how do you explain grumpy?

Today my Reading I kiddos, my kids who have immigrated in the past 2 years instead of when they were 8, were being 9th graders. They come bouncing in saying my room is hot. :) now it is currently 51 degrees outside and I would say that is on par with what it was at 8:30 this morning (love the new school start times!) So I smile and tell them that I *hate* cold weather and that it makes me grumpy. "what's that, ms?"....Hmm. How do you explain grumpy. It completely stumped me. I pulled out the spanish/english dictionary and *it wasn't in there!* So i pulled out a language learner's dictionary and read the definition. But it isn't unhappy, or sad or really even moody. I just said that cold weather puts me in a bad mood. But I really wanted to say, "No, it just makes me a little grumpy." :) Oh, well.

On a side note, my kitty hasn't left my lap all evening. We are curently waiting for my hubby to get home. yes, he isn't home at 10, the new baseballwarehouse website launches the first week of november (we hope).

also, practicing my spanish today. I learned that you have to be careful when saying J in espanol because it can come out like you are saying "gay." All this was triple checked from 3 different sources (2 kids, one teacher) just to make sure that I wasn't having the wool pulled over my eyes. Still can't believe that I have taken French, Greek, German, Chinese and learned some Russian in country and *still* don't know a lick of Spanish. Seriously, that is a little ridiculous right? I'm getting better though. I can at least guess what they are saying to me about 1/2 the time now. :)

day of adventure

Today we went to the new Super Target downtown. Super excited about it now. It is really close, not that crowded and has all the stuff we want. :) dan's happy about the food selection...I found naan bread and fuji apples -- neither of which I have seen since I left SF.

In a moment of excitement we bought Scrabble....This is to tide us over until Civ IV comes out next Tuesday!!! Our pre-order copy from Amazon should show up on Wed. Yes, we are dorks. We accept this and deal with it. We are super excited about it. I've played Civ since ... Well I played FreeCiv first, then CivII...Then Civ III, all the expansions...now Civ IV. It got a 9.4 from IGN. It is good because it is not too much about war, lots of strategy, etc. :)

Miracles

Want to know a miracle? Yesterday my 4th period & my 7th period classes were *completely silent* during silent reading time. Now, that may seem like a no-brainer, however, if you have classes with ratios of 16 boys/9 girls (7th) and 6 ADD (i swear i'm not exaggerating) students (4th) you tend enjoy the small miracles. :)

best story of the day:
there is a teacher at my school (1st year) whose students managed to pull the pins out of the door *while she was teaching.* she went outside to check on a kid and the door fell over. :)

terrible blogger

that is what I am...a terrible blogger. oh well. make due with what you get huh?

I am currently in my second 6 wks of school. My schedule has changed twice and I have sifted down from 183 kids in 6 classes to 145. I have about 20-27 in each class which is actually incredibly good odds. :) I love my kids. most days they drive me completely bonkers, but I love them.

what am i teaching? 20 9th grade language center kids (been in the US 1-2 years) and 125 TAKs prep kids. I have every remedial student in the 11th and 12th grade. Every student who didn't respond to my or the other 10th grade teacher's proddings last year to pass the state test, yes every single student. :) but i love them .... I keep telling myself that.

here are some of the kiddos I have:
-a kid who invariably, without fail, is completely rude to me, appologizes, lays down on my floor to "take a nap" then gets up to do his work. won't quit talking, i spend 1/3 of the class focusing on him alone.
-3 boys in the same class who can not talk in inside voices. literally. i ask them to bring it down about 3 times a day when we have class discussions. all are late, all skip repeatedly. :)
-2 boys who every time they do something wrong they wink at me. and say "come on ms!"
-1 boy who "teaches" me spanish. i can't repeat anything he teaches me because most of it remains unconfirmed. tests me daily by coming up and speaking in spanish just to see if i understand yet.
-2 girls who assure me the boys behind are not being flirted with. "trust me, ms. we are not flirting with *them*" i get the distinct impression that these boys aren't interested in the cute girls sitting in front of them....
-one boy who apparently was a pick-pocket in mexico on the streets as a child. i really like the kid and cant get mad at him. however he can't stay in his seat, talks nearly exclusively in spanish if it isn't with me (problem during small group discussions).
-a kid from auto tech who assures me that i should have let them fix the alternator in my car when it went out last week and shook his head with the most fatherly shake saying i should have known. :)

and a million sweet kids who actually try to do their work. it is fun...but stressful.