non-scurvy scallawag

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 01:03:11 GMT

Things kids have said to me in the last week:

"You look FABULOUS today, Ms. A!"

"I ain't doin' what you say, you, you, you, WHITE WOMAN! You UGLY white woman!"

"Ms. A., you look exquisite today! (Exquisite is a fancy word! It means you look nice!)"

"If you don't stop saying my name, I'm going to change it! I swear to god, I'm gettin' a new one!"

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:53:29 GMT

You guys!

It looks like Obama will hit the number of delegates he needs tonight! Possibly in the next few minutes! He's gained like 20 in the last half hour! And then we can all move on to the general election! Woo!

I'm glad I skedaddled right after work instead of staying to grade or possibly attempt to find my desk under all the junk, so I can sit and watch CNN like the nerd that I am!

Also, my apartment, in contrast to my classroom, does NOT smell like dead rat. Bonus!

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:31:01 GMT

This week, instead of regular type Jeopardy!, it's Celebrity Jeopardy!, which I mostly don't like, because the people on it don't know how to play and can't answer the questions. Well, today's was okay. Yesterday's was horrid.

But tomorrow is ALL LAW & ORDER Jeopardy! Sam Waterston (Jack on L&O regular type) and Kathryn Erbe (Eames on L&O: Criminal Intent) and Christopher Meloni (Elliot on L&O:SVU)!

*flails*

Guys, I bet there will be categories of "Law" and "Order"! I can't even say how much glee this fills me with.

Probably way too much!

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 23:48:51 GMT

Conversation with Ross:

Ross: *successfully names all five rights conferred by the First Amendment* Yes! The Constitution, that's some good stuff!
me: True.
Ross: Those amendments: pretty awesome.
me: Some of us are partial to the 19th Amendment.
Ross: Some of us...
me: Hey!
Ross: Some of us are partial to the 21st Amendment.
me: Some of us are total nerds.
*pause*
Ross: Shut up.

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:47:32 GMT

Guess who is here in my house! Besides my parents and both brothers (Actually, they're both out at the moment, but in general they're here.) and my grandfather who flew in today!

sasha_davidovna and Noori! Yay! And Noori is a baby and she's adorable! Aww, baby. And Kerry and I talked for a while and that was awesome!

In conclusion: Hooray!

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 03:05:51 GMT

I went shopping yesterday and got new shirts! I really needed new pants, but my new shirts are adorable, and I kind of needed them too, so, oh well.

I also got a baby present at the Osh Kosh store. And I took my dad and brother with me. And that was HILARIOUS.

Ross: I don't think humans can actually fit in these clothes. They're, like, doll clothes.
me: Well, they're for babies. Babies are pretty small.
Ross: Not this small!
me: ...
Dad: Would a baby even fit in this?
me: Yes. If it was a baby between the ages of six to nine months.
Dad: Even in the pants?
me: Yes. They are designed for babies.
Dad: Even with a diaper on?
me: THEY HAVE PROFESSIONALS DOING THIS, GUYS. I'm pretty sure they designed baby clothes with the facts that babies are small and wear diapers in mind.

But baby clothes? Adorable. Oh my gosh. I need to find a baby to put some clothes on RIGHT NOW.

Thu, 31 May 2007 04:16:40 GMT

Thank you note I got from a kid today:

*Picture of me and him around a table. We have books. We also appear to be floating.*
Dear Miss A.,
Thank you for helping me to read and for learning and for counting. I like you because you give me books.
Love, K.

I'm pretty sure that's a great endorsement to have from a kid who came in not reading at all.

I am going to miss these kids.

Tue, 29 May 2007 04:46:00 GMT

I may never eat again.

We went into the city yesterday, to have dinner at this place where they bring around about a gajillion kinds of meat and they just keep bringing it until you explode. Not a huge draw for me, but they did have a decent salad bar and also there were mashed potatoes and fried bananas YUM. Plus, we had dessert.

Actually, at one point one of the waitstaff dropped a glass and it shattered into a kajillion pieces and about six people swooped in and cleared our entire table and reset it in under a minute and a half. It was like being in a racecar pit. Crazy.

So, then the glass-dropping guy spent the rest of the time we were there falling all over himself to get us anything we needed. Like we were going to be very angry about the dropping of a glass? Clearly, he had never met us before. If we got angry over things like that, we would all be furious ALL THE TIME.

Anyway, they gave us dessert free to make up for the glass incident. Woo, dessert!

At one point Lynn was all, "We'll have to take you to Maggiano's sometime to pay you all back for taking us here!" (Maggiano's is this fantastic Italian place where, if you go with a big group, they just bring you food until you explode. You may be sensing a theme in our culinary choices. May I remind you that I have two younger brothers? Alright then.). Ian responded, with a hint of panic, "Not tonight!" Which, if you know Ian, for him to complain about too much food? Let me put it this way: The only other time I have heard him say he was full was on Thanksgiving a few years ago after we'd all just eaten a huge Thanksgiving dinner. Before which, Ian had gone to his girlfriend's house and eaten a huge Thanksgiving dinner. What I'm trying to say is, the boy enjoys food.

So what did we do today, after everyone practically ate their weight yesterday? We had a barbeque. With potato salad. And cake.

Oh, my gosh. The cake. Was ridiculous. I made it, right, since I'm the baker. It was lemon. And then I went to frost it and my mom was all, "I have new frosting! With coconut in it! Use it!" so I did and things went horribly wrong. First, part of the bottom layer of the cake fell apart. Whatever, I put it back together. But this frosting was just too thick to really spread around, so it tore up the cake some more and I had to use almost all of it just to paste the layers together. So then I put the top layer on, and somehow it was much, much smaller than the bottom layer, so I had a crazy bottom-heavy cake, which would be hard to frost under the best circumstances! Let alone with this frosting! (I think the coconut frosting was so much denser than usual frosting that it weighed down the bottom layer, causing it to stick out like crazy all over the place. That's my theory, anyway.) Plus, the frosting was almost gone. So I had to get out MORE frosting, but we didn't have regular vanilla, all we had was French vanilla, which is kind of yellowish? So I used the weird yellow frosting to cover the top and to try to do the sides, which was hard because they were at two different levels, and then I dumped coconut on top.

It looked like an alien.

But everyone still ate it! And it's almost all gone.

I may never eat again.

Sat, 26 May 2007 05:31:17 GMT

Random scenes from today:

At lunchtime, several grades were on field trips, so somebody decided that the first graders, who usually eat half first lunch and half second, should eat together. Important detail: the first graders, in split shifts, actually sit at the same tables. Just, never together.

So, I walk into the lunchroom at noon today. Picture this, if you will. The whole big lunchroom is set up. There are 15 tables. There are no 5th graders. There are no 3rd graders. There are 80 first graders.

And all of them are trying to sit at the same three tables.

It was PANDEMONIUM. Complete chaos. Hilarious, but insane.

Also hilarious:
There's a first grader who told me yesterday that her birthday is today. It's written on the board of her classroom (which I have been in and out of a good 15 times at this point of the day) that today is her birthday. She is wearing a birthday crown that says "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" across it. She and a classmate see me in the hall and we converse:

D: Miss A, do you know what today is?
me: It's your birthday! Happy birthday, D!
*we pass each other*
D (to her friend): How did she know?!

Fri, 25 May 2007 05:23:03 GMT

One of the most alarming parts about teaching is when my students ask really good, insightful questions that make me realize I don't understand anything about what I'm trying to teach.

Like this week, when one of my second grade groups read a book about money (Did you know the first coins were made in the kingom of Lydia? Me neither.), and it mentioned Fort Knox and the gold and was talking about banks and I don't know all what.

One kid goes, "Why did they put all the gold in the bank?" and I was all, "So they didn't have to carry it around?" and she was all, "Then how could they give it to other people?" and I was like, "That's maybe why they invented money? Like, a note to say, hey, I have some gold in the bank and you can have it?".

Note: at this point I was using a critical teaching technique called "if you don't know something, phrase it as a question and hope the kid will move on". It didn't work.

The kid continued, "Do YOU have some gold in the bank?" and I started to be all, "Oh, we don't actually put gold in the bank anymore, we just use money." and she came back with, "Then what is the money for? If you can't use it to get the gold?"

And I didn't collapse in a quivering muttering heap of "William Jennings Bryan!" and "Wizard of Oz as allegory!", but it was a very near thing.

(Do any of you understand how that all works, because...what is the money representing? Why is it worth anything? Maybe I should ask my brother the econ major? Why don't I remember my basic American history? Perhaps I should go to sleep now?)

Wed, 23 May 2007 01:59:49 GMT

Two conversations I had today with coworkers that ended in me going, "?!?":

(scene: discussion of the incidence of autism, over lunch)
coworker 1: The US has the highest incidence.
coworker 2: It's becoming just a catch-all diagnosis.
coworker 1: We also have the highest vaccination numbers, which is probably related.
me: Actually, they've done several studies that have found NO correlation between vaccinations and autism.
coworker 1: Well, a lot of people say that there is a correlation.
me: But all the studies they've done have found none..
coworker 1: But they've done a lot of studies on it! *rests her case*
me: ?!?

(scene: a coworker and I were talking about how school lunches are better now, which morphed into a discussion of eating habits)
her: Your family eats pretty healthy, right?
me: Yeah, pretty healthy.
her: Ever since I moved in with [new husband], I've been eating so unhealthfully!
me: Oh, that's too bad.
her: Yeah, he wants to eat dinner EVERY NIGHT, and I just am like, "Can't we have a night with no dinner?! Please?!" Sheesh.
me: ?!?

Fri, 18 May 2007 05:23:31 GMT

Actual things kids have raised their hands to ask me during lunch over the course of the last week or so:

- Do you know how fast I ran the mile?
- Are you claustrophobic?
- Have you met my mother?
- Do you have cholesterol?
(Follow up question: Do you have TOO MUCH of it?)
- Did you know how to say "chicken" in Spanish?
- What does this say?
- Can I go see the nurse?
- What is this tuna made from?
- How am I supposed to eat this applesauce with no spoon?!
- Is there more people here or more people in America?
(Follow up question from me: What?)
- Are you in college?
(Follow up question: Then why aren't you a MOMMY?)
- What should I do about this spider in my lunchbox?

Thu, 17 May 2007 05:49:55 GMT

I'm pretty sure tonight's episode of CSI: NY was the most alarming television show I've watched in a while. There was definitely gasping out loud on at least two occasions. I mean, I'm pretty blase about all my dead people shows, because, let's face it, they are all basically the same six plots. (With special Law and Order twists!) But my description of it to my dad was decidely Lemony Snicket-esque:

The following things were involved in this episode: An angry Irish gang. A LOT of cocaine. Instant messaging. Laser-triggered homemade bombs. Duct tape. An alarmed coronor. Sneaking around. Adorableness (Awww.). Fake gas leaks. Many costume changes. And plane tickets.

I needed a fun show to watch today. Half my kids took brat pills today and were not all about the reading. An exchange with my mom when I got home:
her: How was your day?
me: Nrgg.
her: Well, it was probably better than yesterday right? Did anyone throw up?
me: No. Oh, wait. Yes.
her: Have some beer.

(Though, to be fair, yesterday the kid who threw up did so while in the process of me getting her to not choke to death, so it really was the preferred outcome given the situation.)

I cannot wait for the weekend.

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:47:15 GMT

I just hosted a dinner party? I guess I'm officially an adult?

I do this thing through church, where they match you up with people each month and then you bring the salad or dessert or it's at your house or whatever. And tonight it was at my house. And it went pretty well!

Except for the part where I thought two of the guys were going to come to blows over politics.

No, seriously. It was a little tense.

But! Other than that, good. And they were bizarrely impressed with the number of forks we own (lots).

And I even did the dishes.

Usually, around here, my dad does the dishes? And it will routinely take him two, three hours to finish? Because he's kind of inefficient and also he watches TV while doing them. But if my mom ever says anything like, "I have to pick up the entire house so it can get cleaned tomorrow!" he gets all grouchy and goes, "Well, I just spent three hours doing the dishes!" and it's TOTALLY OFFENSIVE to him if you suggest that's because he's slow.

Anyway, I'm just noting for the record that I just did all the dishes for an eight person dinner party, many of which were hand dishes because they were the good china, and it still took me only 45 minutes.

I win!

Also, I have leftover brie. I win again!

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 04:34:12 GMT

Pieces of my pretty fantastic reading group this morning, with the first graders who can't read. We read a book about astronauts going into space, and this was clearly the pinnacle of their reading lives. A book! About space! How could this not be considered the BEST. THING. EVER.?

Kid M (viewing a photo of Earth): Is that really what Earth looks like?
me: Yep. It's round, like a basketball, but a LOT bigger.
Kid M: Wow. Where are we?
me: Well, you can't see America here. Look, this is Africa, where Classmate M is from. And this is Antarctica, where the penguins live. We're on the other side of the world.
Kid J: Like, on the back of the page!
me: ... Sure.
Kid J: I feel like maybe those penguins might fall off! They're upside down!
me: You know what, no matter where you are on the Earth, you always feel like you're on the top. Isn't that a surprising thing? To the penguins, they might think WE would fall off! But the Earth pulls on us, so we stay on the ground.
Kid J: Very surprising!

Kid M: Why is he wearing that funny hat?
me: Well, that astronaut wants to breathe, and there's no air in space, so they have to take their air with them.
Kid M: But inside the space shuttle they didn't wear those hats!
me: True. They just put all the air in the shuttle. But outside, no air.
Kid M: Well, what is outside?
me: In space?
Kid M: Yeah.
me: Um. Not much. Sometimes rocks. Mostly, just...space. It's pretty empty. No air. No water.
Kid M: No water either?!
me: No.
Kid M: Then what's that astronaut floating on?!
me: ... Good question?

Kid M: I want to go to that planet!
me: Well, astronauts don't really go to other planets, because it would take a really really long time to get there.
Kid J: Yeah, and you'd have to pack some food.
me: Right.
Kid J: And we wouldn't want to go to Jupiter, because we'd get flat.
Kid M: But we can meet the aliens!
me: Well, we don't actually know if any living things exist anywhere else on the other planets. We've never seen any. So we don't know if there are any aliens.
Kid J: Well, except for illegal aliens. But those ones are people.
me: Good point.

It was a great group. Too bad we didn't get our, you know, READING done, but they were just so excited and engaged I didn't have the heart to tell them, "Enough chat! Time for rote sight word memorization!". Now if only all my groups would be so enthusiastic. Or if this group would learn to read. That'd be good, too.

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:02:07 GMT

Teaching my mother to do basic things on the computer AKA Perfecting the art of deep breathing

Mom: Will you show me how to attach something to an email?
me: Sure. Go ahead and compose your email first.
*time passes*
Mom: Okay!
me: See that button that says "Attachments"?
Mom: Yes.
me: Click it. Now click "Browse". Oh, where did you save it to?
Mom: What?
me: When you saved your document. You had to put it in a folder, just like when you save real papers you put them in real folders. Right?
Mom: Right.
me: So what folder did you put it in?
Mom: Microsoft Word!

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 04:35:33 GMT

Ross went with me to trivia tonight, which was fun. And we were in first place after the first round! We ended in next to last place, but these things happen!

Even better, the first round was the one where the winner gets free dessert! So we had free cake! Chocolate! Flourless! It was delicious! And also free! Woo!

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 04:45:46 GMT

My mom got home from work today to find an empty, locked house. With a stove burner on. Yikes!

In other, TOTALLY UNRELATED news, my little brother's home for spring break! Actually, he left again (causing the most pitiful whimpering on the part of Orion), but he'll be back tomorrow. Here's hoping he doesn't burn the house down!

It was in the 70s today? I guess? Which is strange, because there's still snow on the ground? This whole "weather" thing has me very confused.

I really have nothing to say.

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 03:59:19 GMT

Today I went to a job fair. It can be summed up thusly:

jfjfdassadhnnnnggggg *dead*

Basically, I went and stood in long long lines to have short short mini-interviews with school districts. Guess how long I spent there! SIX HOURS. Guess how many mini-interviews I had! FIVE.

One of them did seem impressed with my resume and with me, and told me at the end, "Well, you've certainly moved to the top of the pile!", which is good. But the whole process killed my brain, to the point where I've been having trouble remembering words all evening, which is bad.

Basically, not much got accomplished. Except I've got some pretty impressive blisters from standing in lines for SIX HOURS in heels!

Ow!

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:24:04 GMT

Today with my kindergarteners, we studied the letter I. You may be familiar with this letter. It starts the word "igloo". Also, "ice". More importantly, "iron". In our I book, on the "iron" page, there was a picture of a guy, ironing. The girl in my group looks up, absolutely dumbfounded.

"Hey!" says she, "Boys can't do the ironing!"

"Of course they can!" I respond, "Everyone gets to iron their own clothes, so they're not wrinkly!"

She looks dubious, so I continue. "If I want my clothes to be not wrinkly, I do the ironing. But if my brother wants HIS clothes to be not wrinkly, HE does the ironing. That's fair."

"Yeah!" pipes up the boy, "Girls shouldn't have to do everything!"

Oh, gender roles and five-year-olds.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 18:36:18 GMT

Here was my plan for today:

6:00 get up
6:45 leave for inservice
7:15 inservice starts
2:45 inservice ends
Go out to lunch
Go home

Here's how my day's gone so far:

6:00 get up
6:45 leave for inservice
7:30 inservice starts; we are informed that the planned person is sick and they have called in a back-up person, who is a motivational speaker and also the older brother of one of our district administrators. He's pretty hilarious.
9:15 he finishes speaking and they tell us we can leave
Go out to breakfast
Go home

I was home by 11:40.

Best. Inservice day. Ever.

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 06:02:09 GMT

Okay, picture the scene.

I have read a book about astronauts with some first graders. Inside, pictures of astronauts. Some astronauts in space. Some entirely different astronauts walking around on Earth.

These astronauts have all been commented upon and admired. Outfits discussed. Counted. In space, three boys and two girls. On land, four boys and ONE girl.

"Wait!" says one of my readers, "What happened to the other girl?"

"I think they're a different group of astronauts," I answer, since they clearly are.

"No." says reader #2. "That's the same, but there's a girl missing!"

"I know!" chimes in reader #3. "She stayed behind in the space shuttle to make sure it got all clean!"

*HEADDESK*

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:09:58 GMT

Apparently, I have gained a life? Or at least parts of one? Because I have been busy!

Let's see. I've started tutoring kids after school Tuesdays and Thursdays, through an extended day program for our struggling kids at school. I've got fourth graders and we're doing math and it's pretty much okay, even though all the other tutors get lesson plans and the teachers for my kids were like, How about you teach them...math? Whatever, though, it's all good. They work pretty decently for me, and I get paid 28 bucks an hour, which is so ridiculous it's not even funny.

I started playing staff volleyball again, so that's Thursday after school. A few weeks ago we won a game! I know! It was totally unexpected by us, too! I got an ace! I am the "Star Server"! Me! How ridiculous is that! Answer: Pretty ridiculous!

I also started going to Pub Trivia night at a pub nearby last week. It's Thursday night, which makes Thursdays busy, but that's cool. I was going to be a team of me, but I got there and the person who organizes it was all, "You poor thing! You can't play by yourself! Here, play with this friend of mine I got to come along!" and I was all, "Okay." and so we played and he was pretty decent and then random drunk guy joined us, and he was decent until he got REALLY drunk, and then his friend joined us, and then we all got third place. Yay! So me and the original guy are going to be a team, but we'll let any random people join, we decided, except maybe not drunk guy because he got kind of belligerent. Although, funny story, one of the parts we had to look at pictures and identify them, and at one of them I was like, "That is clearly some politician guy and I KNOW him, but I don't know him right now." And then drunk guy (Well, he was REALLY drunk guy by this point.), in the midst of some angry mutterings, goes, "He looks Jewish!" and I was like, "OH. It's totally Ariel Sharon." Rock on, angry drunk guy, rock on. ANYHOW, that's fun.

But LAST week I was supposed to bring treats on Friday. Volleyball was canceled, so I went home and baked banana bread and had dinner and baked two dozen muffins and went to trivia and came home and Orion had eaten NINE MUFFINS. Stupid muffin thief. So I baked four quiches and went to bed. And my mom woke me up at Crazy O'clock (Seriously, it was before 6. And I'd been up til midnight making quiche.) to tell me that I'd left the quiche out and they would surely have gone bad by now. I didn't even THINK to put them in the fridge. Never crossed my mind. Stupid. So I made four MORE quiche, and got ready and packed things up, and went to start my car and it WOULDN'T START. DUN DUN DUN.

See, for a while it'd been doing this thing where it would leave the brake lights on, so I had to check when I got out of the car, and kick the brake pedal really hard, and they'd go off. But it had decided to turn them on in the middle of the night, so my battery was dead. WOE.

So, I loaded up my dad's car, and managed to slip on the ice and skin my knee while doing so, but eventually I made it to work in time to set up for treats. With quiche, even. And muffins. And croissants, to make up for the stupid muffin thief. Phew.

Friday night Ian came home and we all went out to dinner, and then Saturday we celebrated my dad's birthday and there was cake. It wasn't actually his birthday, but close enough, since he'd forgotten when his birthday was. So it all works out.

Monday I took my car in to get it fixed and then there was something else wrong with it as well and all in all it was almost 900 dollars to fix, so that was pretty lame, but what can you do?

In other news, I'm pretty sure I have a fever, which is lame.

In other other news, though, the reading specialist at work is getting married soon, so we're having a shower, and we're making an alphabet book about marriage, and this other aide and I collaborated and our letter is H, so our page is: H is for home. Home is where the heart is!, which is totally cheesy, but neither of us is married, so there you go. But then we totally forgot about decorating it, so I made it tonight, and I made a cut-out house out of construction paper and put a heart inside and it's probably the most elementary school thing I've done in a WHILE and I think it's adorable.

Also adorable: My kitty, who just fell asleep while sitting up, and she fell over. THUNK. Face first into the mattress.

Ridiculous.

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:40:39 GMT

Snow day! Snow day!

I got to sleep in! Very exciting!

Then I went outside and shoveled at least six inches of snow off the driveway. And it's already covered over again!

Here's what I plan on doing the rest of the day:
- having hot chocolate
- watching Law and Order
- reading the newspaper
- not work on anybody's reading comprehension

Woo!

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 06:29:48 GMT

Scene: Reading group

I have just made a mistake, in that I wrote something on the wrong piece of paper. I proceed to cross it out and rewrite on the correct sheet.

Child 1: What is THAT?
Child 2: What did you WRITE there?
me: Oh, I just made a mistake, so I crossed it out and fixed it. Sorry about that. No big deal. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.
Child 1: Nuh uh.
me: Yep! Just the way it is. Everybody makes mistakes. You just fix them the best you can and move on.
Child 1: Not everyone!
me: Pretty much, yep. Everyone makes mistakes.
Child 1 (completely straight-faced): Not fish!

Hard to argue with that.

Mostly because I burst out laughing.

That probably wasn't the right response, but, hey, everyone makes mistakes.