pink hair

Welcome back to school on this lovely Monday!

It was a quick day today. I love it.

Today we began the week known as College Week. This week's goal is to get students excited about attending college, which for some, they would be the first in their families to attend. Each advisory class has a college (mine: BYU-Idaho) and there are different activities each day where the colleges (advisories) can earn points. So basically it is college vs. college. I decorated my door with a BYU-I poster that I made and plan on wearing BYU-I clothing all week. Honestly, I couldn't get my advisory class excited about this week and they all refuse to do anything dealing with BYU-I (they all say it is against their religion...ha) so the chances of my class winning any sort of prize is quite slim.

Over the weekend I suffered from a slight lapse of maturity and decided to dye my hair "Cherry Red." It actually turned out more of a hot pink color, but the good thing is, regardless of the actual color, it only lasts 8-10 shampoos. I dyed my hair on Friday and that night it looked hot, hot pink. Saturday it was a little less pink, but still vibrant. Yesterday it toned down even more and today it's a nice shade of magenta. My mom was certain that I'd loose my job over this little act, but I told her over and over that their first concern is not the color of my hair, but rather their concern is who's going to get in fights today, and will one of them bring a gun? I got to school this morning and heard all day long, "Did you dye your hair, Mrs. Hubert." (In my head, kind of as a "Here's your sign" thing I said, 'no, I just woke up this morning and I had pink hair!) Here are some of the other reactions to my new do: "your hair is pimpin' Mrs. Hubert,' 'it looks hot.' How sweet. I really didn't mean for it to raise my status of "cool teacher" any higher (I mean, really, how much higher can I go...j/k), but kids seemed to think it was neat that I was "cool" enough to do something so drastic. I kept telling those who said it was funny or looked weird that it is a good thing I don't care what you guys think of my hair, I like it. They laughed. I even had 7th period convinced that on the weekends I am in a punk rock band and we all decided to dye our hair for this weekend's show. They all believed me for much longer than they should have.

I saw the most inspiring and wonderful movie on Saturday. The only reason why I bring it up is that it deals with things that I do every day. It is called Freedom Writers, with Hilary Swank. The movie is all about a first year teacher who teaches English in the Rodney King riot-struck city of Long Beach in the early/mid 90's. She has a class of diverse students who are involved in gangs, and, as the students call it, daily wars. She discovers a way to reach out to these students, works extra jobs to take her students (against school administrator's wishes) on field trips, and helps these kids make it to graduation. The cool part is that she uses books about the Holocaust to teach them about tolerance and respect. I cried. I bawled. It was a great movie. Last week I had several students who had seen it and said they thought of me when they watched it and they told me that I should go see it. I'm so glad I did. I am thinking I may offer a bit of extra credit for students who see the movie and write a summary about it.

Now for the non-teacher related item of the day: Many of you may have received my e-mail regarding my anniversary surprise I'm doing for Ben on Wednesday morning. If not, please turn your tv's on at 6-6:30 on Wednesday morning, channel 5. You will be able to see me and Ben on tv. The only thing is...Ben doesn't know. It's a surprise. So don't say anything to him about it! If you watch, it will all make sense. If you are out of state, you can view the segment on ksl.com later in the day.

I'm out. I need to finish the book club book for book club meeting after school tomorrow.