Cease and desist

Things happening on/in or around my house:

new roommate moving in
dog-sitting hyperactive 5 yr old boxer
fish-sitting comatose beta
fucking roofers replacing the fucking roof
whining
using of internet
not buying of christmas presents for family. woops.

A departure

I'm done blogging about work, duh, its Christmas break. So instead let me update you: I'm currently losing a game of cribbage and the riding on the outcome of this game is one month of not shaving my armpits. I think this is going to do wonders for my already stellar dating record. HOWEVER....if by some miracle of unknown proportions I happen to win, then my degenerate roommate has to shave his legs every other day for a month. Either way, I'll post some pictures for your viewing (dis)pleasure.

I'm also watching my friends' beta fish,Jurgen, while they're out of town. They left me the following instructions "Don't kill Jurgen." Also, I'm not sure they were aware of how hard it is to transport a full-to-the-brim fishtank in the car. I was giving my friend, Steen, a ride home and made him come with me to get the fish. The fishwater spilled all over Steen's lap, which was awesome because when he got out of the car it looked like he had wet his pants. Super funny. Anyway, I had to drop Steen off and then proceed the rest of the way holding the fish tank still with one hand and driving with the other. I finally get home after several blocks of driving 8mph only to discover that the stupid beta food has spilled in my coat pocket . So, yeah, I might kill Jurgen.

What my neighbors think/know about me:

Despite living in a duplex where two bedroom walls and one bathroom wall are shared, I hear precious little from THE OTHER SIDE (capitalized for effect). What I do hear leads me to believe that Michelle on THE OTHER SIDE shares my sense of feng shui and put her bed exactly where I put mine, but the mirror-image. What leads me to believe this? Waking up to the sound of my neighbor banging just as I've fallen into a REALLY NICE, DEEP SLEEP. Super. Anyway, I've been ruminating on what my neighbors might hear from me and what it might lead them to believe.

What my neighbor hears:
1) The sound of fingernail clippers four times a week.
2) The same CD played over and over.
3) "STUPID FUCKING KHAKIS!"
4) My alarm clock in the morning, approximately 5 times.

What my neighbor therefore believes:
1) That my fingernails grow really fast.
2) That I only have one CD and questionable taste in music.
3) That I am in a fight with a pair of pants.
4) That I am an asshole.

The veracity of their deductions:
1) Not true, I am just really anal about the length of my fingernails.
2) Sort of true, I listen to some really lame crap sometimes.
3) Yes, I hate khakis and ironing khakis and wearing khakis and I am going to murder their inventor in their sleep with my unironed khakis.
4) Also true.

You're right, 27 year olds do have good judgment

Things I told people whilst celebrating my 27th birthday:

1) I am getting married tomorrow.
2) I am pregnant.
3) My name is Lynette.

Things that I took from Tiny's Tavern whilst celebrating my 27th birthday:

1) A framed picture of someone's dog.

The motherland!

I have returned to the land of Busch Light and patriotic-themed lighters for my younger brother's wedding and I think that to compare my journey to the abridged version of Homer's Odyssey would be apt. The bride-to-be's dad and step-mom took us to dinner last night at the Height's Supper Club, the nicest place in town. My dad ordered a smoked pork chop the size of a car battery and I think everyone else had the chicken cordon bleu with a side of hashbrowns covered in nacho cheese sauce (delicious). After dinner I sojourned to Cedar Rapids for an evening of college football and light beer with my friends and some of their friends who have names like 'Shooter' and 'Randy' and make lots of gay jokes, which is refreshing after living in an erudite, socialist, environmentally sensitive university town for so long. Their dog Wrigley has been trained to take a dog treat out of a human mouth so a fair amount of dog-kissing went on last night as well.

My mom and I are going to get pedicures here in a second and I think I'll ask for a discount seeing as I only have 7.5 toenails to pedicure. Tonight is the rehearsal dinner, so I should probably get started on some sort of inappropriate toast to make. Later.

Quickly approaching old age

I signed up for a retirement savings account today. Only 33.5 more years of teaching! Yes!

This was a good week...my only non-Latino student, a boy whose family is from Laos, brought me this SWEET cd that his older brother made. Does anyone need a copy of Laotian pop/rock? Are you sure?

My students are pretty terrific, and so is my job, despite things like coworkers assuming that a student is "a little slow" because they don't speak the English. (Voice in my head: "Hmmm...you do speak English but you're MORE than a little slow. You're FUCKING BRAINLESS.") ((Voice in my mouth: "Uhhhh...I need to go make some copies.")

I managed to get out of playing in staff-student softball game at the middle school, but I didn't totally luck out as I wound up "supervising" students. Loosely translated: find the kid yelling inappropriate things and sit by them. A good time was had by all.

In my non-teacher life, I'm off to run a marathon this weekend and hopefully beat Palin's astonishingly good time. If I can't do that, I'll settle for enjoying myself and not crapping my pants.

Was that my teacher wrestling in the front yard of that house?

Yes, yes it was. I am legendary, but still honing my skills of front yard weekend wrestling. All sorts of strange things hurt today, like my ear.

Year Two, Week Three, Day Three: Take 1

I have a real, honest-to-Allah classroom! I think if I make it another year in this district I met get something like a golf cart or all the chocolate milk I can drink during the month of May or something like that. Overall, I would say that the difference between my second year of teaching and my first year of teaching is the difference between having wisdom teeth removed with versus without anesthetic. More later.

I guess some sort of reflection would be appropriate

My first year of teaching has officially reached an end....and guess what? Next year I get a real classroom. I guess the administrators in the district finally read Brown v. Board of Education and decided that you can't actually expect the ELL teacher to teach in a tiny, ill-equipped, broke-ass joke of a classroom. So year #2 should be a real treat...stay tuned.

Today is only day one of my summer vacation (possibly the only summer vacation that I've actually ever earned) and by 7am I was on my second cup of tea and anxiously making a list of things to keep me occupied. Yes, I am that cool.

Here's the list:

budget/pay bills
weed front beds
laundry
swim
walgreens
rearrange bedroom
call piano tuner
call recylcing service

Here's what I actually did:

found the NYT crossword puzzle and did it as fast as I could before my roommate got home
watered house plants
watered outside plants
ate an english muffin
shower #1
did laundry
juggled soccer ball in front yard
added another length of bamboo fencing between my house and MY PSYCHO NEIGHBOR's house
rearranged bedroom furniture. four times.
went running
shower #2
paid bills
went to walgreens
went to library

Which is where I am now. Don't get me wrong, I did not include this list because I think my day was so fascinating, the opposite in fact. I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with myself. You can only shower so many times in a day.

Oops, I forgot one thing. Pinche Guey from my soccer team called to ask where tomorrow's game was. And to ask me if I would like to be his girlfriend. I said 'no thanks', which is a step up from the last time he asked me something like that and I just laughed at him.

"You bought WHAT from your sister?"

As I waited outside in the designated stand-in-line-and-wait-for-your bus area after school today, a student I didn't know walked past and I gave him my best teacher smile, just like I give everyone who is under 5'2" my best teacher smile, and then my smile quickly faded into a look like what I imagine my friend was thinking when he saw a couple openly fisting at the B2B this year.  Actually, I take that back, that look was probably a little more gleeful than mine.  Anyway, imagine my face contorted into a semi-controlled holy hell/REALLY?/wtf face.  The student who passed me was sporting NIPPLE CLAMPS, chained to the appropriate region of his t-shirt.  Do you know how many other teachers he probably walked by who by virtue of the bumfuck Norman Rockwell town I work in didn't even know what they were?  Did I mention I was at the elementary school?  

It gets better.  Turns out he is in the 4th grade, he knows what they are and he bought them from his older sister.  For a quarter.

When the things you say to students bite you in the ass

Yesterday was the staff vs. students basketball game at the middle school. There is something about a white basketball jersey that just does not flatter a middle-aged teacher's body. Anyway. I was fortunate enough to beg out of participating, but I did go and watch a little. One of my students asked me why I wasn't playing and I said that I didn't know how to play basketball and he says with the most possible sincerity:

"That's OK, just try your best!"

He has a point. Dammit.

On eyeballs and other gross things:

During the weekly check-in with my first and second graders about how their weekend was, 'Tavito share the following, much to the dismay/horror/fascination of the other kids:

"My uncle killed a toro....in the campo....there was blood everywhere. I saw the heart, it was big like this (makes football sized shape with his hands). I touched the eye, it was soft. Like a bed."

And that is when I peed a little in my pants I was trying so hard not to laugh.

***

It is officially the homestretch of the school year and I'm trying not to let on that I want out of my classroom more than the kids do. It occurred to me the other day as I checked my personal email for the 27th time before noon that I need more friends at work. I am kind of isolated in my position because I split my time between separate schools (and it doesn't help that said schools are in a small town in the middle of the countryside and stuck in some previous decade). However, the other side of this beautiful equation is that no one (read: authority figures/bosses) has any idea where I am. Were I of lesser moral fiber this could be deadly, but being the fine paragon of virtue that I am, I have only taken advantage of this once, and no one even noticed that I rolled in two hours late on conference day. So I told them. And they didn't care. So I left early.

Yep, I showed them.

On all things inappropriate

A 5th grade student today realized the following:

"Ms. Lady, if my name is Maggie Fernandez, then my initials are inappropriate." Uhhh...can you elaborate? "You know....MF....MFer...."

Yeah, Maggie, I guess they are. And I guess it is a sweet day when a 12 year old is telling you what is and isn't appropriate.

All of this came about during a wild round of Balderdash, which is pretty much my favorite thing to do when the lesson plan ends early. I was playing a round once with my middle schoolers and a student chose the word "impala." The dictionary said only that it was an African antelope, but one of my 8th graders knew better:

"Oooohhh! I know this one, its a sweet car."

Is this what 'all staff' emails are for?

"It is rumored that some kids are or are threatening to spit in the hand sanitizer we have in our rooms. I suggest that we glue the lids on as they do not need to be opened (if you have the pump variety). I also suggest that if you hear of anyone that is saying they or someone else is doing this, you send them to the office. thanks."

***

Where do I start?

1) Things that might possibly take precedence:
uh, teaching?
2) At the risk of stating the obvious: ISN'T HAND SANITIZER SUPPOSE TO SANITIZE THINGS?
3) Is this going to take the form of a staff "let's glue the lids on our hand sanitizer bottles" party? I will bring the blow.
4) The asshat that wrote this is at least twice my age, and has been teaching longer than I've been alive. I would like to hope that by the time I reach this distinguished station in life that I won't be flexible enough to get my head that far up my own butt.

A little background....

I thought some context might be nice about the student who penned the letters contained in the following post. He was one of my students the very first year I was an instructional aide at a rural high school, and I would say we were equally clueless, just in different ways. Some highlights of my time working with him include:

• The day he told me that I looked "kinda fat."
• The first day of school his junior year when he showed up in a custom designed t-shirt that said "I love Beyonce"
• The time he wrote all of the lyrics to the Beyonce song "Irreplaceable" on a chalkboard
• The time an English teacher accused him of plagiarizing a narrative essay when really all he had done was written the entire plot of a telenovela and passed it off as the story of his family.
• The time he hacked into the library's student database, printed about 50 enlarged copies of another student's photo and wrote "Missing!!!!" "Have you seen her?????" "Where is Leticia???" on them and posted them around the campus.

Anyway, when he asked me to write a letter to the judge at the Mexican Consulate about why he should be granted US citizenship, I was kind of at a loss, except that I can only assume that someone this savvy has great things to contribute to our great nation.

A short collection (2) of letters from a former student awaiting his papers in Mexico

Letter #1

Hello, How have you been ? Well I have just been here still in Mexico just waiting to go back soon well I think before june26th hopefully. Well things are good here in Mexico except that it's really hot an people are weird. Anyways I can't wait till I go back cause I miss my mommy well in your prayers please pray so I can come back soon. Thanks O an I was also wondering if you had a myspace.???? Anyways the bottom picture is the catedral of guadalajara it really huge and nice.

Letter #2

HI
IDK WHAT I AM GOING TO DO WHEN I COME BACK I HAVE NO IDEA LOL
SO DID U EVER GET MARRIED I TAUGHT U WERE???
AND PLEASE PRAY FOR ME SO I CAN GO BACK ASAP THANKS U RULE

This has nothing to do with teaching, but....

Today after helping some friends move (friends who have a lot of leisure activity-related possessions, weird) my roommate and I rode back in the now empty 17' UHaul playing probably the most bad-ass game of Paddle Koosh (America's #1 Paddle Game, c. 1997) ever. Well worth moving all of the aforementioned lesiure activity-related possessions.

Also, this will be a short post because at the coffee shop where I am shamelessly using the internet but not consuming anything purchased here, a group is setting up on stage with a sign that says "Welcome Back America" and I'm just not sure I need to stick around and find out what that is all about.

I hope it has nothing to do with the in-depth conversation at the next table about how to kill a werewolf and a vampire simulateneously with the same weapon.

Priceless.

In a recent discussion of the informal versus formal language with my 5th grade ELL students, I asked them to list as many examples of each as they could in 10 minutes. This is what they came up with:

Formal

Good evning
How are you doing today?
Hi there.
Nice whether were having
Is your day going?
Nice dress.
Nice day isint it.
Excuse me
Would you like some tea
Would you like some coffee
How old are you ma'am
Yes please
Nice doing buissnes with you?
Thank you very much

Informal

What up?
Whats your name dude?
Catch you later.
Peace out
See you later brother from another mother
It's cool
What's up dude.
Whats you doing?
Dude?
What's your age dude?
You stink.

The Lineup

Of the many stars that will shine on the pages of this blog (all with their names changed, duh), I feel it is best to introduce you to a few that you may be see more than others based on the frequency with which they do hilarious/poignant shit. But I guess even before that, I should introduce myself, make a blanket disclaimer statement and then get on with it already.

I teach in a rural school district in the United States, and I have the total joy of teaching grades K-12, which means that in any given day I will have to help someone very young blow their nose and then remind someone who is not so young that they should stop staring at my rack. Out of concern for my already somewhat tenuous job security and this little thing called ETHICS, I will make every effort to not reveal information about my job/students that jeapordize either. If you feel that I have, please notify my totally incompetent boss.

Onward.

Danny is 12. Somewhere in the first months of this school year I was frustrated with my class of middle-schoolers and uttered a threat that is so unoriginal I am ashamed to mention it: "If you don't stop talking some of you are going to be spending your lunch with me today." There was a pause wherein the students reevaluated just exactly how much they wanted to push it and Danny's hand shoots up in the air: "I'd like to spend my lunch with you." Dammit, Danny, it was supposed to be a threat.

Jose is 7 and is the 1st grade version of Jack Black, complete with a belly, incredible facial expressions and a tendency to roll on the floor, take off various articles of clothing, break crayons at will and draw bloody explosions when the rest of the class is drawing their favorite vegetable.

Maria is 15 and is convinced that the members of the band Los Inquietos del Norte are all going to marry her someday and that the louder she screams at their concerts the sooner that will happen. She has also been known to sing the state song of Guadalajara upon request. She and her sister often argue in class about whether or not they have the same dad.