somewhere, this probably stems from reading too many hope filled stories about reunited families.
Today my sister came to school to visit me (and get the car). One of my former students said that we looked so much alike that if she showed up one day to do my job he wouldn't know the difference! Fabulous! Looks like I have found my twin after all! ;)
...and other great questions.
As you might imagine, teachers hear it all at one time or another. Today was the jackpot for crazy questions...
"Can I tell my story during silent reading?"
"So how old was he when he was born?"
"Can we work together during independent study time?"
After saying that my sister is three years younger than I am, "So are you twins?"
I just had to stop and wait a moment or two while they listened to themselves and then said..."Ohhhh, never mind."
Indeed.
Dumb Decimals
Can someone please explain to me how fifth graders who
KNOW how to divide decimals and
KNOW how to round off decimals can have a hard time comprehending how to divide a decimal and round off the answer? I mean, we have been doing each of these independently for weeks. The first exercise on our math page today is about rounding decimals off. They flew through it. Everyone got them correct. Section 2 involves dividing decimals. Same story. No problems, no questions, smooth sailing. Section 3. I might as well have been giving them directions in Swahili! It was ridiculously frustrating. We didn't even get to the other side of the paper. I had to work out every problem step by step with EVERY student. No wonder we all got headaches!
A Crazy Afternoon Sickness Bug
It was the strangest thing, this afternoon, several of my students started to complain about headaches and stomach pains.
I ran through the usual questions, "Did you have something to eat today?" (You wouldn't believe how many of them forget to eat!), "What did you eat?" "Did you play hard at recess?" and so on.
There was no recognizable pattern, some had eaten, one had not (I sent her down to buy a pop-tart), some had brought lunches from home, some had eaten the salad bar, some had ordered a hot lunch, some had played hard, some had sat on the sidelines, some drank their milk others didn't...I was beginning to become highly suspicious that they were
ALL having such symptoms and was starting to feel like I must be the brunt of someones idea of a joke... when I started to feel it, too.
It was horribly sudden. Headache, stomach pain, nausea and dizziness. Yick! Thankfully we only had a light afternoon planned and we all went home exhausted. I even skipped small group so that I could crawl into bed asap.
Now I have emerged feeling
all better. (This might mess up my sleeping pattern a bit but I am quite thankful to not be sick.) But who ever heard of being sick for 6 hours? I would typically blame food poisoning or something of that nature, but I am not sure how that is possible with all of the varieties of meal options available to us. I will be interested to see who makes it to school tomorrow.
Tweaking
I greatly enjoy tweaking blog templates. Furthermore, I greatly enjoy when said tweaking can move at the same pace as my creative thought process.
My previous template was found in the public domain. It held the promise of "copy and paste to a new and improved blog appearance." This is all well and good, except for when my creative tweaking bent kicks in.
The creator of this free blog template simply does not define terms like, "header," "footer," "sidebar," or "body," the way that I do. To me it is simple. Header=Top; Footer=bottom; sidebar=left or right; body=central focal point. In this design however all of these terms were entirely confused...my sidebar was actually labeled as the body
and footer...my header was labeled as a sidebar...and luckily I think the body was still the body...otherwise I don't think that I could have posted. So I sorted through the html garble and cleaned it up for the most part...and then I "encrypted/hid" notes to myself in the template so that I could find everything and I wouldn't mess it up again.
This may sound like complaining...but it's not really. In some backhanded sort of way I am bragging that I could figure any of it out at all. I just think...10 years ago I had never written with anything other than a pencil, and I wasn't introduced to the Internet until I attended SVCC in '99. And the blogging craze started after my geocities experimentation somewhere around '02. I pat myself on the back. Because, I can tweak! :)
Comments
People say the strangest things. When people ask me about Javier I simply respond by saying, "We broke up before Easter." These are my favorite responses thus far...
"After dating you for ten months he never figured out that
you always do the breaking-up?"
Evidently not. *laughter*
"Well, it's like this Trisha, you make a great buddy...but you are a horrible girlfriend."
Thanks!? *laughter*
"Do you want my boyfriend/brother/dad/gang/boy scout/super hero/boss/employee/husband/ex-boyfriend to beat him up for you?"
Umm,
NO! *laughter*
Thank-you all for your concern/honesty/support. And thanks for the laughter. ;)
Shopping Spree
$350 dollars were donated to my classroom's auction basket this year. We have decided to make our theme "Nintendo DS Lite." So I have been given the entirely fun responsibility of spending that $350 in any way that I see fit. Yippee! I have never had quite so much fun making purchases as when I am spending other people's money. :) It has been a fantastic day! But then of course I knew it would be...it is the 21st, after all...always the best!
It is well
Today, I went for a walk. I haven't had the time to do that in a while. But for once it seems that my papers are all graded, my classroom is ready for the upcoming week, and my apartment is clean...so I had every excuse to go and lose an hour or two soaking up the beautiful sunshine. And beautiful it was.
I strolled really. I didn't have any real direction, focus, or goal. I just ambled along and enjoyed all the spring sounds and smells. It was a good time. It was a quiet time. I needed that.
Language
I was at a party this weekend. And I found myself making up words to describe a new experience. This is pretty standard behavior for me. The english language is full of appropriate words I am sure, however, I find that I don't know enough of those appropriate words. In order to communicate my thoughts I find that I have to create some words of my own...
In responce to some ridicule I pointed out that my audience had understood my
meaning prefectly, therefore, I had sufficiently communicated regaurdless of my obvious language brrier.
