Almost Friday

Well, I have a pretty boring life so I don't know how much I will have to write about. On the other hand I could start and not be able to stop soooo....

Last night Jim Geddes came to visit. We went to Cheeseburger in Paradise and had some decent food. Ate too much, but sometimes you just have to let go. The problems start when you let go every other day. Today I have eaten really good so far so hopefully that helps. Anyways, it was nice to catch up with him a bit. I haven't hung out with him in a smaller group setting before but it was nice. Also nice to have a change of pace during the week. We also watched So You Think You Can Dance before he left. It was fun. I like the judges on that show, so funny.

Then Theresa and I watched Glee. I've decided to LOVE that show. I laughed my ass off when they were dancing to Beyonce. Awesome, just great.

Tonight should be like any other night. Eat dinner with Theresa and work out, otherwise watch pointless television. I am hoping I can convince her to go to the library with me. We keep planning on opening accounts there and don't! It's frustrating, but life just keeps flying by I guess. It will be nice to read before bed. I think we will sleep better. I have a couple of books that I hope to find at this library. If anyone knows of any other good books, let me know. I tend to like sad, emotional, crazy books. I am creepy I know, but I like reading about abuse, accidents, death, love, etc. I guess those things just hold my attention.

School has been pretty good this week. I can't complain. I haven't sent a kid to the recovery room in a few days. I have given out much less fix-its. Behavior is still one of the things I have to work so so so hard at every single day. I am successful with it, as much as any other teacher there I think. It's just exhausting. I am growing to know the kids so much better as well. They love to hug me and say hi to me in the hall now. It's been awhile since I have had that. It feels awesome, it makes me miss the kids from Owatonna a lot too. I have gotten into the content more at school, but they are SO BELOW where you'd think they would be academically that I have been spending all of my time reviewing and assessing what they really know. They are okay with rhythms(some) and most of them are CLUELESS when it comes to reading pitches on a staff. Today a mom came in and asked me about musicals and concerts. I had no clue what to tell her. I really need to meet with my principal and figure out how all of that works here. Before she told me not to worry about yet. In Owatonna things were already set, they had a tradition and all that. Here, all thirty something elementary music teachers do something different. Falk Elem. has had 4 music teachers in the past 5 years so(including me now) and they have all been different too. I'd like to keep something the same, but I do NOT want to do a blues theme and totally focus on OH HEY WE ARE BLACK KIDS. No thanks. I am all for appreciating culture and motivating students to embrace that, but I just want to have a more well rounded program than that. For example, if I do some kind of world music program, I would do a huge variety of cultures, not just african american songs. We have so many more cultures in the school too, plus we have a 30% white culture and don't forget it. I would rather pick a theme like underwater, or time travel, or seasons, or nature so that I can do WHATEVER I want with it. Sorry, I totally got side tracked talking about school there. Woooooooo.

Becky and Rick might come to Madison this weekend and I AM SOOOO HAPPY! I honestly miss Becky a lot. I think I am really excited to see them, and also to have them see our place and understand what our life is like down here. Maybe we can even stop by school and look in my room. I don't care if we get drunk or whatever, I am just happy to see them and have fun conversations and all that stuff. I am also really excited for homecoming. I am already budgeting gas, alcohol, food, and EL PATIO HEAVEN. :) Can.Not.Wait.

So, I know people don't care about school, but I thought you might like to hear some funny things that happen.
1. We give out Falcon Feathers when kids are caught being good. It's a yellow little slip of paper. I hear kids yelling in the halls to each other about them and it sounds, I shit you not, like they are yelling, "I GOT A FUCKIN FATHER"
2. A skunk sprayed near the school, and then when the kids were complaining about the smell, a kid ripped a giant fart, and we probably wasted 10 minutes laughing.
3. I have a kindergartener that always yells, "WHAT THE?!"
4. A 4th grade boy, who is always shy, quiet, and well behaved, was all red in the face, and was covering his mouth looking at the ground, so I asked him what was wrong and this was his responce..."well, you see, sometimes I get addicted to laughing and um...I just have a hard time not laughing at everything." WTF?! I laughed so hard.
5. A kindergartener sneezed and then started to sneeze again but nothing happened(like it passed), and she goes, "OH, that was it I guess!"
6. At morning duty this black girl said, "This is mah rul hair, it ain't no weave you know"
ahhh, kids can be so funny.

Everyone write more!

Wednesday nights!

I am watching Glee for the first time. It's alright. I like the little funny things, but it's not holding my attention. Hmmm...will judge later.

Speaking of judging, the judges on SYTYCD are cracking me up at how they cry at the drop of a hat. I shouldn't say that because someone will literally now use a hat as a prop and touch their hearts. It's good to have the show back on though. Also nice to have another night with something good on TV to watch while working out.

I have been thinking tonight about my friends. Some are cool, and some I am realizing are really not my kind of friend. I don't know why or how to describe what I am thinking. I guess I just sometimes realize in reading blogs or facebook, etc. I realize how different I am from certain people and that the only reason we are friends is because of common friends or we were in some kind of group together and now that we don't have that there it seems pointless to even care. NOT that I am a mean and careless person, but I am more trying to ask myself why I care so much what other people think all of time. Woah, stupid rant. Sorry.

I am so glad we don't have much going on this weekend. I would love to catch up and get ahead on school stuff. Figure out my next couple of weeks. I guess Mary Neff might visit but that would only be one day. I haven't been sleeping well at all lately. I have not been able to turn my brain off, and my mind races literally all night. I think of things like school, the future, someone breaking in our apartment(even though I feel safe there), the skunk outside and skunk information, commercials, dating(I had one dream that I started dating my imaginary gynocologist - omg did I just admit that?) and many many more random things. It's bizarre! I think I will sleep better once I stop eating crap or start working out more, or get used to the temperature in my room and new blanket. I can't really hear the traffic outside at all so that's not it. Theresa has been having trouble too, but at least she gets to sleep in as long as she wants. I hate getting up at 6:15(and then pressing snooze until 6:35am-oops). I just got through my longest two days so hopefully the rest of the week will go by fast.

I won't even get into what school has been like this week. It's had ups and more downs that usual. I mean, it was just a difficult week and I wouldn't say I am discouraged but I am feeling like it's harder to be motivated. Does that make sense? I guess I just need a day off.

Alright, gonna finish up Glee and go work out. Leave comments, please?

Getting hot!

Well, Theresa and I just got back from getting memberships at Anytime Fitness. I am so excited to get back into working out, plus this time we have unlimited tanning. I won't go overboard but it will be nice to have a base tan in the winter months. I always feel so much better when I am tan, plus my skin is better and tanning is VERY relaxing for me. Theresa and I are starting to go tomorrow night when...DAH DAH DAH...Biggest Loser starts! AHHHHH, I am so happy. You are rolling your eyes thinking I am ridiculous. I don't care though, I love watching that show. I am going to try to lose 15 lbs by Christmas. No, not try, I AM going to lose 15lbs by Christmas. ha.
I have a lot of school crap to do tonight. I don't know why I am procrastinating either. I guess I just wanted a break from it for a while. Today I only had 5 classes. We have early releases on Mondays so teachers can meet and committees, etc. Today I didn't even had any meetings so after my class was done at 11:15 I just took a long lunch break with the art teacher and chatted. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon doing small piddly little things that I have been avoiding(not as much as I am avoiding my lesson plans though). I found out that they dropped a class from my schedule too and I will be PISSED if they bump me down from .90 to something lower. I already seemed like I should be .95 or something. With this dropped class I can actually see myself having a .90 schedule. The art teacher lost 2 so she will probably have to pick some more up at another school to make full time. Anyways, no one cares...
This weekend was fun. Theresa and I hung out Friday, went to Chili's, and watched TV. Saturday Fat Z came and we got crazy, as always. I drank to fast, as always. I needed to go to sleep and apparently after that Fat puked a couple of times. Thank goodness Theresa is a tank and can document it all on facebook and tell us what we wouldn't remember. Seriously, that girl can drink twice as much as me and be standing tall, enjoying every second of every night. It was for sure fun though, and I hope more people visit again soon. Kathy was going to come this weekend but now she might come next weekend. We are going to play sega, and read my old diaries. I guess we are going to Fort next weekend to hang out with Mary Neff. That could be fun too. I was looking through possible weekends to go to EC and I don't think we will be back until Oct 17th or whatever homecoming is. That's fine I guess. It will have been almost 8 weeks for me at that time. Seems long, but I will still see people in between. I think in a couple weeks we will venture over to the Greendale exhibition show that BMB is going to be at. I think that Becky and Rick should come down next weekend with Kathy too.
OK, I'll stop. Bye!

Where to begin???

I don't even know what I need to update on. So much has happened lately, and so if I repeat myself I am sorry.

I start school last Tuesday, Sept. 1st. It was an...interesting day. I thought most of my classes went well, better than expected, and a couple were HORRIBLE! Since then, I have learned to deal with those classes that I struggled with so much on that first day and the few stinkers in each class that can potentially destroy my plans. AND when I say that I learned how to deal with them, I mean it is getting better each day and I am working my ass off to make things better for all of us. I really need to plan a fun variety of games and be careful of how I present everything. It is so exhausting, but it works. You might be thinking DUH, but really I have to plan more for kids that need to move, and more for kids that need something for their friggin mouth to do other than talk. It's going to a be a challenge to constantly come up with ways to keep these kids under control, but so far I am keeping up. It has helped behavior problems, they don't like sitting out, and I think they are liking me more and more.
Since I am just rambling, you will see random new paragraphs form here and there, ha. Today I tried a new activity with balloons and mallets. Basically the concept is to show them that we cannot hit too hard with the mallets, as well as going over basic procedures for using mallet instruments(ie. how to use their "shoulder holders" AKA get those fricken mallets up and quiet!)I was really scared to use the balloons because it might cause chaos, but I was also thinking about how motivating it would be to behave so you could play with a balloon. Some classes it went one way, and with some the other, but overall I think I could use it again. I just need to be quicker to take balloons away if kids are messing around with them.
I have really gotten into playing games and trying to figure out what they reeeally know about music. They are decent at reading rhythm(while still far behind Owatonna, I think it's to be expected). They really seem to not have a clue as to reading pitches, although they've heard and sang in solfege. Today I taught some of the hand signs, and tried to approach it more like a challenge rather than something the kids had to do with singing because I said so. They did pretty good and seemed to actually like using them. As far as their singing, some kids are ballsy and sing out, others are quiet but match pretty darn good, and others just don't know how yet. I thought more kids would just not try, and think it was "STUPID"(they yell everything btw), but really if I just say "everyone needs to do it" then they actually do, especially if they have to sing to play an instrument or get a turn. The little kids are ruuuuuuuuuuul cute! I forget how basic things are in the beginning for young grades, like teaching kids about singing vs. speaking voices and high/low and fast/slow. This kid cried today because he didn't think he could hold the tiny hand drum in one hand and play with the other. I think he thought that he needed to set it on the floor to play it, or he'd drop it. Clearly, he had a long weekend. So cute. Look at me, I think kids crying is cute.
Speaking of crying, the first couple of days I thought some of the kindergarten kids were going to explode. I just can't imagine going back to kindergarten and having to all of the sudden be on your own, all day with strangers. Crazy. It makes me really think of Laura a lot. I just talked to Dad a little while ago and he said she's doing okay. She's really been shy though, and hasn't known what to do at recess. I guess mom took her to the playground last night when no one was there to show her how to use the equipment and show her how much fun it can be. Hopefully she makes friends soon, and feels more confident. I miss her already, sucks that I can't see her at school. Maybe some day I will call in sick and take her to school on a Friday or something. Obviously I would not go all day, but I mean I would love to see her classroom and stuff. I would love to go to her music program too. Sigh, I just wish I could be there all of the time, and I can't. I hate being so much older sometimes.
Theresa is stopping by here(school) on her way to work at Dollar Tree for the first time in Madison. I am excited for her to see my school/classroom. I am going to take some pictures so everyone can see, but first I need to find our connector cord thing and I will probably post pictures of both the apartment and school this weekend. Speaking of this weekend, Yakob and Fat Z are coming to visit and I am so excited for that. I was worried no one would ever visit us, and we'd be bored so we would go to EC every weekend, like last year. Ooops.
Last weekend, when Theresa got here we decided to have a few drinks while reading my old middle school and high school diaries. They are so funny, I cannot believe I was so stupid and boy crazy. With the pressure Theresa is putting on me, apparently now I need to start posting an entry a day on a blog. I do think this would be well worth it to entertain you all. We found some of the most ridiculous things in there. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. Oh man, and of course my tolerance for Sailor has already decreased severely and I don't remember flopping into bed. It was pretty fun. Sunday we mostly spent sleeping it off, watching movies, hanging up pictures/art work, exploring and so on. Monday I did a lot for school and we explored some more and tried to find internet to check our email. We didn't think about it being Labor day and all that so we ended up paying $3.99 at Starbucks to go online. Rip off, but it just goes to show how dependant we are on the internet these days. I can't wait until Charter comes on Thursday, just two more days until we can feel connected again.
Back to school, I still have so much crap to do. I finished my seating charts last week and put a notecard on each chair that has the class code and a kids name on it. It worked alright, but I soon realized that these kids are low low readers and just the smaller letters got them all confused. SO, I need to type up some nice ones, with the changes I've made, for me and subs to use. I already have a sub on Friday so I need to get it done. I also need to copy more dang "fix-it's". I swear last year I handed out maybe 10 for the whole year and I have already passed out that many. Maybe that's just be trying to make a point in the beginning too. You do not EFF with me, people. I hate nothing more than when one kid ruins everything for a bunch of well behaved kids. Yuck. Some kids here I just have to send over to the table, accept that they will have to fill it out later, and try to ignore their behavior. I am sorry though, when the kid is making loud farting noises over and over again, I just cannot stand it. Neither can the other kids. Yes, this happened today, and yes I called his mother. While it is difficult to prevent and manage bad behaviors, many of which I have never had to deal with, I am still enjoying myself and am liking getting back into this elementary music thing. I missed it. It makes my heart happy. :)
I have morning duty three days a week, and while some teachers might not enjoy it, I think I will. It gives me more of an opportunity to connect with the kids and talk to them in a less structured setting. I don't like seeing kids get picked on either, and I happy to be part of not letting it happen. A kid told me the other day that this "fat kid" was getting picked on, and I asked him about it and he said that "Teachers don't do anything anyways" and my heart broke a little. I told him that I would make sure that I did something and he can always tell me no matter what it is. I hope he knows that I am dead serious. Here I am - ADVOCACY WOMAN! That's how I feel some days, but I'd never want to be any other way.
I feel like I haven't seen or talked to Becky in forever. Gee, maybe if she got a blog that would help.
Theresa just got here and I want to show her a few things and let her check her email. I'll blog more later.
BYE!

Where did the weekend go?

OK, so long weekend went and came and not so much did I post a hefty blog. In my defense I went without internet from Friday after school until now, except for the short while Theresa and I paid for it at Starbucks so we could check email and look up some directions, etc. I am getting ready for classes now, and the internet runs so slow in the morning because I swear every teacher in the district is checking their email, plus my computer sucks. After school today I will post a better blog and by Thursday we should be up and running with cable/internet.

I just blew up 25 balloons for class and it's not a good taste in my mouth...

Have a great day and stop back later!

I wish...

that I had more time and energy to update my blog regarding all of the craziness that has been my life this week, BUT I don't. I just wanted to let you all know that I am not dead, and that I will hopefully be updating a hefty blog sometime this weekend(after I get a library account set up since we don't have cable yet).

OK, holy exhausted. THESE kids= out of this world.