Crazy

Ok, so in a weird twist of fate I have 2 students in Snowden AT THE SAME TIME. (Snowden= The Eastern Sate of Fred'burg). They are there for different reasons. One receives services regularly and has had hormonal swings lately, so this is no surprise. The other was angry and decided to attempt suicide.....in 4th grade!!

I'M NOT TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL!!! I'M TEACHING 4TH GRADE FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!

So a little prayer for the kids in my class would be appreciated. I don't know how to handle such things. My instinct is to tell them both to suck it up and get over themselves. LOL They haven't shown any major problems at school....thank God! Hopefully I can deal with things as they come and I wont have anyone else with major issues any time soon. Lord help us all.....this is our future and its looking a little crazy.

Routine?

Life has settled into a scary routine. In South Africa I craved a routine of some sort. Rules, expectations and deadlines to govern my days so I wouldn't be a major slacker. Now I have lots of rules, expectations and deadlines that govern my work day and seem to spill over into my private time as well. I'm still adjusting to the fact that this job seems to be taking most of my down time. I don't like it! So on the random weekends when I don't have any major school work to do (ok, honestly, I ALWAYS have school work to do!) I am a lazy bum. More lazy than usual. I rarely clean, I have 3 bills in my purse I haven't mailed yet because I can't get to the post office before it closes and I have no stamps!! And finding time to read seems to be a naughty luxury since I SHOULD be cleaning or grading papers. (*Damn papers!!*)

I enjoy the kids in my class. And I like that I'm in charge and know what I'm doing (for the most part). I love being back in the classroom. But I'm resenting that the "classroom" is taking up time beyond school hours! I'm the kind of girl who needs a lot of down time, and I'm not getting it. Yet another proof that I should never have children. I would never get down time and I'd lose my mind!!!

So life has this routine and pattern that I craved for a whole year while I was in SA. And I'm kinda hating the conformity of it all. My life itself is no longer the adventure (Living in a foreign country makes it easy to feel adventurous sitting on your balcony reading a book!!) So not I'm feeling the need to find/create a little adventure. Nothing like sky diving.....just weekend trips or new experiences. But then these ideas are always tempered by the thought "I'd have to be back home in time to get the lesson plans done and finish grading papers!!" School has taken over my life. I want my life back!

So I haven't blogged in a while because all there is to blog about is school!!! And I resent that in some ways. So when I stop being a ninny and get over myself and embrace the routine and predictable-ness of school I will probably bore you with the stories of 4th graders. Until then, excuse my complaining that I don't have a life! ;-)

SPOOL!!!!

Pictures of the spool for my college friends:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amberdawny/

For those of you who are not college friends, this spool served as our coffee table for 3 years at an apartment in college. We recorded important dates/events on the inside of the spool. We decorated 3 surfaces of the spool at different times through those 3 years.

In an effort to schlep the spool, Missa had a friend take it apart. No worries, it can be reassembled! It will live in my attic until another college friend claims it or we think of a suitable funeral for it. Until then, it has been recorded here for your digital viewing pleasure.

10:00 PM

So it is 10:00PM and I am JUST NOW finished with my work for the day. 4th grade is less work in the classroom (directing the kids through mechanics of the work), but more work behind the scenes! It should calm down a bit, but there are LOTS of papers to check/grade. I'm caught up on grading all of my beginning of the year test! But the daily paper work seems to engulf me at the end of each day. I hope I can find a way to tackle this in a quicker amount of time, because bringing work home and working until its nearly bedtime is NOT in my contract. If there is no logical way for me to get MOST of this done before 5:00PM then I shouldn't really be doing it...(remember I can technically leave at 3:45!) That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

The Hand Phenomena

So after careful examination, some friends of mine and I have come up with the conclusion that real love is indicated through the touch of a hand. This is what we have observed: in most movies, couples who are truly in love seal the deal with a kiss. But not just ANY kiss. The kiss always includes one or both people kissing including a touch to the other person's face with their hand.

Kiss + Hand = LOVE

Bad guys/People just being horny and not in love do NOT usually use the hand. The hand is usually only used when 2 people are in love.

Of course these are not rules and laws. I will not say that it ALWAYS happens (Mostly because I haven't seen ALL movies). But as a general rule of thumb; when you see the hand, you know its *Wuv, Twoo Wuv*.