Soccer games, writing folders and long, long days

Wow, I have never been so tired in all my life. Ok, that is probably an overstatement (told my kids this week if they are having trouble figuring out exaggeration, just think about how I talk). However, I am incredibly tired. Let me give you a quick run-down of my week.

Monday - Started a new spanish conversation class at TCC. For the low price of $133 I am now learning some spanish. We did pronunciation. I actually think it may have helped.

Tuesday - First the walk-out at school. In case you haven't heard about this
- It is dramatically affecting my teaching right now. Tuesday, our kids walked out at the end of 2nd period. Of course our principal is quoted saying they left at lunch, but whatever. I know when the kids left. I had 6 in my 4th period class, 7 in 5th period. After lunch most came back. I was furious at the kids because they weren't prepared, so many were skipping that didn't have any idea why they were leaving, etc. I am for protests to change injustice, for protests that are done well, peacefully and organized. Kids yelling !Viva la Mexico! is not productive. I scrapped my lessons for the day and taught immigration policy and the differences between the bills. My kids had to do journal articles to reflect on the situation. I tried my darndest to keep my opinion out of the mix. That is really hard sometimes, especially when they ask. But it isn't my place to influence them in this issue. They need to talk to their parents. After school my chilango children showed up...cause they skipped my class 7th...and i told them they needed to go away before they made me cry because I was so upset at them. Two took the hint and left and one stayed to find out the deal so he knew why he went to the protest. he was cognizant of the fact that most of the people there were just goofing off. But he wasn't and neither were most of his friends. They scheduled a 'day without latinos' on april 13th...the school is saying that they won't get to go to prom/senior activities if they skip on those days. they are encouraging weekend/after school protests.

Tuesday night - soccer game. we lost. our game, which was supposed to be at 8 started at 9:24. We lost 4-0. Our kids just couldn't pull it together. bigger team, we got offsides every time we got within shot range of the goal. but we were real proud. one of my students got the district offensive prize. Then I got lost coming back from Denton...Not lost per say, but went the wrong way down 35. Dan was asleep by then so I couldn't get directions and had to muddle my way down 121.

Wednesday - tested a room full of 9th graders in the morning. my friend who assigned rooms heard it from me on that one. spent the whole day discussing immigration issues with kids who are probably half illegal themselves. came home...my testing friend called to ask me to get a sub so i could help her finish up the writing folders to send off on Friday...went to bed at 8:30.

Thursday - spent the whole day nearly in the copy room. realized 7th period that it was freezing in there and I could just set the thing copying and stand in the hall and listen for it to finish. stayed till 7 to finish the stuff up. went to bed at 9.

Friday - wow...is it really friday??? i came home at 4:30 today. it wasn't a bad day, but i'm terribly tired. it has been a long, draining week. i'm going to sleep a lot this weekend.

Pretty Yard

Yesterday one of my student's brother came out and did our yard up pretty. Our beds had gotten washed away in the recent deluge so he came in and re-topsoiled it (with said student and another helper) and put in new mulch. The mulch is some sort of red wood. It is really pretty, stands out nicely too. I'll have to ask Dan again what kind it is.

Today I hope to get a flat of impatients and put them out and replant the bulbs that have been sitting in a box for too long now. Also, I think I have an elephant ear plant around here somewhere that can go outside.

I'm not really a "yard" person. I like my yard looking pretty and am embarrassed when it doesn't, but I can only do about 4 hours work before I get tired of being dirty. And I go inside to wash my hands like every 20 minutes. I am pretty good with my little vegetable garden because it is very small and can be tended in about 20 minutes (I can wait till I'm done to wash my hands!) But it is still early for the veggies. It might get one more cold snap. I think I'll wait till at least the middle of April.

My friend is leaving

On a side note: My wireless mouse just fell on the ground...right into my boot. That is only thing I don't like about these wireless mice. :)

Well, my teacher friend from down the hall is getting an AP job at another high school. I knew this was coming, but she and I had both thought that they weren't going to move her until next year. (I mean, it is March already - post-spring break.) Central office is interviewing her on Tuesday, one month before they interview any other applicants for next year. On a special day of the week - they only do Saturday interviews. So we assume that means she won't be here for the end of the year.

She has started telling the students. She told her classes yesterday that her and I were getting a divorce. She has granted me custody of all our children.

They asked her who was going to defend the LC kids and she told them that I would. I'm a little worried about being the lone advocate. I tend to let her do the talking to the higher ups and I just chime in as necessary. Now I'm may have to step up and take a larger role. I am always afraid to do that.

I'm going to plan a going away party for her. Get the kids involved. That will help them out. I'm going to get one of those journal books and have all the kids sign it and have them bring pictures to put in it. Then I have to find out what the rules are about food and kids in Texas and see what we can do there.

She is really sad and doesn't want to leave the kids. She is going to miss them a lot I know. I would if I had to leave mid-year like that, without the completion of the end of the year. I hope it works out.

Incredibly cold soccer games

I turned down my dad's offer to the portable propane heater last week when we were home for spring break. "Nah, It is spring, we won't need it. There are only 3 more games."

What do we do? Go to playoffs during a cold snap.

One of my sons made it to the paper though.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/high_school/14176594.htm

Kids 'fessing up

So my friend today said the kids confessing now, months later is like when kids don't tell their parents the truth and months later go, "Hey mom, remember that time...?" So are we really these kids' parents now?

On a side note, My kitty must be really cold cause she is trying to crawl under the keyboard to get warm. That is really sad.

finding a good story to tell

I don't really have any terrific stories, just a few vignettes.

-Senior math/science scores came in. Not many kids passed. I spent all yesterday and today convincing one boy that he has done better *every time* he takes the test. This last time he was only 1 question away on Science. Read his essay for English, scores aren't back yet....also better but still not quite there. We have been explaining to him that it is just the language. It isn't that he is dumb (he feels dumb), he would have easily passed the test in Spanish, but it is really hard for him 'cause it is in English. He told me he won't drop out for now....

-Funny how kids 'fess up things months later. Remember my child in November that disappeared and came back like an hour after school was over to get his stuff? Told me that he walked home cause he didn't feel good? Truth came out today. He had gone to the Newcomer academy to visit his old teachers. He went, two friends and one little brother of a friend. They were saying they were skipping tomorrow to go to INA and that they had done it before. "Hey Ms., Remember that first time that I skipped? Yeah, that is when we went before, but we didn't make it before school got out."

-Today I wore my new cool green flow-ey shirt and my newly hemmed khaki pants. Apparently my shirt reminds kids of a maternity shirt cause EVERY SINGLE CLASS asked me if I was pregnant. Most of the girls would call me aside and ask if they could ask me something. 7th period mi hijo put it up on the board, "Mrs. Fuller is not pregnant" (had to spell it for him) since it had become such a joke that everyone was asking. I just kept asking them if I looked fat or something. Generally that stops kids but today there were all out arguments between different sides of the room about whether or not I was pregnant. (For everyone's information, I'm not. But apparently I need to lose some weight. I like the shirt a lot so I will keep wearing it.)

-We might have a lead on the computers....they are going to investigate tomorrow.

-It looks like I get to keep my room assignment for next year. They have double-booked my room, but the other guy is ROTC so I think that is a mistake.

-None of my kids have ever heard of okra. since it is the reigning favorite food both for me and a lot of my family (you should see the amount of fried okra that mom has to make at our house!) I decided that I should bring them some. So I went to the store and bought some pickled okra so they could at least see what it looked like, even if it isn't really the same taste as fried or in gumbo. You wouldn't believe the noses that got turned up. One girl who gets me to try EVERYTHING wouldn't take any. I reminded her the number of times I have tried chili-flavored cheese chip stuff and chili-cheese on hot cheetos and chili-covered lollipops...and made her bite off one and then she could throw it away. She did. One boy took one from me so he didn't hurt my feelings and the other teacher said something about okra, "I don't like okra." "But *that* is okra." "Oh, f***." Then we had to have a discussion about appropriate language. :) But he ate the whole piece. One boy left his bag at school rather than try a piece. He said he would get to school early the next morning if we wouldn't open up the room down the hall for him now.

-Dan says that my students years from now will be spouting out Fuller-isms. They already have picked up on: "Does it look like I care?" "Whatever" and the like. Yesterday someone wrote on their paper, "Fiona kicked Robin Hood's a**." I told her she couldn't put that or use the stars, she had to find another way of saying it. "But Ms., How else do you say it?" Another student pipes up and says, "You should use 'tail' instead." This is because I am constantly telling said student to, "Sit his tail in the chair."

Ok, so that is my randomness of the week. Comments? :)

getting up early

I have to say that I love getting up early. Not so much for the early part, but for the getting up and not having to talk to anyone (Dan? Get up early?) or do anything other than drink a cup of hot tea ....and maybe eat some grits. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

Today is my last day of Spring Break. I have to spend it getting together what I am teaching this week. I'm teaching a lesson on satire that I am "borrowing" from readwritehink.org. The students are going to be jazzed that we are watching Shrek, until we only watch 5 minutes of it. :) I'm so mean.

After that I have to come up with something else to teach. I have 2 ideas:

1) a modern play. I'm supposed to be teaching Literary Genres. While this is a TAKS class, I am really jazzed about the title and would like to expose them to some varying genres. However, I don't know a lot of contemporary plays. I mean I know the famous people like Sam Shepard and August Wilson. While The Piano Lesson has a video to go with it (kinda important cause we are talking about a play here). Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot (too obscure for them) and Sam Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead (which I saw at Millsaps in high school and loved it - but half of them haven't read Hamlet cause it is in senior English. It is only really funny if you have read Hamlet). I love the idea of it, but I can't quite decide which play would be good. Suggested has been Tennessee Williams, jonquils and the whole bit. Love Tennessee Williams...too much, if they didn't like it, would I be crushed?

2) Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Found a lesson, meant to be taught in Spanish of course, comparing "The Saint" (short story) with Miracle in Rome (video production). Really good lesson. . . Found Miracle in Rome at the library at North Side, but it is VHS so it may be entirely in Spanish. My kids would understand it (about 90% of them), but I wouldn't. Marquez is one of favorite writers since I read 100 years of solitude. I can get "The Saint" in English, but I'm not quite sure what to do with it after that. This is probably my best option though.

Ideas or suggestions? Anyone read anything contemporary (and fairly short - no novels right now) that they liked enough to think that others might too?

So, you are from MS

First I would like to point out that MS stands for, and should immediately bring to mind the state, not the title that I am called at school. I found this cute forward and thought I'd share cause it is pretty true. I would like to add that you are from MS when you get why cotton is a big thing. Sheri and I bought these great shirts to show our MS pride when we were home. I would link to one, but it is apparently impossible to search for "cotton shirt" on the internet. :)

You know you're from Mississippi when....

You've been to or know about the towns of: Hot Coffee, Whynot, Soso, Shuqualak, Okalona, Koscuisko and Noxapater.

When someone talks about The Flag, you know exactly what flag they're referring to.

In any given parking lot, every third car has a Flag bumpersticker.

Your neighbor (or yourself) has the Confederate battle flag in his yard and nothing else.

You eat coon hash.

You know where chitterlings (chittlins) come from.

You know it's coke, not "pop", or "soda."

You know pop is a noise or an action (ie the coon popped out of his hole), not a soft drink.

You can tell, purely by accent, whether a person is from the Black Belt, the Red Clay Hills, the Piney Woods, or the Delta.

You know that the Delta is not the one below New Orleans.

Your church's attendance is reduced by half on opening day of bow season.

The preacher is not there on opening day of gun season.

The last time it snowed, you took fifteen photos and put some in your freezer for old time's sake.

There is a trampoline in your neighbor's back yard.

Teenagers refer to the bus as the "cheese wagon," and refuse to ride it.

You only know five spices--salt, pepper, Ranch dressing, BBQ Sauce and hot sauce.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Mississippi.

Chinese Tongue Twister

Ok, being that my chinese is quite limited I didn't attempt to try this. But I have to say that it amazes me that such a tongue-twister is possible. Literally the only thing that distinguishes the sounds in this story is the tones...and most of my chinese is toneless. I would be up a creek.

On the Eastern Journey

Sunday afternoons at home

Since I guess there isn't a Nascar game on today, we are watching basketball and napping. Basketball by my brother and Dan and napping by my father. This is a typical afternoon. that is about the extent of the excitement level at our household. :) And for the 6th time (at least) in a row I have forgotten to bring a book to read while this goes on! I really should remember it better. I could see about going to the bookstore and buying something to read...or at least dropping by Wally-world to see what they have...Now that's an idea.

presentations in class

Student presentations were today. They were really quite good. All except for the group who started out talking about the Trail of Tears and ended up talking about slavery....I still haven't figured out how that happened. But they say they are going to fix it for tomorrow.

And the masses of kids who said they "weren't ready" and I made get up there anyway. They may have needed one more day to work on it. But lots of kids were finished after two days...of course their presentations weren't terribly good either.

I spent the afternoon helping kids with their English projects that are also due tomorrow. I have now read "The Raven" six times this week. "The Tell-Tale Heart" at least twice. All to help kids figure it out. Then passing out scissors, posterboard and letting them print pictures on my printer.

So when is the last time that you read "The Raven"? Want to know my favorite stanza? He has just been told that he will never be relieved of the pain of grief that he feels at Lenore's loss...then he asks this only to hear, "Nevermore." It is such a sad, sweet sentiment.

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil--prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden, whom the angels name Lenore---
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."

my sister is wonderful

For those of you who didn't know....My sister is wonderful and considerate.

Today she sent me flowers at school. There was a lot of drama with this because they sent some kid to me who said that I was needed in the office as soon as possible. I thought that there was a problem or there was a parent up there or who knows what. I panic. I find someone to cover my class cause I had 2 rooms full of kids cause a friend of mine had to go to the doctor and there was no one to cover *her* class so they came in with me. Then there were flowers for me. :) then i was testy with the secretary and had to apologize cause it wasn't her fault. the flower people didn't want to let them sign for them. they thought it was better to pull me out of class than to send the flower guy to me. the kid didn't know why they needed me or I would have told him that I couldn't come, just have the flower guy come to me. I need to go and apologize to that new secretary again tomorrow, I think. And thank the guy who covered my classes cause i've been bugging him a lot lately and he didn't really have to do that. I'm far too high-strung today.

The flowers are beautiful. I'll take a pic and post them tomorrow.

I left them at school to show them off to my students tomorrow cause I got them 7th period today.

Tomorrow I have presentations on Modern-Day Genocide to wrap up our unit on the Holocaust. It should be good. I hope they are ready.

drama of last week or The Case of the Missing Computers

Well, I have had these laptops in my room now for ....well since about October I guess. I've had kids actively using them (every day almost) since November. About 2 weeks ago, between 5th and 6th period the keys went missing. This was highly irritating, but truthfully I thought I had mislaid them....for about two days. Just put them down or in my purse or somewhere and couldn't find them.

Then I didn't ever find them.

So I thought, "Ok, some kid is playing a very bad joke and has hidden them from me."

Then no one came forward with them.

So, the next Monday someone put staples in my lock...to try to keep me from locking my door. Well, that wasn't terribly creative, so I took the staples OUT and locked the door. No problem.

Tuesday was TAKS.

Wednesday, someone put glue in my door. At this point I had already moved the laptop cart to the room across the hall because I was to have a sub and didn't want to leave them in there with a substitute. Security came and put a new lock on the door.

All this happened WHILE I WAS IN THE ROOM. That is the most disturbing part.

Then Monday I went to the room across the hall with a new set of spare keys to check on the computers...They were gone. Now, they were there the Friday before. I had been counting them multiple times a day by sticking a pencil through the ventilation holes. Yes, I was cognizant of the risk. But Monday with the keys in hand, the computers were gone...Ok, all but the one that doesn't work because Windows was never loaded on it.

How, might you say, would a thief know that #16 computer is unusable? Did they turn them all on and play with them before they stole them? In a manner of speaking, yes. It means it is someone I know. Some kid that uses the computers. Some kid that I have allowed into my room and put myself out there for. It wasn't some random thug that decided to rip off $25,000 worth of laptops to make a quick buck. It wasn't some kid in my classes that doesn't come use the computers cause those kids don't know that random computers don't work. It was some kid who wanted to use the computers at home. That didn't have one, enjoyed using them and just decided to take 15 of them home to use. And not just one kid, cause no one person could have carted off all 15 in one stroke.

The police are involved. They have a Crimestoppers reward out. We are going to get them. I'm betting we find all 15 of them spread out at my students' houses. The worst part is that we have suspects. I have 4 or 5 kids that I don't trust because they *might* have jacked the laptops. We spent Saturday morning cross-referencing which kids lived next to each other and checking every kid who has ever used them.

Want to know the best part though? They left every one of the chargers. Right now they have 15 laptops that won't boot up cause the batteries should be dead by now. The chargers are about $100 a piece so most of our kids couldn't afford that...well unless they were able to pawn a laptop without a charger, but I doubt it.

That is my drama. I was so upset I almost couldn't teach for about 2 days. I couldn't handle the stress of looking at every kid and thinking, "Are they the one?"

As for those of you who are now worried about the situation where I teach, my school is very, very safe. I just teach kids who, for a lack of a better term, live in poverty. They don't have stuff. It is terribly tempting to want to have something right there in front of you. Daily students asked, as I kicked them out of the room, if they could borrow a laptop and take it home. And they are kids. They don't realize the consequences of taking what everyone is using to only use for yourself. They don't realize that it is hurting everyone cause they only think of themselves.

I, naive as I am, still truly believe that I should try to give students trust and they will live up to it. I don't think it is the kids I always trusted, I think it is those who always bothered me, but I didn't know how to apply too many extra rules to them that I didn't enforce for others. I don't have problems doing that now. I am hoping that someone becomes guilty and fesses up or brags around and gets caught. Regardless, we'll catch them, they weren't so savvy that they could have possibly done this before.

students at work

Today I was talking with another teacher from school and she was saying our students are always really excited to see us outside of school. This is really true, they come up to you and start grinning, etc.

Last night Dan & I went to Sundance, cause it was warm and I like walking around. We went to eat at Riscky's and then went to Barnes and Noble's. My son is working at Riscky's now. He is one of the food runners. We went in last night and I pointed him out to Dan. We waited on our food. When he brought it out Dan was sitting there, just smiling at him. You could tell he was thrown off. After an incredibly long pause Dan glances at me and H looks over and smiles and says "Hey Miss." I asked him how he was doing. All this time he started to blush. I can't say I've ever seen the child blush. He doesn't usually get get embarrassed about anything. I also waved at, though didn't speak to, another one of my students who works there.

Then we went to B&N and I saw a student from my 2nd period who came up and spoke to me. Said he was there with his sister and I told him he should get a book too. :) But I realized it does give me some credibility as a teacher who says they read a lot to actually be *seen* at a bookstore. Cool huh? This is a kid who barely speaks to me at class and is incredibly shy and came up to me in public? Kinda proud of that.

At B&N I got a book journal that you can put a synopsis of what you read and refer back to it. The only drawback is that it is titled "Book Lust" which makes me hesitate in taking it to school. There are a number of things you don't say around high school kids, "lust" is one of those words. :)

80 degree day

Wow, It is incredibly hot today for the first day of March. And I think the hot weather is giving me a headache. Great huh? Tomorrow it is supposed to rain and go down to the 60's.

I thought I would be a better blogger now that TAKS is over, but that hasn't seemed to pan out yet. I have quite a bit of drama at school this week and I am not quite ready to talk about it. But I'm sure I'll eventually post or recover to a point that I feel that there are other topics in this world to discuss.

Dan's birthday was yesterday...Or actually at the second between last night and today, Leap day baby that he is. We got dinner from Central Market, complete with a 6 inch carrot cake, which he can eat all of cause it isn't really my thing and i'm not into sugar right now. I really don't eat a lot of sweets.