Love

Here in no particular order are some things I'm currently in love with.

- Today is a school holiday. So I'll be spending some quality time with a fat stack of papers. But I'll also spend some time at TJMax with my dear friend Nicole.

- My friend Kristine (Of Blog stalking fame) has started her own blog. Go check her out. She's witty and a bit sassy. You will be able to tell that from the fact that she started a swear jar to help her cut down on her wide vocabulary.

-The crockpot dinner that is currently basking in some amazing saucy goodness. Asian chicken is happening in my life tonight, and tomorrow for lunch!

- Girl Scout cookie time. I have had a thin mint and it was just as good as I remember. I currently have a little purple box sitting on my kitchen table. Yes friends you know what they are, Samoas. None of this Carmel Delight bologna. Yes, I know, it is slighly politically incorrect to call them Samoas. But when I was a girl scout* they were Samoas and therefore what they will be called.

Today is also my brother's birthday. There was a party at his house last night and we had an excellent meal of fondue fun. He is now a quarter of a century old. 25 was a good year for me, I hope it is good to him too!


*My troop had 32 girls in it. We sold so many cookies that we went to Catalina Island.

Grading Papers

I am in the middle of grading research papers. I'm down to 60. Which means I've graded around 100 over the last two (and a bit) weeks.

I really wish I could be doing a few crafts. But alas. I can not justify craftyness when there is so much to grade.

Today I was grading papers and this was a gem I came across that I thought I would share with all of you. I don't have the paper right in front of me so this is not word for word. But really the epic nature behind this still comes through in a paraphrase. The subject of the paper was Animal Rights.

"Society must take action against testing on animals. There are plenty of murderers and pedophiles in the prison system and those should be the people that companies test their products on - not animals."

It was one of those moments that made grading papers better.

I'm so close to Christmas break I can see the light at the end of the tunnel - but yet I just can't seem to see the end of the papers. Blurg.

Thanksgiving Run Down -

Why does gravy make everything better.

Wold Peace could be achieved with my father's gravy I'm sure of it.

So I had a week off of school. Which was wonderful. I didn't get enough grading done. But when do I ever get enough grading done. Really though... 160 - 4+ essays.

I did get a class set done and made it through part of another class. It was a good showing really. I wanted to get 10 done every day. But it just didn't happen.

I spent too much time with family and friends. And really when is that ever a bad thing.

Tomorrow I begin teaching the business letter. To my sophomores. I'm also going to be teaching them how to grade on a rubric. That way they can self grade their own paper - well - them and a partner in class. We'll see how it goes. I've done peer grading but it should be interesting to see how this turns out. I'm going to make a VERY detailed rubric for them to go over. That way all I have to do is spot check to see if they have done it right.

Personally I think it's hard to mess up a business letter once you have learned the format. But looking over the MLA on some of these research papers. I don't think these kids listen to a thing I say.

Maybe if i cover their papers in gravy they'll all get A's...

It's a thought!

The Guilt Bag

This is something every English teacher knows about.

It proves that there are simply just not enough minutes in the day.

I have a guilt bag. It's the bag that I take to work, put papers in, and hope that I'll get a few moments here or there to grade. (Insert laughter because it never happens). Every day I bring this bag from my classroom to my car - car to house - house to car - car to classroom. Secretly hoping that someone has graded those papers in the night. To my shock and surprise Santa has yet to show up and grade my papers.

I have to force myself to grade. It really is one of the hardest parts of my job. I have plenty of rubrics and forms to make sure that I am being equitable when grading. But it pains me to see a kid who worked so hard on something just well... stink as a writer.

This is why homework is important. I give homework so that there is some kind of buffer in the system to help the kid who isn't good at writing essays. If a student does all of their work - and puts their best effort in, they will almost always* get a C or better in my class.

So the battle of grading continues - it's a three day weekend. To be honest I have around 40 full essays and 100+ shorter pieces (two paragraphs) that I need to grade this weekend. Partly because back to school night is on the 13th and I don't want to deal with angry parents.

I've already gotten an email about how I need to reconsider their child's grade. I was tired when I was putting grades in and looked at the wrong column when I put grades in so it looked like half the class was failing. No matter how I phrased the email I still felt like I was a complete moron.

Thank goodness there are still 2 and a half days left of this weekend! Now I'm going to go make a cake in my new pampared chef bake-ware - that grading can wait a little while longer.

*It has happened on a rare occasion that the child gets a D ~ but I don't think they have ever failed.

Grading papers

Why is it so hard to sit down and grade papers. I did get a bunch graded today while I was lucky enough not to have to test during CST testing.

I have about 10 more to grade for my Expo classes and then 30 for my regular American Lit kids.

The Am Lit ones are only 4 pages so that shouldn't take to long to read and annotate (aka grade) 120 pages. oh blurg!

Rant, 4 days left, and Anthony Bourdain

Rawr! I want to know how to vote to save 160+ teachers.

I know that it has to be in a way that is good for everyone and that everyone must be informed. But there are a lot of fears about what will happen if we do lose all of those teachers. That will affect class size - and I can't imagine what it would be like to be in a room of 25 1st graders. How do you try and teach that many kids to read.

But then I try and think back to my own childhood and I wonder how many kids were in my class.

How is making this many teachers stressed out a good thing. I know that the district is trying to do what is best for it's people. That they really want to make decisions that will benefit all students. But all of this drama is driving people crazy.

Tell me how to save my friends. Tell me how to encourage people to save teachers. That's all I really want to know.

Okay - 1 day down 4 to go. Tomorrow should be a blast. If I can hold it together for 1st period. Those kids have been driving me a bit nuts. I just wish they would take what I have to say seriously. Must EVERYTHING be a joke.
I am also a part of Kristine's (shout out) 2012 class Lip Sync tomorrow night. I will be performing MamaMia all by myself. (This is when I secretly start singing All By Myself by Celine Dion) I have to mend the dress I am going to wear. and find some shoes. I really wanted red shoes, but nothing out there called my name.

Oh and you have to check out Molly the Owl my mom told me about it and it's pretty amazing. I showed it to my class today and we were able to watch for about 45 minutes. (This was during my Intro to Education class.) She is a good little momma owl. I have the page up and there are currently 16,000+ people watching the owl. amazing!

And Even though I was feeling pretty spicy when I got home after our 'I'm here to tell you stuff, but I am not going to really tell you stuff' meeting today - I turn on the TV for a little relaxation and there to my utter joy is Anthony Bourdain on the travel channel. So I'm going to try and grade a few papers - enjoy the rest of Tony - mend a dress - and see what Molly is up too.

Spring break - get here now!

How is it Friday already?

I really have loved having a week off. Don't get me wrong I have been very thankful for the week off. But I really don't know how it went by so quickly.

Thanksgiving was awesome. The whole family was at my parents house to enjoy a feast of Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, green beans, bread, gravy, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. My Uncle and cousin were able to make it out. I haven't seen Dylan in 5 years. And I don't know the last time we all had a family dinner together. Again, it was awesome.

Today I need to give the dog a bath. This is because she loves to dig in the yard. And because of the watery bit of our yard she has found that it's much more fun to dig in mud than it is to dig in dirt. This means I woke up to a very messy pup today. She looks so proud of herself - the face that says "but mom I was trying to keep you safe by digging up all the bugs." She loves to chase bugs. L.O.V.E.S. to chase bugs - she is amazed by moths - startled by spiders - and wild about worms.

I also have to give her a bath because tomorrow is the final day of puppy class. She will be completing all of her hard work and I want her to look nice. And smell good. She smells very dog like. And no one likes a stinky pup.

So I plan on grading papers and washing a dog. And trying to lengthen the day so that there doesn't seem like only two days left of my week off.

A lesson in patients

I have become in love with bulbs. Planting them - waiting for them - seeing how hard they work underground just to head towards the sunlight. I think people need to be more like bulbs. Willing to put in the work to become something beautiful.

This is the garden on the side of my house. I have taken it upon myself to make it something amazing. Every couple of months I do something a bit new or different. This has been a slow process because there are always papers to grade. Like the stack I have right now waiting for me - but as you can see they'll have to wait a bit longer.

So A while back Costco had a bag of 50 bulbs for 12.99 - Gotta love Costco! So I couldn't resist that. Called my Gramma to make sure that Tulips liked it here in Temecula - she said they did and I was on my way home!

If you have a Winco near you - 1. You are very lucky 2. The people at Winco always seem a little strange which I truly enjoy 3. they are SO cheep! and for a girl on a budget - I love me some quality food at a very low price! 4. They have random items like - Bulbs for sale (2.49) and heeps of them. I could stood in front of the end-cap just staring. I'm sure there were some people who looked at me the same way I also look at the people in Winco.

I ended up getting Wood Hyacinths and Persian Blues. (The Daffodils came from Henry's - another amazing grocery story). I spent Veteran's Day out diggin' in my garden so that a few months from now I'll be able to see the efforts of my patients. You all will have to be patient as well, because as of today - no movement from the 70 bulbs in the ground.

Side note - I think that the word patients is terribly spelled. As a dyslexic - It may even be rude of the word patients to be spelled the way it is! So I say to you Patients - You are rude!