playing catch up

The past week was basically cleaning up my mess from the week before. Falling behind, being lazy and unmotivated, and not having the heart to be The Teacher 100% of the time, which led to problems in keeping my classroom under "control". Since I decided not to tell most of my students about what I was going through, a lot of them had snide little comments at times, like "Awwww, is Mrs. Pushie having a bad day?" in a very mocking, baby-talk kind of tone. I also had strange insult/compliments like, "Mrs. Pushie, you are my example for a round character. I never know what to expect from you." Um... cool...? Thanks? It was a funny moment. The classes that did know cut me some slack, but Spirit Week quickly erased any thought of forgiveness for grief from their minds. Oh well. I'm back and ready for 'em this week. Finally caught up, found motivation and, hopefully, things will get back to being right. (Plus, Homecoming being over is a HUGE plus... no more added craziness from that) By the way, speaking of Spirit Week, I posted some pictures on my flickr site that I took this week.
Today, at Target, we found the most amazing "playground ball" (like for 4 square or kickball). It had a skull and crossbones on it. They had HALLOWEEN THEMED PLAYGROUND TOYS! Holllllyyy moly, I was happy. And the ball was $4! It is now my "Ball O'Doom" for the classroom. A nice toy to toss around/at people during discussions. I also had a brilliant idea for my cart and how to re-organize it to create a small library to give those overacheiver kids something to do with all that free time they have. You better believe it's gonna have BUST, Adbusters, Mental_Floss (which a lot of the kids are really enjoying when others read it for their Reading Minute) and maybe an issue or two of Bitch? Maybe I'll risk it... haha. I'll probably stick some zines in there, too.
This week I get to include horror movies into my teaching of compare/contrast writing. I am brilliant. We'll be comparing and contrasting the movie trailers for the Romero "Dawn of the Dead" and the new "Dawn of the Dead" OR the trailers for the American release of "Ju-on" (the Grudge) and the Japanese release of "Ju-on" (because they are, amazingly, completely different). I hope the kids like it as much as I will. They really love talking about horror movies. Plus, tomorrow and Tuesday, it's been requested that we read a few spooky stories, so I'm taking in my big book (with creepy pictures) of some good ghost stories. My 1st bell were so amazingly well-behaved (seriously, it was a miracle. I was so suprised) that we're going to have a small little reward day. We're bringing in snacks and all of that and I'm taking in a movie for them to watch. They were totally excited! haha. I am going to make them sign a contract saying they will do the daily work (journal and reading minute) and clean up after themselves, or there will be no more reward days ever. again. (plus a few detentions/conduct notices)
As I wrote in the letters I sent out, things can only get better. (adding an extra hour to this day didn't hurt, either)

autumn sets in

Let's catch up.
We had a nice relaxing weekend. David and I went to Cheeburger and the movies on Friday night. Cheeburger is a very interesting place. HUGE portions, delicious onion rings and fries (and you can get a side basket that has BOTH.), and a TON of milkshake and soda flavors, oh my! Pretty good prices and pretty cute decor. We went to see Man of the Year, which was pretty hilarious and good. I wasn't sure how it was going to be, but they pulled it off and we both enjoyed it.

We went to Norfolk on Saturday. We stopped by Granby, so David could see where I go to Monday through Friday and then we headed downtown, to the Macarthur Center. We hit up Forever 21 (for me, but David found a good jacket), H&M (finally open! eeeee! got some cool stuff for good prices), the Body Shop (I bought two full sized things of that line of perfume... loooove it), and Nathan's, to finally try some of those "famous" hot dogs. We now have a few more clothings items, a nice, hip pair of leather gloves, perfume, and an understanding why Nathan's has "famous" hot dogs (they were pretty delicious-- and their fries! oh man! so good!).
On the way back, we stopped at Trader Joe's to check out what all the buzz was about. It was okay, I wasn't too impressed. They did have some pretty good prices and some tasty strawberry rhubarb pie that we have devoured, but beyond that... not much different from anywhere else. Maybe it was because it was crowded? Who knows. We did buy some beautiful flowers, the picture is from yesterday, when some of them started to bloom more.
Today started "Spirit Week" for Homecoming at school. Today was Hillbilly Day-- it was hilarious! One of my students had a jug with XXX on it and some home-made suspenders... priceless! I took a picture of him. Tomorrow is "Blast from the Past" day (I'm going mod), Wednesday is Celebrity Day (at a few students' requests, I'm going to dress at Molly Ringwald), Thursday is "Stunna"/Dress to Impress Day and Friday is, of course, Comet Pride day (we're the Granby Comets). It'll be a fun week.

incredibly difficult and uncomfortably close

This week has been rough. Being far away from everyone who has known me for longer than a month or two definitely is not helping in finding closure and comfort. Grandpa's passing away has brought out every little drop of loneliness and homesick feelings that I had tucked away to wait out the transition of moving. Now it's going full blast and I am desperately craving being near people who I've known and who've known me before August.
I was doing pretty good in school with dealing with everything. I had a little less patience, cried a little in front of one of my classes when I thanked them for being really well behaved (embarassing) and generally more exhausted than usual. As long as I kept my mind off of everything else and focused on what was going on in class, I was fine. Last night, it all came crashing down. I left early today.
Thankfully, everyone at school has been very understanding and very kind. Chandra ordered me to not come to school tomorrow, but we settled on my leaving early today. Rebecca was very understanding-- I couldn't ask for a better department head. I'm going to apologize to my co-teacher for giving her very short notice on having to cover 8th bell today (it was shortened to about a half hour because of the PSATs). I thought I could keep it together, but last night and today everything sunk in completely. Jerilyn (one of the teachers I share a room with. I'm in her room 3 times, I like her room the best) had a similar situation in her life, so it was nice to talk to someone who understands. My students have given me hugs, kept it quieter and more mellow in class (if they knew. I told only one class up front, at the beginning of class, that i was going through a difficult time and needed them to try and keep the usual rowdiness in check a little and try to make me laugh a lot, as they usually do), and written notes to me in their journal. One student almost made me cry (again) in class when he said, "You know... he's never really gone, he's always right here" and pointed to his heart. Sweet kids.
Basically, I'm avoiding being alone or not keeping myself busy with grading, planning, playing SimCity, singing at the top of my lungs in my car, dancing like a crazy woman--anything to get me through this, keep my stuff together so I can keep being a mildly successful first year teacher.

words can't even begin

I love you and I'll miss you a lot.

you'll be somebody's girlfriend

It's been a pretty easy week. I knew where I was going, went there, accomplished some stuff. It's such a nice change having students who respect me (minus a small few) within the first full month of school. They try, they have direction, they're creative, they're honest and up front. Basically: how the hell did I get so lucky? I asked my department head if it was okay if people came to visit. I wasn't sure if they allowed visitors to follow teachers around. I was mostly thinking of when Meg comes to visit for spring break. I don't want to leave her here all day, every day, and she mentioned wanting to see the school. Rebecca said there's no problem. I think Meg will be very jealous of this school and wish she had gone there. haha.
Anyway. Week started off with parent/teacher conferenes. I had less than 15 parents, finished reading The Color of Water, and talked with another new teacher, Ms. H (she teaches three levels of Spanish! holy crap!). We shared wedding photos. She got married in August and has an adorable two year old. Today was an "early release" day. I had no 8th bell, only 2nd and my caf duty. During my cafeteria duty, I got to watch the "gang squad" pull kids in one by one, take some pictures of some of them, question them, search them-- all that fun stuff. Apparently, I missed some crazy stuff go down after school yesterday. One gang (grown men, as one teacher told me), pulled up and surrounded the school because one of their kids was threatened and told he was going to get jumped after school by the rival gang. I know a few of my kids are in gangs. I told them as long as they don't bring any of that crap into class and make a problem for all of us, I didn't want to hear about it. I haven't had a problem.
Cafeteria duty is kind of fun. Not only do I have a group of students who come to say hi and chat, I also get to see kids searched, handcuffed, pulled in to security, interviewed, etc. They aren't usually arrested for anything big. The other day, they caught two girls smoking cigarettes in a bathroom (right by the cafeteria! Did we want to get caught, ladies?) and other cops had to come in. One of my students was in some sort of fight and was in the security box being interviewed about it before suspended. I only have about one student per week that blows past me/doesn't listen/lies to me. Security usually catches 'em in the hallways, though.
Since it was an early release day, I spent the rest of the day (two hours) in professional development. I chose "Unit planning" because NPS uses a special kind of planning called "Understanding by Design" and I kind of wanted to know what that was all about. Funny enough, quite a few other new teachers (to Granby in general, not just first years) were there, too. It helped out a LOT.
Funny moment of the week: Chandra was telling me about this one kid that runs his mouth a lot in class. She kept trying to give him the subtle hint of holding one finger up against her lips (y'know, the "Shhh!!" without any noise). He asked her, "Why do you keep doing that?" She said, "I'm trying to subtly tell you to shut your mouth. You know... there are two people in this world: those that can take the subtle hints and those who need to be yelled at and told again and again what to do. Those that need to be told again and again usually end up in jail. You're kind of small and pretty, someone's just gonna love you and your green eyes. You're gonna be someone's girlfriend." (Or something along those lines) I laughed so hard when she told me this, I couldn't believe she actually told some kid that! And with a straight face! hahahaha.
One funny/strange thing that happened this week: We read a story by Chinua Achebe about a man getting robbed. We were talking about connections to our own lives. The kids were shocked (seriously!) by what I told them about Kalamazoo and my few brushes with being robbed/broken into. That shocked me. Norfolk is bigger, but has less crime than Kzoo. That is crazy and pretty depressing.
David's been gone since Tuesday. His program took a little trip to D.C. and they come back today. It's been weird to be around the apartment alone, but I've had more than enough crap to finish for school.
Today is such a beautiful day. It's sunny out and cool, but not too cool. Just perfect. I wish David was here and we both had free time to go take a bike ride or something. Or I'll just eat the pumpkin fudge we bought to celebrate that it finally feels like fall here. Sounds like a plan.

except for maybe sumi wrestling

This weekend was an eventful one. We hosted a poker/game night on Friday. It was tons of fun and a great chance to get to know some people in David's programs. They're hilarious. I got to chat with two others in the "wives/girlfriends" category, which was nice. After a few of the dudes got out in poker, we played Apples to Apples (of course). After poker was finished, we played a 12-person game of Catch Phrase. A few people left and the remaining people watched Nip/Tuck with us.

Saturday we met our first Nor'easter. A nor'easter is a weather thing that happens on this coast that was new to us. It rained a lot. That's an understatement. David forgot to put my rear two windows up after running an errand Friday night and four hours of dumping rain drenched a good chunk of my backseat. My car is still drying out. The whole area is drying out. This picture is of Monticello Road, right near us.

We did make it to Plan 9 to pick up our weekly allowance of music. We checked out Books A Million and found they have a great selection of magazines and a pleasant environment. Also, we checked out the sandwich place Subway Station, which always smelled really good. It was amazing. Almost as good as the Pita Pit, Scott.

Sunday, we went to see Sandra Day O'Conner speak. What an amazing woman. I have two videos of her and tried to take a good amount of pictures. I'll put them up on the flickr site soon. She has quite the sense of humor and an amazing point of view. Very intelligent and very fair. It was a nice way to see her, too. It was a completely informal feeling set-up. We sat on the floor of the University Center (as David put it: The Bernhard Center/Bronco Mall with class.) like an assembly at an elementary school. Kids were everywhere. They had a panel that asked some great questions and then the crowd got to ask some questions. It was wonderful.

After the assembly, we were walking back to downtown/the car and saw a HAWK EATING A SQUIRREL. It was CRAZY! I wasn't the only person to take pictures, either. That bird was huge and it was just tearing that squirrel apart and daring anyone to come near it. It was pretty amazing. I called Meg afterwards and told her about our eventful day.

This morning was relaxed. I was able to sleep in until 7:15, get up, slowly get ready, go to WaWa (it really is a glorified 7-11... with amazing food) and get some coffee, and drive into work. Today was our first full Parent/Teacher Conferences day. It went from 10:30-6:30 and wasn't too shabby. We got to go out for lunch from 2-3, so everyone was starving by then, but it was a pretty laid back day. I finished The Color of Water because I didn't have too much left and didn't have too many parents come by. Ah well.

make history

This past weekend was a good one. We finally checked out the local music store, Plan 9. In a word: Awesome. We found a lot of good stuff and had a good chat with the employee. As we left I told David: "There are normal people here!" haha.
We also headed to W&M's campus on Sunday. My bike is getting easier to ride. We headed over to the library to see what they had to offer at the book sale (not much.) and then went into Merchant Square-area to Mermaid Books. There was some sort of festival going on, possibly an art festival. It was a beautiful day for it. Sunny, perfect temperature and breeze. We headed into Mermaid books, found some good deals and then went to Retro's and enjoyed some hot dogs. Mine had coleslaw and sweet potato mustard, David's had chili, cheese, onion and jalapeno. Crazy kid. We also finally went to see Little Miss Sunshine at the New Town theatre. It was a nice walk over and a very nice theatre, too. There's a fountain outside, as well as the ticket booth. David and I both had the same thought about that: What happens when it rains? But the movie was fantastic and I've been suggesting it to everyone.
This week at school has been draining. I had a lot to do until today, mostly to prepare for today, which was my first BEST training session. I realized I forgot one thing: a roster for my 2nd bell. (Since I have a co-teacher 8th bell, she has access to the online attendence book) Crap! Oh well. Those kids are good. The BEST training session wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Plus, they gave us breakfast, coffee, oj, soda, tea and cookies. It came at a perfect time for most people; most of us needed a little break away from school. I'm ready to go back, though. And I have more ideas. Mwahahaha- watch out, kids!
Parent/Teacher conferences are Monday, but I think I'm ready for them.
LOST starts tonight, wooohooo!
I put up some pictures taken with my new camera on my flickr site, if you click on the cool picture box thing to the right, you can see them. Some of them are of New Town. It's like a little downtown area that has independent stores and restaurants, but also chains and mall stores. I took a picture of one of the roads being developed/built right now. So far, there is a Barnes and Noble (almost open), next door to that: Old Navy, next to that: Lane Bryant, across the street: Anne Taylor Loft. See what I mean? A mall downtown area. Crazy.