key drama

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.