I made it through another week; the 9th week to be exact. It's been "one of those weeks" and I am smiling ear to ear because it's the weekend. I have a stack of papers to read that is approximately 4 inches high. But, shhh, don't tell--I'm going to put those off for a few days! My eyeballs need a rest!

The results of the door decorating contest are in; we lost. Our wonderful creation of "Bob" lost to the music teacher's door that is covered in some music notes and a slogan obviously so brilliant I can't think of it off the top of my head. My students were so dissapointed. I told them in as cheesy a voice as possible, "You're all still winners to me." I refused to take down my door deco today because I still need to get a picture of it with my advisory students in front to remember the year that we almost won.

I'm glad Red Ribbon week is over; it was a lot of extra work. I like doing the work but the affects are quite detrimental. However, one positive thing to come out (actually more than one positive thing...) is the pizza party for the teachers after school today. They wanted to reward us all for our efforts in putting up with the insane kids this week. I had one very greasy piece of cheese pizza and didn't feel one ounce of guilt eating it. Yay. The other positive thing is I had a student come talk to me after school yesterday about how she was going to stop smoking because of all the activity. First off, I was SHOCKED to know that my 13 year old student was a smoker in the first place but I was even more shocked that she showed the maturity to make some changes. She also said she told her mom that she had been smoking (her mom is also a smoker) and the mom told her they'd quit together. Tender.

****Warning: Plethora of miss spelled words ahead. Decipher at your own risk Warning****

ive ben graydin papers all weak cuz i asngd tonz uf riting this weak so ive fownd dat in my f-ort to red each mispeld wurd my own speling is suffereing studnts seam 2 hafe fourgoten the speling of comunly uzed wurds as weel as punchuashon and cinse all they do evryday is txt on there fones they uze wut i cal txt wurds insteed of reel wurds so whut u c now is whut ive ben reeding all weak nother thang ive notised is dat specialy thu wurds like there their and theyre and were and where are most ofen confuzed 4 exmple 1 student wrotes i luv muy bfrends howse bcuz whene im theyre we made oute and nother exmple is thowse ppl over their r gooffy it is ceriosly 2 thu pont dat i haf 2 ask ben how 2 speel wurds i geve them creadit thow bc sum wayz theye speel make mor cense fonetikly

What's really pathetic is that typing that was just a breeze. I'm sadly so used to reading papers that way that it no longer really phases me. I'm an excellent decipher-er and even the sloppiest of handwriting means a challenge for me. What used to be a pet peeve is now just simply a reality. That's going to be a big focus for me for the 2nd quarter; to help these kids write and write well using the right forms of words, spelling, and puctuation. After all, isn't that what an English teacher is supposed to do?

I have had an interesting week in my 5th period. I became Mrs. Witch to them last week. I learned that the only way to get them to quiet down is to strike up fear using my booming loud teacher voice (yea, I really do have one). I had about 50% of the class goofing off, disturbing the others. So, now since I'm not pleasent to them (they were anything but pleasent toward me) I have found that all the "bad" kids have been sluffing this week. This obviously isn't the outcome I wanted but, I know it's bad when I can walk into the faculty lounge and say (finally) 5th period was perfect yesterday...because I only had the 10 good kids; it could be my favorite class of the day if the other 10 never showed up. I see the kids who sluff in the morning and after school so when they haven't shown up to 5th, it's quite obvious what they are trying to pull. Yesterday I saw one of the students right AFTER 5th period and said, "Sure missed you in class," with a big smile, and he looked like he was going to jump right out of his skin. Punishment is that they can't make up any of the work they missed while they were out and about. Also, I turned all their names into the office today for truancy so next week they will be having a fun meeting with the principal, their parents, and myself to talk about the issue. I did have one good thing come out of one of the sluffers who saw the light side and came back to class: the day he sluffed (Monday or Tuesday), I saw him as I left the school at night and he said, "I sluffed your class today, Mrs. Hubert." I said, "Yeah, I know," and kept walking. The next day he showed up to class early and said, "I'm sorry I sluffed your class yesterday." And I said to him, "What did you learn about sluffing?" , and he said, "Not to do it again." A few minutes later he came back up to me and said, "Mrs. Hubert, love makes you do stupid things." I asked him why he said that and he explained that the reason he sluffed was to be with a girl he liked and that she turned out to be a jerk and "not worth it." He used to be a big problem (the kid sings like a mature 25 year old, enough to melt your heart, but when he sings during lecture it gets old real fast) but since our little heart-to-heart, he's been a model student. I know that 5th period is going to be my challenge the whole year, even with a few interventions with parents, etc., but this week has felt like an eternity because of them.

Like I said, I'm glad it's the weekend. I'm planning on hopping into bed for a quick nap. Then, I am going to read a good book that has been edited by a professional. Later I might go hang out with my mom (who I haven't seen in WAY TOO LONG!). Tomorrow is a little R&R with hubby and preparing for my Halloween Extravaganza for Tuesday. If you have any clever and/or creative ideas to keep already hyper students busy on the hyper-est (I know it's not a word) day of the year, leave a comment!!!