rip my hair out day

It is a whopping 14 degrees out right now. We've been putzing around the house (inside and out) today trying to finish up the whole "nesting" process. My big brother, Zach, came out early this morning to help us re-wire the house for cable and phone and such. I just decided I'm done putzing and the rest of the pictures that need to be hung can wait. Ben and his brother are working on his car (Ben got in a minor accident on Friday morning)

Well, since my last post, we had group yearbook picture day. Just to add one more crazy first year story into the mix, let me explain how the day went. First off, I had to make a schedule of times for each group and once I finished that, I thought my job was pretty much done. Yesterday I got to school around 7 and went into the auditorium to see how the set up was going and to meet the photographer. Everything looked fine, so I headed up to my room and prepared for the day. First period started and my students were engaged (not) in watching Channel One. The teacher in charge of student government walked into my room and said, "I guess no one told you that you should have got a sub today?" I looked at her and said, "No, why?" She proceeded to tell me that I should be down in the auditorium all day to help with the flow of picture day. She said she'd help me find other teachers to cover and let the office know and told me to get down to the auditorium. Luckily, one of the school's best sub's was still available so he was able to come in to cover my 2-4 periods. Once I got to the auditorium, I had a mini-breakdown with tears and the whole snot coming out the nose thing because I was terrified that it was gonna be a bad day and that the schedule wasn't going to work. One of the veteran teachers, who told me later that she used to do the yearbook and could have helped me, came and put her arm around me and calmed me down and basically saved my life. Her room is close to the auditorium so she was able to help and check to see what groups needed to be called down. We made it through the pictures with always being on schedule or a little bit ahead. The photographer was quite patient and was impressed with the efficiency of my schedule. Phew. Anyway.

This next week will be cake compared to the last few. We have Monday off (Thank you Martin Luther King Jr.) and then the quarter ends on Thursday so students don't come to school on Friday and teachers 'get' to do grades and sit in more meetings. My students are finishing up their culture project...which I'm kind of sick of!...and will begin presenting their PowerPoint shows on Wednesday. When students return for the start of 3rd quarter (I can't believe, the year's almost over!), we'll start our unit on the Holocaust and read "I have Lived a Thousand Years," a book I just finished and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.

I suppose that I have forgotten other stuff that happened this week at school, but we had minor Internet issues the day after it was hooked up so I didn't have the opportunity to post much during the week. I will do better from now on.