this week, just call me lauren

Phew. I made it. I'm officially on Christmas break. Wahoo.

It's been quite a week and I have many things to write about. First off, here's a bit about the huge faculty Christmas party I just got home from.

They had snacks in the library all day for us to come and munch on. It was great since I didn't bring a lunch. I made trips to the library (I'm right next to it) between each class to get some snacks. After school got out (and we ushered the hyper little dears out of the building) we had a gigantic, funeral potato-tastic pot luck luncheon. We all signed up to bring something...I took a salad, most of which I brought home since there were approximately 10 salads to choose from! We ate, laughed, conversed. Then they did a prize drawing where there were some cool items and not so cool items. I mostly got the not so cool items i.e., an ugly Christmas tie (Can you say "a Christmas present for Ben!"???), and a Tupperware pie cutter. It was fun, none the less, and we even got to leave earlier than contract time (2:45 on Fridays). I had packed all my crap up before the party so after the party, I ran to my room, thought two seconds about staying to get "stuff done," and then decided to forget it and come home! Yay!

Last time I posted I wrote about assigning the headline poems. It turned out to be quite the success...they were all amazed that it was so simple to do! I think I may have changed a few minds about poetry, some even took me up on the challenge of finding similes and metaphors in the music they listen to. When I gave them the assignment on Wednesday, I decided to put in a cd to see how they did working with the music on. It was an absolute success. I have a random conglomeration of cd's in my desk and picked out the Red Hot Chili Peppers. As it played and as the students realized what it was, I suddenly became the coolest teacher ever. Some even said, "I didn't know teachers listened to this type of music." The truth is, I believe some students think that teachers are teachers and that's it; teachers, according to them, sleep in their classrooms, talk only to students and other teachers, read boring books every day, and have no element of "normal" in their life. Some of that may be true to some degree, but when several students realized I listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers, it just about blew their minds. One student asked me to burn a copy of the cd for him, so he brought me the cd today. I scored another cool point by showing him that I knew about burning cds and stuff.

Wednesday morning was oh so difficult for me to get out of bed. I contemplated calling in sick, but decided against it. I was dreading walking into the school and with every ounce of energy in my body, I made my way into the office to check my mail. This time I had a bunch of stuff. Some of the stuff was boring stuff and some I still haven't looked at. The three items that caught my eye were three little cards, made from white computer paper. They were written by three of my students and these notes are what have helped me get through this week.
Note 1: "Hey Mrs. Hubert; I am writing to let you know that you are my favorite teacher. The last time I had a teacher like you was in the 1st grade. You do a great job. I am in your favorite class, probably your loudest but what can I say, we're all Polynesian. Sorry if I am too loud, I will try to do better. Thanks Mrs. Hubert and have a good Christmas." (signed his name and AKA 1/2 Man, 1/2 Amazing---no self esteem issues here!)
Note 2: "Miss Hurbert (apparently I became single and changed the spelling of the name): This is 4 u bc u r the best. I wish you a very merry x-mas and I will miss you over the break." (This student, female, also drew a bunch of little cartoons on the paper as well as signed it with her pseudonym--"I am a Cookie," which she tells me every day when she comes into class.)
Note 3: (Front) Mary Christmas Mrs Hubert. (Inside) I wanted to tell you to have a good break. Mary Christmas and happy new year." (Perhaps I should stop giving them vocab words like "nonprofit" and "transoceanic" and go back to the basics of homonyms (Mary/Merry).
Needless to say, these three little gems made my Wednesday much better before it really began. I stapled the letters to my wall right by my desk and couldn't really wipe off the perma-grin all day long. I decided to go one step further and wrote each of these students a little letter telling them thank you and how much it made my day. They were all very happy to get my letter and have instantly become three of my most favorite students. :)

All week I've been falling asleep to the sounds of dozens of teenagers yelling "Mrs. Hubert, Mrs. Hubert." One night I must have been so delirious because I woke myself up by answering these invisible little requests by saying "What?" in a too-cranky voice. I love how I will be working one-on-one with a single student, getting quite involved in the process and five students, who I'm sure are not blind and can clearly see me, begin begging for my attention by saying my name in as contorted of a voice as possible. I've been called "Mrs. Hubert" in a Kermit The Frog voice, a cave-man voice, a high pitched-more-annoying-than-anything-in-the-world voice, and the most unique one being when one particular student decided I might respond more quickly if she sung my name to a little tune. The horrible thing is once she sang my name, I couldn't get the ditty out of my head for two days! I always tell them, "I have perfectly good hearing. I know your voice, when I'm done helping so and so, I will come right to you. I won't ignore you." It will be nice to be on break from that little annoyance for a week and to be called Lauren more than "Mrs. Hubert."

Today we distributed the December issue of the newspaper. It turned out ok, but I still feel like there is something not quite right with the final publication. I'm going to try a few new things next time to see if it works. I got many positive comments on the paper again, which made me feel swell.