Teacher's Tale

switching blogs

2008-06-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Well, since I'm on vacation from being a teacher and I'm trying to take on more wifely duties (ie, cook dinner for once!), I'm switching back to my Wife's Tale Blog...and probably will continue to write in that one from now on.
If I'm cool enough, add my Wife's Tale to your blog links or Favorites or Bookmarks. And if I'm not cool enough, I really hope you give my blog an honest consideration.
And with that, here's the link:
http://awifestale.blogspot.com/

my 26th birthday

2008-06-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'm 26 and tired!!

It has been such a fun day, probably one of my best birthdays ever (though I think I say that every year!). Ben did a great job of spoiling and wearing me out today!!

First, we woke up at about 8 and hung out for a bit. We got ready and when I walked into the kitchen to leave, I saw this:A new mountain bike! I was already kind of aware that this was going to be my present, but it was still a fun surprise! I got right on and it is the perfect fit!I found out it was a present from Ben, my mom, and my other great mom and dad Hubert. Thanks!!! My plan for tomorrow is to go for a nice ride.

After I played with my bike for a bit, we got in the car and onto the freeway. Halfway through the drive, Ben said I had to close my eyes because he wanted to surprise me, so I obliged. I got totally lost and confused and nearly fell asleep, the ride was soothing.

And then we stopped. At Ruth's Diner up Immigration Canyon. (Side note: Ben took me to Ruth's Diner on our first date in high school, junior homecoming dance, and we've been talking about going back forever, it's really yummy!) We had a great breakfast in the fun little diner. I got SO stuffed!

Next we drove to a tattoo parlor. And Ben wanted to go in to get tattoos. But we didn't because I got a stomach ache thinking about it. So don't worry, mom, no tattoo for me.

I wanted to walk around at Gateway, so we went to some really fun shops there (my new favorite: Urban Outfitters). We stopped at Barnes and Noble, the Apple Store, and Dick's Sporting Goods. I got some new biking gloves that match my bike.

We had talked about going to a movie, but Ben steered me in the Sanctuary Day Spa and I ended up getting treated to a manicure. It was pure HEAVEN. I decided that I need to treat myself to something like that every month because it's really relaxing and feels great. (shhh...don't tell, Ben got a pedicure and loved every stinkin' minute!)

After the spa, we went to see Kung-Fu Panda, the new animated movie. It was darling. Jack Black was hilarious. "Skedoosh!"

We decided to invite Ben's parents to dinner and I decided I wanted to go The Cheesecake Factory, which opened here recently. It was great. I had an awesome pizza. Then we ordered cheesecake. I got a peanut butter cup cheesecake with caramel and butterfingers. It was amazing. The waiters/waitress' sang to me:

And then I stuffed my face.
We just got home and I'm looking forward to getting into my pj's and relaxing the last hours of my day away. Thanks to all the birthday wishes!!! I love you all!

that's a wrap

2008-06-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a nice 3 month long break of being Mrs. Hubert. The school year is over and I'm thrilled.

We had a short day today with the students only being each period for 25 minutes and exiting the building by 12. As teachers, we stood at the front entrance and watched the little dears mull around, some in tears, as the year came to a close. I think some teachers really wanted to do a dance and cheer that they were finally gone!!

The year-end faculty/staff luncheon was pretty fun. They gave all of the teachers/staff leaving a little gift and then sang the retirement song to the one lone retiree, Coach B. He went around the room and said something about every single person. At my table, we took 'bets' on how long he'd talk. Let's just say who said 18 minutes was way off and the person who said 45 was the closest (I think it ended up being almost 50 minutes or something). It was quite sweet, but me and my pals kind of got the giggles. We were drawing pictures to represent each of the holidays...and as one said about the Christmas picture "We may be here until Christmas!"

I was checked out and gone by 3.

If I could remember one thing about this year, I would remember it being a lot crazier and more difficult than my first year. Last year people told me, "This will be your hardest year!" But I think this year has been harder. Here's why:
- Traveling from room to room and being kicked out of my room caused a lot of stress---I believe I cried every day during lunch for at least that first week. For the most part the other teacher's rooms I borrowed were nice and welcoming. Others were difficult and meddling and treated me like a student teacher. My students hated the fact that we were kicked out and took it almost as hard as me; classroom management went out the window and students used the unfamiliarity as an excuse to misbehave and pretend "we aren't in your room so the rules don't apply." I pushed a freakin' shopping cart! A shopping cart was my classroom! Enough said. (No, I'm not at all bitter, I'm over it!)
- My yearbook/newspaper staff was right up there next to the words horrible, awful, bratty....and on and on....but we managed (with my own stupidity at working on pages until 12am on some nights just to meet deadline) to have a decent yearbook, I think.
- Working on my ESL endorsement AND a Master's at the same time is really insane and I'd never recommend it, but I really didn't know what I was getting myself into with most of it (ie the ESL endorsement was much more complicated and busy than I ever imagined!) A few of my teacher pals might remember a certain temper tantrum I threw last summer during one of our ESL classes...full on screaming and rolling around on the floor. I'm sure glad none of them had a camera!
- Add on top of all of this is my calling as Primary President, which I feel totally inadequate and undedicated to!!! I love the people I work with, I love and adore the kids, but I feel awful that I don't have loads of time to dedicate to it. But I'm looking forward to summer to have a little more time....I think.

One hour from now will be my 26th birthday. Wahoo. I think I enjoy birthdays and don't feel ashamed or sadden to tell people it's my birthday or how old I am. Ben has the day off and we're doing...something. The best present is the fact that school's out and I can relax a bit. But I do still have homework. Which really sucks.

I'll probably switch back to blogging on my Wife's Tale blog from here on out (and not returning to Teacher's Tale when school starts again, as I have before). I'll put a link up here soon for Wife's Tale.

Ben and I went to the DMV today to get a new license. Mine expired tomorrow and he needed a new motorcycle one. We didn't have to wait too long, only because my husband is good with words and convinced the lady to help us both at the same time, even though we had two different numbers. Then we went to Marie Calendars; I didn't eat much since I just had eaten, but we got a killer blueberry pie, which is just about the best thing I've ever eaten. We came home and decided to take a nap before we both worked on various things (me, homework; Ben, bills). I set the alarm to wake up after about 45 minutes but then we both ended up sleeping until 9!!!

Oh, the joys of summer break!

last of the yearbook drama....i hope...

2008-06-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

We've had a little bit more drama with the yearbooks this week. I thought the only big problem was the 08 name things, but, oh no, there's more.

Yesterday the secretary handed me a book and told me to look inside. I saw that the cover was ours so I assumed the inside would be ours. It wasn't. The pages inside were pages from a school in Ukiah, California. The book was all in color, had graded k-12 shown, and loads more punctuation/spelling mistakes than ours. I laughed. Luckily, it was only this one book like that, but I keep wondering how it happened. I suppose we'll never know.

Today, a mother came to see me and complained to me about the fact that her son's picture is not in the yearbook as if I took it out on purpose! She yelled at me and told me that "it sucks to buy a yearbook when your kid isn't in it." I was apologetic and tried to explain that I didn't take her kid's picture out; it was a mistake with the photo company not putting his picture in the group. She gave more attitude than I care to remember but I do feel kind of bad about the whole thing. This is a student of mine that actually kind of like. But, as the secretary told me, there isn't much I can do now.

I said goodbye to my 9th graders today. They left after getting their refunds. Some went to Lagoon...a cold, wet day for Lagoon. Other's went home. I was somewhat happy to see them go.

Today I took board games and I ended up playing Apples to Apples during each period. It was so fun! I had about, on average, 10 students in each class, which was refreshing.

Tomorrow is the last day and I'm very excited. We're having a big faculty luncheon after the kids leave and then I have to go get my new drivers license. Crazy that it's already that time, eh?? Then the big 2-6 on Friday. Ben got the day off so we're gonna play. I'm excited!!

I'm off to finish my book club book before book club tonight at 7!!

red bull oops!

2008-05-31T07:57:00.000-07:00

Well I survived yet another yearbook day. For the most part, it went off without any major problems and I think the books were a success! We inserted a little "oops card" explaining the mistake with the 08 pages, and I think the kids kind of "got over it" quickly.

I made the HUGE mistake of drinking a big Red Bull on my way to work in the morning. I drank it and ate a breakfast sandwich, all in the 10 minutes or less it takes to get there. My thinking was that I would need some extra energy for the big day and wanted to be able to handle everything.

I felt great for the first hour of distribution, which went really smoothly. My staff was surprisingly fun to hang out with and it was fun to see the student's excitement when they received their books.

An hour into distribution, we made a change in staff and continued to call down more students. At this point, things started to slow down, the excitement was wearing off (for me, anyway), and I was crashing...hard. I felt my body literally shaking with an overdose of sugar. Then, the principal brought all of us a soda, which mistakenly I drank, too. My hands were shaking and I felt weird. I sat down to sign some of the staff's books and seriously thought I was going to pass out. Then I started getting a stomach ache.

After normal distribution, I sent the staff back to class and I was left alone to give out more books to students who managed to pay off fines and buy books. It was quiet and only a few kids came at a time, so I had time to just sit and relax...and almost fall asleep.

The effects of my Red Bull high were wearing off (thankfully) and at this time, it was time for lunch. All of the teachers had to be at a "post" to watch the kids and make sure they weren't wandering the halls. I was right by the lunchroom and had fun hanging out with the other teachers. I was also able to sign some more books and get students to sign mine, too.

Then we had department meeting and I was out. of. it! I don't even remember what we talked about. I was so tired and worn out. Hopefully I didn't miss much!

I had a sweet e-mail yesterday from a parent of one of my challenging students. I've been in contact with this parent quite a few times about his son and met him at PTC. His e-mail was thanking me for my work and patience with the student. I almost cried.

I'm officially finished with my ESL endorsement. I submitted the last of the assignments yesterday and now I just have to send in paperwork and $$ to get the endorsement posted under my record AND to apply for a lane change, which is a nice little (key word, little) raise :)

After I came home yesterday and took a 2 hour nap with Zeus, I forced myself to finish my homework for my master's class. It was long and tedious, but I'm glad I finished it. On my agenda today is to finish up all grading for 4th quarter, get grades posted, and be done with grades for the year!

4 days left of school. 7 days till I turn 26. Yay.

Swan Lake WOW

2008-05-31T07:48:00.001-07:00

As a former ballet dancer, this gave me chills!! Watch the whole thing; even if you aren't a dancer, it's still amazing!

life through brown-colored lenses

2008-05-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

These are my new glasses. They're brown. And they're great.

Here's my old glasses. They're black. And they were eaten by Zeus on Saturday. They were five years old.

Like my new brown pair, my black one's are Ralph Lauren (and mostly I get those because it says my name). Ben bought the black ones for me just before he left for Iraq almost 5 years ago. They were the most expensive pair of sun glasses I'd ever owned and I vowed to take great care. And I did, mostly.

I kind of "grew up" with these glasses, because, let's face it, a lot has changed in my life in 5 years. Five years ago, I was just engaged and coping with the fact that my hubby-to-be was in the middle of war. Five years ago, I was still in college and living with 5 other girls at BYUI. Five years ago, I still wasn't sure if I liked being a real adult (I still don't, for that matter).

Now, however, thanks in part to Zeus' decimation of my black glasses, I now see life through brown-colored lenses. I'm a full-fledged adult (whether I like it or not) with a career and a home and a husband who is home (sometimes) and dealing with his time in war. Life is good through brown-colored lenses, so far. I foresee what may come in my life in the next 5 years. Hopefully children will come. Hopefully I'll learn how to sew. Hopefully I'll learn to love Zeus again.

big oops

2008-05-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

So remember when I posted last time about how excited I was about the yearbook. Remember how I said it looked great? Yeah, well, I should maybe take a little bit of that excitement back.

Because over the weekend I found a HUGE mistake.

I've taken some time to calm down over the mistake and had a sick stomach all weekend realizing I'd have to tell my staff AND still hand out the book this Friday.

The mistake? Let me explain...

Last year, my yearbook rep offered to do a page for us (Actually a double page spread) where, in the shape of the numbers 0 and 7, he put all of the students names. It turned out really cool last year and my staff this year elected to have the same thing for this year, only obviously with this year's names.

As my rep began working on it, he obtained a new list of this year's students name to include in the number 0 and 8. He completed these pages, the last two, just shortly before my last deadline. Because of the tiny font and a not high resolution when printing the pages out, when I proofed the pages, all I saw really was blurry font.

On Saturday, I decided to take a while to really check the book and highlight mistakes, write notes down for next year, and proof one last time (not that at this point anything could be done, right?). I came across the 08 page and studied the names. I came across one of my last year 9th grade students' names and chuckled at the mistake. But then I saw more and more 9th graders from last year.

I realized that this year's 08 page had LAST YEAR student's names and that NONE of this years 7th graders were included. Ugh. To some of you it may not seem like a HUGE deal, but in the yearbook world, where mistakes last FOREVER, it is.

I broke the news to my staff during 2nd period today after telling them that the books had finally been delivered. I could tell they were upset but thankfully they took it like champions and agreed with me on my idea to create an "Oops...we're sorry for the mistake" card to hand out with the books. I spent all of my lunch and prep period creating, printing, and cutting the cards up to be inserted as we pass the books out. I contacted the yearbook guy over my rep just to see if there's anything they could do, but no such luck.

7 days left. I can't wait!!!

yearbook

2008-05-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

This is me today after I received the yearbook. I'm super excited. Can ya tell? (I actually took this picture using the timer on my camera, standing in my bathroom). Here's a full front cover shot:And a full back cover shot:And in case you've forgotten: The theme of our yearbook is "Splash of Color," which has a few different connotations. First, this is the first year we have any color photos in our book, the first 16 pages. They turned out pretty sweet. Really bright. Second, our school is really colorful as in diversity, so we had some fun with things like "showing your true color."

Yearbook day is next Friday, the 30th. It's a crazy, crazy, crazy day, but the kids have a good time looking through the books and this year will be especially fun because we've been really building up the idea of the color pictures. Also, this is the first cover of a West Lake yearbook that hasn't been primarily black, which was a request I received from my staff and which I totally agreed with. The cover was designed by one of my staff members.

8 more days. Yippee. I can't believe it's already this close. I began cleaning my kitchen this afternoon and felt a little panicky at the thought of the rest of the school year...until I realized there isn't much left! My 8th graders are just finishing their 8th grade autobiography ABC books next week, which they've all done really well with working on. My 9th graders, on the other hand, have pretty much checked out of the whole school thing.

I'm SO glad for a 3 day weekend. We're not going anywhere, but it'll be nice to just be able to chill this weekend. I have a huge book to read for my book club...and I'm having a hard time really getting into it. I'm done with my homework. I still have to put together sharing time for Sunday. And other than that, I plan to be a lady of leisure this weekend.

I wanted to give a shout-out to a few people:
1. Two of my friends are having (or have had) babies this weekend; Quinn and Tammy--best of luck and congratulations!
2. Thanks dad for the awesome new music selection!!! I've totally wipped out my iPod and am currently reloading with all the great music you sent. Great!!!
3. My college roommate, Sheena, who had a birthday this week. I haven't spoken to her forever (probably almost a year) but I remembered and hope she had a good one!
4. Elder Hubert, who has been gone for one month today. Love and miss you.

Happy Memorial Day weekend! Be safe!

truman

2008-05-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

I heart Truman Capote.

I know that's insane, as he's an old, dead, homosexual author. But it's true.

I finished reading In Cold Blood a few weeks ago. If you haven't already, read my review of the book on my Book Blog, "Garden in your Pocket," (the link's on the left side).

I caved last week and rented "In Cold Blood," the old black and white movie. Wow. Again, wow. The guy that plays Perry, Robert Blake, was everything I dreamed Perry Smith was like. Eeery.

I also caved and rented "Capote," which I watched last night. I understand why Philip Seymour Hoffman won an award for his portrayal of this guy. It was a really interesting movie that helped me kind of wrap up (hopefully) my month-long obsession with Truman Capote.

I really think what intrigued me most about this guy is his almost thirst and hunger at writing 'the perfect book.' He loved the attention he got and ended up paying a lot for his success. He never wrote another book after In Cold Blood.

And he was friends with my #1 literary idol, Harper Lee.

in print

2008-05-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

So if you've been reading my blog in the last few days, you'll remember a post I wrote about writing 6 word autobiographies. I read the concept in an Ann Cannon article. Ann Cannon is my favorite columnist for the Deseret News here in SLC and she is also slowly becoming one of my literary idols. I submitted several of my own 6 word autobiographies via e-mail to Ann, who I've e-mailed several times before. I looked at her regular Monday article this morning only to find that she ended up including one of my autobiographies in her article. Go here to read my name and one of my 6 word autobiographies in print!

That's it. Loves.

i killed a butterfly

2008-05-17T08:57:00.001-07:00

I feel horrible. Awful. I should be punished.

Yesterday I rode my bike to work. It was a great day for a ride and I even cut my normal 30 minute trip home to a 20 minute trip home. It's pretty much all down hill on the way in the morning and it still gets kind of chilly. On the way home, however, it was pretty dang hot!

On my way home I was being silly and decided to try to run over random objects on the ground: cigarette butts, pieces of wood, plastic bottles and other junk. I also, completely on accident, ran over a butterfly who just happened to be chillin' in my path.

What happened was I saw this bright orange thing that looked like a wad of gum or candy or something. I decided I'd run it over just because and when I got just too close, I realized it was moving. It was flapping it's wings, I decided later. I ran it over as I realized it was living and I stopped and turned around to see. Yup. It was smooshed. Flat. I felt so bad.

There are now 13 days left of school. We finished up the poetry stuff this week and I'm thinking the kids aren't the only ones who are glad that is over. This week they will be creating an ABC book about their 8th grade year. And they're going to hate hate hate me when they realize they'll be writing more! Ha.

I gave my journalism/media production students a final project this week where they are creating a Year-in-Review magazine highlighting events of this year. I had 10 of my 19 journalism students flat out tell me they were not going to do the assignment. I made those students sign a paper saying that they chose not to do the assignment and that they understand it will affect their grade. Unfortunately a lot of my students, both grade, have just given up and refuse to work. I will be sending out failing notices next week. I think there's going to be a whole bunch.

The yearbook will be delivered on Wednesday. I'm nervous to see the final product. Yearbook day is on the 30th and from what I heard, we've sold a lot of books so far.

Ben took me to see "Chronicle of Narnia:Prince Caspian" last night after we went to dinner at Johnny Corinos. I saw about the first five minutes of the movie and then I fell asleep, so I couldn't tell you if it was good or not. I need to learn that I can't go see movies after 10pm. So if you go see that movie, let me know how it is!!

esl graduation

2008-05-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

Even though I still technically have two weeks left and a million little projects to complete, I graduated from my ESL program on Wednesday. The district and Weber State sponsored a graduation banquet at Salt Lake Community College and fed us a dinner (which was awful), had a short entertainment program, and presented us each with certificate of completion, as well as a little desk clock/picture frame. Here's me and my gang...the teachers I've suffered through this program with.
From left-to-right: Rachel, Adrienne, Mike, Terri, me, Heidi.

I have a big portfolio I still have to put together. And a presentation to give on Wednesday. And a test to write by next Wednesday.

Mike figured that if only got 50% on the rest of these assignments, we'd still get a B in the class. It's tempting.

Congratulations, guys! Here's to temper-tantrums, Wednesday night classes, and Dr. You-Know-Who!!!

quirk tag

2008-05-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by cute Abbey, who is the younger sister of one of my best pals, Katie. Thanks for the fun tag, Abbey!

1. Link the person who tagged you.

2.Post these rules

3.Tell about six unspectacular quirks about yourself

4.Tag six fellow bloggers by link

My unspectacular quirks are...
(This may take me a while...)

1. I always have to drink a glass of cold water right before bed. Usually, I'll be brushing my teeth and when I go to rinse, the cold water makes me crave a big glass, so after I'm done brushing, I fill up a glass with cold water from the Britta filter and drink away.

2. I absolutely HATE feet. I think it stems from my years as a ballerina where I was always trying to fix my bloody and blistery feet from point shoes. I hate when people touch my feet. I hate touching other people's feet. I also can't stand to shower barefoot anywhere besides my own home. At a hotel? Flip-flops. I have teeny-tiny toenails on my big toes because of ingrown toenail surgery and so part of my feet hatred is based, also, on the fact that I have ugly toes. But, I love me a great pair of shoes!

3. My books on my bookshelf have to be in a certain order: Newbury winners on the top and second shelf, from oldest to newest. On the next shelf are books that are not Newbury winners but are favorites nonetheless. I have a shelf of classics (To Kill a Mockingbird, Steinbecks, and the like), a shelf of series (Harry Potter, Twilight, Chronicals of Narnia, etc.), and then a shelf of poetry books, children's picture books, and my Christmas books. Well, that's just one of my book shelves...I'm a bit obsessed with my books.

4. When I sit at my computer, I always tuck my legs and feet underneath me, sitting cross-legged. For some reason this is comfortable to me...until my feet start falling asleep. Likewise, while sitting on my chair at work, I take my feet off and cross my legs. Cute.

5. I check, double check, and triple check all of my outgoing e-mails for grammar and spelling errors. I hate to look stupid (as an English teacher) and to have mistakes. I'm a fan of spellcheck and grammar check for this reason, but--gasp--these do not always work. I spend more time than necessary making sure my e-mails are perfect and neat.

6. The only way I fall asleep at night is by laying on my right side with my right leg tucked underneath my left. I toss and turn if I am not in the position. Sometimes if I can't fall asleep in this position I try the other side and it seems to work, too, but typically I can't fall asleep unless I'm in that position. If Ben wants to "snoodle" (our term for cuddling) before we fall asleep, I can only snoodle for a little bit before I have to turn to the right side.

Well, maybe those were unspectacular quirks, maybe not. I'm sure if you were to ask my husband what my quirks were he'd be able to give me more.

Anyway, I tag: Ben, Katie, Darcy, Aubrey, Quinn, Tammy (if she hasn't had her baby yet!!), and anyone else who wants to.

6 word autobiographies

2008-05-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

I e-mailed Ann Cannon the following:

Ann-

This was a fun challenge! I came up with two, one based on my profession as a junior high English teacher, which with only 17 days left, I’m struggling to really enjoy as my students have turned into monsters; the second one is based on the fact that my husband and I have been married for almost 5 years and we have yet to have any children, so of course, people tend to question us every time they see us; I hear the question daily.

I teach junior high. Enough said.
No, I’m not pregnant yet. Still.

And if my husband were to write one for me it would be, “Ben, I want new shoes. Again.”

Thanks,

Lauren Hubert

And this is her response:

"GREAT! oxoxox"

Look on deseretnews.com on Monday's to read Mrs. Cannon's article.

(If you're totally confused at what this all means, read the post right before this one)

lauren news

2008-05-12T15:07:00.000-07:00

17 days. I. Can. Hardly. Wait.

Today was definitely a Monday and I'm ecstatic about the fact that I only have 2 more Mondays of this crazy school year.

I'm really sick of my work and my students, so I'm not really interested in writing any more about it. Enjoy some other Lauren news.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I have the VERY BEST mom in the whole wide freakin' world. No. Really. I do. I've read a lot of my friends blog posts about their moms and I agree, they all have great moms too. But my mom is truly the best. Last week while she was in Mexico, I went through withdrawals not being able to talk to her. She would do anything for me. She is so super supportive and will always listen to me complain. She buys me stuff a lot, which is fun, but just the fact that she loves me is the greatest thing ever. She is my best friend and I'm SO happy she is my mom. I love you, mom.

I also have a really awesome mother-in-law. She treats me like one of her own and makes me feel special. She got me a sewing machine for Christmas one year that I PROMISE I will use this summer. She raised my husband who sometimes drives me crazy, but who is great and wonderful because of her. She is a great example to me and I'm glad to be her #1 daughter :).

We had a really full Sunday. We had our church from 9-12, then we went to sacrament with Ben's parents from 12:30-1:30. After that, we went to eat sandwiches at the Hubert's. And then we went to dinner at the grandparents Huberts. And then we visited the grandparents (and other family) Witt. And then we stopped at my grandmas. And then we went to my moms for a bit. It was a whirlwind day but I was glad to be see all the wonderful moms/grandmas in my life.
We got all the moms and grandma's an edelweiss plant, which is really cool because it's the plant in the song in the movie "The Sound of Music." I also made everyone cards with my Cricut.

Great news! We finally got my silver hood of my green car painted! Ben took it into a local body shop last week with a silver hood and when we picked it up on Friday, the whole car was GREEN. I feel like I'm driving a whole new car. Thanks, B.

Ben put together a beta fish tank for me. My beta is red and his name is Capote. I'm a little obsessed with Truman Capote lately, so I decided to pay homage to him. Mostly the fish just swims around but he's pretty neat.

Elder Hubert left today on an airplane for a looonnngg flight to Brisbane, Australia. Thus far, Ben and I have received one letter (Ben got another today but I was nice and didn't open it :)) He seemed to have had a good experience at the MTC and is excited to get to Australia. I am really proud of him but it has been weird not having him around. Love ya, J-Dawg!

A few weeks ago my mom, grandma Ella, Cassidy, and I got a "4-Generation" picture taken. It's not a true 4 generation because Cassidy isn't my child, but we still called it one. My mom didn't really like the way they turned out so she gave me the BIG copy of this picture.

I read an article written by my favorite columnist today. Read the article. It's fun. I've been coming up with my own 6-letter autobiographies all day and will post all my options tomorrow for my readers to vote for; I'm going to e-mail her the winner.

I'm off to pretend to work on ESL homework. And Reading Class homework. And (not) thinking about how excited I am to go to work tomorrow.

strange things

2008-05-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

So one of my students shaved her head. Yup. I said her. She came to school on Monday and explained that whilst bored (she did not say "whilst"), she took a razor to the front part of her head "just to see what would happen" (duh). Upon realizing that the only way to 'fix' the mishap with the razor would be to shave everything off, she was Bic'd by a friend.

Now I wouldn't have trusted this said friend to do anything to my hair if I were the girl with partially shaved off hair. This other girl has a (gasp!) mullet! (Or, rather, a chicklet!). And so now she walks through the school looking really similar to a former pop tartlet who also must have had a moment of weakness to do such a crazy thing.

Yesterday I broke up what was the buddings of a fight during 4th period. Two boys, one a known gang member and the other a poor white kid with Coke bottle glasses. I don't know what they were so huffy about, but one minute they're talking poetry (seriously!) and the next I hear expletives in rapid succession and see blood begin to boil in both boys' eyes. I walked up to the students to try to separate them, which would have ended the problems. But, of course, the gang banger has to be tough and refuse my request. I walked to the other side of his desk to physically move it and while I was walking oh, one step, they both stood up after what must have been a nonverbal agreement to begin pushing each other and challenging each other with the oh-so-clever quip: 'I aint afraid of you, bring it...'

I did the only stupid thing I know to do and walked right in between the boys yelling to stop. I soon saw that my small frame was really no match for the two, so I yelled at another student to press the emergency call button which sends a message to the office. He complied happily (they are always bugging me to let them press the button). A few seconds later, they intercom back saying someone is on the way.

In the mean time, the boys and I went out in the hall to chill. I stood in the middle of the hall with either of them on one side of the hall. They were still challenging each other...'I aint afraid of you...' And then I saw the administrator. I explained the situation. I was shaking and pumped up (I hate when stuff like this happens in my room!) She took the boys and they were suspended for the rest of the day and today. I'm quite nervous to see how it will be tomorrow and sadly, I'm prepared to be called the B-word a few times.

I had a good time last night at the Honors Banquet. Every year the school honors the 9th graders who've maintained at least a 3.7 GPA all three years at West Lake. I had several of my 8th graders from last year and a few from my yearbook staff being honored, so I decided to go. It was one of the fine moments in a teacher's career where the positives show. It was nice to congratulate these students and many told me, "You're the best teacher!" when they hugged me. Tear. Sniff.

This week has been Teacher Appreciation Week. We had a nice PTA lunch on Tuesday and then we'll be treated to another catered luncheon tomorrow. I can't say I feel appreciated from most of my students as most of them are being really stupid and bratty. With only 19 days left (OH.MY.GOSH!), they are pretty close to completely shutting down and refusing to work. My plan to do poetry has been working, however, I'm not sure how much longer it will last.

I'm off to work on a 6 page paper. Yuck.

snap of the finger

2008-05-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

Never before have I wished I could snap my fingers and--POOF!-- stuff would get done as much as I wish right now!

I was horribly lazy on Saturday (seriously, I read one and a half books, went though loads of DVR shows, and napped for 3 hours!) and now I'm wishing I wouldn't have been. There's a pile of laundry as tall as me, dishes in the sink to be cleaned, and my desk is in desperate need of organization. Of course, I could say that the messiness of it all didn't really show up until last night, but of course, I'd be lying.

Today is also the first day of my 2nd class for my master's program. Each class lasts 8 weeks and the first class ended yesterday. I just looked at the stuff for this week's assignment and it doesn't look too bad (in fact, I think I might have done something similar in my ESL class that I could re-use), it's just the fact that the assignment is now also on my lengthy to do list.

So, I wish I could snap my fingers and the house cleaning stuff would be taken care of. Most of you know that Ben just started working full time at the nursery and only has Sunday and Thursday off. Needless to say, stuff around the house kind of gets put on the back burner (speaking of burners, my stove-top burners need to be scrubbed!).

Today at school I was cool. I bought the Run DMC Greatest Hits cd over the weekend because I planned on doing something with rap today. I had them listen to the song "It's like That," and then the assignment was to write a rap. I figured the majority of the students listened to rap and they were all quite excited to be able to write their own. I even said they could beat-box and drum on the table...probably the most annoying thing to me as a teacher. I had students writing wraps about everything from my hot pink shoes I wore today to food. I will give them a chance to perform their raps sometime this week.

Tomorrow I am riding my bike to work (I hope!). It is supposed to get up to 79 degrees tomorrow, perfect riding weather. Ben is (hopefully) going to take my car in to get the hood painted...finally!!!!! I'm uber excited.

Ben has started a blog. Fun! He's pretty neat. I'll put a link to his blog under my book blog link.

sleepy

2008-05-02T21:53:00.001-07:00

Today, after a long and tiring week, I kind of look like this darling little bear who can't seem to keep his eyes open.

crt=chaos

2008-04-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you take 70+ students and a library, a 22-question test, and a 50 minute class period?

You get CHAOS!!!

The English department started CRTs yesterday (CRTs are the big state mandated, NCLB driven, end-of-year-test). My classes were assigned to take the tests in the library, where a total of 70 computers had been set up for this purpose. This is the first year we've done the CRTs online instead of paper-based. There were a few technical difficulties but nothing that couldn't be solved quickly. Each student was given a piece of paper with their login information and after they logged in, the teachers had to walk back around and pick them up.

Last year, the first time I administered the test, each section (there are 3) had about 70-80 questions, and it took the students pretty much the whole period, 50 minutes. This year, online, the sections (3 again) each only have about 18-25 questions. And, of course, the darlings refuse to actually read everything ("It's too long...I'm just gonna guess."), so the majority of them this year have finished the days section in, oh, about 15-20 minutes. So then they are supposed to sit there for 30 minutes. Kind of a joke.

Tomorrow is the last day for the English CRTs. I will be able to get a report of my students' scores soon there after. I'm anxious to see how they did, but, sadly, I probably won't be surprised when a lot didn't do too well. As I was walking around monitoring their work, I noticed several working on questions about things we learned this year (some things we just reviewed last week!) and they missed the question! Then I had several come up to me after the test and say, "you never taught us simile!" Again, we reviewed similes LAST WEEK!!!!

I have planned out the rest of the year. Starting next week, I'm going to have students "write" a different type of poem each day (but these are fun poems...like cut words out of the newspaper/magazine and glue them on a paper). This will take about 2 weeks. Then, they will each create an ABC book. That will take a few days. Then a few other random things. I'm hoping it will keep them all entertained.

We're off to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner tonight! Yay!!

this is just to say...

2008-04-26T14:21:00.001-07:00

Using a line from one of my favorite William Carlos Williams poems:

...this is just to say that I have created my book blog. The link is on the right side of this blog where it says "Garden in your Pocket."

Enjoy!

that's hot

2008-04-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

Today I spent 8 hours at a hotel by the SLC airport listening to a very bubbly and exhausting woman talk about the "hottest" young adult books of the year. It was pretty fascinating because I think I learned about over 100 great books. I also spent a few bucks on some of these awesome books and I'm looking forward to reading them (after, of course, I finish reading the stack of 6 other books I have on my shelf). I attended the conference with several other teachers and it was a nice change of scenery.

One of the ideas this lady offered was about keeping a book journal. (She also suggested having a book dedicated to "bathroom reading," where she claims you can average about 8 books/year just reading in the bathroom...I'm not sure I'll try this one...)I've tried to keep one of my own book journals updated on Shelfari.com. Also, today I got a friend request from my best pal, Katie, about another book journal website. I haven't had much luck keeping Shelfari updated and doubt I would do a good job with the other website shared by Katie (sorry, friend!) So I decided tonight that I know the sure-fire way that I'll be able to keep a book journal is by creating a blog entirely dedicated to the books that I read.

I enjoy giving book recommendations and feel like I really do read a lot of good books that don't get much exposure because there are SO many great books out there. It is fun to see what others read and it's also fun to be able to recommend a book to others and they really like what you recommend.

The book blog hasn't been created yet, but it's on my list of things to do this weekend (among other things like homework and more homework). I'll put a link on this blog and if my readers feel so inclined, they can check my book blog for some good ideas. Also, if readers have suggestions for me, please let me know!

I husband tagged myself..

2008-04-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

I've seen this on a lot of my friend's blogs and no one has tagged me yet (sniff!), so I husband tag myself:

What is his name?Benjamin Allen Hubert
How long have you been married? 4 years and 4 months
How long did you date? hmmm...2? (of course, he was in Iraq/Washington for 1 year of those 2)
How old is he? 26, but young at heart!
Who eats more sweets? Oh, jeez. Me, for sure (oh, and by the by, I quit my no candy diet tonight at class!!!!)
Who said I love you first? I think he said that in, what, the 3rd grade? But I think he really meant it when he said it first shortly after coming home from his mission.
Who is taller? Ben by a bit
Who can sing better? He claims he could make it on Idol, but I am not so sure. I know I don't sing, though, so I suppose he does.
Who is smarter? He's got the math/science smarts; I'm smart in writing/reading....well, that English stuff I suppose.
Who does the laundry? We kind of take turns, when something needs to be done, whoever needs it done with start. I usually fold the clothes
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Looking at the bed, Ben; in the bed, me.
Who mows the lawn? Ben, with the push-mower
Who cooks dinner? Lately just Ben. He's a budding chef. I can cook, but it's not my favorite thing.
Who drives? Well, we both drive, but when we're together, Ben does.
Who is more stubborn? Wow. He is, but it might be rubbing off on me.
Who kissed who first? I kissed Ben first :)
Who asked who out first? Ben asked me to homecoming in highschool
Who proposed? Ben--3 times!
Who has more siblings? Ben with 3 brothers.
Who wears the pants? I would say Ben. It's not in my nature to "wear the pants," though I do own some that I wear most days.

hair's the thing

2008-04-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

Well, as I suspected, my new haircut was the only thing my students wanted to talk about yesterday (and today). Among my own nervousness in actually doing my hair correctly (it's not all that complicated, I'm just not used to it yet), I was attacked with several crazy comments all day. Here is a random spattering:

* "Mrs. Hubert, you got your haircut?" (Well, obviously...why must you ask the question...clearly there are about 6 inches of hair that was there on Friday that isn't here today!)
* "Why'd you cut your hair?" (Hmm..wasn't aware that I needed your permission to do something different....)
* "You look older." (That was kind of one of my reasons for chopping my hair).
* "You look younger." (Weird!)
* "It's so short!" (yeah, well, 6 inches is half of a foot, right?)
And my most favorite (well, not so much after today...):
* "You look like Dora the Explorer. Where's Boots and Backpack?" (I laughed when I heard this first but now it's getting old because several students call me "Mrs. Dora" in the hall.)

The Haircut hasn't gone over too well at home, either. At first Ben said I looked like a 4 year old. Then he flat out said he hated it. And then he started calling me "short-haired wife." I think (I hope) it's growing on him a little bit.

Like most things I do with my hair, I didn't do it to please any one but me, but it is still kind of comical to hear other people's reactions.

I have a BIG 8 page paper to do this week for my reading class. Yum.

farewell, elder

2008-04-20T19:39:00.000-07:00

Today was J-Dawgs non-farewell farewell. He did awesome. Ben was asked to play piano and he, too, did a wonderful job. We spent the afternoon at the Hubert home and had a fun time chillaxing with family.

After most everyone had left, I decided to take advantage of the fact that J-Dawg hadn't cut his hair yet so I made it pretty....And we all got a taste of Australia tonight when a neighbor brought over some real authentic Vegemite. It was...as good as you'd expect something called Vegemite to be.

J-Dawg will leave to the MTC on Wednesday and leave for the big A in 3 weeks. I'm so totally going to miss this kid. Love ya, dude.

a few random pictures...mostly for daddy-o

2008-04-19T18:39:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a cute picture of me and two older bros, Eric and Zach. This was taken at Zach's birthday part last Friday...his wife surprised him with a lift on his truck and spray-in linning in the bed of his truck.
My oldest brother, Eric, and I displaying our quite round faces.

Me and darling Cassidy today after we got our pictures taken at mom's work. You might notice that I chopped my hair (about 4 or 5 inches) in a Jenny Mccarthy inspired A-line bob. I'll post more about my hair later because it's turning out to be quite the issue at the Hubert home.

Happy Saturday!

i'm no ellen

2008-04-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

Last night after I had spent a few hours on homework, I sat down to catch up on about a week's worth of DVR recordings. I spent the majority of the night watching episodes of Ellen Degenerous. When Ellen comes out on stage, the crowd goes crazy and claps and cheers for her. She frequently comments on how she loves her job where people applaud her everyday. Then she says that she bottles it up (or something like that) and then sends it "right back" to the audience as a way to say thank you.

As I watched about 3 episodes of the show, I realized: Wow. What would it be like to have a job where people clap, cheer, and applaud you every day? I know I sure don't get those kind of reactions at my work.

And then, because I had been thinking about it all evening, I dreamed about it. In my dream, I walked in to the classroom (one of the 6 I have) and instantly got a screaming, raging crazy reception with my students clapping and cheering my name. And then I went to school today and this is the kind of reception I received from a girl in my 3rd period:

The girl walks in late and tells me she's late because I told her yesterday we were going to the computer lab. (Mind you, I never said this and it could possibly be that she was high, seriously, and thought this). She then proceeds to argue with me (until I just walked away). I begin passing back some papers and I hear her say to a neighbor, "I hate this class. I hate Mrs. Hubert."

Luckily, I was in a good mood and I knew she didn't want me to hear those remarks, and so I just walked up to her, smiled and said, "Thanks so much! I'm so glad I know how you feel about me now." She was stunned and smiled in embarrassment...and then she tried backpedaling her remarks by saying, "Well, sometimes it's ok, Mrs. Hubert, sometime you're ok."

I laughed about that all day knowing that, while I don't get the applause and cheers like Ellen Degenerous, I got to totally shock and surprise this girl because of my quick and surprising comment.

I played a fun game with the darlings today and brought about $20 worth of candy as incentive to actually participate. It went almost perfect and the kids seemed to really enjoy it. (The reason why it wasn't 100% perfect is that I caved and had a moment of weakness and indulged myself in a tiny bit of candy when school was over...I crashed my no-candy diet. However, I determined to keep going and told myself not to be so upset if I fall back every once and a while.)

I heard wind today that I will be getting a room (for sure) next year. It's the best news ever.

Tonight we are heading to some friends house for dinner and haircuts (our friend does the best hair jobs ever!). I'm excited to be doing something on a Friday night besides homework.

Happy weekend!

a few observations

2008-04-15T16:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok, ok, I've procrastinated updating the blog as long as possible. Now I'm using this post as a way to procrastinate doing my homework. Do you see the common theme??

I woke up yesterday with a tiny sore throat and contemplated calling for a sub. I was dreading Monday that much. I sucked it up and went to work and actually had a decent day considering it was, you know, a Monday. My sore throat has gotten progressively worse until today during 7th period it seriously took me about 5 minutes to swallow just so I could talk, which was probably funny to watch because each time I swallowed, I winced in pain. I've been drinking water all day trying to flush the sore throat away, but it feels like it might be around to stay for a bit. Lovely.

Observation: My 8th graders have been acting like toddlers. I took two boys out in the hall today for pinching each other. Really, isn't this a kindergarten thing to do? Miss Rigby? Does this happen in your class?? (Not that I don't love kindergartners!) I chalk it up to the change in the weather (yesterday we were near 80 and today we're enjoying a snow storm...go figure!). The birds and bees, if you will, are also having an effect on my darlings.

Observation: The bell makes a difference. A few weeks ago Ben bought me a sweet bicycle bell to attach to my cart/classroom. He was sick of hearing me complain that students wouldn't get out of my way in the halls. He attached it and it's been a lifesaver. It sounds kind of geeky when I ring it but they kids actually move. And it's become kind of a joke with some--they see me in the hall and, as if I were a semi truck driver being asked to honk is horn by a passerby waving his arm, students pass me and say, "Ring your bell, Mrs. H." And I do. And they laugh. One student who I had last year decided to call it my taco/churro/ice cream stand and each time I pass him, he asks for his food of choice.

Observation: Making an End-of-School-Countdown calendar doesn't make the days go by any faster. We're currently at about 37 days left, not including weekends. I used to have it posted on my little white board that I carry in my cart, but I decided to erase it because it wasn't helping me any to see it there each day just staring at me. The good news is that next week is mid-terms so we're just about halfway through the last quarter of the year. Believe you me, June 5th can't come quick enough!!

Observation: I am no good at not eating candy/sweets. I had emotional angst last week while out to dinner with Ben's family and Opa offered me a Dum-Dum. I was just about to open it and put in my mouth when they all said, "You can't eat that!" Then, for our Primary activity on Saturday we all made rice krispie treats and I himmed and hawed back and forth about eating one. Finally, after discussing this oh-so-important matter with my husband, I decided that I'm only cutting out actual candy from my diet. I settled with the fact that I can eat cookies, cakes, etc. etc. And thus, each day since Saturday, I've made my own personal one person serving of rice krsipie treats and have thoroughly enjoyed ever minute.

Observation: Even though he's crazy sometimes, my devil dog Zeus is seriously growing on me. Here he is in his most favorite place: soaking up the sun on our bed in the early morning hours.
Well, the homework deadline isn't getting any farther away so I must conclude. Happy birthday to my big bro, Z, tomorrow!!

be warned!

2008-04-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

**WARNING: This post is likely to sound much like a verbal venting of ginormous proportions.**

I've just been spending my evening working on homework. I still have a crap load. But my mind has checked out and you know what I'm thinking about? I'm thinking about ordering a pizza and eating the whole dang thing...BY MYSELF!!!

Ah. Well. The last week has been stressful. As mentioned above, I have lots of homework. I just started the last portion of my ESL endorsement and it's requiring a lot more of my time than I really care to offer AND it's a bunch of 'busy work.'

Get this:
We (meaning my ESL endorsement class and I) took our big final for one of the classes last Wednesday. After the test was over, we were told someone would be coming in from Weber State to register for our last portion of the class. A lady walks in and begins by saying, "Now, we usually take longer the first session of class, but I'll try to fit everything I planned into one hour." She obviously wasn't here just to register us. Ten minutes into her little speech, someone raised their hand and asked her who she was. She was our professor and she was explaining the 8 PAGE SYLLABUS. We were told it would be an easy online course with hardly no work. 8 FREAKING PAGES!!!

Needless to say, we were all overwhelmed and felt like we had been broadsided by a semi-truck. I had to excuse myself to the restroom to have a personal moment of mental breakdown with tears and snot and the lip shivers. I realized I now had all of this stuff (projects, journals, tests, articles, blah, blah) to do on top of my already crazy load of homework in my reading (Master's) class. Oh, and don't forget MY JOB as a TEACHER!! When I returned everyone was still in a state of shock and confusion because this lady was making no sense and saying stuff like, "Clear as mud, yet?" Please.

Well, we all left feeling quite weighted down and with the desire to drop the course! I registered online for the course the next day and paid my $70, expecting to be able to access the material by that same night. That wasn't the case. In fact, it didn't show up on my online account until YESTERDAY during lunch. So I was late on one assignment.

I spoke to a fellow teacher and classmate who called the professor to get clarification and she told me some horrific things about what the professor said. The one that most sticks out was in response to this classmate's question of, "How are we supposed to know when stuff is due because it doesn't say on the syllabus." The professor's response: "A good teacher should never have to tell their students due dates, students should know to have their work done on time." ARGH!! A good teacher DOES explicitly tell students due dates because, uh, last time I checked, students aren't mind readers!

I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon trying decode the befuddled mess that is the 8 page syllabus and printing off 7- 20 page articles. And then I spent this afternoon reading said articles and writing 3 of my 5 journal responses (because, you know, who knows when they are due?). And then working on my reading class discussions and reading (4 CHAPTERS!) And I have to write 6 lesson plans for reading class by Sunday all using the 6 methods of Phonemic Awareness.

And I am stupid and challenged myself to not eat candy or any form of sweet (i.e. cake, ice cream, cookies) until my birthday. I chose a really grand time to quit chocolate.

And thanks for reading my venting!!!! A good night to all!!!

british disneyland dreams

2008-04-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

I'm going crazy. And I'm getting gray hairs. And there are 46 days left of school....but, really, who's counting?

Last night I had busy crazy sleep. I was dreaming for what seemed like all night (and which was probably more like just 20 minutes or so before I woke up) that I was in Disneyland with my mom. And I was talking permanently with a British accent. And the only other people there were all of my students, including ones from Idaho.

The most frustrating thing about the dream, besides the fact that I woke up exhausted from walking around Disneyland all night, was that none of my students remembered me. I would approach them and say (remember, with a British accent), "Don't you remember me? I'm your teacher!" And the student would reply, "Sorry, no, I don't know you."

I also recollect that my mom and I were going on the same ride over and over, the one where you get wet. Over and over. My mom didn't have a British accent and she actually laughed at me when my students didn't remember me. Weird. Strange. Bizarre.

This crazy dream has been in my thoughts all day. I wonder what it means...since, you know, all dreams mean something. I usually dream about my teeth, either they fall out or they break, etc. etc. etc. And those teeth dreams, as I've researched them, have something to do with a fear of loosing your voice (not in the can't produce a sound type of lose), that you fear not being able to express yourself, er something like that.

I kind of think this dream might mean I'm way stressed with my situation (ie, TRAVELING!) and my kids are in the 4th quarter's here, let's just goof off the rest of the year state of mind. And I still have important things to teach them, but they don't care and won't listen and don't pay attention...so they pretend to not know that I'm a teacher. Er, something like that. (Perhaps this is a LARGE stretch!)

And the reason I believe I'm going gray (I haven't found a single gray hair, but expect to wake up any morning soon to find one) is because, well, again, my students are crazy out of control. I'm considering bringing them all candy laced with Benadryl or something tomorrow.

Good news! I submitted the very last yearbook page today and it is officially done! Yay! Now, however, I have to find a way to keep my staff occupied for the next 46 days. I am basically just having them do the same assignments that my journalism staff is doing, but they are all complaining to me, "The yearbook is done, we're done, we shouldn't have to work!" And I laugh at them because that's just a silly thought.

Tomorrow I take the big ESL final extrodinare! It's gonna be a cake walk (at least that is what I'm forcing myself to believe). After this class is over I will have just one more online portion of the endorsement and then I will have 17 credits to put toward a lane change (which equals more $$) AND I will be ESL endorsed. Nice.

After the test tomorrow I'm going to watch the school musical, Lil' Abner. I've been watching them during rehearsals to take pictures for yearbook pages and I'm excited to see the final product. They've worked hard!

We went shopping tonight and I found yet another darling Target t-shirt that I fell in love with. It had daisies on it. My favorite. How could I pass up a daisy t-shirt. We also found daisy plates and cups, but Ben didn't allow me to go that far, which is a good thing!!

mrs. hubert, guitar hero

2008-03-28T15:38:00.001-07:00

I am a true Guitar Hero. Unfortunately the student who I trusted with the camera to take pictures and video didn't do a super job and the above picture is the best we got. My stellar Pat Benatar costume consisted of a tight red mini-skirt, black leggings with holes, super high black high heels, and my leather jacket. I also had my hair up in a high side ponytail with a headband on. (The man behind me was another teacher who dressed as Slash. He, too, rocked!)

My battle went first. When I walked on stage, the crowd went wild! I was to battle a 7th grade student on the easiest level. We got the song all set up and the 7th grade section started chanting: Mary, Mary, Mary! Then the rest of the school started chanting: Hubert, Hubert, Hubert! It was sweet. When the song started, it was soon apparent that my opponent had never picked up a guitar let alone Guitar Hero. Since it was on easy, it was SUPER easy (and slow!) I was jammin', the audience was cheering and singing along. I started feeling the groove and began dancing. I had star power quite a few times and I heard students yelling my name. When the song was over, I had won. I left stage and quickly went to change back into my regular clothes. When I got back in the auditorium, several students sitting close by complimented me on my skills. On my way back to my room after the assembly was over, even more students said, "You rocked, Mrs. Hubert!" A student from last year, who gave me the nick name of "Superstar" after I told him I was a high school basketball star, ran into me and said, "Now you really are a Superstar, seriously!"

It was a fun experience. I'm really glad I got out of my comfort zone and tried something new. Lots of teachers complimented me today at school saying they would never have guessed I could rock the way I did.

Today was a Student Non Attendance Day. We only had one meeting for all the teachers involved in the CRTs. We were allowed to work in our rooms (or, in my case, 'office') the rest of the time. I got quite a bit accomplished. Now just one quarter left to complete the year!

Tonight I am working on another paper. I collaborated with my friend who is also taking the same class. I did part of the work, she did the other part (the hard part! I owe her!), and I'm just going to work on making the final product "mine." Then, I will start studying for my big ESL test, which I take on Wednesday. Fun Friday, eh??

again with the homework!

2008-03-26T20:11:00.000-07:00

I've just been preparing for my big Guitar Hero debut. I will be battling a student in character as Pat Benatar. Thank heaven's for the DI, which is where I found some really stellar 80's rock attire. Since my arrival at home at 7:40, I've been practicing my song-Hit Me With Your Best Shot- and have successfuly mastered the song on the HARD level. I'm just waiting for Ben to get home from work so we can practice battle on HARD because at this point, I've only ever battled on medium. I will post pictures and (hopefully) a video of my battle tomorrow...or soon thereafter.

So to be honest, it really, really sucks having homework again. When I was at BYU-I, I suppose you could say I was a fairly decent student. Many of my afternoons and night were spent at the library. As an English major I became quite used to writing papers (and often times, depending on the weight on my shoulders, I BS'd the paper). I didn't have work or a family to attend to; I was 100% completely dedicated to school.

Now, however, I have a job which requires a good deal of my time and energy (especially with the end of quarter grades due by Friday!). I also have a husband who, even though I really don't see all that often during the week, I still like to socialize and spend time with. Not to mention a house which requires cleaning and straightening. Don't forget the laundry. Oh, and the crazy dog.

Yesterday was a super long day of homework. As you may remember, I am currently enrolled in my first class for my master's program. I am also just finishing up (I will take a final next week) my ESL endorsement. Between another 4-6 page paper due this week for my reading class AND 3 "projects" due for my ESL class, I spent from the time I got home from work yesterday, 6:00, until almost 10:30 working on homework.

I did some more homework during my lunch and prep period today. And then spent 2 hours in ESL class this evening. I'm learning a lot but still trying to figure out the balance of work/family/school...OH and PRIMARY! ARGH!!

Tomorrow is the last day of 3rd quarter. For those who don't know what that means: only 9 more weeks of school. It also means that students will not come to school on Friday, but teachers will be there doing grades and lesson planing. I will also be attending a meeting about the CRT testing, which is coming up too soon. This will have been our 2nd 3 day week in a row and I fear that I will feel quite spoiled in comparison to our first full week next week.

I've just been finishing up the 6 traits of writing stuff with my 8th graders. I had them write a 3 paragraph story about one fun thing they did over spring break. I used this to re-teach the traits. You would think that three 5 sentence paragraphs would be a fairly easy assignment. Unfortunately I have many students who, despite this being the 2nd day working on it, still have yet to complete one measly paragraph. Oh. Freaking. Well.

My sunburn from Moab has started to peel and it's quite disgusting. When I talked to students today to help with their assignment, I could tell that they were only focused on the random scattering of peeling skin on my face so I'm going to try to help it along tonight before bed.

Time for more Guitar Hero practice!

arches spring break

2008-03-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

I am alive! A tad sunburned and sore, but alive!!

Much has transpired the last week or so since my last post. I just woke up from a deep sleep Sunday after church nap. It was AMAZING!

I've been on Spring Break since Thursday. It has been a much needed change of scenery, so to speak. My super mom and I drove down to Moab for a few days to bask in the sun and hike our guts out. For the most part, both of those things were accomplished and we both had a great time. I tried calculating a total of miles we hiked and I would guesstimate around 7 or 8 miles within two days and, oh, about 5 different hikes. Ben told me before I left, "Remember, a picture without people is just a postcard." I suppose the majority of my 88 pictures, then, would be considered postcards, so I'll try to show the non-postcardesqe pictures I have.

Our first hike, called Park Avenue, led us to this interesting feature in the background. The name of it escapes me, but as you might be able to see, the sky was a little overcast and it was a tad chilly.

After hiking through Park Avenue, we hiked to Tunnel Arch
and Pinetree arch, pictured below. This was a darling little
arch with pine trees growing in the middle of it. There was a
family with lots of young kids. The kids were yelling and screaming so the mom told them "If you continue to yell and scream the rock will fall on you!" It was funny.

We hiked to Landscape Arch just before it started to rain and snow a little. Landscape Arch is interesting because in 1991 part of it collapsed and now it is very, very thin in several places. Visitors are no longer allowed to hike up to it but you can get pretty close from the viewpoints. I think this was our favorite arch.
At about 8:30 the next morning, we hiked up to The Window's...two arches close together that look like windows. It was SO cold, but worth it to see the sun coming up over the red rocks.
Then we hiked to Delicate Arch, the famous one on Utah
license plates.
It was a great time of day, not too hot,
and when we got there,
we spent about an hour 'sunning'
and reading.

I climbed around the back of Delicate Arch to get this picture, which I love. It's kind of the opposite side of what you normally see and I thought it was neat.

Our next hike was one we had to sign up for and go with a ranger. It was called The Fiery Furnace and basically we were climbing through slot canyon after slot canyon, boulder jumping. It was thrilling and most of the pictures I took of the hike are really just postcards, so I'll just post a few on here of us on the hike and then I'll post the rest of my pictures on my Picasa Page

There are over 300 identified arches in Arches national park. This is not one of them, but it is still a neat feature. You can kid of see the shadow of the hole just over my shoulder.

After listening to our ranger guide for almost 2 hours, we were both kind of tired. We stoped here, at Skull Arch (below) and took a picture of ourselves not really paying attention to the guy talking.

This is skull arch. See the skull??

See the slot in the rock behind me? Yeah, we hiked through that.

We came back Saturday afternoon. I didn't want to come back because I knew by coming back I would have to face reality and write a 6 page paper for school. I spent the remainder of Saturday working on that paper, which had to be in APA format (which I hate!). Ben and I went to church this morning and we are going to my grandmas for a big family Easter dinner here in another hour or so.

My fun news for work is that next week I will be participating in our spirit assembly: I will be dressing up as a rock star and engaging in a Guitar Hero battle with a student. I've been practicing my song (Hit Me With Your Best Shot) and hope to impress my students with my mad guitar skillz. I will be sure to get some picture and a video of me up on stage.

Happy Easter!

sluffing today

2008-03-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm sluffing school today....and it feels AWESOME!!

After a few crazy rough days at work (and because I had to put together sharing time, finish homework for school, and clean my house) I decided to take a mental health day and called in for a sub. It's not even noon yet but I've already got lots of stuff done. It feels nice to be so productive!

I just found a sharing time idea that requires almost no work on my part because it's all outlined and ready to go. I will be busy tomorrow so I am glad to have gotten it completed so quickly and not have to worry about it.

My house is clean and smells great! The dog is having a fun time laying on the carpet following the sun as it moves across the floor. He's so funny.

I still have the homework to do but I'm trying to dig deep to find motivation to log on. I have to set up my online portfolio, which costs $65 and post a response to my reading assignment. It shouldn't take too long and technically I still have until Sunday to complete it. But again, it'll be a busy weekend so I need to use my free time wisely!!

I treated myself last night to a manicure and full set of nails. There is a place by my house that has great prices and good atmosphere. I almost fell asleep in the chair while the lady was doing my nails, I was so relaxed. My fingertips still kind of hurt because of all the filing and stuff, but they look nice!!! I've found that having the acrylic nails helps me so I don't bite and pick at my cuticles.

As mentioned above, it's been a crazy week at school. I'm blaming it on two (well, three) things:
1. It is the week before spring break and we're finally getting some nice weather. The kids are definitely experiencing a little bit of spring fever.
2. I'm teaching writing, which is hard to make exciting (even though I brought them food of some sort EVERY day to get them motivated to write)
3. They're just disrespectful jerks.

There are only 3 days of school next week, one of which is a holiday (St. Patrick's Day). I am going to have students write limericks on Monday...something that I did with my students in Idaho and they loved it. I don't know about the rest of the week, but it'll be crazy any way I take it.

Tomorrow is my nieces birthday party so we have all sorts of family coming in. My dad is staying at our house and we'll be also able to see my brother Eric and his wife, Heather. It will be fun!

Tonight is our ward social: an ice cream sociable. Ben's making 3 different types of ice cream. This will be a fun one!!!!

of mice and students

2008-03-11T15:24:00.000-07:00

The above picture was taken last week during fourth period (you can see my cart in the background). I had my kids using markers. The student behind me put a bunch of markers together and they all laughed because the stack of markers was taller than me. Ha. Ha. Ha. Let's all make fun of how short Mrs. Hubert is....AGAIN!

As usual, life's been super crazy! I've basically been running non-stop since my last post. And unfortunately, it doesn't look like life will be slowing down anytime soon.

Most of you know that I started a master's program. The first day was yesterday. And I'm already loaded with "homework." Luckily it's all online so I can work at my own speed, but since I have SO much other stuff to work on (ie, ESL class and freaking grading more papers!) I haven't really had a chance to start. So on my agenda for the night: 1) Figure out exactly what I'm supposed to have done for my first masters class (the first assignment is due today), 2)complete at least one period's worth of poetry portfolio and grading, 3)organize my desk (for the one thousandth time this month), and 4) maybe eat dinner, er, something.

We had an interesting experience last Friday. During my 2nd period, I was working with some students on yearbook pages so I was sitting at the desk working on the computer. I started hearing a little scratch, scratch, followed by a click, click. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a MOUSE with a bottle of pop top in his mouth just scurrying away under the bookshelf. I did my best to remain calm and cool, so I pushed the chair out and walk, with my hands up as if under arrest, over to where the rest of the students were sitting and calmly said, "There's a mouse in here!" after which all the girls and most of the boys screamed and jumped on their desks.

Just as everyone is screaming in hysterics and jumping on the desks, the principal walks by and hears the commotion. I walked out there and said, "There's a mouse in here!" and he turned around to get the janitor. We all sat as far away from the desk as possible and several brave students went on the search for the little creature. Needless to say they couldn't find him anywhere.

So we're all just chilling on the desks with our feet up and I'm trying to console several terribly upset girls. I had my back against the part of the room where the mouse first appeared and all of a sudden I hear the shreaks of the whole class: our new class pet was running in a zig-zag pattern across the front of the room...heading for my stuff on the floor.

Well, there was no point in trying to keep them in the room after this and the majority of the students were in the hall in complete chaos, screaming and squirming. Luckily this was at the end of class. I passed my friend whose room it is in the hall on my way to my next room and told her of the little visitor. She wasn't all that excited to hear this news, but I don't think he came out any more that day.

After our faculty meeting on Friday, the principal handed me and RB (the other teacher) a bag with the following: a pack of mouse traps and a jar of peanut butter. He said he felt bad and that the janitors would try to take care of it asap. We're two days in the week and our friend hasn't made a recurring visit and we hope to keep it that way!

I was observed a few weeks ago by the principal, part of my provisional teacher status. He caught me today during my lunch to go over the results and had nothing but positive things to say, which is always a good thing. He expressed his sincere appreciation for my hard work and flexibility in being a traveling teacher. He said I was doing a great job. It is always to hear such positive comments from a boss!!!

I've been working with my 8th graders this week on the 6 traits of writing (ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions). Like most writing instruction, it can be tedious and the efforts sometimes futile. Today we started our first trait: ideas. This is all about having a good, narrow topic in any piece of writing (often the hardest part)

I gave each student a little handful of popcorn and read to them some interesting popcorn facts while they ate. Then, we brainstormed all we could think of about popcorn. I taught them how to narrow the broad topic of popcorn and they began writing a 3 paragraph story/explanation of popcorn.

For the most part this worked really well. Food is always a great way to get them into anything. Minus a few logistical problems, the day was successful and most were able to get 2 of 3 paragraphs written. Tomorrow we're talking about how to write an interesting introduction.

There are about 60 days of school left. Yay. I'm really considering creating a little chain and hanging it around the edge of my cart. I'm very anxious for the year to be over!!

One good mile marker of the end of the year is coming next week: Spring Break, baby! I'm going to go hiking with my mom in Moab for a few days and I'm just so freaking excited, it's ridiculous! It will be a nice break!!

I suppose my list of things to get done today isn't getting shorter by me sitting here, so off I go to be productive, er, something.

spare time

2008-03-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

Right now I am experiencing something I haven't felt all week: spare time.

Monday I went to a training class for the big PRAXIS test I have to take. I really have to take two, one on English and one about teaching in general (yes, I've already taken the one on English twice--once in Idaho and once here. I passed in Idaho but then it didn't count as passing here. And the one I took here I missed by one point). It was helpful, but again added to the stress that I'm already feeling with everything else. I will be taking the teaching PRAXIS in June.

It's the time of the year where I've mostly been dealing with a yearbook stuff. I had deadline of 32 pages. Technically the deadline was Monday. But my motto this week has been that deadlines are meant to be broken (or is that rules?). All of my lunch breaks and prep time this week have been spent on yearbook stuff, i.e. identifying students names in the majority of the group photos because my staff failed to do so...and as long as I'm being honest: I mostly did all of the pages even after sitting each staff member down in front of their page and explaining exactly what they needed to do and giving them 3 weeks to get it done. But they didn't. So I caved. And I finished them. Never. AGAIN!!!!

I had ESL class last night until 6:30 and came home and began working on pages online. I was thisclose to posting several pages and saving what I'd been working on when the internet crashed!! It was 10 o'clock when this happened and I was so weary and cranky from getting up early and a long school day, I had a meltdown. Ben fixed the internet (after calling the company and messing around with wires) but by that time I was "over it" and had makeup smeared all down my face from crying so I just went to bed and dreamed of the stupid pages all night.

One good yearbook note of the week was that I received an actual example copy of what our cover is going to look like as well as the first 16 pages (all in color this year). The cover is amazing.

I finally submitted 23 pages today after school and after doing a quick check of the rest of the pages needing to be submitted, I realized that I have 10 more pages to submit and then the book will be done. I will submit 8 of those 10 tomorrow and the others will be done by next week. That's great for two reasons: 1)It shows that the year really is on the downhill slope and, 2) I won't have crazy yearbook dreams anymore.

The yearbook rep that works with us got us another new camera (sweet!) and has offered to pay for me to attend the company's yearbook training workshops this summer at Snowbird. I'm thrilled. He is also going to hold a day workshop just for my next year staff to train them, teach them the program, and to help us come up with a theme. I'm thrilled again.

In other news, I just (as in like 10 minutes ago) completed a Webinar for my master's classes (which start on Monday!). I had to call this phone # and access a website and it was basically a walk through presentation of how to complete all of the on-line classes for school. It was pretty nifty and helped me not be so stressed for the classes. It takes 8 weeks to complete each course and the first 8 weeks I only have one class. I received all my books last week (like 6 of them) and am all ready with freshly sharpened pencils, a new back pack, and....oh wait, I don't need any of that stuff for these classes because it's all online. I'm excited and nervous all at the same time.

Saturday I will be attending the Utah Middle Level Association conference. It is held every year at a different Utah middle school. I went last year and got some really great ideas. It will be a party this year as most of my teacher friends will also be in attendance.

Also on Saturday, I will be attending a book club with some friends from church.

And also on Saturday I will be in charge of our Primary teacher appreciation game night at the church.

And then also on Saturday I think I might pass out from exhaustion.

pinkalicious weekend

2008-03-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

My weekend has been fantastic and I'm beginning to feel mentally prepared to head back to work tomorrow. It's going to be a crazy day as this is my schedule:
*7am-3:30pm--Be at school, teach.
*8:30am-2:45pm--Be in charge of lame Spring Picture day and help all 1200 students at WL get their free spring picture taken (I really hate this day!)
*4:30pm-6:00pm--Attend a PRAXIS test study/training meeting (I have to take another PRAXIS test by the end of next year to get my level 2 license; this training is supposed to guarantee that I passe)
*6:30pm-8:00pm--PTSD Group at the VA with Ben

As I said, I've had a fantastic weekend. Last night I got to hang out with my cute niece, Cassidy. She was spending the night at my mom's and the three of us went to our friend Leslie's house to play with her girls and have a Pinkalicious party.

Pinkalicious is the name of this super darling book about a little girl who turns pink because she eats too many pink cupcakes. We made pink cupcakes at Leslie's and got frosting all over our faces. Here we are eating our yummy pink cupcakes.
Tonight Ben made a yummy dinner of Delmonico steaks, potatoes, and broccoli. I contributed by making Jello (about the extent of my cooking expertise!!! JK!) I'm going to make brownies here in a bit and enjoy the last hours of my long weekend.

Zeus went to the vet on Saturday to get a preventative antibiotic shot. We are doggysitting Ben's parent's dog, Joey, this week while they are in Disneyland and Joey is sick. Ben took Zeus to get the shot yesterday and the vet said he should be ok, though the shot is kind of like a flu shot, in that it may or may not really work. I took this picture just before church today of our cute puppy who now weighs 57 lbs.

day off

2008-02-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

I survived another busy week. Parent Teacher conferences went pretty well, albeit quite boring, but none the less, they're over for another year.

I had a total of 3 parents tell me that I did not look old enough to be the teacher and one wondered if I really was the teacher. On the second night I decided to wear my glasses to see if that upped the old factor at all. Several students said I didn't look any older and in fact, I looked even younger. I brainstormed with several students on ways to make me look older and here are the suggestions they came up with: dye my hair gray or white; paint wrinkles on my face every morning; and my favorite, wear granny clothes. I know people keep telling me that I'll be grateful that I look so young when I'm older, but it is kind of hard to really trust that parents much older than me can take me seriously!!!

Traveling this week seemed a little better in that I only had to run over 3 kids with my cart. I've also really got the system down of "living out of a cart" and had to make fewer trips back to my desk or closet to get something I'd forgotten, which is "The Worst Problem of Traveling #2."

The principal has put in a request for the janitors to remove my name plate from above my old room door and to put it onto the cart. And thanks to the help of dad Hubert, I am really considering making it a real taco stand and selling food while making my way through the hallway.

I will say this about being a traveling teacher: it really makes the days go by so fast because I'm always on the move, so to speak, and don't really have a chance to be in one place too long. The longest I'm in one place is during my prep/lunch for 1 hour and a half...in my little prison cell.

I gave all of my 8th graders new seats on Wednesday and it's made a big difference in classroom management. It will be good like this for a few weeks and then they'll all start feeling comfortable with their seats and I'll do another switch. I also figured out that it would be easier on me and the students both to just leave one crate of their folders in the respective room that they are in. While my cart has ample room to haul all 4 classes of folders around, it's a pain having the kids wait for me to arrive and crowd around the cart to find their folders. It has made it much easier just to have their folders stay in the room.

Yesterday was J-Dawg's 19th birthday AND he went through the temple for the first time, too. We all met at the Salt Lake Temple for the 6 o'clock session. It was neat to be there with him and the family. I'm so proud of him!!! After the session, we went to Red Lobster for dinner. Here are a few pictures of the evening:The handsome birthday boy!

It's my day off and I plan to enjoy it thoroughly!!! Happy weekend!

grading portfolios

2008-02-25T17:07:00.000-08:00

Sadly, it's only Monday and I am already quite sure I'm ready for the week to be over.

It's going to be a killer week: Parent Teacher conferences are Tuesday and Wednesday. Basically, enough said.

Last Friday I had to post mid-term grades by midnight. I had this brilliant idea to have my students create Anne Frank portfolios, instead of a test, as their big mid-term. I also thought these portfolios would be simple to create (seriously, a matter of stapling several pages together), but it still took them 2 days. On Friday I brought home a stack of said portfolios about one foot high and had a grading party. I began grading at 4pm and did not complete the process until 9:30pm. Then I had to spend another 45 minutes posting the grades online. The portfolio was good for the kids, but harder to grade than anticipated. I will probably use portfolio's again but I will not wait until the very last minute to grade them!

Today we started a poetry unit. I'm teaching them some terms and then we'll start reading some Holocaust poetry on Wednesday. We made super cool foldables for the poetry terms. (A foldable is several papers put together--folded--to create a little booklet)

The poetry terms were met with somewhat positive response from the students. Not too many complained and when asked their own personal definition of poetry, only ONE student out of 130 said," BORING!" (Which is a big improvement over last year!)

While I was grading on Friday I 'watched' two movies: The Jane Austen Book Club and Across the Universe. I can't say I really, truly watched the first one, but I'm here to tell you that Across the Universe just might be a new favorite. I love the Beatles music, the story, and just the aesthetics of the film.

Saturday I had a Primary Quarterly activity. It was, as I like to keep them, simple. We were in, out, and done within an hour and the kids seemed to have a good time. It always feel so nice when those are over, though we are already planning our next one in April.

On Saturday night I had the opportunity to go see my Primary secretary in my most favorite play, "Sinin' in the Rain." She was great playing the part of Lina Lamont, the ultra-annoying actress partner of Don Lockwood. It was fun to see this different side of her.

I'm basically just hanging out tonight and enjoying my last night of freedom this week. (Technically Thursday won't be bad at all because 1)no more PTC and 2) J-Dawg is going through the SL temple for the first time and it will be awesome! Also, I don't have school Friday, so that always makes it a little easier!!!

the final move

2008-02-20T16:44:00.001-08:00

Today was memorable. I got the real boot and was relocated to my new office space, shown above. My desk occupies what is known as the English lab, which holds all of our department's books. ALL of them. I would guess the whole room is no more than 7 feet wide and perhaps 50 feet long. And so I feel like I'm prison. But it sure is quiet! A few students and the tech guy came in during 7th to literally pick my desk up as-is and relocate it here. I had several teachers come in after school to use the phone in the lab and they sympathized that it was now my home base.

I had a special treat today because I only had to teach for half of the day. The mentors at the school (the higher-ups meant to watch over us newbies) decided that the newbies needed a break and a chance to work in our rooms. So, I sent my 6th and 7th periods to the auditorium while I was able to work away in my old room, finally finishing up packing and organizing stuff. It was a nice break and it was especially nifty to not have to face the two most difficult classes of the day! I got caught up on filing and organizing, grades, and cleaning out my desk. (Even though I've only been there for 2 years, it was plenty full of junk!)

Ben and I had a fun President's Day Weekend. Saturday night we went to dinner and bowling with lil' bro J-Dawg and his cute girlfriend. It was so much fun. Even though Ben's a dork when we take pictures, here's us at the restaurant.Monday I spent the day with my mom and good friend Sadie and her mom. We ate at Paradise Bakery, the new best place to eat. We were there for nearly 2 hours eating and talking. Sadie and her husband are expecting their first baby in August. I'm SUPER excited for her. (For those of you who don't know Sadie, we've been friends literally since birth). They will be the BEST parents.

Also on Monday my family went to dinner with Eric and Heather, who were driving through on their way back from Nevada. It was Heather's birthday and we all met at The Outback. Yum! It's always good to see them since we hardly ever do.

Tuesday was back to the real world, i.e. work. It was actually a pretty decent day, considering. I dyed my hair over the weekend and that seemed to be the biggest topic of discussion for my students: "Why did you do that, Mrs. Hubert?" "Did you dye your hair?" I told some of them that I didn't know I needed their permission first. Ha.

I'm currently working from my awesome new computer that my dad gave me. It's sweet and almost too fast! Thanks again, daddy-o!

It's just me and Zeus hanging out tonight. He's just about passed out for the night on the couch, his favorite chill spot. I'm boycotting American Idol for a few weeks because these two hour shows are entirely too boring. However, I do know that I like the boy from Australia and mormon girl from Arizona.

tag

2008-02-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

I was TAGGED by Sheena and I don't have much else to write, so here ya go:

10 yrs ago: I was a sophomore in high school wishing I could date and waiting patiently to get a driver's licence, being drive around by my best friend, Katie. I was suffering from acne, a super short hair cut, and just trying to pass math class.
5 Things on my list of things to do today:
1.) Go to church and do sharing time in primary
2.) Finish my book "The Fortune Quilt" so I can return to the library
3.) Hang out with Ben and his fam
4.)Battle Jaren in Guitar Hero and lose
5.) Watch "Across the Universe"
Things I would do if I suddenly was a Billionaire: Hmmm..quit teaching, donate to charities, buy all my family members a new fancy car, tithing, publish a book, fly to Mt. Everest...etc., etc., etc.!
3 of my bad habits: Not hanging up my clothes after wearing (if not dirty), leaving the butter out in the morning, cracking my nuckles.
Places I have lived: Sandy, Utah; Rexburg, Idaho; Tacoma, Washington; Kearns, Utah
Things most people don't know about me: I hate talking on the phone (I'd always rather e-mail), I used to hate tomatoes but have recently taken a liking to them, I want to be a radio DJ, I'd love to be published someday, I hate conflict, I want a tattoo, I love writing and reading SO much, I'm trying to give up my obsession with reality TV, I'm addicted to changing my hair color.

Now it's my turn to tag: I tag Katie Rigby, Tammy Thornton...and that's it.

la caille

2008-02-16T08:03:00.000-08:00

(Disclaimer: Spell check isn't working and I know there are several mistakes here. I appologize for letting you all down, seeing as I am an English teacher and I should be able to spell, but I can't and usually rely heavily on Spell check. Stupid spell check!)

I had my first dinning experience at La Caille last night. La Caille, for those of you non-Utah locals, is a fancy French restaurant hidden in a little wooded area of the fancy Cotonwood neighborhood. My mom invited me to go with her to a retirement party for a woman she worked with when she first started at Primary's; this woman was the only person to give my mom a baby shower when I was born.

I was super impressed with La Caille for various reasons. First, the grounds (albeit covered in snow) were gorgeous and quaint and even the icecicles were pretty. Second, the interior of the restaurant was nothing close to that of, let's say, McDonalds--very classy, very European, very appealing. And third, the food was literally to die for.

We had a yummy green salad with asiago cheese on top, which was just about enough to put me over the edge: SO. FREAKING. GOOD. I even at the tomato--I normaly don't touch tomatoes.

Next, our entree's came. I orderd grilled chicken with mango salsa. It was delicious, even though after I saw the beff I wished I would have ordered that. This entree came with brocolie and it was the best I'd ever eaten.

And after a while of letting that yumminess consume me, they started brining out desert. I ordered the Banana Foster, which was said to be "flambeed" on the menu. They first brought a plate with a cookie, an orange slice, one strawberry, and two black berries and I thought, "wow, that's pathetic...I don't even see banana's!" Then they brought out a goblet of ice cream cubes (not a scoop, CUBES!) And then I see them carry these little dishes in which they poured rum and then lit on fire. The only way for you to see what it looked like is to visit La Caille's website, click on "Dining at La Caille," and then on "Our Menu." Go to "Tour our food" and then the 14th picture is a picture of my deseret. (It wouldn't let me copy and paste. Lame). Needless to say it was the coolest thing ever. And it tasted pretty dang good, as well.

My mom and I sat at a table with some big-wigs from IHC, as well as the doctor for the quarum of the 12 and first presidency. He told some neat stories about President Hinckley and President Monson. And then he was talking casually about his "good friend Dieter," meaning Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the 1st Presidency. Our table was the only one where people weren't drinking and my mom and I later decided we were sitting at the Mormon Table.

And then I came home and dyed my hair brown.

All this on a Friday evening.

Now I must spend some time working on my Sharing Time for tomorrow and cleaning the house. I'm glad to have a 3 day weekend with no school on Monday.

Happy President's Day weekend!

awkward v-day

2008-02-14T16:26:00.000-08:00

This is me pretending to love love love the snow today. I only put this one up because the one of me frowning is horrid. I don't love love love the snow today, especially after the storm we were hit with last night and this morning.

Here are some pictures of our snow storm aftermath:

My valentine snow blowing (this picture actually was taken, oh, 100 snow storms ago). He got up super early to snow blow the driveway because if he hadn't I wouldn't have been able to pull my car out because the snow bank (helped along by the wind) went up to the bottom of my back window.

The snow in our backyard--lovely.

A view of our front yard snow bank that looks kind of like a wave in the ocean; cool in a sick, winter kind of way.

Junior high kids are crazy. They're hormonal, worried about their hair, and awkward in so many ways. Add to that a celebration we crazy humans like to call Valentine's day and that junior high craziness is multiplied. What my junior high students don't need is a day to pretend to be in love by giving each other stuffed bears and chocolate roses. A day where they have to have someone to walk them down the hall with their arms around them in a awkward-uncomfortable-to-look-at kind of way. A day where "who like's who" is the most popular question. Junior high kids just don't need a Valentine's day because it makes them do crazier things than normal.

And so I say that my day at work was just crazy.

And awkward.

Because apparently one of my students has a crush on me. And he gave me chocolates (which I ate out of desperation during lunch), a stuffed dog and a corny card.

And then other students teased me about it all day. Not him. Me.

And he's getting transfered out of my class ASAP.

On a positive note, I'm going to see a movie with my two teacher friends and some of their friends tonight and I'm thrilled at the idea. You see, Ben has to work (again). He worked on our anniversary, too. And quite frankly, I'm sick of being home alone at night. So I'm going out to enjoy some girl friend fun.

Love to all.

early morning quick update

2008-02-10T07:15:00.000-08:00

It's fairly early Sunday morning and I just popped out of bed, wide awake! It's frustrating because I don't have early church today...it is Stake Conference at 10...so, like most days when I could sleep in, I can't.

My weekend has been lovely. Eric and Heather came to town and it's been since BEFORE Christmas that we saw them. We all (minus Zach and Hil) went to the Hunting and Outdoor Expo at the Salt Palace yesterday. This was mostly fun for Eric, but it was fun to hang out and Cassidy is always a hoot. Last night my mom had a major feast at her house that we all gathered for (except Ben, who was working). We had a great time.

At school on Friday I got a visit from an unwanted visitor: yet another cold sore, this time on my lip. It seriously just appeard during 1st period and unfortunately I didn't have my medicine so I had to suffer through the first stages of it all day.

I had a yearbook deadline so I stayed a few hours later than normal on Friday to work on the pages. I'm excited for this year's yearbook because some is in color!

As mentioned, we have Stake Conference at 10. The cool thing is that our Stake presidency is getting reorganized so we have a member of the 12 coming (at this moment, I can't remember who it is) and also Jon Hunstman Sr. It'll be neat to be in the presence of two awesome men.

I'm going to take a bath and see about snagging a little bit more sleep before I need to get ready.

fantastic!

2008-02-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

Being a traveling teacher sure is fantastic. (This is what I have to keep telling myself in order to deal with it)

I have to pack up my stuff like the students and make my way through the halls like the students. Except I'm hauling a cart (not a backpack), which has caused one fellow teacher to call me "Gypsie Teacher." I also rather like "Homeless Teacher."

I started traveling yesterday and struggle mostly with getting the dang cart around the halls. It amazed me at how many kids would stop right in front of (when I was in full sight!) and just stare. I really need to invest in a horn or something.

This new traveling schedule has really screwed me up in terms of being sane. I hate to admit this but I had (another) tearful breakdown during my lunch today. I walked into the door of my old room and pushed my cart just inside and shut the door behind me and burst into tears. It didn't help that 4th period was rude and LOUD as usual, but I just can't seem to accept the fact that this is how it will be for the rest of the year.

On a positive note, I'm sure my arms will be super buff by the end of the year AND that I'll loose some weight (except I'm not sure I want that too much because my butt already doesn't fill in my jeans).

In other teaching news, I have a yearbook deadline tomorrow. Not much is left to do, just actually having the faith to accept the pages as they are, press the "Submit" button and hope when the yearbook shows up in May that it looks decent. I've had some good experiences this week with several of the students really being willing to stay after school and help proof the pages...which they are really good at catching mistakes.

I also had all the applications for next year's Media Productions staff due today and put together the list of those who "made it." It's perfect size--17 students--and all of these students are students who enjoy writing, have the desire to write, and got positive recommendations from their English teachers. I'm SO looking forward to that concept next year...a journalism student who WANTS to write!

It's snowing again. The fun thing is that the snowflakes look like Dippin' Dots, which I love and which sound kinda good right now. I just took Zeus outside for a bit and he loves the snow. He hops like a bunny over the snowbanks in the back yard and digs his nose in the snow and pushes it along, kind of like a snowblower.

I'm quite glad that tomorrow is Friday and a short day at that. I bought myself a pitty-present tonight at Target (it was on sale so I felt ok buying it): A "We're All in This Together" t-shirt with a picture of the world on it. It's kind of funky and retro and a new Target T always cheers me up.

my new "room"

2008-02-05T18:02:00.000-08:00

I'd like to introduce you to my new "room." I just moved in today. It comes with 4 wheels, two shelves and a comfortable push handle. Don't you wish you could have a room like this, too?

The cart pictured above is what will be my "room" for the rest of the year. I officially got the boot today during lunch, when the principal and three scruffy looking men in bib overalls and ball caps on their head burst through my door giving me the bad news. The three men in overalls were, of course, the people that both the principal and I were hoping would simply forget about this job and never come, but they remembered and brought with them several boxes with equipment inside. These men were here to wire and network my room for the computers.

I scrambled to figure out where to hold my 6th and 7th periods and the librarian offered the library tables. After packing some stuff and hauling all the literature books (pictured on the bottom of my new "room"--which I recieved after school) to the library, I prepared myself to start my adventure as a traveling teacher.

6th period, the most sympathetic of my students, came in and got to work without much trouble. It was distracting, however, to have another class going on using the computers. I was prepared for 7th to be much the same.

But I was mistaken. Just before 7th period started, some students came in and started to "set up" for the Academic Games, which takes place each Tuesday after school. (Academic Games are for the really smart kids; they answer questions about various subjects while in competition with another school...kind of like a spelling bee, only for all subjects). Thus, I didn't have the library for 7th period anymore.

Again, I scrambled to figure out a place to take my 7th period students so I rushed to the office, talked to the principal who gave me a solution and then rushed back to the library to pick up my students. We went into another English teacher's room, right across from my old room. This little chaotic beginning led nicely into a chaotic middle and end of 7th period--they took this as a chance to not work.

Then they all decided that they were going to protest and picket in front of the office chanting things like "No, No, We won't go!" with signs that said, "Give Hubert a Room!" They could tell I was, as they put it, "P.O'd!" (pissed off) and were confused that the principal seemed to not care about me being "P.O'd!" (I explained that he was very sympathetic and appologetice and that there really wasn't any other choice or option). The majority of them didn't do much in the way of work, but they were quiet and understood my frantic behavior.

I had two very polite Polynesian boys help me haul all my stuff back to my old room (again, before I recieved the cart) and then shut my door and had a mini break down with tears the size of peas and hyperventalating breath. I managed to calm myself in time to meet with the principal to set up a schedule for the rest of the week and then make it to teacher book club.

It is just barely 7 o'clock and I just walked inthe door. I stayed late to pack my old room into my new "room" and finalize lessons for tomorrow. My new schedule is posted on my door. On my way home I stopped and bought the most expensive big whiteboard I could (it's not technically my money, rather I'll be reimbursed for it) so that I could write my daily agende, objectives, and Bell Work on it (since I don't know if the rooms I'll be in will have white board space).

Needless to say, it's been a most fascinating day and I'm just pleased as punch to get back to school tomorrow to break in my new "room."

And I'm going to indulge myself in a little American Idol. Ha.

Look! Pictures!

2008-02-03T16:24:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures to go along with yesterday's post:

That would be the end of the line, way up in the middle of the picture. (At the Conference Center)

The temple and more of the line on the bottom of the picture.

The sun was still out, so this would have been just before we started freezing and our toes started to frost-bite.

No, those people aren't just 'standing there,' that would be the serpentine line.

During the 1 hour wait inside. We watched the people putting together the flower arrangments. My mom was fascinated. I fell asleep.

Still waiting and getting more tired! I think we had just about 30 more minutes to wait at this point.

Anniversary Dinner at Red Lobster. I ate way too much!

weekend roundup

2008-02-02T14:31:00.000-08:00

Alas, I have returned. Perhaps you didn't know I was gone in the first place, and technically I wasn't. I've been "gone" in the sense that my computer crashed last Monday and I haven't had access to a Blogger Friendly computer since then (my computer at school won't let me access blogger.) Ben, bless his heart, tore it all apart and wiped out the hard drive. It's up and running again but he still needs to hook it back up to the internet. So, in the meantime, I'm at my mom's using her computer to get caught up in my blogging...because there's a lot to blog!!

It has been a whirlwind of a week and if I were smart, I would have remembered my camera chord to hook up my camera to show pictures...but I wasn't so you'll have to wait for later to see pictures. I suppose the easiest way to bang out a weeks worth of blog entries would just to write about each day, so sit back, grab a cup of hot chocolate and enjoy......

Sunday: My computer didn't officially die until Monday, and you all already know this 'news.' Dad Hubert called at about 8:30 to tell us that President Hinckley had died. I was shocked and saddened, but knew it was expected as he was 97 years old. I instantly remembered one of the most precious experiences I had while in Rexburg when President Hinckley came to dedicate the Hinckley Building. He was tender and expressed his love and showed emotion. It was awesome. I thought a lot about this all week.

Monday: Off to school. It was a Monday, what more can I say. I came to my mom's house in a blizzard of snow and decided I am done with the driving in the snow thing, even though my car handles it pretty well. Little did I know this week would be FULL of driving in the snow experiences.

Tuesday: I had my 8th graders start to read the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank. It's a long process to get them to actually buy into the whole play idea, but we managed. I did homework all night for my ESL class, which is a pain and, oopps, watched American Idol auditions.

Wednesday: We continued to read the play and I also was busy working with the 9th graders on our first yearbook deadline (which is MONDAY!)6th period threw me for a loop by acting like total monkeys bouncing off the wall. Three boys in particular were being most difficult. Not to mention that within the course of that 45 minute period, the lovely counselors (whose solution to too many students in the class is "add a few more desks") added 4 more students to the class. When the last kid came at the 5 minute bell, he handed me his paperwork and said, "I'm in your class now!" and my response was a huff of breath and "Are you serious?" I let myself out of the class and took some deep breaths. From inside my room I heard the same 3 hoodlum boys saying things like, "Is she crying?" "I think she's really upset." The bell rang and the class dismissed, not without stares my way looking to see if I were in fact crying (I was not, I simply had had enough of 6th period and was flustered). I managed to bring it together for 7th period and just got them started on their Bell Work when lo and behold, the same 3 hoodlums from 6th period show up at my door. They urged me to come talk to them in the hall. I huffed a little more and obliged their request. When I got in the hallway, all three of them (as if this were rehearsed!) looked down at their feet and in unison said, "We're sorry, Mrs. Hubert." It was touching and sweet and I told them thank you and encouraged them to try a little harder tomorrow. It will probably stand out as a highlight of the year because of the behavior issues I have had with these 3 boys.
Right after school I recieved a text message from Ben stating that he'd locked himself out of the house and needed me to rush home to let him in. I had one hour before my ESL class and loads of stuff to get done in that time, so I huffed again (in the most loving way possible, of course) and drove home. It's not really as if the drive is terribly long, it just ate up some of my work time. I pulled in the drive way, got out of the car, unlocked the door, and got back in the car. I believe a kiss was shared somewhere in there and there was an exchange of money because I needed gas, but I think that's about all I saw of Ben on Wednesday. ESL class was ghastly, as usual. It's a lot of work and information to comprehend at the end of the mid-day of the week. I was tired, cranky, and hungry by the time I got home at 7...and so I slipped again and watched American Idol auditions. But it turned my frown upside down, so to speak.

Thursday: Our 4 year anniversary! I, of course, worked and Ben had a doctor's appointment. He also had to work that night, so I came home after school and he got home from the doctor's soon there after and had a dozen roses for me, 8 white roses and 4 red. He also got me some chocolate covered strawberries and a cute stuffed frog. He left for work at around 4:30. I spent the night at home reading, which really is always enjoyable. We are going to dinner to celebrate tonight. I can't believe it's been 4 years! Also on this day I recieved to "Character Rocks" cards from two students. "Character Rocks" is a program we have at our school where students and teachers can send a note to someone explaining why their character rocks. I got two from students saying that I'm a great teacher and thanking me. What a special note to recieve!

Friday: I had a busy day trying to finish up some yearbook stuff and had my 8th graders make Postcards to send to Anne Frank (yes, I know she's dead)as an extension activity of the play, which is probably going to take a month to read at the rate we're going. We had an interminably long faculty meeting at which the faculty gave me a round of applause for being the teacher that has to travel (which will be soon, probably). I had the brilliant idea to go to President Hinckley's viewing so I invited my mom and when I got out of the meeting, drove to her work and we took TRAX to the Conference Center. The initial reason why I got the idea to go was because on Thursday they said on the news that it took about 20-30 minutes to get through. Well, we got there at 4:30 and found the end of the line CLEAR on the west side of the Conference Center. We ended up waiting outside in the COLD for 2 hours, by which time our feet were near frost-bite and nearly every other extremity of our bodies were just as cold. We made inside the door at 6:55, only to have to wait another 10 minutes to get through security. THEN, they sent us into the actual Conference Center auditorium where we were seated in a section near the top for yet another hour and a half. I fell in and out of asleep and was thisclose to "eating" the hot chocolate mix I had in my purse because I hadn't eaten since 6:30am. We got to watch the flower people put up all the flowers for the funeral. At about 8:50 our section was finally excused to get up and line up to wait another 10 to 15 minutes to actually get to the Hall of Prophets, were the casket was. We walked into the room which was full of security guys and family and they rushed us right by the casket, which was flagged off by some barriers. I think my view of President Hinckley lasted maybe 5 seconds, maybe. A near 4 hour wait for 5 seconds might not sound worth it, but it was. It was really neat to see him, he looked great and even had a little smile on his face. By the time we got back on TRAX to go back to Primary's it was nearly 10:00. We stopped at Hires for a bite to eat, then headed home. I was beat and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I came to my mom's house this morning to watch the funeral because the city was working on power lines in our neighborhood and we were without power. It was tender and precious and a neat experience.

I'm off to get ready for a fancy date tonight. I'm hoping we'll go somewhere with sushi because I'm in the mood!! Tomorrow we're having a Super Bowl party with all of Ben's fam coming over. It'll be fun! I just got word from Ben that my computer is officially fixed, so my next post will be written from the comforting confines of my own office and computer! Happy Weekend!

made it another week

2008-01-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

So the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas was on fire and it's still too cold in Utah.

I've just been reading some other blogs, most of which belong to people I don't know but because I'm a blogaholic, that's how I feed my addiction. I noticed that a lot of people start their posts one of two ways:
1. "It's been a while since I last wrote..."
2. "Well today..."

So my opening line there was written as an attempt to be different. Funny, right? (Though now that I've explained that it kind of takes away the humor...if you could only read my mind!)

Well anyway...

So glad today is Friday. This week has felt more like 4 months. I actually had an hour of "free time" last night and brushed off my Guitar Hero skills, which was therapeutic in so many ways. I got through The Killers song without missing any notes (of course I was playing on "Easy" so it wasn't really challenging)

Tomorrow I am going to a "Winter Workshop" provided by our school's Title One guy. It is at the district office and all my teacher buddies are going. We will be learning and training and eating. Oh, and the nice thing is we get paid $25 every hour. Nice.

After I got home from work today Ben and I made a quick trip to the library. I first had to pay my $5.25 fine because I felt guilty just walking inside and knowing I owed that much. Then, I picked up three really interesting looking books. My plan is to wrap up in a blanket and read my evening away.

My first selection is our teacher book club book of the month: John Grisham's "Playing for Pizza," which I've heard is about football. I like football just about as much as I like spraining my ankle (I actually like it more than that, but to read a book about it????) I will give a review as soon as I finish, which I aim to be tomorrow night.

My second book was one I choose merely because of the title: "Tutu Deadly" by Natalie Roberts. It has a picture of dance clothes and point shoes so if you know me, you know why I picked that. It kind of looks like it will be a guilty-pleasure-easy-read-with-chocolate-alone book.

And my last book I picked mainly because of this fantastic quote on the front cover: "Mystical quilts, a hunchbacked toad, and a wisecracking heroine..." Who wouldn't want to read that book?!?! It is called "The Fortune Quilt" by Lani Diane Rich.

The Anne Frank/Holocaust unit is moving along. Today we did kind of a question/answer period which was really successful. Except for the fact that some of their questions are tricky and deep. I know the history behind the events, but some of their questions caught me off guard and I didn't know the best way to answer without being too graphic. The great thing is that they are curious and interested. We'll start reading the play on Tuesday and that should take about 3 weeks.

I forgot to mention this little ditty in my last post, but Gov. Huntsman gave his State of the State address this week. I didn't get a chance to watch it, but I heard (and read) about one of his brilliant ideas for Utah education: Teachers teach 250 days a year and students rotate (as a college) so they only come to school 180 days. I will need to do a little more research on the reasoning of this, and I don't want to automaticaly say "How stupid?!?!?" because I want to be more informed. I bring it up only because I thought it was interesting and wanted to let it be known.

With those random rambling, I leave you with me and Ben's new favorite YouTube video:

After we watched this about 20 times in a row and laughed our bums off, I realized that perhaps the reason we haven't been blessed with kiddies of our yet is because we laugh at stuff like this and can't be trusted with the precious babes. Still funny, though, right?

Happy Weekend!

argh

2008-01-23T18:30:00.001-08:00

Ever had an "ARGH!" day??

What's an "ARGH!" day you might ask?

Since I'm accustomed to answering questions like "Mrs. Hubert, what does __________ (instert word here) mean??" here's my lengthy definition of an "ARGH!" day using experiences I've had the last two days. (Sit back. Relax. Open a soda. This may be a long one...)

1. As mentioned previously, they took away all of my desks in my classroom and replaced them with tables and chairs with wheels on them. I predicted to a freakin' T what my students were going to do upon realizing the chairs had wheels.

Tuesday came and I mentally prepared myself for the experience of the wheels. I even posted a colorful, friendly sign on my board: DO NOT spin, slide, wiggle, wheel, or move around in the wheelie chairs!" I mentioned the concept to each student as they entered my room. But still, it was just too tempting and what do you think I spent the majority of class time trying to solve? Yup: they couldn't keep still in their chairs, the noise was horrendous, and despite my efforts the sign had little to no effect. Again I said to myself "Who ever picked out the chairs with wheels was an idiot!" The consequence of these wheelie chairs was little teaching and learning going on. Mostly all day I was saying over and over, "Don't roll around! Stop! I said DON'T!"

Last night after I came home in complete hysterics after my wheelie chair day from hell, Ben proposed that I put duct tape over the wheels so the kids couldn't roll ANYWHERE. I took with me to school a HUGE roll of Gorilla Tape (supposedly better than duct tape). I tested the trick on one chair and felt that it would be a satisfactory solution if I had students who just couldn't keep still.

Advisory, 1st and 2nd period did OK with the implementation of the tape element into the mix. They were mostly wheelie-free. When 3rd period came (along with the 8th graders) I was met with more wheelie craziness. It was just too tempting for some of them. I taped 3 chairs and finally gave up because it took too long.

During my lunch break I went to meet with the principal regarding my room schedule (which will come into play a little later on in the post). I mentioned how horrible the wheelie chairs were and wondered if there were any way to get some regular chairs, without wheels. I think he must like me or is just trying to keep me happy since I'll be room-less soon (and he feels horrible about it!) because he stood up in a jiffy and said that we'd go ask the librarian to see if we could exchange chairs so I would have ones without wheels. The librarian answered in the affirmative and within 10 minutes, several kids in the library during lunch had completely switched the chairs from the library and my room.

6th and 7th period students were quite upset that I took "all the fun out of this class" by taking away the chairs, but the effects of the change were immediate: no more wheelie chair problems!!

2. I held two students after 6th period today because they were being obnoxious and annoying and kept interrupting my class. They were typical teenagers and were rude and annoying when I asked them what their problem was and how could I help them. And. They were just rude and mean. But. I got over it. I had to.

3. My ESL class is KILLING ME! The teacher is also a junior high teacher so you'd think she'd kind of have sympathy since we come to class for 3 hours after an already long day. She piles on the work and we have tons of projects. I'm learning loads, but it's overwhelming!

Ah. Feels good to vent! Moving onto other things.

I started the Anne Frank/Holocaust unit today with the 8th graders. We started with what is called a List-Group-Label which is a way to introduce vocabulary terms in disguise. After that we filled in a KWL (what you KNOW, what you WANT to know, and what you Learned). Most kids were fairly compliant in these two quick, easy tasks. I was excited to teach and get them all excited to learn about something kind of depressing. One class in particular really "got it," which made me happy. After we did these activities we began watching a movie about Anne Frank as a way to give them some more background about her and the history of that time. I'm always amazing at how some kids really get excited and curious to learn and others could care less. Tomorrow we'll finish the movie and work on some vocab terms. We will start reading the play next Monday or Tuesday.

I put pink streaks in my hair...again. I was bored on Monday night while Ben was at work and happened to have some leftover pink dye so I decided to spice up my hair a bit. While over at my mom's house last night, I was explaining my reasoning behind the pink hair and she commented, "I can think of lots of other things you could do if you are ever that bored again!" She hates it but as I told her, if a little pink hair is the worse I do, she shouldn't' be too worried. My students laugh and think it's pretty cool...and they suggest I try doing a whole rainbow of colors. Luckily this dye only lasts a week or two so I won't be like this for long.

I lost my two wonderful student aides this semester. They both had to take some other class (apparently more important than making all of my copies) so now I'm stuck doing all the grunt work again. Grunt work here really means this: making copies, creating and removing bulletin boards, straightening bookshelves, taking the recycling box out, etc. etc. etc. I'm working on getting a new one, but my chances look slim.

wheely chairs

2008-01-17T18:57:00.000-08:00

Some EXCITING news that probably most people who read this already know: Ben's brother (and mine too!) Jaren got his mission call. He's going to Brisbane Australia. Congrats!! I am super excited for him but I had a melt-down last night with Ben because we are going to miss him SO much. I know he will be a great missionary.

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dad today. He's turning 29 years old.

ALSO it's TOO cold in Utah and I want to move.

And that's it.

Well, after a long and eventful week, I just woke up after sleeping in until 10am. It felt SO good. I had lots of weird dreams, but the sleep was amazing!

Thursday was the last day of 2nd quarter. I was so beat and wanted to catch up on grading so I brought a movie in for the kids to watch. That was kind of a nightmare in and of itself, but I made it through the day and got my grades done and posted by 3:30 on Thursday.

Friday was a Student Non-Attendance Day and Professional Development. I went in for the Professional Development training and as always, our Title 1 guy had door prizes. There was an 800 piece scrap booking kit and instantly I thought, "I WANT that!" After he asked who wanted it and I jumped up and raised my hand, he had the teacher next to me draw a name. And guess whose name he drew? MINE! I got the scrap booking kit and I was so excited. I used it last night while I was at my mom's scrapping away.

Professional Development was successful and after it was over, I worked with two of the other 8th grade English teachers to put together an Anne Frank/Holocaust unit that we will be starting next week. We got so much accomplished, it was great. The three of us decided that we need to hang out doing non-school related stuff so we have made plans to go to dinner sometime, which will be fun because I really enjoy them.

Yesterday they came in and took out all of my desks and set up the tables and chairs. The one thing I don't quite understand is they got chairs with wheels. I'm not sure who made that decision but that's just a silly thing to do in a junior high. The students will be wheeling around the room and the wheels will all break eventually. I plan on doing a rule reminder on Tuesday and will include some conditions with the wheely chairs. Even I had a hard time keeping the wheels in one place today while I was sitting on them. I know just the students in each class that will be the wheelers.

We had some car drama this week. But I have an amazing husband who is so handy with cars so he fixed them all. My thermostat wasn't working correctly so he fixed it, but the thermostat he put in it was broken. And I don't really know all the details but I do know that he was up till 12 on Thursday night working on my car out in the freezing cold. And he is amazing and I love him.

I've got a busy Saturday. I need to work on Sharing Time for tomorrow. There is tons of laundry to do. The bathroom seriously needs to be clean. Well, let's just face it...the whole house needs to be clean!!!

ooddles of pics

2008-01-14T15:21:00.001-08:00

Here are all the tables that will soon completely occupy my room. There are a total of 15 tables taking up almost half of my room.
Here's the other half of my room, squished into 4 rows of 7 desks. This all happened during 4th and period today, which made 6th and 7th periods act crazy.

I've been told to wait the next 2 weeks out while they wait for the computers to be delivered, then I'll be given the boot and will become WL's only traveling teacher. I still have no idea what will really go on; all that I know is that I'm to find a cart (much like those metal AV carts) and that will essentially be my "Classroom on Wheels."

This whole thing has kind of thrown me off today so I was a tad grumpy. I'm trying to remain positive though, and testing my flexibility more than ever. The janitor who was delivering the tables told me that I'd probably get more exercise than any other teachers in the building because I'll be roaming the school all day. Hah. Just the positive nugget I should take from this experience.

Today I received the CD with all the group pictures taken on Friday. It sure got back to me quick, seeing as pictures were only taken on Friday.

See if you can spot me, the teacher, amongst the students in both my yearbook and journalism classes:
We are all wearing our respective staff sweatshirts and each group insisted we do a "silly" pose. In all honesty, most groups insisted that. And, if truth were told, I quite prefer these "silly" poses to the more serious ones where no one really shows much personality.

Seeing how we have a deadline of 35 pages in less than a month, I'm glad these came when they did. Now, students will actually have pictures to work with for their individual pages.

Today marks the 3rd time this year I got hid in the head with a flying paper dart. It always happens in 3rd period, and I can safely say that it is always an accident...I just happen to be walking in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anywho, I caught 3 or 4 students wasting my paper and making these darts. When I got hit, it was really the last straw so I gave each an ASD and had a mini discussion with them in the hall about their behavior. I hope tomorrow brings a better turn of behavior for them.

Tomorrow all of my classes will be working in the library. My 8th graders have a BIG culture report due on Wednesday so tomorrow is their last day to complete that. The 9th graders have been working on yearbook pages and a big famous journalist project. I hope to be able to post grades on Thursday, which will free up my 1/2 day Friday for things like creating CRT review worksheets, planning 3rd quarter (3rd! Quarter!), and (sniff) taking down my wall decorations.

group pictures

2008-01-11T15:33:00.000-08:00

We have one week left of 2nd Quarter. How the time flies when you're (mostly) having fun. I just got home and feel quite proud because I managed to finish up a weeks worth of grading, straighten my desk, prepare for next week, and create portfolio folders for several students. That was all just within the space of about 2 hours. This means that I have from now until 7:00am on Monday morning to NOT think about school. Sweet.

Today was yearbook group picture day-- always a super fun day. Actually, it's rather stressful and I'd actually prefer that it wasn't part of my job. But, with the exception of a few tiny kinks to the over plan for today, it was successful.

First off, the photographer was told by our school secretary not to come until 8, which any other weekday would be fine, but since it was Friday, we didn't have Advisory. I made a schedule for the teachers saying that we'd take the first picture at 7:45 with a different group/picture being taken every 5 minutes after that. You can probably see the discrepancy. So, at 7:45 I had a group ready for a picture but no camera to take it with.

When the camera man finally got to the school and set up, it was nearly 8:20. I was almost one hour behind schedule and I was crunching those groups through as fast as my 2nd year experienced mind could manage. By the middle of 3rd period, I had us all back on schedule with even a little time to spare. I managed to get almost 50 groups of students in line, on stage, smiling for their yearbook photo. I was beat by the time I was finished! I really don't know if there is an easier way to take these pictures in a junior high school setting, but I'm already thinking ahead to next year about the things I need to improve.

On this same crazy day of picture taking, "they" decided to deliver some of the computer tables to my room (the future computer lab). A janitors came to ask me where I wanted the tables and I laughed and told him that the tables aren't for me, that I am, in fact, being kicked out for my room to be turned into a computer lab. He only brought 2 tables today and will bring the rest next week when they can remove all the desks from my room. It looks as if I will be a traveling teacher very soon. I have the sympathy of the faculty but I am trying to make the best of it.

In our committee meeting today it was suggested that we have an open house week where parents can "Come to School with Your Student." This suggestion was met with much trepidation and skepticism. Basically the parents can come whenever for however long they want. They can sit in a class, see their children's behavior, help out with the tardy issue and go to lunch, and see what it's like in between classes. The hope is that parents will see their child. I'm not sure how many parents will actually come, but it makes me nervous to think that there could be more than one parent in my room. This is still in the planning phase, but it sounds like the higher-ups are all excited to see it through.

It's snowing. Again. Ben and I are going to go sit in the sauna at Gold's Gym tonight (he went skiing yesterday, hurt his shoulder, and is sore) and probably just hang out. It feels good to not have a big stress sitting on my shoulder this weekend. Happy weekend to all!!

random update

2008-01-08T15:45:00.000-08:00

Haven't much been in the mood to post. It's so freaking cold, all I've wanted to do is snuggle under the blankets and eat through a straw.

I'm still sporting what seems to be the remains of that cold sore on my nose. It certainly went through radical changes since its conception last Wednesday. Thankfully I had the weekend to work though it's ugliness before returning to a somewhat public job on Monday. I accidentally wiped my nose on Sunday and in the process tore off the scabby crusty layer. Now it looks much like any sore, just red and scabby. One student asked me today if it was my "Snort Sore," meaning a sore from snorting drugs. Nice.

I finally got the journalism and yearbook staff sweatshirts. Only a handful of students have actually paid for their sweatshirts, so I still have a big box of them in my room. For the most mart they are happy, though if I hear one more complaint about how static-y they are, I might cut one up. I am in charge of yearbook group picture day, which is on Friday, and I've asked all of them to wear their sweatshirts for the pictures. I've been working on a schedule for that picture day and have people to cover my classes while I'm gone. I'll be glad when it's over.

I'll also be glad when tonight is over. I agreed, beyond my better judgment, to host a Mary Kay party at my house tonight. A lady in my ward had one a few weeks ago (I was invited) but no one showed up so she called upon me to host it here. I was supposed to round up several "clients" and ended up only getting my super mom and grandma to come. I suppose I have a lack of friends. Either that or I figure the fewer people that show up the sooner the party will get over.

My 8th graders started a big culture research project today. It's probably the hardest and worst thing to teach because they just don't get it. I taught them about reliable sources and unreliable sources and asked them kindly not to use Wikipedia. But, what do you think the first website they visit? Yup. Wikipedia. I will have them turn their research into a PowerPoint by next Wednesday. It is painful to watch them type and I hope they'll all be able to crunch out an at least 5 page presentation.

I begin my last semester worth of ESL endorsement classes tomorrow. I will have class every Wednesday from 4 to 7. Then in April I will start an online course. Then they'll send in an expert to watch me teach and show how I can teach using ESL strategies. Then, by the end of the school year, I'll be endorsed and will have 20 credit hours to boost my salary a smidgen. I also spoke to my "guidance counselor" for my master's program today during lunch. He lives and works in AZ. He basically gave me the list of classes I will take starting in March. For the first 'semester' of master's classes, I am allowed to only take one so as to get myself used to the work load and all. I also applied for financial aid today, which was kind of nightmare-ish.

I'm happy to report that I have nearly passed all of the Guitar Hero songs on Medium. I have only allowed myself to play on the weekend so that I feel more productive during the week. Ben and I have had a few jam sessions.

A former WL student was shot and killed at a SLC SEARS on Sunday. I didn't know him, but he was a 9th grader last year. It's a tragedy and despite it being gang related, the students still don't see the problem with being in a gang. Teachers at school today, including myself, saw several signs, badges, and t-shirts saying things like RIP (and then the students name). They also try to put in the gang name, too, but have to be careful since that becomes a dress code violation.

Happy Tuesday!

cold sore

2008-01-03T15:04:00.000-08:00

I have a gigantic cold sore on my nose, of all places. It arrived yesterday just after getting out of the shower. My nose hurts like crazy and the cold sore (again, of all places, on the NOSE!!??) has blossomed and now has it's own heart beat. It's yellow and crusty and itchy and....well, while dwell on any more yicky details?

I bought some over the counter cold sore cream last night at Wal*Mart. It only helps it from itching so bad; I can still feel the heartbeat. Today I covered it with a little powder (the directions on the cream said it was OK) and it hid the Red-as-Rudolph's-nose sore until about 4th period. At this point I started hearing things like: "Why is your nose red, Mrs. Hubert?" "Your nose is frostbit, Mrs. Hubert." "What is that growth with a heartbeat on your nose, Mrs. Hubert?!?!" and the like.

I just got home and inspected the growing sore. All I can say is that I'm glad I don't have to look at myself all day. I get cold sores frequently, but never before have I had them on my NOSE! I'm going to place a warm washcloth on it in a few (an old trick I learned) and see if it helps at all.

Yesterday's return to work was good, considering. The kids were SUPER tired and actually kind of quiet. I had 2 students fall asleep in 3rd period and one fall asleep in 7th. Several told me they had stayed up way late on Tuesday night.

My lesson plan of writing New Year's resolutions was a great and simple way to get them back into the school thing. Many of their resolutions were things like:
-I resolve to avoid my mom and sister more. (I wonder what the background is on this kid...)
-I resolve to not hit my brother.
-I resolve to master a skate trick.
-I resolve to look in the mirror more. (seriously!)
-I resolve to eat less junk food.
-I resolve to be a little bit nicer to Mrs. Hubert.

I got a good laugh whilst reading the resolutions.

Today we were on PM assembly schedule, so the class periods were shortened. I was teaching the 8th graders the difference between Primary and Secondary sources for research purposes. I 'lectured' for a few minutes and then they got into groups. Each group had a packet of 12 different documents. They had to decide if the document was a primary or secondary source. It was a good lesson for a day like today.

The assembly was of the "motivational" nature. It was meant to inspire teens to chart a positive course in their life. I talked to my friend AVK after and we agreed that at this age the assembly probably didn't do much and was probably more of a laugh than anything. It's scientifically proven that teenagers this age have very few tender and sensitive receptors in their brains. (Ok, so maybe this really isn't scientifically proven, but in my opinion it could be true). It was a fun assembly because they played loud raucous music that the kids liked, but they didn't really understand or "get" the message.

It is crazy to realize that tomorrow is Friday. Yay for 3 day work weeks! I have loads of Primary stuff to work on and a kitchen to clean, but I'm also hoping to finally get back to organizing my office. I tore it all apart on Monday and haven't got around to putting it back together.

aud lang syne**

2008-01-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

I suppose "Happy New Years!" is in order. I've kind of been anti-New Years this year because I realized it's kind of an overrated holiday. However, I just woke up on this, the first day of 2008, and have a new positive attitude about it all.

Last night I spent the majority of the evening with my mom. Ben had to work--people crave spaghetti on New Year's, apparently--and I didn't want to spend the evening at my house with devil dog (who, by the by, is growing on me because he's become quite lazy and less puppy-ish).

My mom and grandma and I went to see "Juno," my new favorite. It could be considered offensive to some, however, I don't get offended easily and tend to believe I have an open mind about certain issues, ie: teen pregnancy. It was clever and witty and I shed a tear or two. I need to rush out and buy the soundtrack to this movie as the music is just fantastic; kind of quirky and fun. It was also funny in that my grandma cracked up a few times and also fell in love with the music.

I had a hankering for some serious seafood so my mom bought 2 HUGE crab legs for me at Harmon's. She steamed it to perfection and I indulged myself in the yummy crabby goodness, along with melted butter, of course. We watched "Girl with Pearl Earing" while dinning on our feast. It was sweet and tender, and ironically, the girl in this movie gets pregnant while unwed, too.

Ben texted me at 10:30 to say that he was just getting out of work. I drove home in my newly cleaned and less salty looking car, only to have to wait longer for him to get back from the store. He walked in the door around 11:45 and promptly began to work on wrapping Christmas lights. I was "watching" "Dick Clarke's Rocking New Year's Eve" when the ball dropped. I felt a little disappointed in the big moment, quite frankly. And Mr. Clarke sounded slurry and horrible.

About 10 minutes after the new year, Ben had finished lighting some firecrackers outside, we gave each other the traditional midnight kiss and I got ready for bed. How exciting, eh?? I fell asleep on the couch while cuddling with Ben watching "Vegas Vacation."

We are headed to a family party today at my 'cousin's' billion dollar house, which supposedly has 3 kitchens and a 14 car garage. It should be fun times. Perhaps I'll take a picture or two.

I was reading my New-Year's-Birthday-Celebrating-Best-Friend Katie's blog last night. She posted some of her resolutions. I originally never intended to resolve anything this year because, like most, I sellout about January 4th or 5th and then get in a deep depression concerning my failure. However, some of her resolutions inspired me, so here is my copy-cat list of 2008 Resolutions:

1. Stop DVR-recording reality tv shows (American Idol, America's Next Top Model, Big Brother, etc.). Scratch that: Stop watching reality tv shows all together. They consume me when I do and usually I should be doing something besides viewing such trash.
2. Hang up my clothes instead of acquiring a nice pile in the corner of my room. This drives Ben nutso, and I suppose it's a carry-over from childhood. I'm a big girl now with a tiny teeny closet full of empty hangers just waiting for companions. It should also cut down my ironing, which I hate and thus resolve to do less of this year.
3. Swear less while playing Guitar Hero. Pretty much that's it.
4. Play less Guitar Hero because it's turning out to be reality TV's replacement.
5. Eat less bread. Or no bread. Whichever becomes easier.
6. Acquire all of my old roommates current addresses for next year's Christmas card, which I actually will take time to put together next year. (if you're an old roommate, or you know an old roommate's address, e-mail me!)
7. Sew. My sweet mom Hubert got me a sewing machine last year for Christmas and I've neglected it. I resolve to make....something cute.
8. Stop being a pack-rat. Seriously, I don't need to save the greasy napkin from the restaurant I ate at on my birthday last year. Who cares?
9. Call Zeus "devil dog" fewer times.
10. Live in the moment and be happy about what my current life is.

I'm looking forward to seeing my darlings tomorrow, all 145 of them. I'm sure by 6th period, however, I'll wish it were still Christmas break. But an optimistic attitude never hurt anyone. Before break I planned 2 weeks worth of lessons for the weeks after break. Tomorrow we're writing resolutions. They'll love me.

Happy New Year to my favorite 5 or 6 people who read this! Love all around.

**Aud Lang Syne lyrics

I've been rated

2007-12-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

Apparently, this blog is rated PG. I found this website that rates blogs, Myspace pages, and other personal websites. It goes through and identifies words or phrases written on your blog. I laughed when I saw that the reason my blog is rated PG is because I've typed the word "crap" 2 times and "knife" once. Awesome.

guitar hero christmas

2007-12-30T09:06:00.000-08:00

This will most likely be my last post of 2007. What an odd feeling to know that this year is almost over.

My Christmas Break has been pretty good, except for the fact that I've been sick for most of it. It hasn't flown by as I thought it would and I feel rested and ready to head back to work on Wednesday. As I've thought about having my advisory students do, here is my essay on "How I spend my Christmas Break."

My dad came in from Las Vegas on Saturday. He took me, Zach, Hil, and Cassidy to dinner at Asian Star on Saturday night. It was yummy and after we went to play Guitar Hero at Zach's house. Cassidy is pretty dang good!She is a "princess rocker," since every time she plays she is also in dress ups. But don't let that sweet disposition fool you; this princess can wail on the guitar, especially to her favorite, "Rock it like a Hurricane."

Christmas Eve morning Ben and I went to our parents stake for their annual Christmas Eve devotional. This started at 7:30am. We've both gone since we were youth in that stake and it has continued to be a fun tradition for us. We went with dad Hubert and the brothers. After, we had breakfast at the 5th ward chapel.

I had loads of presents to wrap after the devotional and Ben went to help his brother load a Uhaul and finish his Christmas shopping. I wrapped...and wrapped...and wrapped until I finally finished. Ben made it home just as the big snow storm was starting to fall. We had to be at my mom's for dinner and we were driving in the thick of the storm.

As soon as we got to my moms, I felt a little (and unfortunately familiar) tickle in my throat. My ears also began to ache. We (me and Ben, Grandma, Dad, and Mom) ate a yummy dinner and opened some presents. My grandma and Ben and I got my mom a new digital camera, which she was uber excited about since her old-school film camera was on it's last leg.

My big ticket item from "Santa Mom," was a Cricut...a really fancy paper cutter for scrap booking and other crafts. It's the coolest thing; I've been playing with it all week. There are different cartridges that come with different fonts and things and you type in what you want it to say and it cuts it. It's a present that both me and mom can use for scrap booking and for things like cards, invitations, and tags.

After we opened presents, we all went to see "Sweeny Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street." I give the movie 3 stars: first, Johnny Depp is great as Sweeny Todd. Second, the music is fun (I bought myself the soundtrack the day after Christmas), and third, it's so unlike anything I've ever seen that it was a new experience. Of course, it's also kind of, no, really, gruesome and icky, but still enjoyable.

We got back to my mom's house and I was feeling achy and icky with the chills and muscle aches. Still my throat hurt and my ears were beginning to hurt worse. Ben and I went home, opened our new pajamas and I went straight to bed.

Christmas morning I woke Ben up at 9 and we opened presents. Santa brought Ben a new Cross pen, two ties (a Superman and Sea hawks), and some socks. Santa brought both of us an XBOX 360 and he brought me GUITAR HERO. I was so excited. I'm completely hooked on this game. Typically I'm not much of a video game player, but I play this all the time at my brother's house and Santa took note and got me one of my very own!
Here I am just minutes after opening.This is me being a Guitar Hero!

We spent the day at parent's Hubert. I felt awful most of the day: achy, sore throat, chills. By afternoon, I'd slept on and off most the day. We got some fun things from that side of the family: A real German Nutcracker, a chocolate fondue set, and a Wee Fairy Garden (from Jaren!) We left about 7 to go see my dad at Zach and Hil's. We only stayed for about an hour.

Wednesday: I was sleeping most of the day on the couch. Only drank OJ all day. Felt like crap. Took cold pills and slept some more. My sore throat felt like strep. I had a sneezy cold and achy muscles.

Thursday: Still feeling icky. Woke up feeling light-headed and dizzy. Sore throat going away, but still with the runny nose and ear aches. I forced myself to get in the shower, get dressed, and go shopping (crazy!) I was so light-headed from not eating anything since Tuesday, I fell over at Target. I finally ate something and felt loads better. Another new addition today: Ben bought another guitar for Guitar Hero so we can play together in a band and duel each other. We went to dinner and stayed up till 2 playing guitar.

Friday: Hung out with mom. Used the Cricut. Felt a tiny bit better. Starting to loose my voice.

Saturday: Hung out with mom. Used the Cricut. Felt drained and not 100%. Voice mostly gone. Went to dinner with Ben after he got off work and came home to play, you guessed it...Guitar Hero.

We were supposed to go to Wyoming this weekend to see Eric and Heather, but weather ruined our plans.

Sunday: Am currently playing hooky from church since I told my counselors I wouldn't be there today. Working on getting rid of a runny nose and welcoming the return of my voice.

New Year's Plans: Don't really have any. Mostly just hanging out with Ben and probably playing more Guitar Hero.

Here are a few more pictures:Last year, Zeus was the Christmas present. Here is his on Christmas morning last year.

Here's a picture of Zeus this year. He's a large dog. :)
The annual picture taken in front of mom's Christmas tree.

Basically, I really wasn't into taking pictures because I felt icky. So, this is pretty much all I got.

Hope everyone had a good holiday and looks forward to a happy new year.

one day more

2007-12-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

Technically there is still one more day before I'm off for Winter Break. However, today I observed that my students are mentally on break and will not work. This sure makes my job much easier (not!). It's been a pretty good week, considering. I've been surprised at how many kids have been absent all week. There were also lots to checked out to go spend a month or two in Mexico (a very common thing).

Today I had the 8th graders watch a 15 minute clip of "The Polar Express" and then we wrote summaries of that part. Mostly they weren't interested in the summarizing part, so I said if they would be quiet, I'd start the movie again. And so, I saw the middle part of "The Polar Express" 4 times today. Tomorrow, which will truly be a test of all teachers patience, I've created a word puzzle packet for them to keep their little hands busy while they are in my room for 35 minutes. We have the Winter Assembly in the morning. I plan on being out of my room at the end of contract time: 3:08.

I received my pay stub today. Most of you know that the Utah legislature alloted a 'one time bonus' for teachers this year. It's been debated back and forth about what the bonus would actually be. At first it was $1000. Then we heard it'd be closer to $500. Some have you been interested to find out what we all really got. On my check today was my lovely Christmas Bonus of $917.00, not as much as originally thought, but more than the lowest estimate, and a great addition to my monthly paycheck. Ben and I've waited to do any Christmas shopping until this bonus arrived and I think, after putting stuff in savings and tithing, we'll have a decent Christmas.

Last time I wrote, I mentioned that I was going to see the Nutcracker with my mom and Cassidy. We had a very fancy time eating at Little America and going to the ballet. Cassidy was quite interested at first, but I think she kind of got tired near the end. Here are a few pictures from our night:

Cassidy in front of her Christmas tree. She told us (and all the random strangers we met during the night) that she was in her Mrs. Claus dress.

We ate at Little America and got on TRAX to get to the theater. Here we are waiting in the FREEZING COLD!

She was the star in this beautiful cape.

Last night was Cassidy's dance recital. It was at my school and we all went to watch. It was a hoot to watch, she's very good. Here are some pictures and two movie clips. Don't mind m laughter in the background--I'm a proud Aunt and think she's just the greatest.

She had two dances. This is the first one. She's the one in the green on the end.

I get a smile every time I watch these...hehehe

4 days left

2007-12-15T09:45:00.000-08:00

Friday was good day. We had the faculty Christmas party and I walked away with a really nice set of stoneware bowls and a gift card to Wingers. I ate too much, got to know some teachers better, and had a good time relaxing after a crazy week.

I have been working with my journalism and yearbook students on a project I made up in a dream. It's called "Selling the Impossible." Since we've been learning about advertising, I suppose my mind was on the idea and in a dream one night, I dreamed up a cool project. This jist is that students each identify something that would be "impossible" to sell and come up with a whole ad cmpaign for it. I used Pet Rocks as a way to introduce the project, asking students if they would pay $3.95 for a rock. Then they had to write a product proposal letter to a fictional company (ps, dad, I used your name as CEO of the company). Now they are working on actual ad's and by the end of the week they'll each have an actual packaging replica.

As I've been going through the project with them, I used the "impossible" idea of selling ABC Gum (already been chewed) as an example for them to follow. Some students have come up with some really nasty and clever ideas: dead skin, lizard tongue fly catcher, finger-nail clippings, and light switch face plates that are cracked/dirty/ugly. I'm excited that some have really got into the project. It's been fun to hear their conversations about ads.

And update on the swear jar: My current running total is $6. They all did really good Thursday and Friday so I didn't earn much. I don't know what I'll use the money for yet, but I've shared my idea with several teachers and they are considering adding something similar to their rooms.
The journalism and yearbook sweatshirts are all ordered and will hopefully be done by the time the kids come back from winter break in January. I've already had a few complaints with the design I chose, but I said if they didn't like them, I'd donate their sweatshirt to someone who could use it. I hate whiners and complainers.

There are only 4 days of school next week, as the district gave us a Christmas present by adding one extra day to our break. We'll get our paychecks (normally deposited the last day of the month) on Thursday, including a small bonus from the legislature (which, after taxes is even smaller!). The principal predicted yesterday at our party that next Thursday there would be a huge snowstorm coming in around 2:45 (school release time) and that we should all leave school promptly as not to get caught in the storm.

I have struggled to find something good to do next week with my 8th graders because they are already out of control. I came up with something that will have to do. Each day of the week I will focus on a different country/culture's version of a Christmas/Holiday celebration. They'll read something about it and do some sort of activity. On Monday, we're going to read Pearl S. Buck's short story, "Christmas Day in the Morning," and talk about how American's celebrate Christmas. We have an assembly on Thursday and basically the kids all mentally check out. I will probably just have some crosswords and other word puzzles for them to complete that day, just to keep them busy.

I can't believe it's almost the end of the year. This school year is flying by faster than last year. That is a good thing, though, because I'm already ready for next year!

My teacher friend, Adrienne, gave me a start for Amish Friendship Bread last week. I've had to do something with the start each day (the start is in a plastic bag) and finally today I have to cook it. I spent most of the morning making sure I had all the ingredients, then got to work. I now only have 18 minutes to wait to see if it turned out at all. Now I have 4 more starts, off of my original start, to pass along to friends. I'll be honest, it is starting to smell wonderful in my house!

I have a special treat tonight: my mom is taking me and Cassidy to see The Nutcracker at Ballet West. I'm super excited! We're going to dinner at Little America. I'm excited to see how Cassidy does at the ballet. I love The Nutcracker and remember seeing it the first time as a little girl at Ballet West. I was lucky to be able to perform in a local production of the Nutcracker for several years while I took dance. I have great memories of that and I hope Cassidy will enjoy it, too.

Happy Saturday!

cowboys and gang bangers

2007-12-13T17:34:00.001-08:00

I just got home from an open house at the district where I applied for a Master's Program though Grand Canyon University. I will be starting a 24 month masters program in March. My program is called "Masters of Ed. Curriculum and Instruction: Reading." I am going through the program with my good teacher friend, Adrienne. The great part is that I will get all of my student loans paid off by the government because I work at a Title 1 school. It's an online program, I don't have to take the GRE, and my pay will increase tremendously after completing the program.

I had to start my post with a positive note because this week has kind of been filled with not so positive things.

I really hate to admit this because it will sound so horrible. Yesterday during 4th period, a student made me cry. I did not cry in front of them, but saved it for after I was done giving instructions and walked out of my room. It's been a stressful last few weeks and her comment ("This assignment is stupid. You're stupid!") hit my last patient nerve. I recovered in the bathroom and felt better after splashing my face with water. When I got back to my room, she was entertaining the other students by bragging about all of the times she's made adults and teachers cry. (Ok, so maybe the fact that I left to cry wasn't so secretive because I stormed out of there...) I thought about telling her how proud she should be of herself for making adults cry. How cool, right, to be able to brag to your peers about such a thing. Anyway...I killed this girl with kindness today and you would almost think we were the best of friends, she was so polite.

Today in 7th period my students either finished early or lied about finishing at all. We ended up having about 15 minutes of "free-time" to kill before the bell. I was trying to keep them all in their seats (usually problems are kept at a minimum if they're all sitting down). I was walking around trying to break some of the groups up and asking them to sit down, when all of a sudden, two separate wads of paper (from two different directions) hit me square on the noggin.

It just so happened that at that same time, a veteran teacher of 33 years was walking down the hall. (A little sidenote about this teacher: he's a coach from Spanish Fork and his somewhat of a cowboy. He has taught at WL for 29 years. He is known for his "Concern of the Week" on our MTV program. Because WL students have been so disrespectful and awful this year, he is retiring mid-year to be a SUB!!! A SUB!!!)

Anyway, he comes in, blows his gym-teacher whistle and gets my students' attention to sit down and shut up. He went on to lecture them about their behavior. His lecture almost brought me to tears. First, he asked them how they would feel if they were in my shoes today. They all said they would feel awful. Then, he explained that the reason why I am a teacher is because "It's not about her, it's about you. She wants to see you succeed."

Next, he told a story of one of the other worst years at WL. It was in the 80's and at that point, WL was ruled by, not gang bangers, but cowboys. These cowboys used to chew tobacco and spit it where ever they pleased. He explained that it was a big problem. Then he said that even though they had that problem, those cowboys, with their hats, boots, and buckles, were the most respectuful group of students. He said they worked hard, they "busted their guts" to work for a teacher and said "thank you" to teachers daily. He said that he'd take the cowboys back with their spitting problem any day over the kind of crap students at WL now try to get away with. He basically called them all out on being rude, disrespectful, lazy, and technology dependent.

He ended by having each and every one of them come up to apologize to me individually before they left. I think he had a profound effect on some of those kids. I hope so, anyway. He stayed in my room another 20 minutes giving me some advice and encouragement. I wonder how 7th period will be tomorrow.

We are having our Faculty Christmas social tomorrow after school. I am taking a salad. It should be pretty fun.

TG it's almost F!

swear jar

2007-12-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of deep cleaning my house. Mostly because it hasn't been done in a LONG time. And partly because I'm bored. Tonight is the first night in a long while that I haven't had anything to do or somewhere to go and it feels good. My hands are all pruney and dry from being in soapy water and cleaning stuff, so I just put some lotion on and am giving them a tiny break before I go clean the bathroom.

It's been almost a week since I last posted and, like usual, it's been a crazy whirlwind! I'm counting down the 8 days until I'm off for Winter Break: 12 Wonderful-no-student-seeing Days!

Last week in my 1st period I created a "Swear Jar--" 50 cents per swear word. I had enough of the horrible language I keept hearing the majority of them using. I initially thought they'd all think it was stupid, but they loved the idea and even wrote out a list of the swears they thought they would have to pay for. By the end of Thursday I had 2 dollars. By the end of Friday I was up to 4. Today I earned another dollar. I can't say it's curbed all of their swearing appetites, but it's sure been fun to see some of them put upwards of one dollar each class period.

We've been reading several pieces from Langston Hughes, the prolific African American author of the Harlem Renaissance. First the students read "Thank You, M'am," a short story about friendship and respect. Today we read 4 of his poems that all deal with dreams of equality for the African American people (written during the time of segregation). I tried to help them understand the Jim Crow Laws of that time and we had good discussion (in most classes) about the reasoning for them.

I have one African American student who is not afraid to speak her mind. She complained that the poems were racist. I asked her why she thought so and she explained that the poems were about segregation. Of course, this makes no sense, so I had to (AGAIN!) explain what racism really means: how could an African American poet writing for the bettering of his OWN people be racist towards African Americans?!?!?! Most of my classes enjoyed the poems, but I got quite irritated having to explain the true definition of racism.

On Friday I found in my box two thank you notes from two of my most troubling students. They thanked me for being nice to them when most teachers aren't and they also thanked me for not giving them ASD's for every small thing they do wrong. I don't know which teacher made the assignment to write Thank You's to other teachers, but it was the highlight of my week. Of course, I embarrassed those students by saying thank you to them today, but I think they both had improved behavior today.

We went to see The Forgotten Carols last Thursday with dad Hubert and Jaren. It was such a treat! It helped me get into the spirit of Christmas and I (like always) bawled during the last 10 minutes. I've been listening to the soundtrack at every opportunity since.

Sadly, my bathroom is calling and I'm out of stuff to write about. Happy week!

imbarist

2007-12-04T16:29:00.000-08:00

Last week I read a story with my 8th graders called "Fish Cheeks," by Amy Tan. It is a short memoir about her life as a Chinese American. The whole premise is that her family invites the white American minister's family for Christmas Eve dinner. She has a crush on the son and is embarrassed by her family's manners and non-American food. I used the story to teach my students how to write short summaries. I gave them a formula for the summary which they were just to plug in their own words. The last sentence of the summary was supposed to be the theme (or the lesson/message the author wants the reader to get from the story).

We discussed the story and decided on a theme. I taught the mini lesson and then let the students get to work on their summary, only to put one that was pre-written for them about 10 minutes later. We had all decided the theme of the story was not to be ashamed or embarrassed by your culture or heritage. Some kids finished the summary and others had to copy down the one I put on the overhead.

Today as I was grading this assignment, I was appaled at the many ways I saw the word "embarrassed" written on their paper. Mind you, the majority of the students who mispelled the word were those who had to copy mine (and I promise my "embarrassed" was spelled the right way!) Here are the versions of "embarrassed" that I saw (I wrote these all down on a post it note and brought it home):

-imbarist (hence the title of the post)
-embareist
-imbarrasit
-inbarrst
-embearist
-embarsd
-imbarsed
-emparased
-embursit

Anywho...I was imbarist/embareist/imbarrasit/inbarrst/embearist/embarsd/emparased/embursit, but mostly embarrassed by these tragic spellings and I have included a mini lesson on the word "embarrassed" tomorrow's lesson.

I found out today that for sure I will be a traveling teacher come mid-January. Yay. So excited for this! (Note the heavy sarcasm!) The principal and the librarian both came to give me the awesome news this morning. I suppose they felt they had to tag team me and both tried their hardest to make me feel OK about the situation.

My room has been invaded this week with the computer networking guys and along with them they brought loads of dust and random bits and pieces of wires that they just love to leave on my floor. They are only concentrating on the wiring part right now and when the tables are delivered, I will have tables for students to use until the computers come. When the computers come, I will get first dibs on signing up for the new computer lab for the rest of the year and then the rest of the teachers will sign up. When a teacher signs up for the computer lab for a day, I (along with my darlings) will occupy their room. Basically, we'll probably be in a different room each day. Sounds fun, eh?

I am trying to be flexible and remember that this will only be for the rest of this year; next year I'll get my own room again. However, that said, I know my students and I know how the structure of my classroom is. I know they'll freak out when we are constantly changing. It's going to be interesting to see how they handle it.

I chopped three inches off my hair on Sunday. I suppose I shouldn't say I because my friend Angel is the one who actually took the scissors to my hair. My hair looks great because she cut off all the damaged ends. Here's a picture I took of myself with my cell phone, which equals not very good quality:It may not look much different but it sure feels different!

Happy Tuesday!

night will billy

2007-11-30T14:38:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say that this is an actual picture I took of Billy Joel at the concert last night, but alas, it's just one I found on Google Images.

Because I played hooky from work today and I don't have any crazy school stories, I'll dedicate this post to my evening with Billy (and Ben and Jake and Angel...)

I'll admit I wasn't way excited to go to the concert because I felt icky with the throat and the sneezing. But, I put on a happy face and bundled up. Ben and I parked the car quite a bit away from the Energy Solutions Arena so we had a decent walk. We got almost halfway there and Ben realized he'd left the tickets in the car, so we had turn around. I was way annoyed and almost beyond the point of freezing!

We finally made our way through the doors and walked around the arena to find our seats. I'll make this Utah comparison of our seats: If the stage in the arena was the heart of downtown SLC and the entire arena was the Wasatch Front Valley (and a little beyond), our seats were in the Provo/Orem area. (I wish I could say this is an original joke of my own, but Billy Joel actually began his concert by waving to all of us in the Provo area and so I stole it from him.)

Jake and Angel got there and we visited for a bit and then right before the concert started these 20 something girls sitting next to us spilled beer on the ground. Nothin' like the smell of beer?!?!?! Eventually the music started and then a burst of light came on and there was bald Billy Joel rockin' on the piano.

The first few songs weren't ones I recognized, but Ben and Angel (the big BJ fans) were singin' along immediately. Finally he stopped singing and started talking. He made some inappropriate joke about his bald head and then made fun of Madonna, which was kind of funny. The stage was interesting because his piano was on a turn-table and every few songs they would rotate the piano. The lighting was also pretty cool.

Of course, we mostly watched the performance from the Jumbo Tron because from where we sat, Billy looked much like a tiny bug. The camera kept showing the first few rows of seats by the stage, full of 20 and 30 year old women wearing I Love Billy Joel t-shirts and then a few who had cleavage friendly tops and we unfortunately almost got to see their bits in full a few times.

I had mentioned before that I hoped he'd play "We Didn't Start the Fire." A little over halfway into the show, Billy got off the piano seat and the piano went back down under the stage. He grabbed a guitar and suddenly started singing "We Didn't Start the Fire." While singing he played with the microphone stand and was twirling it like a baton. Then he walked down amongst the crowd of heaving-bosomed women and the Jumbo Tron showed these women grabbing his bottom!!!

They played for about 2 1/2 hours with 2 encores at the end. The very last song was "Piano Man," which is Ben's very favorite, and one of probably only 3 or 4 songs I knew. I suppose my favorite part of the whole thing was just seeing Ben smile and get excited. We got out by about 10:30 and the 4 of us decided to go to Denny's.

Jake and Angel's two boys were sleeping over at their grandma's house so they weren't in a hurry to get home. After eating we all came back to our house and played Battle of the Sexes IQ Edition. We were having so much fun, they didn't leave until almost 3:30am!!!

It was a fun night and it felt great to sleep in a bit today. I actually slept most of the day and for the first time since Tuesday I'm starting to feel better. It's approximately 31 degrees here and it looks like the snow is going start falling any second. Ben's working and I have stuff to get ready for my Primary Appreciation dinner tomorrow night.

Happy Weekend!

again with the behavior problems!

2007-11-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

I went to school today with the faint beginnings of a tickle in my throat. By 2nd period I was sporting a runny nose and watery eyes. During 4th period I started sneezing and my throat was worse. At lunch I made a quick jaunt to McDonald's (it was FREEZING outside!!) and got some OJ and then came and fell asleep on my desk for 35 minutes. By the end of 7th period I was in full shiver icky mode and left school at end-contract time of 3:08. Needless to say it wasn't the most spectacular of days. I came home, put on my PJ's and have been laying/sleeping on the couch watching TV.

I'm planning on calling in sick on Friday because tomorrow night Ben and I and some friends are going to be rockin' at the Billy Joel concert and I have a feeling the late night and a 5:30 wake up call won't mix. Call it irresponsible or what you will, but I have 27 sick days (10 carried over from last year) and so I'm going to use it. After my post is complete tonight I'll get in bed, all loaded up on cold medicine, OJ, and Ibuprofen.

Today my 8th graders filled out a Behavior Self-Evaluation form. I came up with 10 questions that they had to rate themselves on from 1-5. I looked at a few after school and was surprised with their honesty and integrity in their answers. I was expecting my most troubling students to put all 5's (usually the best possible choice) but they are all well aware of their behavior. Accompanied with this evaluation, I took the opportunity to review classroom expectations. This really helped out in 3rd and 4th period--they were complete angels today. 6th and 7th on the other hand...I may have to come up with some other system with them...

I also gave new seating charts today...never a fun day in Mrs. Hubert's room. I find that I have to change every 4 to 6 weeks because after a while the kids start getting in their comfort zone and start talking to people who they used to never talk to. 7th period especially had a difficult time with the new arrangement. One really annoying student (who, I can predict, will suffer from short man's syndrome his whole adult life) immediately proclaimed: "This seating chart sucks!" Again, I suppose I'd had enough for the day (that and the fact that I felt icky), so I quipped: "No, you know what sucks? What sucks is when I'm trying to teach and you keep whining and interrupting me." Not a proud moment or one I probably should admit here...

7th period was even more eventful because I kicked a kid out again...1st Worst Behaved 8th Grade Student. He's poison! He's dastardly! I took him to a neighboring teacher's room (a teacher whom the student fears more so than my giant 5'3 self). When he came back at the end of class to pick up his mid-term he hadn't done a lick of work, but I felt good knowing that he hadn't disturbed my class in the process.

Last night I had a chance to go out with my friend Sadie. We attended the lighting ceremony at Festival of Trees. It was great fun to spend time with my friend and get in the Christmas Spirit. Her mother-in-law recently passed away and some of the family decorated a tree in her honor. We also saw trees decorated by some of my relatives, a cousin and an aunt, in honor of the cousin's baby girl who died. Here are a few pictures.

This is the tree decorated for Sadie's mother-in-law. It was accompanied by a big flat screen TV, which came with the purchase of the tree. We were told the tree sold for $5,000.

This pink tree was decorated for my cousin Meagan's baby girl who died before she was born. I think my cousin said it sold for almost $1,700.

The giraffe tree was my favorite; not because I love giraffe's, but I thought it was really creative to have the giraffe literally part of the tree.

I mainly took this picture of the Star Wars tree for Ben. It's kind of hard to tell, but the tree is actually semi-covered in Darth Vader's cape and instead of an angel up top it is Darth Vader's mask. There were little Star Wars figurines all over the tree.

thankfuls

2007-11-22T20:51:00.001-08:00

I do a post like this each year but wasn't planning on it this year, but after just watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving, I felt inspired to list all that I am thankful for, this year with a little twist...Pictures (some old, some new):

I'm thankful for Ben who supports me and puts up with my sometime cranky attitude. I suppose I am thankful for Zeus...when he's sleeping and/or being well behaved.

I'm thankful for two big brothers who I like more now than ever. I spent the day with oldest brother, Eric, yesterday and other brother, Zach, has me hooked on Guitar Hero!

I'm thankful for my mom, who is my hero. I'm also thankful for mom's friend, Suzette, who is a great pal.

I'm thankful for my dad because he reads my blog and I am his favorite daughter :)

I'm thankful for sister-in-law, Heather...she's just about the neatest gal I know and let's me ride her horses!

I'm thankful for sister-in-law, Hilary, who is crafty and fun.

I am thankful for grandma Ella who makes me laugh and who still has plenty of energy to be involved in her grandkids life's.

I'm thankful for Cassidy, who makes me smile every time I see her. She is finally getting the whole concept of an aunt and calls me Aunt Lauren.

I am thankful for Ben's family. I'm thankful for mom and dad Hubert who love me like I'm one of their very own. I'm thankful for 3 brothers-in-law, Johnny, Brandon, and Jaren, who treat me with respect and who make me laugh.

I'm thankful for two sisters-in-law, Laci and Meaghan, who are the other Hubert wives and we stick together with all the boys. I'm thankful for neices, Chloe and Caydi, who are so sweet and bring joy to the family.

I'm thankful for an education I received with the help of my mom and for the career this education provided me. I'm thankful that, most of the time, I LOVE my job and look forward to each new day!

I'm thankful for home-sweet-home. I'm thankful to be a home-owner and for the responsibilities that come with it. I'm thankful that the heater works and the roof doesn't leak.

I'm thankful for the great outdoors and for living so close to beautiful places that I can enjoy often.

I'm thankful for my membership in the church and the many blessings that brings. I'm thankful for the temple and for the opportunity to go there.

I could go on and on but I'm getting tired of trying to find pictures so I'm going to stop here.
Hope all had a great thanksgiving!

blowing up

2007-11-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

It's a great feeling to know that tomorrow is a Wednesday, a day that most people will still be heading into work for 8 or so hours and facing the challenges of their respective jobs, that is most people besides me. A great perk of my job is the vacation time. Of course there's the three month vacation during the summer months, but also the holiday vacations given throughout the year that not everyone gets to enjoy...UEA, Holiday Recess, etc. This year, the district seemed a bit generous and gave us the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off and thus, a 5 day weekend.

I will tell you what, I hate to complain because I know how old complaining can become, but this teacher is in much need a 5 day break from the little darlings who spend time in her classroom each day. I know, I know, you are probably thinking, 'but, Lauren, you have two days over the weekend to recharge your teaching batteries!' And to this I say: 2 days is not enough after the kind of month I've had.

You are all aware of my #1 and #2 worse 8th grade students who have recently joined my classes. I will tell you, they certainly live up to the sad potential previously explained to me. However, I've done my darnedest to gain my own opinion of these kids. I tried smiling and saying their name as they walk into the door. I try giving them some extra praise in front of their peers. But, alas, my attempts were beaten down quickly by their poisonous behavior. It is a scientific wonder to me how one kid, approximately weighing about 120 pounds, completely ruins the once superb class in a matter of minutes.

I know I've written about this before, but I feel that I'm a fairly patient person. Much more patient than some teachers who I work with. I understand how crummy it can be to be a junior high teenager and how hard it can sometimes be to keep your self in control. I didn't like junior high much myself--the whole awkwardness of being a teenage girl and the drama of friends, etc.--so I feel at times I can relate to my students.

Today, however, I suppose my patience was damaged one too many times and by 7th period, the period in which Worst 8th grader #1 currently spends his time, I basically, what's the word? BLEW UP!

I hate to re-live the nasty details here but I will tell you that I lost some hair in the battle and might have hurt some tender teenage feelings. I also might have kicked a kid out of the class (I hardly ever do that, by the by) and had to excuse myself shortly there after to take a breath, count the 10 and regain my composure. I obviously reached my limit of immature teenage behavior, constant pencil tapping, talking out of turn, and flying erasers/beads/paper/coins/pens/gum crossing the room in various directions.

As I tried to collect my thoughts about what went wrong after the darlings had left for the weekend, I came across this comic. In education, we talk a lot about classroom management, which is the hardest part about being a teacher. If classroom management were only this easy, I'm sure I'd have smaller class sizes: it'd take one day to clear out my behavior problems this way.
So, from one teacher desperately in need of a 5 day week to a handful of lovely readers, I say

Happy Thanksgiving!

(ps...a small side note: I've just finished watching Soulja Boy Tellum on Ellen and have determined that even though I'm not crazy about the song, I will be learning the dance over my break)

you know....

2007-11-17T11:01:00.000-08:00

Borrowing an idea from comedian Jeff Foxworthy, I now present to you:

You Know You're a Junior High School Teacher if...

* You have a collection of dry erase markers in your pocket by the end of 7th period because if you leave them out they'll be stolen.
* There are sayings such as "Emo Princess" and "Prinsezz Bratt" written on the line meant for the students name on a worksheet (Emo, by the way, is the new fangled term teens use to describe themselves as depressed and emotional)
* When asked the question "What's the best thing that has ever happened in your life?" students write things like "getting a cell phone," which shows the true depth of their maturity.
* You have to assign a "Pencil Nazi" for each class period just so you get all 24 of your pencils back after lending them out to students. And then when in public you have to pick up any pen or pencil off the ground because, oh the shock, you could certainly find someone in need of a pencil.
* While talking to your husband (or any other adult, for that matter) you begin each comment with the words, "Ok, class, let's get started," or "Let me have your attention up here please," or "It's my turn to teach, your turn to shut your mouths," or anything of that nature.
* While telling your crazy dog who insists on barking during a TV show: "You're just as bad as a class of 8th graders."
* You can pick out the vibrating or misquito ring tone on a cell phone hidden in a backpack, and totally freak out the owner when you ask "Who's calling?"

And I could keep going, but these are all just things I've noticed during the last week of working.

A few explanations:

I came home from work on Wednesday and took off my suit coat that I had been wearing. I felt a big lump in one of the pockets and pulled out-no joke-7 dry erase markers. I keep the markers in a box near my desk, but after using one just put it my pocket. I repeat this action each class period and before you know it, my marker box is empty and my pockets are full. I don't know how many markers I have had stolen from my classroom, but I'm willing to bet that the new set I bought at the beginning of the year with 10 markers in it have all been taken and used as a way to get high in the bathroom.

I was correcting my students Bell Work yesterday after school (this is what they do the first 5 minutes of class each day...like answer a question or something). One of the questions I asked this week was "What is the best thing that has ever happened to you?" The majority of my students put things like "getting a cell phone," or "getting my x-Box." I was really saddened at the commentary this gives about this generation. Only a few dug a little deeper and put stuff like "when I was born," or "when my baby brother was born."

The whole "Pencil Nazi" was actually the idea of one lazy student in 7th period who, upon realizing that he does no work in my class, decided he should help me out by being in charge of the bin of pencils I keep on my desk. He is equiped with a post-it-note pad of paper and each student who borrows a pencil must sign out for them and then when they return, he crosses their names off. Despite the fact that this student is one who is brilliant but lacks desire and motivation to do work, I'm kind of please with his sudden urge of pencil awareness that make it possible for students of 7th period to use borrowed pencils. I have a few other students in other classes who have expressed the same desire to help out and I'm seriously considering implementing the new class position and hope that it will become a privilege to be the Pencil Nazi.

Ben and I went to the Chocolate Show last night at the Expo Center with dad Hubert. Can you say "chocolate overload?" The biggest fad there was supposed "healthy chocolate," which the 3 of us decided really tasted like crap. What's the point of chocolate with no caffeine?? After the show, we went to dad's ward pie party and had good pie. Then Ben and I went to see "Fred Clause" with cousin Sharon and her friend. It was pretty funny, but not one I'd see over and over (like Transformers)

It's the first Saturday in a long while I haven't had to be busting my bum to get stuff ready for Primary Program and it feels swell! I slept in and got some housework done. I'm going to see "The Bee Movie" with my mom, Zach, Hil and Cassidy later this afternoon.

Happy Weekend!

swearing

2007-11-13T16:31:00.000-08:00

I almost swore today during 6th period. I was this close to saying my favorite "D" word...you know which one. I am thinking that I might need to take what we teachers refer to as a "mental health day." I've kinda reached my limit with some of the behavior problems I've had this year (oh, and by the by, I just got "worst 8th grader #1" transfered into my 7th period, after 2nd worse 8th grader got put in 4th). I nearly swore today when a bunch of boys broke out into a full on rap session during my instruction. But, I caught myself and said it over and over in my head instead of out loud.

I've been continuing the multi-culture literature unit and have had some positive results. I've mainly been focusing on literature from the Hispanic culture and because that's my number one population of students, most have really enjoyed what we've been reading. I'll finish that culture tomorrow and move on to some Native American literature in the form of legends, approrpriate for the week before Thanksgiving.

Today we read a poem called "Ode to Pablo's Tennis Shoes" by one of my favorites, Gary Soto. I had them read the poem and then answer some questions. After the questions, they got into small groups and each group got a shoe or a boot to answer questions about. Then they had to write their own ode to that shoe. I brought some of my shoes and some of Ben's shoes. Some were really disgusted, even after I told them I had disinfected them. A lot of them thought it was kind of cool that I had Converse high tops. Others laughed at my girly cowboy boots. A few found pleasure in my old toe shoe from dance--I had to prove that, yes, I actually stood on my toes with those shoes. Overall it was a pretty successful lesson.

As I mentioned above I now have administration and counselor endorsed "worst 8th grader #1 and #2" in my classes now. I've only seen #2 in 4th period for probably a total of 5 minutes as he came the last 2 minutes of class on Friday, was absent Monday and left early today because he threw up. Yuck. #1 has proven to be truly the most annoying kid I've ever come across. He's a Caucasian student, just like me, but constantly tells me I'm racist because he's white. He pops his gum and when I make him throw it away, he pulls out another piece. I gave him his first referral in my class today. Apparently, he's just supposed to be in my class for one more week...some sort of special ed loophole we have to jump through...in order for him to be put permanently into a special ed class.

I've added some pressure to my 9th graders in both Journalism and Media Productions. I haven't been seeing the desired results with their work for the newspaper and yearbook (I assign them a work day on the computer and when a deadline hits, find that they have nothing to show for those work days). So I came up with an evil plan: I created this LOOOOONNNNNGGGG unit on media, which includes a daily 10 point assignment (which can not be late!) and a weekly 30-50 point assignment (also, not accepted late). There are no more "work days" until I absolutely have to give them one, i.e. a few days before a deadline. And even when there are work days, there are also extra assignments to be completed. Today when I introduced the unit they all freaked out, but I explained that they are in high school and high school isn't easy. We had a good discussion about media and I gave them a quiz. I also gave them the assignment of a Media Free Day, which means a day without any form of media. I explained that it might be impossible to give up certain types of media (for example, I can't give up my computer at work because my job depends on it) and said that if they could at least eliminate a few types of media from their life for one day, that would be acceptable. Next Monday is my Media Free Day and I will be giving up TV, Radio/Music, and the computer at home...and I might as well throw in my cell phone because I never use it anyway. Some thought this assignment sounded entirely impossible and basically gave up before even trying. So irritating.

Just an FYI for those who care--my Primary program went extremely well. I was very proud of all the kids, especially the tiny Sunbeam who had two parts memorized! We got lots of compliments from ward members about the performance. Our next big to-do is a big teacher appreciation dinner in December.

Ben and I took some pictures a few weeks ago at Murray Park. We thought we could just pose ourselves and use his remote, but as you'll notice, it doesn't quite look right (we needed our photographer friend, Tammy, to help us!) Here are some of the better poses:

Tonight I'm off to meet my mom at a local boutique to retrieve my cell phone which I left at her house last night. I have loads of papers to grade, but that might be put off until Thursday. Happy Tuesday, all.

traveling teacher

2007-11-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

Have you ever wondered what it'd be like to be a traveling teacher, going from room to room all day because you don't have one of your own? Well, I have because I found out yesterday that's what kind of teacher I might become in December.

I was originally told that because my room was going to be turned into a computer lab mid-year, I would be moving down the hall in the newest English teacher's current room. The current English teacher was told that, at this time, she'd be moving outside to a relocatable (portable room). That was the plan up until Tuesday when the principal came in and told me that they would not be getting the relo and thus, I might have to be a traveling teacher. He said it might work out differently and that they were looking into who would be the best teacher to travel, but because my room is turning into the computer lab, it may be me. Joy. I'm thrilled.

I became a little bitter after the news, so I tore down one of my bulletin boards in frustration and now I'm regretting it. Oh well. I also began going through my closet and tried to get rid of a bunch of stuff. I hate packing for a weekend getaway, let alone a classroom with loads of stuff that has been in the room since probably 1990.

I found out today after school that my 4th period would be getting a new student; the second "worst" 8th grade student of the year. I've heard about this kid from my pal VK who asked for him to be switched out of her English class. He's on a behavior contract and his dad comes to school with him a few days a week. He had to be transfered in my class because none of the other 8th grade English teachers could or would take him. He will be in my best behaved class, but one of my largest, and I've been instructed not to give him any leeway as far as behavior goes--one misstep and he's outta there. However, as I've been debating this issue in my mind all evening, I remember hearing that it's never good to pre-judged a student before he enters your room. I've got my "Welcome to my class" speech all prepared for tomorrow when he walks in and hope to start off with a positive note.

My 8th graders have been really started to enjoy the multi-cultural unit. We've read mostly literature from the Hispanic culture (a lot of Gary Soto) and because the majority of my students are Hispanic, I've had really good responses. I've found literature from each culture represented in all of my classes except Afghanistan...if you know any for 8th graders, let me know.

I have one more Wednesday night ESL class left for the semester. It's been pretty dang easy and very interesting. I will have an on-line course next semester and then I'll be finished. YAY. I'm looking into a master's program through University of Phoenix. It's cool because I can pretty much start any time as their courses start over every two weeks. I will probably get my masters in secondary education because there is NO way I want to be in administration.

Interestingly enough, I took the 8th graders to the library yesterday to check out books for their 2nd quarter reading log. As I was helping a group of boys find the "Captain Underpants" series, I ran across a book written by a familiar name: Paul Pitts. This is the name of my professor of my ESL class. I grabbed the book and lo and behold, it was my professor who authored this book about a Navajo boy and his friend. I checked it out and am almost finished. I showed it to him tonight and class and he laughed and said, "that thing is like the Engergizer Bunny, it just keeps going and going." I'm not exactly sure what he meant by that, but I expressed how neat it was that he was published and he thanked me for my politeness. It is a well written book and I think he should be proud.

Another interesting thing found in the library yesterday by a boy in 6th period was a book called "Hubert Invents the Wheel." They all thought it was about me, but I had to break their little hearts and say that this "Hubert" was probably a first name. I found it amusing, however, and had to run in the library this morning and check it out just to show people and give it a read.

Well, the big Primary Program is on Sunday. We've been practicing for the last two weeks and I'll admit that it's been, at times, disastrous. I feel it will go OK on Sunday, however. I'm sitting on a tiny chair right by the pulpit basically feeding the lines to the kids who didn't memorize their parts or can't read. The kids are sick of the songs we've been singing and I'm just ready to get it over with so I'll be a happy woman come Sunday at about 1:45.

6 truths

2007-11-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

I received a "tag" from my good friend Tammy. This means that I am supposed to post 6 truths about myself on here and then tag a few more people to do the same thing. Here are my 6 truths:

1. I've had surgery in my mouth twice. I had what is called a RANULA on the skin underneath my tongue. The first time I had it removed I was in 5th or 6th grade and then it came back again in 8th grade. The aftermath was horrible...felt much like a rug burn on your elbow or knee, only this was under my tongue.

2. I really hate talking on the phone, especially for a long time. I make quick calls to family and a few to friends, but for the most part, if I can e-mail or text, I do. I hate the phone because I always stumble over my words and babble.

3. I want a tattoo. Don't hate me. I'm a good person. It would be the worse thing I'd ever done (I've never smoked, drank, etc. etc.) Chances are I won't go through with this because it would devastate my mother and that would make me feel awful, but perhaps an airbrush design is in my future.

4. I have a 250 page novel in progress saved on my computer. I started typing it up in college (kind of a break from writing analysis and research papers), and have written a little bit each year since. It's pretty pathetic and I probably will never show it to anyone, but I suppose getting published will be a life-long dream.

5. One of my biggest regrets in life is quitting dance. I quit ballet when I was in 9th grade, after an almost 11 year stint. I realize now that I loved it so much and wish I would have stuck with it. Of course, I don't really have the body type (tall and flat chested), but it is still a passion of mine to put on my toe shoes and do a few twirls. I'd love to take an adult ballet class sometime.

6. Almost weekly I have dreams about my teeth in some way or another. Sometimes the dream consists of me loosing my teeth. Other times my teeth break. I've done a little research into this and found a few "meanings" being dreams about teeth. One says that dreaming about teeth means you're afraid to loose your voice (not literally but in an opinion-expressing way) and the other meaning says that it means you are being too passive about your life, which I'll agree to most of the time.

And there you go. 6 truths about me, brutally honest, a little glimpse into my world.

Today was a great day. I had full participation from students (especially 8th graders).

The 8th graders read a play about The Legend of La Llorona. This is a legend from the Hispanic culture. It is about a woman who falls in love with the wrong guy, he leaves her and marries another woman. She is so distraught, she takes her children to the lake and they all end up drowning. La Llorona (the weeping woman) is said to haunt parts of Mexico, New Mexico, and California weeping for the loss of her love and children.

The majority of my students are Hispanic and most of them had heard of the legend so they got really into the play. They seemed to enjoy reading it, as well. I had lots of boys read the boy parts in funny high-pitched voices and some kids put their own dramatic flair into their reading.

I finally got around to get sweatshirts for the newspaper and yearbook staff. I was talking to the financial secretary about it today and the principal walked past, just as I was asking about getting the purchase approved by him. He laughed and said, as he walked by, "Of course, anything for Lauren." Ha. I thought it was pretty funny. I'll submit the orders hopefully by the end of this week and have them before Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow my 8th graders are creating bumper stickers to express the theme/main idea of the Legend of La Llorona. I made a few examples. My favorite one: Honk if you've seen La Llorona. I'm going to show them a few bumper stickers that aren't about the legend, and try to teach them how to come up with a funny, catchy slogan. I'll be anxious to see if they catch on.

I'm at my mom's house right now. Ben works on Monday so I come here and have dinner with her and Suzette, and then we do family home evening. I'm just waiting for them to show up. Happy Monday.

jr high halloween

2007-11-02T15:10:00.000-07:00

Even after my 3 day work week, I'm super glad it is Friday.

Much has transpired since my last post, the 26th of October. I had a pretty good UEA break. I didn't go on vacation anywhere, but it was relaxing not to worry about school for a few days. I spent some much needed time with my husband and also hung out with my mom. It was also fun because on Tuesday, the last day of the break, I spent the day with my best pal, Sadie, and we had a great time.

Monday night I went to a Halloween party at Grandma Bessie's work. I went with bro-in-law Jaren because Ben was working. Jaren was Peter Pan so I dressed up as Wendy Darling. Our little cousin, Savannah, was Tinker Bell. No one really knew who I was (because I was just wearing a nightgown )unless I was with Jaren, but it was still fun.
I got a good dose of sugar at that party, as well as eating a hotdog. Something I ate that night made me sick, however, and I was up every two hours throwing up beginning on 4:30. Luckily it didn't last longer than 8am.

Halloween Day in a junior high is something everyone should experience at least once in their life. No costumes to be seen, but there is a definite vibe that exudes from the teenagers. This year was no exception. First off, they were anxious for Trick-or-Treating. Many in 1st period spent much of the 45 minutes discussing the best houses to beg for candy. Most of my 8th grade classes could hardly be contained because they were just too darned excited to get out of school and go run amok on the streets of WVC. I had several students approach me and say, with open arms, "Trick-or-Treat," and then when I didn't get them candy it was as if I had just given them a death sentence. Then, in 6th period, a bunch of boys encouraged me to get a substitute for Thursday because they'd all be hyper. Thursday came and went with vast amounts of hyperness and wrappers from candy on the floor. I did get a few good things out of the deal; several students brought me candy (mostly their rejects) that I stashed away in my desk for use at a later date when I really need the sugar.

Halloween at my house was...not really at my house. I went to my mom's house after ESL class and had dinner with my Zach, Hil, Cassidy, grandma Ella and Suzette. We had an enjoyable time being entertained by Tiger Lilly (Cassidy) and enjoyed good food. It took approximately 14 other pictures before this was taken in order to a semi-decent one of her looking at the camera AND smiling.

I wore my Target purchased Halloween shirt, orange with a funky raven/crow (it's still up for debate...) on it. My mom won a fake raven/crow as a prize so we attached it to my headband and the result is me looking like one of the birds from that freaky movie, "Birds," was resting on my head....And then Cassidy fell in love with the bird...
Here's a video from the evening. This is of Cassidy singing the ever popular "One-Eyed-One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater while playing the piano:

And another of her dancing her Halloween Dance in my mom's kitchen:

Today we had a party in 4th period because they had the highest class average at the end of 1st quarter--an 81%, which is the best I've ever had in any of my classes. I bought cookies and punch. The cookies were a hit, but the punch ended up mostly all over the floor and the desks. I'm not sure it was wise on my part to bring fruit punch as one of the choices, but it was still a fun time. There were very few kids who thanked me for the treats and most were quite greedy with their cooking eating, but what can you do?

There was a shooting at the dry cleaners just up the street from the school today.Here's the story on KSL. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2080584
We didn't have to lockdown or anything, but it was still all over because of the helicopters and nearness of the event. It was said in faculty meeting after school that a shooting is bound to someday affect our school. Great.

Well, after this long post, I'm fairly hungry. I've got tonight to relax a bit and then busy again tomorrow with Primary stuff. Happy Weekend!

ueYEAH!

2007-10-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

What a week, what a week indeed. I'm way tired at 10:45 on Friday night, but wanted to give a quick recap of my week before hibernating in bed for the weekend.

Yesterday was the end of first quarter. Wow, how time flies. It seemed like the shortest quarter on earth, but in fact, it was the regular 9 weeks. At the end of a quarter, we have to post final grades on the computer in order for them to be printed on the students report cards. We had to have it finished by 5pm today; being the over achiever that I (sometimes) am, I posted yesterday during lunch.

We had to go in today for at least 1/2 day in order to receive the professional development/re-licensure points. It was a student non-attending day and boy, was the silence nice! I had two training meetings: 1, Photostory 3, which is like PowerPoint on steroids, and 2, Classroom Management and discipline techniques for the difficult student. All in all, both were very informative and for once, I didn't feel like I'd wasted a bunch of time.

I could have stayed at the school until it's closing, at 6, but I thought I'd start my vacation early. (For those not in Utah, Monday and Tuesday is UEA--Utah Educators Association--we get those two days off to go to the conferences in Salt Lake, thus I get a 5 day weekend--sweet!). Anyway, after one hour of really doing a whole lot of nothing when I should have been working, I realized I was in an unmotivated mood and that I desperately needed to get out of there and truly take a break.

So, I did the only logical thing a person can do in a situation like this. I went to the doctors! You see, I've been having major ear-ache trouble for about 3 weeks. On Wednesday the shooting and stabbing pain in my left ear was almost too much to handle. I felt ooey and gooey liquid coming out of it on Thursday, and finally put my foot down on the pain, despite how much I despise the doctor.

Ben met me at Instacare and we waited for one hour to be seen by a very non people person doctor who checked me out and found nothing. Nada. Zilch. The doc looked in my ear only to find the scar tissue from having tubes in my ears looking much like normal scar tissue. He said, however, that my throat was swollen and red, much like strep, so he gagged me and did a strep culture. After another 10 minute wait, knowing before hand that I did not, in fact, have strep, he came back and said, "Nope, not strep." He sympathized with my pains and prescribed me some numbing drops for future bouts of the shooting pain as well as a nasal decongestent because... apparently that's what he thought would help.

After all of this, I ended up getting my flu shot right there and now my arm hurts as if I had been punched or something. I hope I don't get sick for the rest of the year. That's my goal, think positive and I won't get sick.

The students seemed to already be hyped up on Smarties and Tootsie Rolls this week. I did, however, feed the problem by bringing candy in to reinforce positive behavior. I do that rarely because I know they already get too much sugar, but it seemed appropriate at this time. I can only imagine what next week will be like; we go back to school on Halloween and then have the two days after to suffer through the sugar high's of the students.

I have finally finished the three books in the vampire, "Twilight," series. I'll admit that I enjoyed the first one the most, but the others were well written and enjoyable. I have loved seeing my students get so into the books as well. Now I'm reading the teacher book club book for the month: Austenland, By Shannon Hale.

It may not be a post-filled weekend for this blog because I'm trying to really relax and take a break from school. I'll be back, refreshed and strong, next Wednesday. And after Halloween, it gets to the fun part of the year where there are so many breaks for holiday's, the quarter will really fly!

Hugs and loves.

the staff battle

2007-10-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

Everyone take a big breath with me now. Don't you feel better? I always like to take a big breath when I get home, especially on Friday's, knowthing that I survived another week and that 2 days of "relaxation" are in store. I say "relaxation" because often my weekends are just as busy and chaotic as the weekdays...but at least I can sleep in a tiny bit, if you call 7 sleeping in.

Anywho, I'm glad it's Friday and I'm happy to report that I'm all caught up on my grading. With the last week of the quarter next week, I feel very proud that I was able to catch up and now only have to add a few things in that we do next week.

We had two meetings after school today, which took us all the way to contract time (2:45) and then some. We got out of department meetings at 3 or so. I decided to force myself to stay so I could catch up on said grading and straighten my ever-messy desk. It just felt good to carry out a very light teacher bag to my car today...for once I didn't bring anything home!

The latest drama with yearbook has unfolded this week. The kids are starting to put together pages and make decisions about what they want on the pages. There is a page, which after this year I might eliminate all together, called "Best Of." These are the really lame (I think) things like "Personality Plus," or "Cutest couple" (gag). The girl assigned this page this year, along with some of her friends, started making decisions about what categories they'd do this year, instead of the same old "Cutest Smile." I fully encouraged them to do something different and be creative.

On Wednesday they turned in a page mock-up of what they wanted the page to look like and what categories. Some of their ideas were clever and fun--Happy all Around. Some, on the other hand, I vetoed--Most Baggy Pants and Most Body Piercings. Ha. I asked them to eliminate those two as I thought it might cause an uproar with the administration and I thought that not every 9th grader would know who had the most body piercings. I though that the was the end of the troubles with Best Of, but I was so wrong.

Yesterday, these same girls decided to make posters promoting the voting for the categories. They decided to have all the 9th grade vote during advisory, so they made posters explaining the categories and telling when they'd vote. Halfway through the poster making, another group of students approached me. Their spokesperson asked me, "Did they get to just choose the categories themselves?" I explained the situation, saying yes because it's their page. Another one piped in, "Well, we think it'd be more fair if we all got a say in what the Best Of Categories were." I felt put-on-the-spot, so I said, "I'll think about it and we'll talk about it tomorrow during Staff Meeting." They agreed.

I told the poster makers to cease making posters until further notice. They, of course, through a fit because they are brats like that. I suddenly had all sides of my staff upset at me for my handeling of the situation.

I talked to a few teachers about my predicament, asked Ben his opinion, and finally made my decision to allow the girls assigned to the page to make the ultimate decision. My thinking was that if we'd vote on what to put on that page, it'd only make it "fair" to vote on everyone else's page (whether or not this was the best approach is still up for debate...)

Today in staff meeting, I explained my situation, getting glares and crusties from my really over reactive staff. I said that in general life isn't fair and in yearbook especially not everyone will agree on what we do, but ultimately I am the adviser and make the decisions I feel are best for the outcome of the book. I explained both sides of story and my feelings and concerns about each side. My "vote for this page, vote for all page" speech was quite eloquent, I wish someone would have taped it because it was an excellent example of a persuasive argument. Anyway, long story short, in the midst of my speech and seeing the reaction of the kids, I decided to have everyone give input and asked the girls in charge of the page to take into consideration what the other's had to say. They rolled their eyes and huffed a little, but wrote down the suggestions given.

I once again thought that the problem was solved, but then continued to have kids from both sides coming up to me saying it wasn't fair. I had the girls show me their revised categories, which included several suggestions from the opposing side, and have resolved to pronounce this situation "case-closed" on Monday.

On a somewhat positive note, the first issue of the newspaper was delivered today. Despite the fact that the kids choose orange paper, it looks pretty decent. We'll pass it out on Tuesday during advisory.

Happy weekend!

theme

2007-10-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to say that I am feeling tons better...oh, but, perhaps none of you really knew I was sick. Well, I got a cold over the weekend and am just (tonight, actually) starting to feel better. Life is so much better when you feel good and the stuffiness of your nose goes away.

I just returned from a baby shower for Aunt C. It was a nice little get together. I will tell you this much, this is definitely the season for babies! So many of my friends and relatives are prego, I'm beginning to think it's gonna finally happen for me, too! But, really, congrats to all with child---I'm super happy for everyone!

Since I was sick, the beginning of this week wasn't terrific. I was in a crummy mood and didn't feel well, plus it was newspaper deadline time and that always equals chaos. But, the down-hill end of the week is looking more promising and my most exciting news for the day is that 2 out of my 4 8th grade English class actually understood what I taught them today! YAY! I told 4th period (the first to 'get it') that it makes me a happy teacher when they listen and participate and I made a big deal trying to make them feel like they did a good thing. I'll explain more later about what I was teaching and why it was so monumental that someone understood!!

First, to deal with the newspaper deadline drama. I decided just to stick with the districts printing services, like last year. I worked super hard on the layout design and perfecting this first paper. I spent Monday and Tuesday working on layout during my prep, lunch, and after school. I got it perfect, or as close as possible. I went to e-mail it as an attachment to the printing service at the district and it came back saying it couldn't be delivered.

On Tuesday, during lunch, in between sips of soup, I called to see if they might have an answer. The fellow on the other end explained that he would check with IT and get back to me. Needless to say he never did and so finally this morning I called during 1st period. The lady was real snippy with me and basically said I'd have to hand deliver it to the district. Ugh. I had the IT guy at my school come in and help me burn it on a CD, but soon found out that my CD burner doesn't work, so they had to burn it on the librarian computer. I planned on delivering to the district in between let out of school (2:45) and the start of my ESL class (4).

I got halfway to my car and realized I needed to know where the printing office was, so I found the principal. He was on "bus duty" and was making sure no fights were breaking out at the front of the school. I explained the situation and he started telling me the whereabouts of this office. Then, mid sentence, he offered to drop the CD off for me in the morning because he had a meeting there anyway. I was so grateful for his willingness to do that for me. He's kind of one of those 'tough-love' fellows and I can't stop thinking about what a decent thing that is that he would do my "job" for me. Thanks a bunch to DR! And hopefully the paper will turn out decent.

I gave the 8th graders a pop quiz today. It was pretty funny. I decided that they haven't really been paying attention the last few days, so last night I made up a pretty basic quiz dealing with the concepts we've been learning about...character and setting. All of my classes were surprised and didn't believe that I would do something like that (is this counting on our grade, Mrs. Hubert?). I think they all kind of got the idea that in order to succeed they need to pay attention. Now that this pop quiz got my point across, I might use it more frequently as an assessment of their understanding.

After the quiz, I tackled the hardest concepts of all the English curriculum (well, besides run on sentences, comma splices, and dangling modifiers...hahaha): Theme. It's sometimes even hard for me to pick out the theme of a text, let a lone an 8th grader. I collaborated with the other 8th grade English teachers and we decided we'd all try using Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" song as way to teach theme. I tried this last year and it blew up in my face, so I was apprehensive, but I guess this is why we always are told to try things more than once. They listened to the song--any adult with a working knowledge of urbanization would pick the theme right away--then we discussed what it was talking about. Some students had a hard time understanding "they paved paradise, put up a parking lot," but after discussion, it made more sense.

Then we came up (me and the other teachers) with a series of questions that, when built upon each other, would eventually lead to the theme. 4th period got really into this because 1) they ALWAYS pay attention and listen, but 2) I think some of them are way smart and just figured it out. It was so exciting when one student, not a particularly 'with-it' student, picked up on the theme even before we got to the question dealing with theme. I explained that there could be two themes: Don't take what you have now for granted because you'll miss it when it's gone (tying into the trees in the song being destroyed) and also Urbanization, which was still a little too deep for some students to understand.

It just felt great to have a successful lesson and for it to be rather easy to teach. I made note of exactly what I said and how I explained the concepts and I will definitely use this activity next year. Plus, it's fun to see the kids dance while we listen to the song.

I finally broke down and changed my desk arrangement in my room. I tried the table thing and decided it wasn't really conducive to my teaching style (up front, in back, all over crazy), so I put them in a round-room type setting; there are 8 rows of 3, facing each other, with a big aisle down the middle. The kids seemed to like the arrangement better and it works much better with my style.

I had ESL class tonight, but like always, it didn't go until 7. I'm not complaining, however. It's actually pretty interesting but by 4 on a Wednesday afternoon, I'm just kind of beat and can't really focus. I'm more sympathetic to my 6th and 7th period students because I understand how difficult it is to sit still and listen when you're tired.

End of 1st quarter is in one week. Then UEA! I'm going to one day of the UEA conferences, mostly just because my teacher-hero is the key note. Erin Gruwell, of "Freedom Writers" (the movie/book) fame will be speaking and I basically think she's one of the greatest examples of what kind of teacher I want to be. It should be a good time...plus, I am looking forward to the break!!!

hubertvision

2007-10-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

Spirit Week is finally over! It's always fun to do something different, such as wearing pajamas to school. But it's also fun when the craziness that is Spirit Week is over and school-life can return (somewhat) back to normal...if there is such a thing as normal in the junior high.

If you're wondering, I did end up wearing pj's to school today and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Several other teachers did the same and it was quite comfortable.

We were on super-shortened class schedule today. The classes were only about 25 minutes long, which made teaching kind of difficult. Our Spirit Assembly was after 7th period, for 40 minutes. It was a "pep" assembly so the noise was monumental and for the second day this week I came home with a pounding head ache. I took pictures during the assembly and I was so excited when I figured out the setting on the camera that allows the pictures taken in the gym to actually show up!

Perhaps most have heard, but our network high school, GHS, was in the news today. Apparently a stupid high school teenager decided it'd just be the icing on the Friday cake to send text messages telling people that there was to be a Columbine-like shooting on campus during lunch and not to go to the cafeteria. Of course, the text message spread around quickly, even making it to some of my students this morning. Students and parents were freaked, rightfully so, and it was soon found that it was only a prank. They hyped up security at the school and the day went off without any tragedies.

One of my 3rd period students told me and it made me quite nervous. It was all the buzz all day with students only able to think about the "what if's." All the teachers got the "low-down" today at our after school meeting, where the principal told us the whole story. Of course, this student, and any accomplices, were taken into custody and will surely be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

It's no secret that my eyes are HUGE. My 6th period has also noticed and have come up with a term: Hubertvision. They try to imitate my big eyes and then say, in a superhero-like voice, "Hubertvision!" It's pretty comical. 6th period is loud and sometimes annoying, but they are a fun mix of kids.

I've got loads of papers to grade over the weekend (like always) and also have to prepare a sharing time for Sunday. As much as I'd like to just stay in bed and read all weekend, I've got those details to tend to. I've got a cub scout meeting tonight and then I'll relax a bit to prepare myself for a full and busy day tomorrow. Happy weekend!

better day

2007-10-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

It probably is no secret that yesterday was a bit of a bad day for me. I feel much better today and actually had a 100% turn around from yesterday.

Yesterday was a long day. I had class until 7 so I was at school from 7 to 7. I was so frustrated yesterday because we keep hearing that "teacher's don't do enough" and that's why kids aren't passing the big end-of-year test (AYP for those in Utah). Yesterday was difficult because I tried my hardest and did all I knew to do to teach and the kids were completely unresponsive. I do my fair share, as do all teachers, and I'm just sick of hearing that teachers don't do enough.

And I won't get into any more detail, but I will say my day today was better and I still love my job.

I taught the 8th graders about character today. We talked about the character Superman (side note: today was "superhero day" for spirit week so I thought it appropriate). We talked about his 'character' and the elements that make up character. Then, I had them read a story and identify the elements on the character in the story. It went pretty well and I think most of them understood what I was saying. The key thing to focus on today, however, was that they (again, for the most part) followed instructions...they were asked to read on their own quietly. It always pleases me when they follow instructions.

I chaperoned the after school dance today. It was a real....treat? Hmmm. Maybe that's not the right word. The music was blaring and my head is pounding! I was able to take a bunch of pictures so the purpose of my chaperoning was two-fold. I did have a few kids who wanted me to dance with them, in their little circle. I have a running joke with my 6th period that I took break dance lessons as a youth and they are all desperate to see my 'mad skills. So, at the dance a bunch of them found me and I did the best imitation of break dancing I could muster and they all cheered. It was pretty fun.

The funniest thing about the dance was that probably 200-300 kids walked into the dance as single teens but walked out hand in hand with their new boyfriend/girlfriend. Seriously, I think I saw about 3 boys ask girls out and then it was a love fest of which I have nothing to compare.

I am very excited that tomorrow is Friday--Pajama Day, if you were wondering. I had a weird aversion to wearing my pajamas to school when I was in junior high, and I'm trying to talk myself into wearing them tomorrow. I've dressed up for each day so I hate to break my record, but the idea of wearing pajamas is just too strange. We also have an assembly tomorrow, which makes the 30 minute class periods (short day Friday) even shorter!

Just realized that I left my book...New Moon, from the Twilight series...on my desk at school. I had planned on finishing it tonight but it looks like that's not a possibility. Oh well. It'll be nice to just sit and chat with my husband, who I've seen very little of this week.

little complaining

2007-10-10T19:16:00.000-07:00

My job is HARD. I'm taking 4 Ibepropheun, drinking some tea, and hiding under my covers for a solid 10 hours.

key drama

2007-10-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

It's only Tuesday and already this week is turning out to be wild!

Yesterday I wanted to get to school early, so I was ready by 6:20 to leave. I went to grab my lanyard with my keys, but soon found, yes, the lanyard, but no keys. I searched quickly but still couldn't find them. I decided at 6:35 to just drive to work, ask a janitor to unlock my room, and ask the office to see if I left them at school. As luck would have it, the office didn't have my keys.

I tried retracing my steps from Thursday afternoon-because I wasn't at school on Friday, I had to think to Thursday. I was sick all day trying to think where I had put them. When I got home, I tore through my house, even looking in the fridge, linen closet, and inside every shoe in my closet. Nothing. I felt horrible because one of these keys was a key that opens all the doors at the school; if some kid found them and realized the power these keys held, he'd be opening doors left and right.

I did my best the rest of Monday night to stay calm; no way could they fire me over lost keys...right?? I thought positive thoughts, hoping that they'd turn up over night and magically appear on my lanyard.

No such luck. But, the office issued me a new set of keys with the idea that hopefully mine will turn up eventually. This was such an irritating factor yesterday that my whole day was kind of a bummer--I was in a bad mood, unfortunately.

I assigned a big research project yesterday. My original plan was to make this a 5-paragraph essay with 4 days of research on the laptops. After 3rd period, though, I changed my mind. The reason, or reasons:

First: The computer cart, which roves around the school, had not been charged over night so the laptops lasted, oh, 10 minutes.
Second: Half the kids haven't signed the internet relase form so didn't have access to the internet, kinda important for a research project.
Third: Once the laptops finally worked, it took about 30 minutes just to load the programs and internet--they were extremely slow, so students only had about 10 minutes of research time.
Fourth: I just didn't really have the patience and it made me frustrated, something I'm feeling more and more these days.

So, in the 5 minutes between 3rd and 4th, I changed the big research project to be a 10 line Biography poem to be written with a partner. I quickly made a form for the poem and explained the change. This way, we'll only have the computers tomorrow and students can work together to finish the assignment.

This week is the school Spirit Week. Each day is a different 'theme.' Yesterday was Sports Day (I wore bro-in-law, J, soccer jersey). Today was crazy hair day:
I teased my hair, as shown, and the kids got a real kick out of it. They all thought this was how my hair looked in the morning after I wake up. I took this picture with my phone during lunch.

Tomorrow is Nerd Day. On Thursday, we're supposed to dress as Superhero's and I'm chaperoning at the dance after school. I've had photographers from the yearbook staff out taking pictures each day during lunch; we have some nice shots for yearbook!

Since my last post, I received my school picture. I'm going to scan it tonight at my mom's, but here's a picture taken of my picture with my phone, not the best quality, of course. I do have tons of copies, one perk of being a teacher--we get a bunch for free.
We've been working on distributing these pictures and the id cards since last Wednesday. It's such a big fat pain. I'll be glad when it's over.

I'm now half-way through the second book in the Twilight series. I'm eating it all up, no pun intended, it being about vampires. I'm planning on finishing tonight.

black suit

2007-10-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

Two in a row. Go me.

Today I wore my black business suit (see picture above). I wore this suit, one of the two I own, a ton during my student teaching. I wore it a ton during student teaching because there were certain dress code standards I had to follow during student teaching. These dress code standards aren't exactly the same that are at WL. It's fairly casual there, and unfortunately, sometimes teachers dress a bit too casually. I don't feel I fall into that category; I try not to wear jeans, except on Friday's, and I try looking casual, but professional.

At any rate, I decided to wear my business suit today with my yellow button up shirt. I wore my glasses and I guess you could say looked a little spruced up. I had loads of students asked me why I was so dressed up, and asked if I were going somewhere special today. Of course I said no. Plenty also said that I looked like a lawyer. Ha. I felt pretty good about how I looked, but was kind of irritated by the end of the day with these comments about looking so 'special.' Ben promised me that I didn't look bad, just that when people aren't used to seeing me dressed up a bit, it's unusual when I do and so they question me.

The above picture was taken today, obviously, during my 1st period. I took the journalism students outside, for the second time, to take pictures for the newspaper and their press passes. They all got their picture taken by this tree and they begged me to do the same, so one of the photographers shot this picture of me...I look a bit ridiculous because they were all making me laugh. We had a pretty good time today.

I had teacher book club today after school, something I was part of last year. There were a few teacher who left last year and came back for the book club meeting. We had ice cream and brownies and discussed possible book options. It was fun and relaxing, though while I was there I remembered I also had a Primary Presidency meeting tonight, so I rushed home to get ready for that. I'm proud to say that we just finished writing our Sacrament Meeting program!!

Still enthralled with "Twilight." I had to force myself, at 10:30pm last night, to hide the book so I would get to bed. I'm looking forward to getting in bed shortly to read some more. I'm over half-way through and luckily, also have the 2nd one on hand to read.

I have a substitute all lined up for my personal day on Friday. Ben and I are going to my cousin, Isaac's, wedding in Salt Lake. I'm looking forward to the day off. This week has been a crazy one (though, aren't they all!)

typing

2007-10-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

I remember learning how to type in 7th grade. It was something I worked hard at; something that I practiced often. My parents bought the "Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing" software for our computer and I practiced my little fingers out on that thing. I feel, if I remember correctly, that I became a pretty good little typer that year. I also remember typing a bunch of stuff for my 8th grade English class--poems and short stories that are fun to look back on now, even they are horribly written!

Even though I was well-learned in the area of typing, today I found out that, despite the hours spent on the internet, students these days just don't know how to type.

I had my 8th graders hop on computers today at the library. We've been handwriting memoirs for about 3 days and I wanted them to type their first one up. Now, to begin with, these memoirs were very, very short--3 to 4 paragraphs. I took them home over the weekend and edited them for spelling and punctuation. I told them how to get to the Word program to type. And then I watched in horror as most of these students, who have taken a typing class since 5th grade, pecked one letter at a time with their index fingers.

Most didn't know how to move down to the next line (simply press "Enter.") Some had no idea what a "Curser" was. Several wanted to know how to make a word capitalized. And even more were confused on indenting, a concept they probably learned in 2nd grade. It baffled my mind.

During 6th period, one student asked me if I could type without looking at my hands. They didn't believe I could so I showed them. They were amazed and thought I was magic. I told them it just takes practice...and majoring in English in college (which roughly translates into "Writing Papers")

Even still, with their pecking style of typing, most of the kids finished and were able to print off their memoir and turn them in. Now, I have the week to read about silly memories, sad memories, and happy memories. I'm actually kind of excited.

If any of you tried calling me this weekend, or if you were expecting a call from me, I apologize. I was totally engrossed in a new book and spent literally most of Saturday and after church on Sunday in bed reading. The book is the first in a series written by BYU graduate, Stephenie Meyer. It's called "Twilight." She has 3 books in the series and I am now just catching onto the hype about this book, which came out in about 2005. It. Is. Freaking. Amazing. Granted, it's about vampires...something I usually wouldn't read...but it's fabulously written and the love story involved gives me chills. I know, I know, "What's a Mormon girl doing writing about vampires..." but, seriously, it's probably the best, well-written book I've read since my first encounter with the Harry Potter series (if not, dare I say, better??)

A funny thing about this book, well 2 funny things. The first, not so much funny as fascinating: One of my friends growing up is the cousin of the author. Wow!

The second is that today I heard a group of non-reading type boys in my 4th period talking about the book. I approached them and asked if they had read it. They agreed in the affirmative and gushed about how well they liked it. I told them I was reading it and they were very excited to hear my opinion. I give a bushel full of KUDOS to any author that can get the usually non-reading boy to read; that's a terrific feat!!

ptc observations

2007-09-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it through Parent Teacher Conferences. It's Friday morning and I promised myself I'd sleep in, but at 8:30 I popped up and was wide awake. I suppose 8:30 is sleeping in for my normal waking up time of 5:30. I'm hoping that in a few minutes, I feel sleepy and will be able to go back to sleep for a bit.

I had a fairly good turn out at PTC about 35 parents both nights. A few of the ones that came were ones that I actually needed to see and I got good information from a lot of parents about their students. I used the laptop in my room and as people came, I pulled up a grade report for the individual student. It worked well and this way I didn't waste any paper!

I noticed some interesting things about parents coming to talk about their students grades. I hate to generalize or maybe put these 'stereotypes' on people, but rather just stating it as an observation. First off, the parents of my Bosnian/Croatian students are very serious when it comes to grades. I had one student who has a B+ in my class, a grade I feel is very good considering. I told this parent that his student was doing good in my class and he reported back to me, "No, it's not good." Luckily, I had added a few scores to his grade which raised it up to an A and the parent was fine. Another Bosnian parent had a difficult time hearing that his student was too talkative in my class. He told me that he would take care of it at home and that I should call him if I had any major problems.

Another observation I made was with the parents of my Hispanic students. For most, they barely understood my English. A few understood me when I used hand motions or pointed to something. For them, I realized that they weren't so much upset about the letter grade than they were the behavior. I firmly believe that behavior in class has a direct correlation to the grade. If a student had a D or something, the parent was more concerned about the behavior, not necessarily the letter grade.

And then, lastly, something I remember from last year as well as all of the times my mom went to my Parent Teacher Conferences: The students who do good in all of their classes, both grade wise and behavior wise, are the ones that take up the majority of the parents who come. I remember always being so nervous for my mom to come home, but every time she came home she had nothing but good things to report. The conferences with these students as a teacher last maybe 1 minute because I have no negative things to say. The parents already know their students is nearly perfect.

Yesterday I was very tired during the day. I wore my glasses and had my hair in a ponytail. I told my bratty 2nd period that I wasn't feeling well and that I didn't have the patience for them. They seemed to understand and got right to work. I was walking around to see if they needed help and this one girls says, "You don't look very good today." Thanks. They all laughed and said I should give her an F. Then she came to PTC last night with her mom and explained how sorry she had felt all day. I laughed and told her it wasn't a huge deal; I know I didn't look very good.

I have tons of DVR shows to watch today--I simply want to relax and not do one bit of school work. I think Ben and I might go to Milcreek Canyon with the dog a little later and take some pictures.

I'll leave you now with this: Hope you all have a good Friday at work while I'm at home :)

need to chill

2007-09-25T19:01:00.000-07:00

Am I more in the mood to write tonight? No, not really. But I have an empty house...more importantly, the dog is with Ben...and I never pass up a chance to relax in my empty house. Most often, writing is relaxing and it is even more so when I don't have the dog yipping at my feet.

I am flabbergasted at the thought that tomorrow is Parent Teacher Conferences! This month has flown by. I have kind of a lot to write about tonight since I've been so slacker-ish lately, but I promise not to disappoint.

So we've been working on writing memoirs in the 8th grade classes. Or, I should say, we've been working on the idea of working on memoirs. They're not so much into the writing part as they are into the not working part, which for the most part they are all really good at. I often hear that as long as you are prepared the lesson or activity you plan to do on any given day will work fine. I'm here to tell you that's a big bunch of educational BS. I planned nearly every minute of class today to a T and still had enormous failure.

The idea of today's activity, which came to me in a dream, was to brainstorm. When I say brainstorm for this activity, I mean think (on your own), write (on your own) and repeat (on your own). I also mean that there shouldn't be any talking. Whatsover. Even 6 inch whispers (and whoever said those 6 inch whispers were a good idea needs to spend a little more time in a classroom). This brainstorm consisted of a piece of white paper with different categories on it (people, places, sensations, etc.) with more specific sub-categories (relatives, vacations, food, etc.). I had prepared to play some soft, thought-provoking music while they wrote and instructed them not to talk and under no circumstances where they to comment, positive or negative, about the music selection.

I explained the above thouroughly; had the biggest yahoo's and goof off's repeat my instruction and then repeated again. I began the music. And so began the laughter, talking, and complete ignorance of my instruction. I became furious inside because this great plan, which I had written out, practiced in my head, and verbalized to VK more than blew up in my face.

Sure, there were a few who followed instruction, but mostly it was chaos, and by 7th period I'd given up on the music thing and walked them through each sub-category...which I thought was worse than listening to the music, but, oh well.

Moving on.

I posted mid-term grades yesterday. It will always amaze me at student's reactions to their grades. Somehow they feel they deserve an A just for gracing me with their presence:
"So, uh, Mrs. Hubert, how come I got a C in your class?"
"Well, it looks like you've missed some assignments and you have a low score."
"But I do the work. I'm here in class."
"Yeah, but you get poor scores and/or you don't turn it in."
"That's dumb. You're racist."

(Ask any teacher at WL and they'll tell you the plethora of times they've had the "your racist" card pulled on them.)

I always make a big deal about how they earn their grades and that I don't just give them. They have to prove to me that they deserve the A. Like most teachers, I don't just give grades based on my enjoyment of you in the classroom. I'm prepared for a few disgruntled parents tomorrow and Thursday at PTC. The plus, however, is that we don't have school on Friday.

The subject I've been avoiding: Yearbook DRAMA!!!!

We decided on a theme: A Splash of Color. My yearbook rep guy came in yesterday to talk to the students about covers. Because I have such a large and diverse group of students, this discussion soon turned into an all out battle between two cover ideas: Splashes of color (ie PAINT) OR colored hand prints. Now, you tell me, which goes better with our theme? After they were all SO horribly disrespectful to rep-guy, I finally put my foot down and said we were going to do the paint splash idea because, hello, it goes with the theme and the majority of the class voted for it. No more arguing. After class, a bunch of the hand print loving gang came up with their lately consistent bratty faces and body language: "Hubert. We have a problem with you. You always pick what the other people want." Blah. Blah. Blah. "We're princesses and if we don't get what we want, we will wreak havoc on you and you WILL regret picking their ideas." Blah. Blah. Blah. "It's not fair."Blah. LIFE ISN'T FAIR!!

Today I chewed them all out saying that the fighting back and forth has gone too far and it's getting old. I also explained that some of them, due to their lack of responsibility and maturity, are very close to being kicked off the staff. I mentioned how life isn't fair and sometimes you have to live with "majority rules." I also said the cover choice had nothing to do with me picking sides; it had everything to do with what goes with the theme better (and, though I didn't say this to them, because I'm the adviser I really get final say in everything and I can do whatever I want.) I don't know if it really calmed the hand print gang down, but they'll have to live with it for now

(PS...these girls are also the same girls who flat out told me that if I ordered them t-shirts and not sweatshirts, they would not wear them. They are big ol' brats!)

On the other hand, I have great news regarding the school newspaper staff. They are great and fun and I'm loving the mixture of students. I found a really great company that specializes in printing school newspapers. I can create the newspaper on line, send it to them, and then they print and deliver it. It will look like an actual newspaper, on newsprint, and will be much bigger than last years paper. The kids are all excited and we hope to have our 1st edition out by mid-October.

I had an informal observation today. The principal dropped by during 2nd period and asked if he could watch for 10 minutes. It was yearbook class and they were taking a test, but he said afterward that everything was fine. He will be coming in November for my first Formal Observation of the year.

As far as my non-teaching personal life, I really haven't had a chance to have one lately. I've been busy with planning lessons and my ESL class and grading for mid-terms, I really haven't had a chance to just, as my students love to say, "chill." I have nearly one week's worth of TIVO shows to watch, three overdue library books, and the Twilight series (given to me by mom) to read. If I can get through Thursday, I'll have a nice day off to "chill" and catch up on all of the above.

drama-o-rama

2007-09-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

Oi vey! Today was definitely a Monday. And even though I have loads to write about, I'm not really in the mood. So I think I'll keep this SUPER short and save it all for tomorrow when my head is in a more creative state. Goodnight.

aha moment

2007-09-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

I decided today on my drive home, after a quick stop at Smith's, that my posts need to be more frequent so I don't write so much in one. I'm not entirely sure how many people actually read from start to finish, but I'm putting it out in the universe that I'm going to try to shorten your reading load (something I'm also sure my students would appreciate).

I had what Oprah calls an "Aha Moment" today. I'm thinking as an old-pro 2nd year teacher (hahaha). My Aha Moment may not be all that profound, but I'm glad it hit me today...when I needed it most.

3rd period, the ginormous class, is proving to be my challenge. I'm not really 'connecting' with them as I would like and feel a little overwhelmed at the size. Luckily, I did have one student who was transfered to sped (special ed.) which gives me one more seat to fill.

Today I was uber prepared. I made a bookmark for them to glue (so I guess, rather, a gluemark) onto the front of their folders. On it was the three types of Text Connections (text to text, text to self, and text to world). I tried to make my instruction on these brief and to the point. Then, as we are beginning our unit on biography, autobiography, and memoirs, I decided we'd read one of my most favorite selections from Maya Angelou's, "I know Why the Caged Bird Sings," the one about Mrs. Bertha Flowers, which I showed as an example of a memoir.

3rd period, like most, were reluctant to read (why do we hafta read in English??) and I made a split-second decision that I would read to them. I read with all the passion in this wide world; seriously, I was really into it...maybe a little too into it. Despite my somewhat theatrical performance, I still had nodding heads and flying pencils.

Part one of my "Aha Moment" is that not every student likes to read or ever will like to read. I knew that before, but today's class made me realize that I can't persuade every teenager who passes through my class thoroughly love reading. Sure, there were the few who actually paid attention and followed along; mostly, however, the non-readers stared aimlessly off in space, looking in the direction of my more-boring-than-the-story ceiling.

Part two of my "Aha Moment" was that perhaps, not every student will like me and I may not make those precious connections with every student. This, too, I knew before (from last year experience) but it seemed to be OK today; it was OK that I overheard a girl say, "My friend is in this class in 4th period and she thinks Mrs. Hubert is dumb." Of course, it stung like finger nail polish on a paper cut, but I was OK because I can't take things like that personally and I'm beginning to really, truly understand that. They are, after all, teenagers...13 and 14 year olds who really don't have the maturity to know what they like and don't like.

Then, however, during 7th period, I had an even greater thought and moment that made me smile again, made me remember, yet again, why I love my job. I connected with them. I had all 27 of those students following along, listening to my performance. They were participating, even if they didn't really care for the story, they tried. And I realized that I loved them for that. And I realized that some kids will like me and the way I teach, as goofy as I may be sometimes. I will make connections with some, if even only a few, and it will make all the difference.

I hope that maybe today, some of my students could say, as Maya Angelou says at the end of "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,"
"She made a difference. I mattered. And that made all the difference."

apparently

2007-09-17T15:42:00.000-07:00

A list of "apparently-s" today (all that I realized today...apparently):

1. Apparently half the school believes I'm pregnant. Yup. I had a girl ask me this morning during advisory. I asked her where she heard that and she said, "Well, like, it's just been, like, passed around, and stuff, like." Ha. Then, another student asked. Wow. THEN, a teacher asked in the lounge! I had one student after school ask again and then I asked him why he thought that and he said (his exact words), "Well, people in your 1st period say you're mean compared to last year and they just thought...." I'm not pregnant. Enough said.

2. Apparently I could have talked about rainbows and kitties for the past three weeks and my students would have done just as poorly on their external text feature's test today. I mean, really? 4 out of 20. The mind-boggling thing, though, is that these same students who scored poorly on the test did amazingly well in our review game. I'm in a conundrum about the whole thing and have decided to give the external text features a rest for a few weeks and revisit later.

3. Apparently putting a pencil behind my ear makes me look (from a side angle) like I have a pencil coming out of my nose. 6th period got a huge laugh about that today and it made me get the giggles and we all shared a moment. I've resolved to put pencils behind my ear anymore in hopes of preventing such comical outbursts in class that take up a good chunk of time.

4. Apparently I can figure out Adobe PageMaker for the school newspaper and get it printed on real newsprint. I spent oodles of time last year trying to figure it out, but I messed around with PageMaker again today at lunch and suddenly "got it." It may take one more month before we can actually give out a paper, but it will be worth the wait.

5. Apparently even English teachers make spelling mistakes and sometimes students are smart enough to catch them. I spelled the word "field" wrong on the board last week and it took until 6th period for someone to point it out. Again, we had a good laugh. I explained that it was a test of their spelling skills, and, way to go, we have great spellers.

Overall, it was a good Monday, though I'm still a little irked about the test thing today. Tomorrow I'm starting Memoir, Biography, and Autobiography unit, which will probably take the rest of the quarter. Is is crazy to think that a week from tomorrow is mid-term and a week from Wednesday is the 1st Parent Teacher Conference of the year??

AYP

2007-09-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

We had department meetings today after school. Usually they are quite productive because our department chair, JJ, is very organized and ends the meetings with complete punctuality.

Today was our first department meeting since we met before school started. She sent us all an e-mail telling us what the agenda was and asking us to bring something to share that we've done so far. She also said we'd keep the meeting to 30 minutes. Sweet.

I got all ready to go and put together something short to share. We started promptly at 1. JJ said that about 2 minutes before school got out, the principal came to give her the results of the Language Arts portion of last year's CRTs.

Our school did not make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). The Language Art's scores missed AYP by about 2%. This is not good for our school as a whole, because now we are on "probation" or "warning" status. Next year, if we don't make AYP again, we will have to allow students to be bussed to other schools, we loose funding of some sort.

This news was kind of discouraging (well, really discouraging). We tried to set some goals on areas to improve and students to help. Hopefully next year will be better.

Picture day was yesterday and it went swimmingly. I had the sub in my room all day and I was down helping organize the kids. It was kind of a nice break, but the day sure went by slow. I'm not used to just sitting there.

3rd period is turning out to be my biggest class. I had two students transfer to my class yesterday and now there are 3 students without desks. It tops out at 38 students. They are loud, but hard workers if I can get them to stay focused.

No more tidbits for today. Mostly I'm just tired and glad to have the weekend rest.

eating out of a cardboard box

2007-09-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

I was utterly sick of making sandwiches for lunch. I despised getting out the mayo one more time and slicing cheese yet again. I thought, I'd rather starve at lunch than take a sandwich.

Finally, I bought some "Healthy Choice" frozen meals, thinking it would be a nice alternative to the lame sandwich idea. I bought 10, on sale, and figured I'd try to alternate between a frozen dinner and...anything but a sandwich. From now on, I'd eat lunch out of a cardboard box.

Operation No More Sandwiches began on Monday. My lunch consisted of a cardboard box of maccaroni and cheese (minus most of the cheese), carrots, yogurt, and an apple. I enjoyed lunch so much better that when I went to pack my lunch for Tuesday, I couldn't bring myself to make that dang sandwich.

Needless to say, I've been eating out of a cardboard box all week and couldn't be happier about my decision to do so. I'm not certain that the meals are the most healthiest of my options, but I'm sure a more pleasant person after I feed my face with the contents of a cardboard box rather than a ham and cheese sandwich.

Update on the Football player/grade change post from yesterday: To make a long dramatic story short--the principal gave the ok for all the teachers to change his grade (apparently we're dealing with a crazy mom who is more obsessed with the football thing than the kid). I changed the grade, was kind of annoyed because the kid had pestered me all day, and am just glad it's done and over with.

Tomorrow is picture day. It'll be a long one for me since I'll be down helping the photographers and such. Then just one more day till Friday!

challenging day...to say the least

2007-09-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

You know when you see a dead dog in the road on your way to work that it might be a crazy day. It's been a while since I last wrote, so this may be a long one.

The day started out with an assembly, the "Hello Assembly," to be exact. The student government put together a very creative and well planned assembly. We watched the cheerleaders and dance company perform and laughed at the two crazy teachers playing a married couple (The Roughousins) in a game show skit. This year, my advisory class (now 9th graders) have the best seats in the house--second, third, and fourth row right up front. This way, I am able to take pictures up close but also keep an eye on the darlings. The assembly was short, but fun. Of course, each class period was shortened a bit, so the day went fast.

The day was not, however, without chaos.

Last Friday, a former student approached me after school. He looked as though he might burst into sobbing, wet, and snotty tears at any moment. I asked him what was up and he proceeded to tell me that he needed to raise his 4th Quarter grade from last year in 6 of his classes in order to be eligible to play football (JV) this season. He wondered if I could change his grade from a D- to a C-. I told him I'd think about it over the weekend and asked him to check with me on Monday. I wondered all weekend what I should do--I didn't want to just 'give' him the grade, I wanted him to learn a lesson of doing the right thing the first time. I saw him first thing yesterday morning and decided I'd have him do a research paper as a way to work toward the grade raise.

Again, bright and early this morning, he was there, with a 5 page research paper in hand. I told him I'd read the paper and fix the grade with the counseling center sometime during the day. Before he left, he mentioned that last year a student on the football team got kicked off because his teachers changed his grade and told the counseling center it was for football. He asked if I could please tell them it was a "clerical error." This confession got me thinking, so during my prep, I went to ask a trusted co-worker their opinion on the matter.

During this conversation, I was told that changing grades for sport eligibility is against district policy. She also explained that once she had done something similar and almost lost her job over it. I questioned her on my options in this particular situation. She said that I could "lie" to the counseling center about the grade and say it was 'my mistake,' and hope that they didn't give me any grief. I thought for a brief second and asked her if I would be in the wrong to now deny the student the grade change, even after he had done the work. She affirmed that, indeed, it would be just fine to do just that and remember from now on that this is against policy.

I became sick in my stomach, struggling with this moral dilemma. I knew my options. I knew how I felt. I wanted to make the best decision, not for the student who so terribly wants to play football, but for me, since it could cost me my job and license. I resolved to find the student after school and break the bad news to him.

I found him where he always is and pulled him aside. I explained the situation in full, including the part about the possibility of me loosing my job if they found out I 'lied." He asked me if I could just say the same thing as the other teach said--'my mistake' and let it slip. I finally said that it wasn't because I didn't want to, nor was it because I didn't like him and didn't want him to succeed. I explained that I have personal beliefs strongly opposed to such 'lieing' or 'cheating." He seemed to actually take it fine and understood. I said if there were any other way I could help I would. I felt 100% better knowing that I had integrity in this situation and now am left wondering if those other teachers who "lied" would feel differently if they knew the policy.

As my neighboring teacher, VK, noted, maybe this taught him a better lesson than just giving him the grade he needed; maybe it taught him the importance of being honest.

I also had a mini-crisis during 7th period. Two students, who sit right up front by where I usually stand when I'm teaching, decided to fight each other with pencils when I wasn't looking (now do you get why I put them up front?). I eventually caught on to their shenanigan and took away the pencils. But, oh, no, they couldn't keep their little hand still for too long. Oh, no. They grabbed PENS and did the same little fighting ditty. This time, it ended up in a minor stab in an arm, which actually drew a teeny, tiny bit of blood, which made this one little girl (literally, like barely over 4ft), faint for a bit. It was charming.

We have picked our yearbook theme for 2007-2008 yearbook. After much persuasion on my part (one of the many perks of being yearbook adviser) and a good number of "followers," we have (let's be honest...I have) decided on the theme of (drum roll): Splash of Color.

Let me explain why I wanted this theme, out of the hundreds of options. This year, again by my own doing, I've managed to get the first 16 pages of the yearbook in COLOR for the very first time in WL history; all this with NO change in the $16 cost of the book. I also recognize, as do many of my keen staffers, that our school is extremely diverse and COLORFUL. I thought this theme would be a great way to get excited about the addition of colored photos to the yearbook as well as a way to highlight all of the many nations and cultures represented in our school. I stayed a little late after school today creating a poster to announce the them and to display on our yearbook bulletin board. I drew, with the help of a Microsoft Office Clipart picture, a big paint splash and a paintbrush. It actually looks decent, despite my non-existent artist talents. I have lots of ideas on how to incorporate the theme into the book. I'm VERY excited, indeed!

I'm in a great mood because I went and ran at the gym for 45 minutes and it felt great after my hectic day. Tomorrow is my loooooooonnnnnngg day, with ESL class from 4-7. Picture day is Thursday, so I have a sub coming in since I'll be down helping with pictures all day. Looking like just another crazy week as a teacher.

Goodnight!

mrs. huey

2007-09-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

Ahh...the wonders of a long weekend and short week. I had four days off for the Labor Day weekend and it was wonderful. Today, Wednesday, was very much like a Monday at school, but now there are just two days left of the week. Awesome.

A little highlight of my holiday weekend: Hung out with mom on Friday (saw "Becoming Jane," loved it!), found out mom broke her wrist on Saturday (she fell off a ladder), went out to dinner and a movie with some high school friends Saturday night (spilled left over spaghetti all over the motorcycle), went to church on Sunday and then to a birthday dinner for sis-in-law, Hilary (she got a Wii...I'm so jealous!), watched "Pan's Labrynth" on Sunday night and absolutely LOVED it, slept in a bit on Monday, went to Oktoberfest (not so cool if you don't drink) Monday afternoon, spent the day Tuesday with best and longest pal, Sadie, gabbing about life, and worked out at the gym Tuesday eve with my hubby of almost 4 years.

As I said, today felt much like a normal Monday. But, I'm already really impressed with my 8th graders, who have figured out my crazy procedures (for the most part) and who are pretty darn respectful after my big respect spiel a few days ago.

Today I announced the staff positions for yearbook and journalism. I spent a few hours on Saturday working on these and I think most of the students are excited about their jobs. Of course, some still don't know exactly what they'll be doing, but they'll learn. I had them brainstorm ideas to include in yearbook/newspaper and it got them all more excited. The yearbook rep from Jostens will be in on Friday to talk to my yearbook students and get them all set up with accounts on yearbookavenue.com.

My 8th graders finaly finished their letters today. Talk about a pain staking task that really should have been easy. We've worked on it for almost 5 days and still some didn't have a rough draft finished. I've read a few letters so far and most did it right. I'll have more to read tonight and tomorrow. Like last year, this is a good way for me to see the writing abilities as well as get to know my students.

Apparently Mrs. Hubert is hard for some of my students in 4th period to say so on Friday a few of them approached me to ask if they could call me Mrs. Huey (like Hughie). I said fine, but also recommended Mrs. H, as that's even easier. They are funny students and I know they don't mean any disrespect. I feel like I've made a connection with most of my 8th graders and they feel comfortable coming to ask me things not relating to class.

Tonight was my first ESL class of the fall semester. We meet every Wednesday at West Lake from 4 to 7. Our teacher got their late and then let us out at 5:30, so it wasn't too bad. It will be an easy class, much easier than the summer classes. There are several teachers from my school, as well as some from my summer class, so it will be a fun time and I hope to learn a lot.

I suppose that does it for today, but to explain my picture: This is Ben and I as Germans at Oktoberfest. How sick do we look?!?!?!?! I've also added another picture of similar style: us as Mexicans on our Honeymoon cruise to Ensenada, Mexico in 2004.

a difference

2007-08-30T19:16:00.001-07:00

Almost one week down. I forgot over the summer how exhausting the whole standing on your feet all day can be. I also forgot how much I talk! My body aches, my throat is still killing me, and I can't talk louder than a whisper.

Despite these minor ailments, it's been a great first week. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, as Friday's are 'short days,' when students leave at 12:40. The bad part is that I have meetings all afternoon until 3 or so. Tomorrow is our faculty meeting.

I had a great compliment today from a fellow teacher at lunch. She asked about a certain journalism student who was in her sewing class last year and who caused problems in that class (as well is in my 8th grade English class). I let this student into journalism because I felt like she had great potential if she just tried. She was consistently tardy, rarely did work, and disrupted class with random questions. This teacher, who had the same problems with the student, told me today that this same student who a year ago would walk into all of her classes nearly 20 minutes late has been on time every day this week, has done all of her work in class, and cannot stop talking about journalism class. The teacher said that she really feels that the student has found a 'purpose' to school in my journalism class and is excited to be part of something good instead of negative. I kind of feel like, even though the first week of school isn't over, I've made a difference in one student's life this year. I'm proud of this student and have told her that this week and I think that's made a big difference.

Speaking of journalism/yearbook students, yesterday I had them all fill out applications on which position they wanted. I have yet to look through the applications, but from their chatter in class today, they are all anxious to find out what their job is. I hope with the long weekend I can come up with a final position list and we can get started.

I beat all of my classes yesterday in the blanket name game; meaning, I got everyone's name right. They all thought I was psychic, had a camera, or the blanket was see through. I kept telling them that, no, actually your teacher is just amazing. They all begged to play again today, but the work at hand was calling.

I found out yesterday that I now have to student aides in my 5th period...my prep period. This is great because they can do things for me like make copies, put up bulletin boards, run small errands, and do stuff in my classroom (and also, help me move in December!). They are two fun girls who work quickly and who I can trust. While they are doing those tasks, I'm able to catch up on grades, organize lesson plans, and prepare myself to teach a new concept. I just hope I can always find something for them to do!

It's 8:30 and I'm ready for bed. I'm really hoping that I don't get sick because it certainly feels like it.

Happy almost Friday, everyone!

names and throat

2007-08-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

2nd day of school and I have nearly all of my student's names down. I spent a few minutes at the end of class going through each of them. Tomorrow we'll play the "Blanket Name Game," where the students hold up a blanket in front of me and I have to guess the name of the students on the other side of that blanket as soon as it is dropped. I did excellent at that game last year and I have every intention of doing great again this year.

My major problem of the day is my throat. My voice is sexy/raspy (hahaha), but mostly my throat KILLS. It's worse than a regular sore throat. I'm putting myself on a no talking policy for the remainder of the day. Hopefully tomorrow my talking will be cut to a minimum with kids working on assignments most of the class period. Any suggestions for a non-strep-like sore throat??

I learned last year that it's easier to be a strict hard @$$ at the beginning of the year, rather than at the middle or end. I've been quite firm with my expectations and I think I have a few kids convinced that one toe out of line is unacceptable. It's nice though because they're following all instructions, being responsive to my requests, and my chatty problems of yesterday became a thing of the past today, especially in 6th period. The good thing is that they all seem to "get" the idea of my Bell Work Procedure (no talking, wait for my instructions, etc.) My attention bell mentioned yesterday is such a great management tool. Tap that bell, wait 5 seconds and they're all ears.

I'm getting the newspaper and yearbook staff pumped to get started--they all asked today if they could type up a story. I will assign staff positions by the end of next week. They all seem really responsible and excited so I'm looking forward to another good experience.

I know I've mentioned this before, but what's the deal with crazy, weird, and challenging names. I have a few students who are from Bosnia, India, and Pakistan. Their names are very difficult: Dzenis (which I originally thought was Denis, but in reality it is pronounced "Janeece"), Acea (which I originally pronounced with a hard K sound, but it's literally Ace-A), and my most challenging, Uranus. I figured this was pronounced like the planet (and I thought, wow, how embarrassing), but she corrected me and told me it is pronounced Urna. Odd. It may take me a while to get the hang of some of these crazy names!!

back to school

2007-08-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday and First Day back to School! It was my second first day of school as a teacher. I wish I could say today went off without a hitch, but there were a few glitches. I am very excited, however, about most of my classes; I seem to have a good mix of kids again this year.

I just got back from taking hell dog on a run. I wore him out (yay) so I can kind of relax tonight and not fuss over him. Currently he's nearly passed out in front of the AC and looks pretty darn comfortable. The horrible part of the run was that my feet were barking at each step after spending 80% of my day on my feet (in my white platform shoes; the one's hell dog chewed but I fixed). Normally, these shoes aren't terribly uncomfortable, but after standing for 7 hours, my feet have reason to cry a bit.

When I arrived to school and saw several old students, I got a new rush of excitement for the school year. I had a good night's sleep last night (thanks, in part, to a wonderful blessing from my hubby) and felt ready to conquer my first day. Advisory brought with it the same students of last year (minus two problem darlings, at no fault of my own). We had a good chat about summer, they commented on my new lighter hair (they all saw me through my weird hair phases last year...brown...darker brown...orange...hot pink...red...etc.). We discussed how fun it is being 9th graders (them of course). I tried to get input on what they wanted to do in advisory, but they were being silly so we didn't get too far.

First period is my journalism (school news paper) class. Most of these 9th graders are my 8th grade students from last year. It was actually not even like the first day, since they know me, I know them, and we had a good time. I did my best explaining the ins and outs of the class, gave them a disclosure and then we did a team-building activity. I think it will be a good class, if I can get some of chatters to quiet down long enough to explain stuff. Currently there are 23 students in that class so I have a chore ahead of me trying to figure out what they'll all do!

Second period is the media productions (yearbook) class. Again, most students here are former 8th graders of mine. I think more of them are serious and more responsible, so it'll be fun to see how they manage this little "business." They all got excited about taking pictures and being so involved in the yearbook making process.

Third and Fourth period are running together at the moment (as are sixth and seventh). I didn't focus so much on names today as just getting everything explained. I do remember though that the table setup I'm trying may try my very last patience. It makes is easy to talk while I'm talking. I did introduce "My Favorite 7 Letter Word," and after my RESPECT talk, some of my chatty problems ceased. Also, I am trying an Attention Bell this year, which is a call bell (one you'd tap at a business when you wanted help). We practiced listening for the bell. It was a hit!

As I did last year, I introduced myself to the kids by telling them about me...where I'm from, where I went to college, etc. They like that...even though sometimes I feel dumb doing it...and I think it helps them know that I'm pretty average, you know, for a teacher.

The best thing about my new schedule is having a prep (or consultation) period. I ate lunch right after 4th period, then had a whole other 45 minutes to get stuff done for later in the week. It was sweet. I didn't have that luxury last year and believe me, the break was nice!

By 4th period I was loosing my voice. It's kind of raspy now. I'm trying not to talk too much.

Tomorrow will be more of what I did today--class procedures, rules, disclosure, etc. I'm planning on wearing better, more comfortable shoes tomorrow. I'm off now to eat some dinner--alone, as Ben's at work--and watch a little tv before heading to bed EARLY.

FYI

2007-06-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

FYI

You can read my WIFE's TALE blog by clicking on "View my complete Profile" on the left and then finding the link to Wife's Tale. I'll be blogging on that site for the summer. Thanks!!!

lauren

summer time and the living is easy...

2007-06-01T22:06:00.000-07:00

I don't quite know where to begin today's post. I'm at a loss for words. 180 (school) days ago, I was nervous to begin this crazy adventure of teaching. Today, I shed tears for the passing of this year. I turned off the lights in my room, shut the door, turned in my keys and felt a little pang in my heart, knowing that it'd be a few months until I saw it again. I got a little sad....

Then I realized I have the summer OFF and I wasn't so sad anymore!! Wahoo!!! I made it!! I will no longer be called "the first year teacher!" Next year will be a cake walk!!

The last few days have been kind of surreal for me. I've had all sorts of emotions leading up to this last day and thought for sure I was prepared to say good riddance to my students. Some, true, I couldn't get out of my classroom fast enough, but it was very difficult to say goodbye to some (especially my 9th graders.) The 9th graders actually had their last day yesterday and it was truly a sad moment. I took lots of pictures of them. We talked about all the good times we shared this year. Then each and every one of them (17) gave me a side hug on their way out the door. The girls were in tears; I came close myself. They were a great group of kids to start the yearbook/journalism program with and I am afraid I will hold future students in this class up to my first group and they will pale in comparison.

Today was kind of a crazy day. First off, they reversed the schedule on us, so the kids started the day in 7th period and worked their way back, ending in advisory to receive their $10 refund. In my 7th period I had 6 students show up. Of course the ones that showed were the quiet ones and I couldn't get them to speak, so I turned on the tv and we found Dora the Explorer to watch for 25 minutes. Each class got a few more students; other students from other classes were coming in with their friends. I know, I'm a horrible teacher, letting students sluff in my room. I had lots of students in my room and it ended up being kind of like a party. I was playing music, the kids were playing LIFE, CLUE, and my new favorite, Apples to Apples. It was just, as they said, a 'chill' day. I quite enjoyed it.

All week I've been preparing my room for the summer. I've heard all sorts of horror stories about leaving anything out, so I basically took everything down and locked it in my closet. We had to cover all of the computers will plastic bags because they are re-tiling the floors over the summer and want to keep the computers free from dust. It was kind of an eerie feeling, the bareness of my room...but, again, exciting because I have the summer OFF!!!

This is a picture of my room right before I walked out of it for the last time this year. I only kept up my checkered bulletin board and the one I covered in newspaper, but you'll notice how bare and boring the room looks.

After all the students left, we had a big faculty luncheon in the cafeteria. They honored the two teachers who are retiring this year and also all the teachers who are leaving to other schools. It was sad! I became quite close with a few of these teachers that are leaving and it was kind of sad to say goodbye. They handed out geraniums to all the teachers and we had a catered meal from Costa Vida (the culprit of my food poisoning a few weeks ago...). It was a fun time; I was out of school by 2:30.

It's a weird feeling knowing that I won't be back there for a few months. I'm looking forward to a little break; a chance to recoup and prepare for another year.

Monday I fly to Las Vegas for a week. Wahoo! My birthday is on Wednesday. Another Wahoo! Then I will start ESL classes on the 11th; they go for two weeks every day from 7:30-3:30. Since I'm a teacher on a break, I think I will go back to blogging on "Wife's Tale," which you can still access from this blog. Then, come August 27th or so, I'll start up again here...you know, just to keep things straight!

Adios from a 2nd year teacher....

cool, for a teacher

2007-05-29T15:27:00.000-07:00

Who can believe that there are only 3 more days of school? Not I!

Much has happened in the last bit since I wrote last. I told ya I'd be busy. But, fear not, I'm back. I've got stories ranging from yearbook day to my Memorial Day weekend. Sit tight.

Last week at this time, I was anxiously awaiting Friday; yearbook day. I was bracing myself for what other teachers called the most chaotic day of the year, trying to prep my yearbook staff, and busting at the seems, hoping students would actually like our creation. When I got to school that morning, one fellow teacher remarked in passing, "You know, Lauren, the success of your first year depends solely on the next two hours." Thanks.

I think we came up with a very smooth distribution plan and had several teachers remark to me that yearbook distribution has never been better. The kids were quick, followed instructions, and didn't argue. We had two hours to distribute the books and then 10 minutes in each class to sign. At 11:30, all students were excused to a school-provided BBQ and yearbook signing in the cafeteria and outside. The overall atmosphere was pleasant.

As I walked through the halls during this time, I had several other teachers tell me that the yearbook has never looked better and that no one would know it was my first book. I felt ecstatic at this and couldn't stop smiling all day!!

After the bell rang at 12:40, the teachers gathered for a Memorial Day BBQ outside and had a really good time. They gave me a round of applause for the yearbook and I received many positive comments. I felt so relieved that the day was over and that I didn't have to worry about yearbooks until next year.

I had students sign my yearbook on Friday and today. Some of them are pretty fun to read. My favorite one is the title of my blog: "Dear Mrs. Hubert You're cool, for a teacher." I also got alot that said something like this: "H.A.G.S." I was so confused because I didn't know what that meant until one bright student in 6th period told me: Have A Good Summer.

Over Memorial Day, Ben and I traveled down to Levan with the Witt side of the family. I wasn't all that excited about going and it took me until about Provo on the way down to be excited. It ended up being a really fun and relaxing weekend so I'm glad I went. We took Zeus down; he did quite well on the farm and got lots of exercise with all the kids. We came back yesterday afternoon. As always, I ate a lot of food down there, but I feel ok because I'm going to ride my bike all week, except Friday.

Last week I made up a yearbook scavenger hunt using the hundreds of books I have from previous years. The students had to answer 40 questions about various things in the yearbook. It took them last Thursday and today to finish it. I thought it was quite a genius idea because they enjoy looking at the old books and it was a fun way to get some more points for their grade.

Tomorrow I'm having the students write two thank you notes. I want them to write thank you's for two of their teachers and then I will deliver the notes. I've had a few of these notes in my own box throughout the year and it makes the whole year worth it...and, I really don't know what else to have them work on. Thursday will be a 'chill' day and then Friday, they are only in my class for 15 minutes. I'm SO excited!!! Just a few more days and I'll be in Vegas, baby!!!

Oh...and...8 days until I'm 25. Yay!