i walk on water

It's been a long day. I stayed at school until about 4:45, stopped at Arby's on my way home. Then, when I got home, I scarffed down my food and watched a DVR recording of my favorite fall 2006 show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Then, just a little after 6, I headed back over to school to watch some of my journalism students perform in a drama production of short melodramas. About half of the journalism staff (the more responsible students) are involved in drama so it was up to me to get some pictures with our ghetto camera. (We call it ghetto because, even though it's a nice digital camera with capabilities to film, the little screen that shows the picture is broken and it makes it difficult to make any changes to the settings, etc....teenagers love when grown-ups try to talk cool like them, and when ever I say "ghetto camera" I get quite the round of laughter from them.) It was about a 2 1/2 ordeal, after which I ran back to my room to get my purse and drop of the camera. Then, on my way out the door I ran into my students (with parents in tow) and was bombarded with introductions. I didn't get home until after 9.

I was in the copy room today after school making transperancies for class tomorrow. (I realized that I waste a lot of the school's colored paper making my worksheets and stuff...most of which my students end up crumpling up into little paper balls and leaving in my room or folding them into airplanes-of which I have a nice collection on my bookshelf. So, I finally got smart, got a working overhead projector, and now swear by transperancy use for 89% of what I do in class. Students use their own paper and I try to fit more than one assignment/activity on each paper they turn in.) Anyway, back to my copy room story. I was in making the aforementioned copies when one of the veteran teachers (it's a no-no to call them "old," they don't much like that) came in. This particular teacher teaches health and has been one of the friendliest and welcoming faces since I first arrived at the school. He is the one who takes it upon himself to, every Friday, clean out the faculty room, top to bottom, and throws away any nasty things that have remained in the fridge through out the week. Again, I digress. As I was making copies, he asked me how things were going and complimented me on the first newspaper of the year, saying that he was excited to see something different than what has been done in the past. I said thank you and asked how his classes were (we have many of the same students and sometimes it helps tremendously to swap stories about problem students). He then said, "I have one student who thinks you walk on water, Lauren." I giggled and asked, "Which one?" (I thought to myself, I'm kinda awnry, why would any student have nice things to say about me!!??) He told me the student's name and I was very surprised. The student, a girl, is in my 5th period, the period I yell at almost every day for being disrespectful and having rotten attitudes. He continued to tell me that she comes to his class right after mine and she always has good things to say about English. I have to say (pat myself on the back, blow my own horn, etc.) it made me feel especially terrific hearing this information. I can kind of see it now, looking back, because she's always first to class and actually likes writing. Unlike other 5th period students, she knows when to keep her yapper quiet and she's very polite and, even though it happens daily, says please and thank you after borrowing one of my pencils. I guess I'm doing something right.

A quick note about the journalism drama reported yesterday. It doesn't really involve the same drama, but my students have managed to get me into a bit of trouble with the higher-ups down in the office. We had a bunch of the re-take picture ID cards arrive this week. I asked my students to put the ID cards in ABC order for easier distribution later on. I had to run around the school a bit that day so I ended up leaving my students to finish the task at hand, which I thought they were 100% capable of doing. My thinking was that I'd have the office hold on to the ID cards until all the pictures arrived, that way we could hand both out at the same time to lessen the confusion and chaos. Apparently, my students decided to play messenger and took out all of their friends ID cards. This led to the rumors heard 'round the school that the re-take pictures were here and consequentially, the front office was bombarded with students demanding their ID cards and pcitures. We still had not recieved the actual pictures and the secretary didn't want to give the ID cards out without the pictures. Today I got an e-mail from the secretary saying that it caused a big problem (though, really, I'm over it) and that she doesn't think the journalism students should be trusted with tasks like that. I felt bad for causing the problem, but I figure, it could've been much worse. I've got to give them a little lecture tomorrow on the concept of responsibility and making wise decisions with your responsibility.

Well, I'm outta here. YAY! Tomorrow is Thursday!