catching up

It's the end of the third week, and it's been a long one.
Monday was the Open House. Every school has one. Last year, I had a lot more parents. This year, I stay in town, buy dinner, come back to school, see 4 parents and then get home at 9. I don't usually say or think this about school-related things, but this was definitely a waste of my time.
This week, the honeymoon has ended. Two students skipped, so I wrote my first referral. I had to have a chat with a child I removed from the classroom into the hallway, as well. Ahh well. The school year has truly started.
Today was our first Early Release day. It was pretty awesome, but only because it was a "B" day, which means I only had 1 of my 2 classes since the last class of the day was removed. After the kids went home, we had our first meeting in our small groups for the professional development that will be going on year-round. It went well, we laughed so hard we almost cried, but didn't get much else done, hah! Oh well. No one has any clue what we're supposed to be doing, exactly.
I used two different strategies in the past two weeks to get students into pairs and groups. Both worked wonderfully! I had notecards with famous pairs on them and cut them in two. Each student gets one and must find their other half. That one worked great. I used the postcards (and thank you to everyone who sent some so far!!) to get my 11th graders into groups and that also worked wonderfully! It was so awesome to see. So, again, thanks to those of you who sent along postcards. They helped a lot!
My 10th graders essays are due tomorrow and Monday, which means no more talking about essays for a while! Yayyyy! My 11th graders have listened to two different parts of This American Life episodes and I'm using a curriculum built around This I Believe essays to help them learn how to write personal essays and they seem to be enjoying both! I was surprised how many kids actually liked the TAL episodes! It was very exciting.
This weekend is the first Ladies Night. I'm looking forward to it! That and sleeping in, reading my own book, getting ahead a little bit (the open house night totally ruined my routine! Plus, it made me really tired for Tuesday, uggh).
Some of you know already, but I've started going to a dance class again. It's a very small class, the other ladies don't have as much experience, but I am very out of shape. It's slow enough for me to really focus on getting my technique back as well as strength and endurance. So far, after two classes, I've enjoyed it. It's a nice addition to my week, it feels fantastic (and almost... comforting?) to be dancing again.
I'm going to try and get more in the habit of writing and blogging more. The last few weeks, I've been getting back in the habit of school: getting up early, getting things done quickly, following more of a routine, etc. But, at least I finally found pants that fit! I sucked it up and tried on about 14 different pairs of pants. Some of them were huge! Have I shrunk?! What happened? I guess that's better than the flipside...? Still, I hate trying on that many clothes and not finding anything.
One of the new people in our complex plays harmonica on their porch. Every now and then we'll hear harmonica floating along in the air. Right now it's "Home on the Range". It's pretty awesome.