catching some butterflies

I'm baking breakfast bars and they take an hour, so I figured I'd update the ol' blog. I didn't realize that it'd been a while.

The biggest news is that David is now a Master of Public Policy.

I made him try on his stuff the day before.

There's a (semi-blurry) picture of him doing the walk across the stage.

Beyond that, not much has happened. My students are finishing up plays and research papers, getting ready to start The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies to wrap up the year. My 11th graders take their last English SOL (if they pass both of them) on Monday and Tuesday; it'll be nice to have them over with and get the scores back. Keep your fingers crossed.
Also keep your fingers crossed for me. I've applied to two different places and this is about the time of the year when they start hiring people outside of the district. I'd love to find a job sooner rather than later, and the two districts I've applied to I've already met with (the job fairs I went to in February) and they seemed to consider me a good possibility. They're pretty large districts, so hopefully I hear from them soon. We're also starting to seriously look and set up appointments for housing, so there's another thing. I asked everyone to keep their fingers crossed/pray for me to find a good job and great place to live and it turned out fantastic, so keep that positive thinking going for us.

And, for your viewing pleasure, here are 2 videos I took of some of my 5th bell kids presenting the first part of their play.

Raisin in the Sun
(I wanted to tape more of this, but Kenny was making the whole class laugh with his hand going out into the air every time he had to say a line. I think you can hear Stephanie in the background go, "Mrs. P-- watch his hand!!" before giggling. I had to stop the video because I was starting to shake the camera so much.)

The Piano Lesson

These were the best of the 2 groups. My battery in my camera was dying, so it was difficult to film more than a few seconds. This week, since the groups are finishing reading, they're to come up with a talk show modeled after "Oprah", "Maury", or "Jerry Springer" using their characters and the conflict(s) in their plays. They were really excited about it and were totally into the idea. They did great using just the script, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they come up with! I'll be sure to tape some of it.

already august?

It's almost that time of year again. I've already had a few nightmares that are my version of showing up to school in your undies: showing up to face a huge, overcrowded classroom of new students and not remembering that it was the first day of school. Nothing is ready! oh noes! Tragedy! I don't enjoy these dreams, but they are definitely motivating me more. I've already finished one presentation, have notes/outlines (very rough) for 4-5 units, a list of things I need to buy and things I've already bought (thank you, Target, for having folders for 10 cents and packaged in groups of 10. So much easier.)
The first of August came and brought humidity. July is over, but it was fun. Megan and I recently got over a bag buying addiction, but ended up with some cute, pretty cheap stuff. We also now have a list of things to do before she leaves the "colonial triangle" and goes back to the land of Vernors, Meijer and the mothereffing Root Beer Stand (and you best believe I enjoyed some of that while I was in Michigan!)
So, I made the transition to Virginian: I have a license with a decent picture, a registered car in VA (after many issues and mail and faxes and $77 spent on installing the front plate. Who knew a small piece of plastic could cost $50!?), a taste/constant craving for sweet tea, and I made my first mint juleps! Also, I finally bought some pear vodka, but I have no idea what to do with it, I mostly just like to smell it because it smells delicious. I did look on Absolut's site and they had a few good suggestions. Next time, I want to buy some of the other crazy flavors they have at the VABC store.
There's been lots of talk of improvement in finances, attitude, eating habits and activity. Hopefully it's not all talk and ends up being action, as well. David saw the light on budgeting, planning meals, etc., so that will lead to more financial responsibility on both our parts. We are buying in on the trend (haha) and starting a debt blog. It's only going to be one we can see and, at least for me, mostly a wake up call as to how much we owe right now. It's not a lot, it could be worse. My student loan debt makes up slight more than half of it. Another part of the debt blog we're going to make is keeping track of how much we consume, which is something I don't think a lot of people think about. How much money do you spend in a week? How much was necessary and how much was a "want"?
Now that a lot of new people are moving in, I realized it's been almost a year since we've been here. I do love it down here because of the weather, the seasons, the people, the landscape, etc. etc. It's getting better on the whole "woe is me! I have no friends!" part. Someone told me before we moved that the first year is the worst/loneliest, after that it gets better. Let's hope that's true.