There's These Things Called Parent Conferences...

This morning, at around 7:20, which is pretty chaotic as it's homeroom time, and kids are arriving at school, going to breakfast, going to the school store and so forth, my phone rings.  My homeroom kids are a pretty good bunch and I've given a bunch of them jobs, including answering the phone so I can do things like help kids with work and watch the hall.

So, the kid that answers the phone comes to me and says, holding out the phone (I have a 25' cord on it) and says, "She wants to talk to you."  "She" being one of our secretaries up front (the Ditzy One).

"Hi there, I have Lazy Boy's mom up here and she wants to know if she can schedule a team meeting this week at 9:00 am," she says.

I've been having a lot of email conversation with Lazy Boy's mom and she is, to put it bluntly, fed up with him.  The last I talked with her, he'd been grounded until sometime in 2012, she was changing his meds, and she was at her wit's end.  I guessed that the reason she was asking for a meeting was that she got his progress report and Was Not Happy.

"Well, the only problem with that is we have to be in our rooms by 9:04 as that's when 2nd period gets out and the kids start showing up."  The Ditzy Secretary should know this as it's plastered across the front of our team calendar which should be right in front of her as she's scheduling a meeting.  

"Okay, but she drives a school bus and she can't get here until 9:00 am," says the Ditzy Secretary.

Sigh.  "I understand that, however, we Have Kids Coming to Our Room so We Can Teach Them at that time.  The only way we can have a meeting at 9:00 am is if Administration can find someone to cover our classes."

"Oh, I understand," she says.  "So what should I tell her?"

Oh.  Good.  Gracious.

"Tell her that we can't meet at 9:00 am unless someone from administration okays someone to cover our classes."

"Oh, okay," she says and she rings off.

A few minutes later, after the kids have gone on to their first period and I'm running around getting a lab together, I run into Mrs. Sparrow, one of the administrators who happened to have been approached by Ditzy Secretary about the situation.

"Where in the hell was this parent when we had two days of parent conferences for the past two weeks?" she hissed.  "Did she ever schedule an appointment with any of you?"

"Not that I know of," I answered, "and we had room in the schedule even before the no-shows."

"Please!  She has two days of conferences which she could have utilized, but instead she wants us to get subs to cover your classes so we can have a meeting!  That's ridiculous!"

I had to agree with her on that one.  Mr. Enforcer later told Ditzy Secretary to go ahead and call Lazy Boy's mom and tell her we could meet with her at 8:50 and that we'd have to be done by 9:00 and if that wasn't enough time, then she might have to get a sub for her bus and come on in when we could meet with her.

We'll see if she shows.

The Smile Like Sunshine

Our Life Skills Class (and for those of you who aren't familiar with that term, it's the kids with mild to severe disabilities) does a lot of fund-raising throughout the year to pay for their Special Olympics team.  They do teacher luncheons, make and sell cookies, and sell flavored coffees.  

I'm a coffee drinker myself, but I usually don't drink any once I get to school.  However, a few weeks ago I got the email from the Life Skills teacher and she mentioned that the flavor that day was Almond Joy (one of my favorite candy bars).  It costs a dollar for a HUGE cup of coffee, and it's delivered to your room by a Life Skills student (or students) and one of the kids that volunteer to help in that classroom.  I figured I'd give the coffee a try (it was awesome) because it sounded good and the kids could use the money for their fund.

It's kind of fun - you call the Life Skills room, and order your coffee.  About ten minutes later a hot, steaming cup of coffee is delivered to your room.  The first time I did it, one of my homeroom kids was the helper, and my "delivery boy" was a sweet little kid in a wheel chair.  I gave them both reward money and thanked them for the coffee.  Sunshine Boy in the wheel chair lit up like I'd just given him a million dollars and waved that reward buck around with abandon. 

That made my day.

Today, another email about Almond Joy arrived, and I ordered another cup of coffee.  Another one of my kids was the helper and he came with Sunshine Boy and another kid who helped pushed Sunshine Boy's wheelchair.  I paid my real dollar for my coffee and gave all three of them a reward buck.  Again, Sunshine Boy just lit up like a Christmas tree, giggled and waved that reward buck like nobody's business.

That smile and that unadulterated joy was just awesome!  

So now, I think I'm going to be ordering flavored coffee pretty much every day they offer it.  It's worth it to see that smile from Sunshine Boy.  He truly makes my day!

It must be one of those weeks

I'm not sure if it's the transition from warm weather to cool, the fact that we have a second night of parent conferences, or if there's something in the water, but it's been one of those weeks.  And I'm not just talking about myself here.

You know it's a bad week when...

The kids are still wacked out on sugar.

 One of your kids, who wasn't feeling well during sixth period (but the nurse sent him back and said to encourage drinking more water) throws up all over the parking lot in front of the entire 7th and most of the 8th grade during a fire drill at the beginning of seventh period.    Really, the phrase "it sucks to be him" comes to mind.  I didn't think he looked all that perky sixth period when he got sent back, and obviously he wasn't feeling all that great.  Hopefully the kids will forget the whole episode, but honestly, I'm worried he may be "the kid that barfed during the fire drill in 7th grade." He's a good kid.

The kids are still wacked out on sugar.

I go to my 4:15 appointment with my allergist and I don't see him until 5:30.  Good thing I only see him once a year.  And good thing I brought my knitting.  

The kids are still wacked out on sugar.  

Two of my kids who started off the year pretty good, are now diving head first into disaster and misbehavior.  I had to toss them out with workbooks in hand (I sent them to Mr. Rooster which they HATE), as they wouldn't behave during a lab.  And I was so miffed that I got on the phone and called their parents right then and their while the kids did their lab (and I could observe - they were making pulleys with paper clips and thread.)  Nice conversations with one step dad who took care of business last night.  Very contrite little boy in class today.  They both behaved.

The kids are still wacked out on sugar. 

And tomorrow...another round of parent conferences.

By that time I'll need to be wacked out on sugar.

So Much for Good Intentions

I really honestly was going to try to post ever single day this school year but obviously that isn't going to happen.  As my grandmother used to say, "I have too many irons in the fire."

Oh well.  Least I tried.

In any case, amazingly enough, when I returned to school on Monday, after leaving my kids with a sub, the stack of crap on my desk wasn't too horribly bad.  Even better, she didn't run out of the building screaming so that's a plus.  One of the reasons why I asked this particular sub to fill in for me is because I know she can be tough, but she also knows all the kids as she student taught for us last year.  She's fair and she's organized.  And she leaves wonderfully detailed notes about who was naughty and who was nice.

Seventh period, of course was hideous.  So hideous in fact that Mr. Math came over to tell me how hideous they were.  Sigh.  I knew that was going to be the case.  I did have to write up two other kids in other classes for their behavior, but that was almost to be expected.

Let's just say that seventh period wasn't very happy on Monday.

On another note, all the report cards went home along with a parent conference letter.  Our parent conferences are this Thursday and next Thursday.  Basically we ask parents to send the form back with the date, the times they'd prefer and the teachers they'd want to see.  Then we have to sit there and slot of the parents into our individual conference schedules.

This is a mess when you have a bunch of kids who have teachers who aren't on the same team - like a lot of the seventh graders who have an 8th grade teacher who's teaching a couple of sections of seventh. It's not been too horribly bad, however, because, sadly, we haven't received many conference requests.  I only have 11 parents signed up for tomorrow (most of them are parents I really don't need to see), and another 5 for next week.

But, on the up side, I did get a parent in here today for a meeting to meet with her, a principal, and her daughter to come up with an education plan since her daughter failed my class this nine weeks.  Mainly it's not turning in work and not studying.  We ironed out a plan out and, if they both do their end of the bargain, she should pass the rest of the year. Big if.  But hey, I'm trying.  And I think Mom may be on board as well.

And today?  Weirdly enough, the first night in weeks I don't have school work to do. Feels odd.

Digging Out...on Monday

Mrs. Eagle and I took a personal day on Friday so we could attend a two day conference in another part of the state.  

This means we left our kids alone with a sub.  

At this point I always feel sorry for the sub, but this year in particular I really feel sorry for the sub.  Our kids have been just awful for the subs.  No, I take that back.  They've been beyond awful.  

I'm not sure if it's because we've had a lot of subs or what.  Mr. Math has to go to some meetings downtown for the math department, Mrs. Grammar has little ones that either get sick or need to go for a checkup, and Mrs. Language has had to deal with sick parents and sick kids as well. We've been out a bit more than we usually are, and truth be told, than we'd like to be.  About the only people who seem to be here day in and day out are me and Mr. Rooster.  

Granted, for some reason kids think that having a sub means they can act like absolute monsters. I never could figure that out (and I subbed for two years).  They just lose their minds.  Then again, they lose their minds with just about any change in routine, like a fire drill for example.  And it doesn't help that our pool of good, quality subs has shrunk a lot since most of the good ones either got hired permanent or they are on long-term assignments.

In any case, it takes forever to get ready for a sub and forever to deal with the aftermath.  I am, however, hopeful this time.  I got a sub who student taught in P.E. last year so she knows most of the kids.  And, amazingly, they like her.  She has strong management skills and she's young and pretty so that helps.  She's one of those good subs that gets snatched up fast so I snagged her way back in August for this day.

So I'm hoping it went okay.  I do know, however, it may take me most of the week to go through the tests to be graded, homework to be checked and so forth.  And we have to deal with parent conferences this week, which is usually a bit of a scheduling balancing act.

Oh boy.  Here comes Monday.

Busting Out the Seams and Tech Hell

Back to school today after a week off for fall break.  As much as I was dreading today, because, let's face it, it's nice to sit home with my felines, and my hubby and knit and read and make jelly and work in my yard and all that fun stuff, today, well, it wasn't too bad. 

Except for Tech Hell, but we'll get to that in a bit.

What was weird, and surprising, is that we got an email today from Guidance informing us that they had enrolled 14 kids today.  FOURTEEN!  In one day.  Now, we're used to getting a boatload of kids after the Christmas holidays, but after fall break?  Nearly unheard off.  But fourteen enrolled today - and of course half of them were seventh graders - so now we're expecting 3-4 new kids for each team.  Yay!  

And all this, after The District, with all their number crunchers, predicted our enrollment going down (it's gone up by about 100) and we're rezoning next year and expecting another 100-200 kids from that.  So, will we be going back to three seventh grade teams?  The Principal told me she's almost certain we will, but it remains to be seen.  I'm not so sure these guys know how to forecast that well.

And for the Tech Hell.  (Isn't there always Tech Hell?).  We got an email over break from The Principal which was a forward from a Tech Genius, that basically said they had come in over break, did some work on the network, and while they were there, went into classrooms and fixed stuff (that we probably didn't know was broken) and that we'd have a tech guy here in the morning on Monday in case some printers didn't work, etc.

Which is weird because a few weeks ago a Tech Genius spent all day coming into each and every classroom (never during planning, ALWAYS when you didn't want them) changing all the IP addresses on our printers.

So, today, I'm all happy camper because my printer is working.  Until third period.  When it stops.  

So Mr. Math comes over (and he's even more annoyed than most of us because he's way smarter than the Tech Geniuses) and he fixes my IP address on my printer.  Yea!  Printer works.  

Until I come back from lunch and it's apparent that someone came in during lunch and restarted my computer.  So now my printer doesn't work. (I was lucky.  Only my computer was restarted - Mr. Math had all his equipment turned off which means 10 minutes of class time trying to get everything back up and running.)  Keep in mind, we have to turn in grade verifications at the end of the day so I kind of like need my printer to work.  

We get an email from one of the secretaries up front informing us that the Tech Genius told us that all our problems would be solved if we restarted our computers.  WRONG.  In inform her that my computer was working fine until SOMEONE restarted it and now it didn't work.  She said that they'd add my room to the list.  

Finally, Guidance Goober comes in and fixes it himself after I basically went over and asked them how on earth I was suppose to submit my grades if I couldn't even print them?

When did Tech Genius show up?  After bus riders were dismissed.  I told him thanks, but I had it taken care of.  He looked relieved.

So, my question still is...what was the point of all this?  I think the IP address on my printer has been changed five times in the past month and for what reason?  None that anyone can truly tell me.  My guess is that this is a way for the tech department to justify their continued existence even though, from what I've been told, they cause more problems than they solve.

Just ask the Guidance Department.  They were still there at 4:30 when I left today because they couldn't get the new schedules to print for tomorrow...what a mess.

Nine Weeks Down

And only three more nine weeks to go.

But now, it's Fall Break!

Whoo-hoooo!

Looking' Good for Picture Day

Ah picture day.

Talk about a school ritual.  It's always a fun day to do hall duty because the kids are, in the words of a former student and courtesy of Mrs. Cardinal, "all P-Diddied Out".  There are always a few kids you aren't quite sure you recognize, even though they've sat in front of you for nine weeks, because they finally have their hair out of their faces and their clothes are actually clean, pressed, and they don't look like they rolled out of bed and onto the bus.

Of course there are still a few, including Happy Boy, who are sadly in need of a comb, but for the most part, it's an improvement.

This is also the time of year where The Principal, kindly "encourages" all the staff to make sure we get our picture taken - or else.  Many of us dread this ritual (I do) but one advantage of first period planning is you can get the stupid thing over with.

And 80's Girl was happy today.  Not only did she get a new tube of black lipstick ("And not even a Halloween brand but one I can buy all year long!") but she wore a new dress.  It was of a fabric that shifted purple and green depending on how you looked at it.  It definitely wasn't silk on this kid's budget, but it was definitely different.  It had fashion code no-no spaghetti straps which she covered with a ratty red zippered sweatshirt, which I am sure was removed for the picture.  It was tight across the bodice, and down to just about the knees, where it flared out into a whole bunch of gathers of fabric.

And she made the whole thing the night before.

I'd asked if she'd followed a pattern and she admitted she "sorta did", but that she'd modified it somewhat.

I'm telling you, this kid may be odd, but she's got style.

When CoverGirl Just Won't Do

I have a student this year that reminds me of a much younger and goofier (and less responsible me).  We're talking  MUCH younger.  She's missed her era.  This child should have been in college with me (the first time) in the '80's.

First off, after growing up in Los Angeles, and spending quite a few years helping hubby with a business in the music industry, there's not a lot that I find to be all that weird.  Which may be why some of the stranger kids sort of gravitate towards me.  In any case, 80's Girl manages to pull off looking weird and turns it into a fashion statement that - for whatever reason - usually works.  (Let's be honest, most middle schoolers tend to look a little dorky through no fault of their own since biology is against them at this point in life.)  I know some of the teachers are put off by the abundance of black in her wardrobe, the fishnet gloves, the pink and bright blue extensions in her dark dyed hair, but she cracks me up.  She's smart as hell and a sweet kid.

And the fact that she wears a Rocky Horror Picture Show t-shirt - and knows what the Rocky Horror Picture Show is - has totally endeared herself to me.  We had a discussion about the movie and I asked her if she'd seen it live (no, that's one of her dreams) and when I told her I had (1979, Cove Theater, Hermosa Beach, California, thankyouverymuch), I became The Coolest Teacher Ever.

Cracks me up.

In any case, the past few weeks she's taken to wearing black lipstick which, well, actually kind of works with her.  You know how most of these Gothy, Punky kids always dress in black and pout and sulk?  Well, not this one.  She's got her black lipstick on and she's all smiles.  In fact, she's all smiles most of the time.  (Even though, truth be told, the lipstick tends to get a bit, well, smeary, and it's often on her teeth giving her a bit of a pirate look, but hey, she carries it off.)

In any case, on the way back from lunch she sidles up to me and says, "I'm sad."

I look at her and she's looking a bit frazzled.  For one thing, it's obvious she's had lunch because most of the black lipstick is gone except for a dark ring around her lips.  (This look she does not carry off.)

"Why, what happened?" I asked her.

"I've lost my black lipstick," she says, her eyes downcast.

"Oh," I say, "you did?  Did you check your pockets?  Your purse?"

"I've looked everywhere," she says.  "And I can't afford any right now.  Not until mom and dad get paid and I get my allowance."

"Well, hopefully that will be soon," I say.  I meant it.  She looked odd without the black lipstick.  I kind of got used to it.

"I do too!" she said.  "Picture day is Wednesday!"

And of course, plain red lipstick just won't do. Although some of my 1940's colors would totally work on this girl.  Perhaps I'll give her some tips on red.

Just a Tad of Pepperoni Please

It seems like I spend most of the weekend grading work, uploading grades, and preparing lessons. (Because our planning has been sucked away by meetings.)

In any case, this past weekend I was grading tests and eating a low-cal pizza (you can do a lot with those little 100 calorie sandwich things and some turkey pepperoni and low-fat cheese with some sauce and seasoning.)

At the same time.

Which was probably a stupid thing to do because, of course, I dropped a glob of sauce onto one of tests.  Crap!  I wiped it up real fast, and hoped that the student wouldn't notice.  Heck most of them don't look at anything other than the grade, if that.

I totally forgot about this until today.  I'd handed the tests back towards the end of class, and as luck would have it, the Pizza test happened to belong to Shadow Boy.  Shadow Boy is a kid who, for some reason I have yet to figure out, would rather sit right next to my work station than at a lab group with other kids.  I get these kids once in a while, ones who prefer adults to their own age group.  Shadow Boy is smart, and with his trendy hair, cool clothes, and earring, is extremely popular and cool, but he still wants to sit up by me.  Go figure.  I think he likes having a grown-up to talk to.  And truth be told, he's pretty entertaining.

In any case, he holds up his test and points to the pizza stain.  "What's this?" he asks.

I was busted.  Darn it!  "I was grading papers and eating lunch at the same time and the pizza dripped on your paper.  I'm sorry.  I really tried to clean it up."

"Really?"  he asks, intrigued that we actually do normal things like eat pizza.  He then puts the paper up to his nose, sniffs, and cocks his head to the side for a minute.  Finally he says, "Papa Johns?"

"Uh, no, kind of homemade lo-cal,"  I respond.

"Cool," he says.  "Although it does smell like Papa Johns."

When the First Sound You Hear Is a Crash

You know it's not going to be a good day.

Today, The District had scheduled an online math test for all the seventh graders at all the middle schools.  The idea, I've been told, is to track how they are doing in math and try to target deficits, at risk kids, etc.  (It's something called Learning Links if you're familiar with that.)

This involved some coordination as all the other grade level teams had to roll their computer labs down to the seventh grade homeroom teachers in order to make sure that we had a computer for all 306 7th graders.  We all the instructions on how the kids were to sign in, and what their passwords were, and all that sort of fun stuff. The idea was that it would probably take about two class periods and they'd take the test during their related arts classes so it wouldn't interrupt instructional time (but it did take away our entire planning - again.)

It was suggested that we get the computers all opened, turned on, and logged into the network before homeroom ended so they'd be ready to go as soon as the bell rang and they could take their tests.  So, since my kids have used the labs before, as they walked in, I gave them their instruction sheet, with their computer number on it, and told them to get their computer, turn it on, and get logged in.  No problem.

Until I heard one of them go crashing to the floor.

Oh great.  It had been sitting on a table, someone bumped it, and crash.  After that, the screen was busted, so we were short one computer (we each had enough to cover our homerooms.)  At this point I was hoping someone would be absent (someone was).

That was just the start of the trip to hell and back.

My kids had no trouble, for the most part, logging into the network.  After all, we did that last week and for those who couldn't remember, I had their information.  It was getting to the testing site that was a bear.  It took some kids at least 45 minutes to get logged in as the site just hung there and kept asking them to refresh until they finally got something.  I had, at various times, the testing coordinator, the academic coach, The Principal, Guidance Goober (who's a tech head), and just about every other person who wasn't actually teaching a class in there.

And my class wasn't having near the problems the others were.

Mrs. Eagle's labs did not, for some reason, have the website bookmarked and set up so they could go right to it, so that was a real pain, especially because most 7th graders can't type in a URL correctly the first five times.  And then they just hung there (like mine did).

Mr. Math, Mrs. Reading, and Mrs. Language had the network crash so they lost all connection for a while.

We were supposed to be done by the end of 2nd.  We finished, for the most part, ten minutes short of 4th period (so no teaching today for 3rd).  Some kids were still working by that time and guidance came and got them and they finished by the end of 4th.

At least the Guidance Goober sent out an email asking for suggestions on how to make the process better for next time (later this spring) when we administer it again.  Perhaps not having every seventh grader in the county log in at one time?

Just a thought.

Fall break can't come soon enough.

Planning? What Planning?

We are supposed to get two periods (47 minutes each) of planning so we have a chance to collaborate with our grade level counterparts as well as meet with parents, and meet with the team.  (I try to limit team meetings because we're all so busy).  

But truth be told, this year, the planning has taken a back seat.  There's science department meetings, language arts/reading meetings, math meetings, 504 meetings, IEP meetings, and so forth, and so on. We also give up at least one planning per week to teach a remediation class for our at-risk kids.  So, the time we actually have to accomplish anything (like, oh planning for the upcoming week) is gradually dwindling.

This week is a case in point.

Today, we had a s-team refresher meeting during our first planning period and a parent meeting during the second. 

Tomorrow we give up all our planning to administer a baseline math skills test to all seventh graders.

Wednesday Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Angora and I have 47 minutes together to plan for the next week.  Following that, a follow up meeting with a parent.

Thursday, an open planning (so far) and another parent meeting.

Friday, remediation class (for me) and...you guessed it, another meeting.

Any wonder that we're still at The School at 5:30 running copies, and getting labs together, and getting ISS work together?  It's because we can't get anything done during our planning.

The Rooster Next Door

I have a new neighbor, Mr. Bantam Rooster.

It all started because instead of the predicted 300 or so sixth graders in the school, we have a whopping 356.  Which meant that the sixth grade class sizes were just massive.  So massive, in fact, that The District actually saw this as a problem and decided we could hire another teacher.  However, at this time in the school year we don't get to actually hire the teacher we want.  Rather, The District takes a "qualified" teacher from a building that has lower numbers than expected and transfers him or her to the building where another teacher is needed.

So we got a social studies teacher from a high school across town who has a masters degree in history.  But has a license that states that he's only qualified to teach 7th through 12th grade (and has never taught middle school from what I've heard).  And probably, would rather die than teach middle school if he's like most folks.

This for a sixth grade social studies position.

So The Principal had to juggle around a whole bunch of teachers in order to get this new teacher to fit into the system where he's qualified to teach.  So instead of just disrupting the sixth graders, who are getting a new social studies teacher, we have to disrupt the seventh graders and the eighth graders as well.  Mr. Bantam Rooster has been teaching seventh and eighth grade social studies, so he came to my seventh grade team.  My social studies teacher, Mrs. Social Studies (who has never taught sixth grade) is now the new sixth grade social studies teacher.  And Mr. Came From High School is now the seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher.

Mrs. Social Studies and I are not happy.  My whole team is not happy.  We've been a good, successful unit for three years now, and Mrs. Social Studies and I made a good pair with our classroom doors right next to each other.  But now she's in sixth grade (and she's also teaching a unit of sixth grade health which we find hysterical as she's a smoker) and she's miserable.  We have, however, indicated that if the seventh grade goes back up to three teams next year (and if these 356 sixth graders stay, we'll have to), We Want Her Back.  Fortunately, The Principal agrees with me.  She'd rather not have moved everyone around like she had to, but Mr. Bantam Rooster, who has taught sixth grade, is more trouble down there than he's worth.

And he's going to make my entire team crazy.  (Apparently there's a bet in guidance about which one of us will snap first.  I thought for sure I'd be the one in the lead, but apparently not.)

I think he's a good teacher.  He is retired military and a nice guy, but he's just....a pest.  He needs constant reassurance about what he's doing.  All the time.  He's constantly in my room all the time asking questions (usually the same one over and over.) And I'm starting to feel like the biggest bossypants witch in the world because I'm having to tell him "this is how we do it here."  We sign our homeroom agendas (because it's the right thing to do).  We let the kids go to their lockers between seventh period and afternoon homeroom (he didn't let them go until after bus riders were dismissed which caused some to nearly miss the buss.)    He's having fits because he's not used to kids not turning in homework (eighth graders turn in more homework than seventh graders because they've grown up a bit), and he's calling something like 50 parents a night.  And I'm telling him, "seventh graders are different, it's been a while since you've been around them."

And I had to close the door and ban him from my room when Mrs. Eagle, and Mrs. Angora and I had planning because we only have 1st period on Wednesday's to get together what with all the parent meetings we're having.  That time is GOLD.

And the kids are completely freaked out and terrified of him.  He has, well, a reputation as a screamer.  And a mean, tough teacher.  But then there are high school kids who love him.

The Principal told me not to worry about being bossy.  And to do what I have to to get him to toe the line with our policies and procedures.  Which is fine, but just one more damn thing to deal with.

  

When Technology Can Rear its Ugly Head...

The District Technology Department had guys running around the building the other day changing IP addresses on printers (during classes of course).  The idea being that we're dividing our network into two - one side for the kids to use and one side for the teachers to use.

The good news is that this means we won't be blocked by the filters any time we want to play a YouTube video about photosynthesis.  So no more monkeying around trying to download and save a video so I can use it in class - yeah! There's some other good news involved, but honestly, I was so tickled about the YouTube thing that I really didn't care.

I'm not sure what the printers had to do with this, but the idea was that as soon as the kids opened up the labtops in the mobile labs and signed on, it would automatically direct to the printer and the new IP address.

Except it didn't work.

During the day we're finishing up a writing prompt.

Which means no one could print their paper.

Which meant they had to save it to their desktop and then either email it to me via epals (which most of them don't know how to use) or send it to me via Edmodo (which we all practiced on Monday.)

Except most of them didn't bother to write down what their Edmodo usernames and passwords were.

Which made for a very chaotic day.

Maybe I should just have them write the darn things out in pencil.

Ever Have One of Those Days...

where you are so tired you can't hardly keep your head up off your desk?

Yeah, me too.

Of Sticks and String

Last spring I got the wild idea that Mrs. Eagle and I would sponsor a knitting club at The School.

I've been knitting ever since my grandmother and mom taught me when I was young.  (That's what the women in my family do - we knit.  I have knitting aunts, knitting cousins and now even a younger generation of smaller cousins.)  Mrs. Eagle doesn't knit - yet - although I gave her a book, needles and a bunch of yarn to keep her busy when Mr. Eagle had his accident and spent 39 days in the hospital a few years ago.  We have a fairly active knitting community here in town, with a great local yarn shop, and many of us are involved with the online knitting community, Ravlery.  In any case, it's gaining popularity with a lot of younger people and I thought, "why not?" and so we got permission from The Principal and the Knitting Club was born.

The drawback was that we knew most of the members wouldn't know how to knit, but since I taught a handful of kids at summer camp, and had a really nice document reader that can video my hands so the kids can see what I'm doing on a Big Freaking Screen, I figured it was doable.

I also figured about, oh, a dozen kids would sign up.  In fact, when word got out that we were doing a knitting club the comments were sort of along the lines of "Really?  Knitting?" with that look of disbelief on the speakers face.

We have 31 members.

And that's when I decided to remove the club applications from the ledge outside of guidance so no more would join.  Six is easy, twelve, doable, but 31?

Oh good gracious.

The first meeting we had 28 show up, including four boys.  We taught them to finger knit because one thing I've learned is that although these kids can do amazing things with their thumbs (texting and video games help), they really don't have complete fine motor skills.  By the end of the meeting, they were all making long chains of knitted yarn which they turned into headbands, belts, and whatnot.   When we told them that we couldn't meet next week because of an early dismissal, they asked if we could meet on Thursday instead of our regular Friday.

Seriously.  We had 26 show up on Thursday.  Including the four boys.

I taught them to cast on and they did so well that I went ahead and taught the knit stitch to them.  Granted, some are frustrated and need some more work, but for the most part they are getting it.  In fact, they're getting it much faster than I expected.

What's amazing both Mrs. Eagle and myself, is that they are all being so well-mannered and patient and quiet when we're giving them instructions.  (Mrs. Eagle is learning along with them and they find that particularly amusing.)  They are just a dream group of kids.  They raise their hands, they are patient when I have to work my way around the room to get to them, they are just wonderful.  It's an interesting mix of kids, truth be told.

They are now swinging by with their knitting problems and questions after school, or during homeroom to ask for help.  I love that.

What I also love is that the local yarn shop and its customers have donated FOUR HUGE BAGS of yarn and GOBS OF NEEDLES to the club.  We're talking a lot of stuff here.  All donated.  All for my kids.  We are overwhelmed.

This week we're going to work on the knit stitch some more and get some practice.  But soon, I can see us tackling a scarf project.  We're thinking scarves in school colors.  Won't that look awesome in the yearbook picture?

Making the Minimum Effort

We had a test today.  (Which means this will be short as I need to get grading.)

A nice little mix of multiple choice, labeling, and constructed response which is pretty much a word for what we called an "essay question" back in the dark ages when I was in middle school.

To prepare my darlings for this, we spent part of the period reviewing how to write a good answer to a science question, how to restate the question, how to have a good topic sentence, how to use vocabulary words correctly, blah, blah, blah.  They are expected to write a paragraph, and were given a choice of two out of three questions to answer.

Which makes me wonder...when did one sentence become a paragraph?

But you have to give them credit..instead of LISTENING and READING THE DIRECTIONS where it said they only had to answer TWO out of the THREE questions...they answered all three.  With one sentence for each questions.

So unacceptable.  And they'll be so unhappy when I make them redo it.

The Voice of Doom

I was busy doing a Brainpop with my seventh period today when The Enforcer's voice comes across the speaker system.

"Excuse the interruption.  Will the following seventh graders please bring their agenda and come to the theater immediately.  The list is long, so please be patient."

And then he started reading names.

And more names.

And even more names.

I had paused the Brainpop when he first came over the speaker, and by the time he'd finished, half my class was gone.  I could hear kids leaving Mrs. Social Studies' class, and kids in the hallway asking, "Do you know what this is about?"  and "Are we in trouble?"

I decided to take a quick peek at my email to see if anything was there, and lo and behold I found an email from The Principal.  Apparently nearly half (HALF!  HALF!) of our seventh graders did not have an updated immunization record indicating that they had the required booster shots.  The State passed a law last year that basically said that seventh graders had to prove that they had their updated shots or they would be suspended from school until the records have been forwarded to the school.

Now, this isn't news.  All sixth graders got a letter from The Principal about this with their report cards last spring.  All new enrolling seventh graders get a letter about this requirement as well.  It's been on the news.  The Principal has done EdConnect calls.   It's been on the school marquee. Every pediatrician and health department in the state knows about this law and has the forms to provide their patients with the necessary paperwork.

And still, nearly half of the seventh grade hasn't provided the paperwork.

They have until Thursday.  It should be interesting to see how many manage to provide the paperwork.  And how many don't.

But what's kind of sad, really, is that many of our kids probably haven't had their booster shots, for whatever reason.

Hitting It Out of the Park

One of the advantages of going to conferences like the ones put on by NSTA, is that you find (or find again) some great ideas for lessons and activities.  Years ago, when I was doing a lot of my student teaching, I was familiar with AIMS activities, which I thought were pretty awesome.  At the last conference Mrs. Eagle and I went to, the AIMS folks had a booth and I feel in love with their activities and lessons all over again.  I particularly like their downloadable E-activities which are awesome.

In any case, Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Angora and I decided that we really need to do a lot more activities (and we're being encouraged to do so anyway because of STEM which is heading our way next year), so when I found a great activity on their website called Finding Faults With Food, I immediately downloaded it.  We'd been looking for a good activity that would help our kids understand tectonic plates and this one looked perfect.

You can't go wrong with cookies, frosting and graham crackers.  Truly.

It took a bit of time to buy all the materials, bag everything up and get it ready, but it was worth every minute of it.  The kids LOVED it.  Absolutely freaking loved it.  They were drawing, labeling, working with the cookies (tectonic plates) and the frosting (asthenosphere)...and of course, I wouldn't let them actually eat anything until I'd approved their work and they were completely done - all pictures labeled, with arrows, and their reflections.  (Amazing how the reward of chocolate frosting will encourage kids to work.)

It's not often that kids will actually come up to you on the way out of the classroom and tell you what an awesome lab it was, how much they love your science class, and what a cool teacher you are.  (Apparently the secret to being a cool teacher is chocolate frosting and cookies.)

Of course, they haven't had one of my tests...yet.

But still, today was awesome.  Even for the Seventh Grade Class From the Very Depths of Hell, which wasn't going to do the lab today because of their DREADFUL behavior yesterday (and truth be told, all month long).  I tortured them a bit by doing the lab myself up on the document reader and making them drawing the pictures based on what I did.  Nothing like a big blog of chocolate frosting up on the huge screen to get the point across that they weren't having any fun.  The fact that every kid in the team told them what fun it was helped a lot.  They were silent.  They were also mad at their classmates, and at least 3 asked if they could change schedules to go into a different class.  I gradually gave out supplies to the lab groups, starting with the quietest ones until eventually they all had the chance to do the lab.  And they were quiet.  And they worked.  And they did a fantastic job.

Which goes to show that THEY CAN DO IT...if they chose to.

Hello Little Birdie!

We had a parent meeting today with a parent and her son, who is not only failing, but failing miserably because he turns in absolutely no work whatsoever.  None.  Nada.  Even classwork.  I called Stubborn Boy's mom about two weeks ago because it was really apparent that he was on a fast track to nowhere.  She said she was going to set up a meeting and about a week later she did.

But of course, she never showed up.

We called her up and she said she'd forgot about the meeting she scheduled, but we managed to get her to come in today and have our little meeting.  She said that Stubborn Boy makes his own choices and his choice is to do nothing as he'll just get passed on like he always has been.  This kid went to something like eight different elementary schools, and is on his second middle school.  We also found, when his records finally showed up, that his sixth grade teachers last year were planning on retaining him in 6th grade, but our admin decision was to move him to seventh and see how he did.  So we brought in Stubborn Boy to the meeting and he blamed - surprise! surprise! - all his problems on another student (who, truth be told, is annoying beyond belief).  His claim was that this other student was picking on him, and making him mad, and keeping him from doing his work.

Really?  Even in the classes they didn't have together?

Apparently so.  At least according to Stubborn Boy.  So, we put together a plan where mom wrote down what she's going to do (holding my breath here), we wrote down what we were going to do to help him, and Stubborn Boy wrote down what he was going to do (make up his 24 missing assignments to start.)  We also made note to separate Stubborn Boy from his tormentor and keep them apart as much as possible.

Which I did.  Stubborn Boy is on one side of the room, with his back to Pest Boy, and Pest Boy is on the other side of the room.  They are as far apart as two kids can be.

Which is why I was a bit surprised when Stubborn Boy decided to turn around, right in the middle of class, and flip Pest Boy "the bird", right in front of me and everybody.

What the ????

Both boys earned a trip out to the hallway with me where we had a bit of a discussion about what had transpired.  Stubborn Boy said Pest Boy was picking on him, and Pest Boy claimed, typically, "that I was just teasing, I was being funny."

"Really?" I asked him.  "Did you see Stubborn Boy laughing any?  Did he find that funny?"

Long, long pause while Pest Boy processed this.  "Uh....no?"

"No kidding.  He didn't find it funny."  Jeez!

So both boys earned my first discipline forms for the year.  What a shock.  They're in the Seventh Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself.  Although Stubborn Boy is moving.  After today, I don't even want them in the same classroom.

Could It Truly Be....Fall?

We start school in early August, so it's not unusual to have several really hot days or weeks before things start to cool down.

This doesn't mean we like it any, however.

By August, I'm tired of the heat and humidity.  This year was particularly bad as we had an unusually warm June, so it seems like we've been hot and humid for eons.  What with football season starting, and kids and teachers getting into the routine of school, it's about time we have some cooler weather.  Football when it's 95 out is just wrong on so many levels.

In fact, last week we get an email from The District that informs us that "due to the expected heat index of over 100 degrees, all outside school activities will be cancelled."  No problem for me since I wasn't doing an outside activity, but it does give you an idea as to how hot it was last week.  (And, I might add, this is the first time I recall getting an email like this - in nine years at The School.)

Today, however, is a new day.  And it's 65 degrees.  And breezy.  And overcast.  And my rain gauge at 2.4" of rain in it so my yard now is trending towards green, not brown.  The AC is off, the windows are open, the cats are happy.

And the forecast?  70's and 80's...we're trending towards Fall!

Working, working, working

I actually took Saturday and Sunday off for a quick trip with Hubby to Atlanta to photograph some Civil War battlefield sites for a presentation he does.  Which means that all the papers and projects I need to grade are sitting here...waiting to be graded.

So, aside from laundry, I'm spending today grading work.

My mom asks me how come I have so much grading this year.  It's not that we're giving out more work, because we aren't.  It has to do, yet again, with more kids.  That, combined with the fact that nearly every planning period lately has been taken up with either a evaluation meeting, a 504 meeting, a parent meeting, or whatnot.  There's barely enough time to get labs and activities set up, let alone any grading.

So, I bring the grading home.  At least that means I can multi-task.  Laundry - grade - play with cats - laundry - grade - play with cats...and if I'm lucky, I'll get it all done and have some time to knit or read, too things, I'm way behind in.

You Mean We Had to Do the Work?

On Tuesday I taught the kids how to do a guided outline, which is a good tool for kids to use to help with their content area reading.  I modeled how to do it, we did part of it as a class, and then they worked with their groups.  No problem.

Then I said the words that apparently were spoken in a language foreign to twelve-year-olds:  "We will go over this and grade it on Friday so if you haven't finished, it's homework."

On Wednesday and Thursday I had written on the board that homework was to finish their guided outline as it was due on Friday.

I also said multiple times that the guided outline was homework and due on Friday.  Any guess what I heard from some of my kids when I asked them to get out their guided outlines on Friday?

"You mean we had to finish it?'

Sigh.

This is Not a Drill...we think.

Right towards the very end of sixth period (yes, one of the classes from hell), The Principal got on the intercom and announced we were going into lockdown.  So, we locked our doors, covered the windows, got the kids away from the doors, got them quiet and sat down to see what was going on.  I wasn't sure if this is a drill or not because we usually (but not always) get a head's up for drills, and because it was so close to a class change.  And then again, The School is across the street from a bank and it seems like there's a bank robbery about once a week or so these days.  It could be real...

My kids at first were, typically, acting like they didn't have a clue how to be quiet and listen until I mentioned that THIS MAY BE REAL and then some of them bought a clue and got quiet.  All in all they didn't do too bad, and my two really severe ping pong ADHD kids even managed not to lose it for the time we had to stay quiet.

That being said, I was way luckier than Mr. Math.  Mr. Math had Happy Boy in the room.  

Happy Boy did not deal with the lockdown well.  If you recall, Happy Boy has one volume - LOUD - and the fact that it was a lockdown didn't help any.

"IS IT FOR REAL MR. MATH?  IS IT FOR REAL?  IS IT FOR REAL?" he kept asking Mr. Math.  Like me, he suspected it might be real and was desperate to quiet Happy Boy down.  Happy Boy wasn't having any of it.

"IS IT FOR REAL MR. MATH?  IS IT?  IS IT?"  he kept yelling.

Mr. Math at this point is trying, desperately to get him quiet.  "It might be, I don't know.  But you HAVE TO BE QUIET because we don't want anyone to even think there is anyone in this room."

"BUT IS IT REAL?  IS IT REAL?" Happy Boy wanted to know.  

At this point I think Happy Boy's classmates were wondering about how much trouble they'd get into if they'd just opened the door and shoved him out in the hall (to be picked up by marauding bands of bank robbers, hostage takers and even some skitters.)  Mr. Math was beginning to wonder about how much trouble he'd get into if he'd just clamped his hand over his mouth and got him to quiet down that way.  

Finally one of the other kids put a stop to it, "Will you just shut the hell up and listen to Mr. Math?!" he yelled.  The fact that this was a Normally Very Quiet Kid, shocked not only Mr. Math and the other kids, but actually managed to get Happy Boy's attention.  Mr. Math was so shocked he didn't even write him up for using profanity.  (He probably wanted to give him a medal.)  Finally Happy Boy got the message and got quiet and was silent for the rest of the drill.

Which was what it really was, we finally found out.

But just you watch.  We'll have another bank robbery in town next week and knowing my luck, Happy Boy will be in my room.

What Is It About 6th and 7th Period?

It's not unusual to have a class, or classes, From the Very Depths of Hell Itself.  In years past, my third has won that title, plus a seventh, and then a few others in between.  And usually, when you have a class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself, that same group of kids, due to all the weird scheduling things we have going on, tend to travel together so all the other teachers on your team have other class periods From The Very Depths of Hell Itself.  Mine might be third, Mrs. Social Studies may have hers fourth, Mrs. Reading has hers fifth and so on.

But something really weird is happening this year.  Nearly every teacher you talk to, and it doesn't matter the grade level, has the same two horrible classes every single day - sixth and seventh period.

They are, truly, classes From the Very Depths of Hell Itself.  Mine are Horrid.  What makes them even more horrid is that my fifth period is AMAZINGLY AWESOME.  They are the perfect class.  They are the class that makes it fun to be in the classroom.  And then...then...sixth period walks in and it all goes to hell.  And seventh period is even worse.

Which makes one wonder...what in the world are they putting in their lunch?  

I mean, these kids are awful in terms of behavior (and of course, it reflects in their grades).  They just can't be quiet, pay attention, follow directions, you name it.  (And then my third, fourth, and fifth, all do these things and do them well for the most part.)  But after lunch?  Good gracious.

Mrs. Eagle has it so bad that her seventh period is about ready to make her throw in the towel when it comes to labs and just make them do workbooks.

Well, actually it's worse than that.  We were sitting around at lunch the other day talking about the show Falling Skies.  And in that show, the Second Massachusetts is based in a high school.  We got us to talking about how long we could hold out against the skitters and the mechs at our school with what we have in our science lab, and so forth.  (Okay, we have weird conversations at lunch.  You spend all day with 12-year-olds and you'd have weird conversations as well.)  Mrs. Eagle said it wouldn't be a problem.  Why?

"I'd just give them my entire seventh period to harness and then they'd just leave us the hell alone."

They are that bad.

But sad to say, the aliens would probably give that group back.

Now, That's Some Thinkin'

I met Bus Boy last Spring during my stint working as an admin when the discipline referrals were starting to overwhelm the office, threatening to bury the Guidance Diva under mounds of paper.  It's also known as the season When the Kids Went Freaking Insane After the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests.

Anyway.  I recognized Bus Boy's last name - it's a bit unusual - because I had his brother.  We only had a few weeks of school left so we had a little heart to heart about behaving on the bus and helping him to realize he had just a Few More Days to deal with the bus, and he Could Do It!  So, it was a bit funny when I looked at my rosters and I realized that Bus Boy was going to be in my home room this year.  I actually liked the kid.

And truth be told, I still like him.  He's personable and funny (a lot more animated than his older, very serious, brother), and a pretty good student.  However, on his student information sheet, he answered the question "What do you like the least about school," with "My bus driver and riding the bus!"

So, he still hates the bus.  Go figure.

In any case, most of our after school clubs are starting to meet this week, and yesterday he stayed after they dismissed bus riders so he could attend game club.  He also handed me an application for knitting club which will be meeting on Fridays.   (He is the sixth boy in knitting club so far.)

"Bus Boy," I asked him, "just curious.  Why'd you join the knitting club?"

"Oh, my friend is in it," he said, "And I already know how to crochet, so I figured I'd give knitting a try."

I'll be honest, this just about cracked me up, and I chalked it up as one of the more entertaining comments I'd heard this past week.  And, truth be told, it is a pretty fair reason why a kid would want to stay for knitting club (especially since he's a boy.)

But then today I noticed he was staying late again.

"So Bus Boy," I asked him "what club are you staying after for today?"

"Oh, newspaper club," he said.  "I think that sounds like fun and I have a digital camera to take pictures."

And then it dawned on me that this kid has really gotten it figured out.  He hates the bus.  He hates the bus driver.  Solution?  Join clubs that meet every single day of the week so he never has to ride the bus home and his brother or parents have to come pick him up.

Genius.

I can't wait to see what club he's going to be attending tomorrow.

A Roll of the Dice

Today was the first day of The School's Chess and Board Game Club.

Mrs. Eagle and I have been sponsoring this club for, I think, something like seven years now and we usually get around 20-25 kids every year.  Sometimes when the fashion show club gets rolling (student council puts on an amazing fashion show every year for a fundraiser) we lose kids who are models, or doing the lighting, or something.  Or soccer or baseball season or something starts up.  But in any case, we can usually count on about 20 kids.

We had 45 today.

45!!

So many that we had to split them up into two rooms - I kept half, and Mrs. Eagle took the other half (fortunately we both have tables in our rooms rather than desks.)  So from 2:30 to 4:00 we had screaming, yelling, laughing chaos in not one room, but two.

Amazing!

Oh, and by the way, (and this is for all those folks who think teachers roll out of school at 2:30), we don't get paid for this.  We just do it because it's a cool thing to do for the kids, many of whom have no one to play games with them at home.

Knitting club starts after labor day.  So far I have 20 kids signed up (was thinking we'd get lucky to get 12).  Including 5 boys.

Seriously.

Our kids are digging the clubs this year.

Something of Value

Every once in a while I am reminded that you really don't need to watch soap operas if you spend most of your time in a middle school.

Thursday my fifth period kids are coming in to the room to put their things down and get ready for our walk down to lunch.  I'm getting ready to put up my agenda PowerPoint (a scrolling PowerPoint that gives the kids instructions and lets them know what we're doing) and I do a quick check of my email and see one from Mr. Math.  It reads, "If anyone finds a rather large stack of SWPBS money, beware!  I just had a bunch stolen from my desk and they didn't have my name on them yet."

Oh great.  However, I look up from the email and my eye falls on one of my kids in the back of the room who is standing there counting out his HUGE MASSIVE WAD of reward money.  The stack is so huge he has a massive binder clip on it that he's using as a money clip. Amazing.  Especially since this isn't the type of kid that's such an angel he's going to be earning that much money in the three weeks school has been in session.

We drop the kids off at lunch and then the team along with Mrs. Eagle are having our lunch and I mention that Sneaky Boy was in the back of the room counting out his cash and he may be the one we're looking for.  Mr. Math mentions that he had a number of sixth grade teachers email Sneaky Boy's name as well since he apparently did the same thing last year.  At this point Mrs. Language adds that she saw Sneaky Boy counting out a HUGE MASSIVE WAD of cash in her class as well, and in fact, he used five dollars of it to buy a chance to sit in her teacher chair for the period.

(Okay, some explanation - we're trying to have things for the kids to buy that don't cost us things in addition to the real items in our store.  So, kids can buy an opportunity to read the morning announcements, a ticket to sit in the teacher's chair, lunch in the library, and so on.)

Mrs. Reading then adds that Sneaky Boy was also seen in her class counting out a HUGE MASSIVE WAD of cash in her room and he also paid to sit in her chair for the period.  She suggests going back to her room to see what was on the back of the money he used to pay for this privilege, so she went back, and went to Mrs. Language's room as well, and brought back the ten dollars that Sneaky Boy spent with them that morning.

By this time Mr. Math has called The Enforcer and filled him in on our suspicions because we do take this pretty seriously at the school - this is the currency our kids use for a lot of rewards and shopping and it really does have value with them.  (Which, The Principal reminds us, is a good thing.)

I turns out that Sneaky Boy had forged all ten of the dollars he'd used to buy his chair-sitting that day.  He'd written most of our names on several of them (he spelled Mr. Math's name wrong!) and the reasons he gave for receiving the money was pretty funny.  On one where he'd forged my name he wrote it was for "saying yes mame" and another one from Mrs. Social Studies was for "telling the truth".  You can imagine how much fun we had with that.

By this time Mrs. Reading has the rather frightening thought that perhaps, while he was sitting in the teacher's chair in her class, he may have gotten in her desk and taken her supply of money as well.  So back she went to her room only to discover - you know where this is going, right? - that her reward money was all stolen out of her desk.

Mr. Enforcer comes down to the lunch room, snaps up Sneaky Boy, gets a hold of his wad of cash and asks us to sort it all out.  Most of it didn't have a teacher name or signature on it and the rest were mostly forged teacher names.  We have a policy that a reward buck has to have either a teacher's initials or name written in ink, or a stamp (I use a signature stamp) on them to be valid.  So, when you see one that's entirely filled out by a kid (and that's pretty apparent, especially when they can't spell our names correctly), then it's safe to say we may have a problem.

Well, truthfully, Sneaky Boy had the problem.  And he earned himself five days in ISS.

What's funny is that all this transpired in the span of about 15 minutes at lunch.  And it probably wouldn't have transpired if Sneak Boy wasn't so blatant in the counting of his cash.    I hope he enjoys all the workbook packets he's getting instead of labs!

Please, Let it NOT be so.

I feel like I'm coming down with a cold.

There's something just WRONG about a cold when it's 96 degrees outside.  Colds are for when it's nasty out and you want to curl up under a warm blanket with a cat and a book or too.

And having one the first month of school sucks some more.

Off to bed.

Better Late Than Never, I Suppose

We have a policy at The District to keep track of kids who are no-shows.  These are kids who were enrolled last year, didn't indicate that they were moving, but who don't show up for school.  If, after ten days, they haven't shown up, we drop them off the rolls and figure they've moved on.

So, since the ten day period was up on Friday, I spent the weekend putting together my nice, new gradebook with all the nice new names of all my nice new kids.

In ink, of course.  Colored ink.

So, this morning one of our kids walks this girl over to me and says she's new and she needs a locker.  No problem, I have a few lockers left to hand out.  I ask her name and it occurs to me that she's one of the kids we just dropped off the rolls on Friday.

"Hum, you're not new here, are you?"  I asked her.

"Oh no, I went here last year," she said.

"I'm asking because we dropped you off the roll as we thought you weren't coming," I told her.  (I found out later from Guidance Diva that they had to go through the whole enrollment process with her in PowerSchool.)

"Oh, yeah, we were on vacation," she said.

Really.

I guess we know where the priorities are in this family.

It's a Numbers Game

When I first started at The School nine years ago (Wow, has it really been nine years?), the average size of each grade level class was around 300-320.  Maybe.  My first year we had two full seventh grade teams, and then a mini-team, to accommodate all the seventh graders.  As our numbers have gone up and down, we've morphed to three full teams, down to our current incarnation of two teams with a whole bunch of kids (144 on my team at last count) but with some eighth grade teachers picking up the extras and teaching a couple of classes of seventh graders.

They have Very Smart People at The District who spend a lot of time staring at maps and real estate projections and all sorts of things to figure out just where, exactly, all these new kids we get every year (about 600-800 a year the past ten years) are going to go to school, and where we need to build new schools.  And then this year they announced a new zoning plan to take affect next year to even out the buildings so we don't have one school with empty classrooms and another crowded with portables.

A few years ago when they eliminated the third seventh grade team and started having the eighth grade teachers help out with the seventh graders, Mrs. Eagle and I sort of shrugged and said, "whatever", but thought that it wouldn't last too long because all of our feeder schools have portables all over the place.  They were FULL.  We sort of figured this would be one of those little population dips in the road, and eventually the numbers would be back up again.

And from what the Guidance Diva tells me, this could be the year that the bubble has moved to middle school.  As of Friday, after we dropped all the no-shows off our rolls and added in all the new kids who registered the past two weeks, the sixth grade has a total of 356 students.  That's the biggest class she has ever seen and she's been at The School way longer than I have.  The sixth grade teachers, who are used to slightly smaller class sizes than seventh and eighth, are besides themselves.  They are putting out requests for student desks as they have rapidly run out of room and furniture.

And they just keep on coming.

Very few seventh or eighth graders have registered this fall, but there have been hordes of sixth graders.  And if they stick around a few years, that means they'll be a whole bunch of seventh graders next year.  And that's not factoring in the 100 or so new kids we'll get with the new zoning.

So.  What does that mean for us next year?  Three full seventh grade teams?  Huge class sizes?  More eighth grade teachers teaching seventh grade?

Who knows?  I do know we won't find out - most likely - until May.  If we're lucky.

Longest Day Ever

Open House tonight!

I still find it weird that we hold Open House barely two weeks into the year when I'm still trying to learn all my kids' names.  But hey, at least I can recognize them!

Had a good turn out, everyone seemed happy (and a number already got my first parent email last week so it's good to know it's working).

The best part?  Seeing my former kids come back and visit.  There is one family that I've taught all three of their kids - a daughter who's a senior (and who I totally adore), a son who is a sophomore, and a daughter in eighth grade.  This family doesn't have much financially, but they are good, solid people.  They all showed up to visit and say hello.  I got very close to the oldest when mom asked for my help with her when she was going through a rough patch in middle school.  It's nice to know that parents realize you can love their kids to and trust us to help them when they need it.  Glad to say that so far, the kids are doing fine.  I'm hoping that they'll be able to earn some scholarship money for college as they are all quite bright.  I love that this family cared enough to stop by and visit.

Some of these kids and families never leave your memory or your heart.

Two Down, Two to Go

Whoo-hoo!!!  My first two observations of the year are done and off my plate!  My next two aren't until January so I have some time to actually catch my breath.

The lab we did today went well, the kids were great, and even later in the day (when I wasn't being observed) my two classes that make me insane (sixth and seventh) managed to behave.  In other words, I didn't have to kick anyone out and give them an alternate assignment (the dreaded workbook packet) for acting like an idiot during a lab. Maybe they'll get the picture.

The lab was a "mining for minerals" lab that we picked up at the NSTA conference last year.  It involved birdseed, tiny seed beads (gold, silver, blue for copper and white for reclamation).  The kids have to sift through (in other words mine) the birdseed to collect their minerals (the black sunflower seeds are iron along with the glass beads).  Then some math to determine how much money they made (or lost due to reclamation costs).  Had a blast and the kids were QUIET.  They were so busy digging through the seeds, especially in my fifth period, that you could have heard a pin drop.  They didn't want to stop!

Love it when a plan comes together.

Glue + Scissors + Seventh Graders = Chaos

I think I'm losing my mind.

Last year, Mrs. Eagle and I piloted science notebooks in a few of our classes to see how they went.  Well, they went great so we're going full speed ahead with our science notebooks for all our classes this year.

The problem is, apparently cutting and gluing (correctly) is a bit beyond some of my kids this year.

I have never - never - seen such a disaster in the making.  These kids, despite me modeling it over and over and over on the document reader, can't seem to cut and glue things into their notebook without making a disaster out of it.  I had foldable flaps glued in upside down, inside pockets glued all the way shut rather than on two sides only, notebook tabs cut in half and glued upside down, you name it.  It's been, shall we say, a challenge.

And then when you get my seventh period (which, I'm starting to think is the class that all the rather "interesting" and quite low kids got stuck into), you get an absolute nightmare. When Happy Boy is the star student in the class, you've got issues.

Obviously, the million times I say, "look at the screen and watch what I do!" is going in one ear and out the other.

And then of course you get the goober who decides to see what happens when you pour glue in the palm of your hand.

(What happens is Mrs. Bluebird pulls you into the hall and explains to you that we do not act like four-year-olds in seventh grade, and that we use the glue for our notebooks, not for decorating our hands, and if you ever do anything like that again, I'm calling your mother.  THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING. )

Oh good gracious.

We're Just in the Dark Here

I'm trying to remember back to a first few weeks of school where we didn't have something dramatic happen.  Trouble is, I can't seem to find a memory that fits that criteria.

Today was no exception.

This morning, probably about 15 minutes after the kids left homeroom and went to first period, all the power went out in The School.  I was actually in the hallway on my way to the front office when it all went dark.  (Fortunately, since we have first and second period planning, we didn't have any kids.)  The power went off, the emergency lights went on and gave off enough light to somewhat figure out where you were going, and all was quiet.

Seriously quiet.

What was weird, is that in the nine years I've been at The School, this is the first time we've had the power go out and I DIDN'T hear a large yell from the student population.  Usually when the power goes out you can hear the kids yell.  You'd think they'd be used to power going out considering the number of severe storms we get here, but no, every time the power went out, there was an uproar.

Except for today.  There wasn't a peep - even out of the sixth grade.  You'd walk by classrooms and you'd hear teachers teaching (sans all our technology) and the kids listening, and just everyone carrying on as normal.

Wow.  Amazing.

Just a Leeetle Bit Different

You ever have a kid who just is annoying as hell, drives you (and the rest of the kids) up a beam but who you really, really, really like?

We have one this year.

A few years ago, we didn't have enough kids that qualified for placement in our ED unit (emotionally disturbed) so they relocated that unit at another middle school.  This year, however, the numbers were up, so we had the unit moved back to The School.  We needed to find a teacher for the unit and NO ONE wanted it (even out of state teachers applying to the district didn't want it - face it, dealing with emotionally disturbed kids is not everyone's cup of tea.)  So, the Principal talked to Mr. Baseball, one of our special ed teachers, and he agreed to do it.  Now I, for one, think this is a brilliant idea because he has a great way with kids (especially boys) because he's also a coach.

In any case, Happy Boy is one of his students.

When we first found out that we were going to have one of his students we were a bit concerned - after all these are usually High Maintenance kids and there are times they do not do well in a normal classroom.  Over they years I've had quite a few of them, some did well, others didn't do well at all, and it all comes down to the kid, what their particular disability is, and how it all plays out.  However, Happy Boy is on consult which means he's able to spend pretty much the entire day in the regular ed classroom, so he's not as severe as some of Mr. Baseball's other kids.

Our IEP's aren't ready to be signed yet (hopefully on Monday) so I don't really have a clear picture yest of Happy Boy's disability outside of the fact that he's major ADHD, he has some form of Autism, and he has absolutely no filter and says whatever pops in his mind.  His social skills are very weak, but he's probably one of the most social kids I've ever seen.  He is DELIGHTED to be in school.  It's one great big adventure for him, and he comes in just ready to go every morning.  He's got longish hair that's often quite unkempt (he honestly looks like a mad scientist!) and he often looks like he just rolled out of bed, but he's always on time, happy to there, and ready to let everyone know.

He's driven both Mrs. Reading and Mrs. Social Studies to distraction the first few days, and he's freaked out a few of the kids.  Apparently he wanted to impress all the kids in Mrs. Social Studies class by saying the "F" word as often as he could.  (It worked, they freaked.)  A quick email to Mr. Baseball, a quick talk in the hall, and that one was nipped in the bud.  He's in my seventh period class which has a pretty high level of pretty low kids (why does that always happen?), and he had one kid decide she couldn't take the fidgeting anymore and she moved to sit by herself.  The other two left at his table don't seem to mind him much, and are often pretty helpful when he leaves early (he leaves my class ten minutes early to catch the special ed bus home.)  All that being said, this kid is SMART and can actually find things like his homework and his science lab contract (signed!) and turn it in - that's more than my regular ed kids chose to do at times.

So today he was in rare form.  He comes racing up to me before class to inform me that he hadn't taken his medication and he needed someone to walk him to the nurse because he didn't remember how to get there "because I really need to take my medication now and I really hope it's okay because I forgot so I need to get to the nurse but I don't know how to get there."

Okey dokey.  One of my other kids volunteered to take him, and off they go, Happy Boy just chattering away.

They come back before class, Happy Boy is all bubbles, and we begin work on our notebooks.  This was the first day we did our student notebooks and Happy Boy actually had his composition book (bless him) and was having a grant time cutting and gluing and just doing fine.

"I'm having fun, Mrs. Bluebird!" he yelled across the class a few times.  (When's the last time a seventh grader told me that?)  The other kids didn't seem to know how to react to this one.

Ten minutes before the end of class he yells, "Mrs. Bluebird is it time for me to go now?!" and when I said it was, he needed to pack up, his tablemates took his notebook and said they'd finish up for him.  "Oh thank you!  You guys are the best!  Thanks so much!" and off he goes...only to poke his head into the room, "Mrs. Bluebird can you open my locker?!"  So I go out to the locker, open it for him.  "Oh, Mrs. Bluebird, you are the nicest teacher ever!," he yells (I think that's the only volume he has.)  "Thank you so much!  You have a great weekend!  Bye!" and off he goes.

Later this afternoon I'm talking with Mrs. Reading and Mrs. Social Studies and the topic of Happy Boy comes up.  Mrs. Social Studies nods her head, "You know, he can be annoying as hell, but I really, really like the kid."

And we all agreed.  He's pretty awesome.

If I Won the Lottery...

...the first thing I would do would be to buy new lockers for The School.

I am so not kidding here.  And I am not alone.  Mrs. Eagle and I both discussed this on our road trip before school started, and we decided one of the things we absolutely hate the most is Dealing With the Locker Drama.

Our building is 45 years old.  The lockers in my part of the building are, as far as anyone can tell, the original lockers that were put in at some point after The School opened.  And the kicker?  They weren't new at the time.  They were removed from another school and put in our school when the other school got new lockers.  (Got that?  Yeah, confusing.  What I'm wondering is why we never get our lockers upgraded).

What this means is that these lockers are a royal pain to open.  Many of them are broken and beyond repair.  Many of the locks are hard to turn, with numbers that are difficult to see.  They're dinged, dented, they stick, the handles break off, they are a nightmare.

And, due to the number of kids on our team this year (even more than last year), we are running out of workable lockers to assign.  So today, the second day the kids had their lockers, we were dealing with kids having all sorts of fits trying to get their lockers opened and getting their things out so they could get to class (I'm not even worried about tardies at this point.)

I have one student, Wimpy Girl who is absolutely devastated that she might have to carry more than one book at a time.  (They are, she says, heavy.  She is, to be nice, not tiny.)  That's the beginning of the drama.  She went through three lockers today before we finally found one she could open.  Each time she had a problem she burst into tears and just about lost it there in the hallway.   Mrs. Social Studies and I spent most of our hall duty showing kids (including Wimpy Girl) how you turn to the right, stop, turn to the left and pass the first number (they have trouble with this) and stop at the second number, and then turn to the right to the third number.   I had Wimpy Girl spend most of afternoon homeroom practicing on her third locker until she could open it without trouble - or tears.

And she wasn't the only one.

I can't help but thing how much easier life would be if we had lockers that worked - my kids are dreaming of lockers with fingerprint sensors so all they had to do was touch their hand on the locker and it would magically spring open - not a bad idea, truth be told.

But I have a feeling, I'll be retired before we ever see new lockers.

First Full Day

We had our first full day today with kids changing classes, breakfast, lunch, and all that fun stuff.

The good:

The kids, for the most part, seemed pretty good.  They seemed nice.  The were a tiny bit chatty but got the message when to be quiet.  Of course, we could still be in the honeymoon phase.  However, it seems I have a lot less girls with attitude and gang-banger wannabes than last year.  Thank the Lord.

Not a lot of absences.  There have been years past when I'd have 5-10 absent in every class - kids who've moved over the summer and weren't coming back (but didn't bother to tell us yet).  I may have 2-3 absent, if any absent at all.  And most of these kids know the routine around here, so that's nice.

My homeroom kids, especially the ones who are walkers and hang around for a bit while the buses are loading, are some of the nicest kids ever.  I already enjoy them.

The Bad:

Apparently the nutrition department installed new software in the cafeteria.  But didn't bother to tell or train anybody - they found out this morning when they went to serve breakfast and it took forever.  Breakfast and lunch were a challenge, but we worked it out.

PowerSchool is being difficult.  Enough said.

We have a number of eighth grade teachers teaching a number of sections of seventh grade which is confusing for the kids who are used to having all their teachers in one little area.  They'll figure it out tomorrow.  In the mean time I'm giving directions like, "go to the eighth grade hallway, turn left, and first room on the right," and I'm not sure they're getting there.

I'm tired.

Oh, and for those of you who commented regarding the four observations...That's what happens when you win Race to the Top.  New state law...professional licensed teachers get 4 observations a year, apprentice get six.  I feel sorry for our princpals who have to do all these.  I honestly don't mind, but I wish it wasn't the 2nd week of school.  I'll be lucky to know all their names by then.

Whirl, whirl, whirl.

Tomorrow is the first full day of school with all our students.  The schedule is a bit weird as we're spending two hours in the morning with our homeroom going over and training the kids in the School Wide Positive Behavior Support (hereby known as SWPBS) system (for the next three days).  Fortunately all of my kids were here last year so it will be more of a refresher for them, although we did tweak it a bit.  What this also means is that I'll only have 30 minutes for each of my class periods.

Which isn't much...barely enough time to hand out all the paperwork for science class and get attendance done.

And I also discovered, yet again, one of the huge disadvantages of being at the beginning of the alphabet.  My first two observations will be next week.  (We have a new state-wide observation system where ALL teachers get observed at least four times a year.)  I'll barely know my kids' names by then.

Sigh.

I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel already.

And a one, and a two, and a three, and a four...

I have finished going through my rosters (fully realizing that they'll probably change a bit in the next three weeks) and have made file folder labels for each of my kids.

I have two Elijahs in my home room.  Fortunately one wants to go by Eli and the other Elijah.

But the topper is that I have four Peytons.

Two of them are in my homeroom, one male and one female.

The other two, both male, are in my fourth period class.

What's weird?  I've never had a Peyton before. Could it be a lot of my parents are University of Tennessee, Peyton Manning fans?  Perhaps.

The New Cell Phone Policy

Our school board, without much fanfare - which either means the local media was sleeping yet again, or the school board really didn't want to make an issue of it, or both - has made a slight change in wording in our district-wide cell phone policy.  That slight change of wording, however, may have some pretty serious consequences.

Previous policy stated that cell phones must be off and stored in a student's locker until the end of school.  No big deal.  Kids usually hang their backpacks in their locker, and at the same time, they turned off their phones and put them away as well.  When a kid lost his or her locker (we take them away if they chronically don't come to class prepared), we'd simply have the kid turn in his or her phone to us and we'd lock them up in our file cabinet and then give them back at the end of the day.  No problem.  For the most part it worked well except for the chronic offenders (and I had none last year) who absolutely could not live without texting all day long.

Now the policy states that they have to be turned off and put away.  Put away means in a pocket, in a purse, or even in a locker.  But the crux of the matter is that they can have their phones with them as long as they are off.

Now some teachers are upset that kids could sneakily whip the phones out and take pictures of their tests and email them to their students.  (I, for one, am not too concerned about this because even when I let my kids use their notes on their tests, they didn't do any better.)  There is some concern on the part of Administration that they'll have a stampede of pissed off parents in the front office after someone wrote up their little darling for some infraction and the little darling went to the bathroom, whipped out a phone and called to complain to the parents. That's not to include those of us who are just not wanting to have to deal with phones going off in class.

However, the folks that are really concerned, and truth be told, they have a right to be, are the PE teachers.  They probably see, more than any of us, the bullying and teasing that goes on with large groups of kids and they are foreseeing a lot of trouble with cell phones (specifically cell phone cameras) in the locker rooms.  Let's face it, kids this age aren't exactly good at making decisions and they can be horribly mean to each other.  It's simply a matter of time before one of these knuckleheads takes a video or photo of someone in the locker room (in a state of undress) and then we'll find it texted to all their friends and posted on YouTube within minutes.   I can see how a very shy seventh grade girl (Crying Girl comes to mind) would have a complete melt-down if something like this happened to her.  It's vicious, it's mean, and it's so middle school.

I'm sure the school board thought that they'd be making their lives easier by eliminating the parents who were complaining that kids got write ups for cell phones that dropped out of pockets and fell out of purses.  However, I'm not sure they'll be prepared for the wrath of a parent of a kid who is cyberbullied as the result of cell phones in the school.  We have enough trouble with cyber-bulling as it is.

Honeymoon

I don't know if I've finally figured out what I'm doing, or if the stars were just aligned right, or if someone up there just loves us, but this was the smoothest, and best, first day of school we've ever had at The School.  And this, despite the fact that PowerSchool has been very cranky as of late and was going up and down all morning long.  Our phones worked, the kids all had schedules, and everyone pretty much showed up where they were supposed to.

Now the schedule thing may not seem like a big thing to some folks, but being able to give a kid a schedule, listing classes and teacher names, is like gold.  For one thing, the parents want to see it.  And for another, it makes a kid feel important.  One of our aides had a son starting middle school across town and his schedule had his name on it, and nothing else - no one could figure out where he was supposed to go.  And from what he said about the lines in the guidance department, he was not alone.  (And he was NOT happy, either.)  Our guidance department seemed almost empty, especially compared to what a busy place it can be some days.

The two Criers that my team was bequeathed did quite well.  Both of these kids, Crying Boy and Crying Girl are painfully shy and very attached to their Mom's and Do Not Want to Be at School.  I had guidance put them both in Mrs. Reading-Mom's class because she's the warm, cuddly type (and is back from maternity leave, we missed her!) and she'd do well with them.  The good news is that neither cried today, and Crying Girl actually got up and participated in a "getting to know you" activity.  A huge accomplishment considering both these kids spent a lot of time in guidance just sobbing their eyes out.  (I actually know Crying Girl because she's in our Board Game Club - and she'd sit there and cry for whatever reason - she can never really give you one - but she'd come every week and once she got over the tears, she played games and made a few friends.)

My home room of 26 kids ended up with 24 showing up...which is pretty good.  They all seemed bright and happy to be there - none of the eye-rolling 'tude I got from my kids last year.  In fact, Mrs. Eagle and I both commented that these kids seemed more like kids, not like the twelve-year-olds going on 32 we had last year.  They were quite a bit of fun.   Chatty, but they got the message pretty quick over when to talk and when to shut up.  I actually had fun with them today, and believe me, there are years when it's almost torture to get through this first half day.

But then again, it's the honeymoon.  We'll see how they are by the end of next week.

But we can always hope, can't we?

Down to the Wire

So tomorrow is the First Day of School With the Kids (keep in mind, many of us have already been in and around the building since mid-July).  It's a half day and we only get our homeroom kids, and that in itself is a challenge.

Having a bunch of kids for three and a half hours is a bit, well, boring.  For me, as well as for them.  Keep in mind, we're used to 45 minute class periods.  So, in between all the mandatory blah, blah, blah, I've got some fun activities planned that hopefully will get the little darlings out of their seats and moving around and getting to know each other.  (It still kills me that kids actually can sit next to each other for a freaking year and still not know each other's names.)  Hopefully all the talk about code of conduct, and cell phone policy (changing this year and no one is happy about it), and clubs, and rules, and where the bathrooms are and all that very important but dreadfully dull stuff (especially if you are 12) won't drive us all around the bend.

Me?  All I hope is that the air conditioning continues to work as well as it has done all this week and that PowerSchool actually works.  It kept crashing today so it wasn't until about one o'clock before I actually was able to see my rosters and get them printed out.

The good news is that I don't have 37 in my homeroom this year.  I have a more manageable 24.  But then again, 20 kids can enroll tomorrow and who knows what chaos will ensue?

Wish us all luck!

Melting

When I left school today it was 105 degrees.

With the heat index, the weather service reported it at 115 degrees.

I'm trying to remember what all those stupid snow days felt like.

Thank goodness my room is heavily air conditioned, but honestly, I'd rather give up fall break and now show up until after Labor Day when it's a tad cooler.  Seems weird to be starting school during the hottest week of summer.  And it seems to do this every year.

Whap, whap, whap, whap...

Teachers report to school tomorrow for two days of meetings and rosters and human resources song and dance and fellowship and who knows what else.

Oh, yeah, copying.  Because goodness knows we have to give the kids STACKS of paper to get home and get signed and hopefully get back.  And that's not counting the huge stacks that came from The District Office and are now laid out in neat piles on tables with signs that say "Teachers Do Not Take Yet!"

So Mrs. Eagle and I, hating lines and being a bit, well, obsessive about Being Prepared, met at school this morning and spent about two hours getting our copies made - before all the other staff members showed up and needed to make their copies.  We copied off the new (four page) Science safety Contract (lovely light green color), the Seventh Grade Supply List (bright orange), Student Information Forms (white, how boring), Course Syllabus (cheerful yellow!), Study Guide for our first unit (lavender and the unit is rocks and minerals), and a few more I can't even remember right now.  We punched holes, stapled, stacked and now...we are ready.

I think.

Tomorrow it begins!

Counting Down

Yeah, yeah, yeah....I know, haven't been posting much but truly...how many of you want to hear about how my knitting is going and what I've been up to?  Let's be honest, there's always a lot more material for this blog when school is in session.

Which it will be on Friday!

Gosh almighty, it's almost scary to realize how FAST summer slid away from me.  Granted, we put in quite a few extra days to make up for all the snow days we had last year.  And in reality, we don't get that much of a summer, and especially not the legendary "three months off every summer", that people think we have.  Which makes me wonder..does anyone get three months off?  Anyone?  We get about eight weeks and it appears that for most of that I was taking in-service courses.

Believe it or not...I was already in my room and got it all set up by July 19th.  I suppose you can say I like to have everything prepared.  Mrs. Eagle and I spent quite a few hours - already - getting things ready for this year, including co-teaching an in-service on science notebooks (which had more non-science teachers there than science teachers - go figure).  We also did a quick 5 day trip up north to visit some friends, do some touristy things, and visit family.  But just in case you think we got off easy...we actually worked on this trip.  She drove, I read and took notes, and we planned a number of changes in our way of doing things.  We'll see how this all works out this year.

First day for teachers to report is Wednesday, but I'll probably be in the building tomorrow with Mrs. Eagle getting copies made of the mounds of paperwork that we send home.  I pity the parents.

A look back at summer...I didn't get nearly everything accomplished that I wanted to.  Never got started on the "knitted dogs" project (never even ordered the yarn) as I got sidetracked by another baby blanket and a lace scarf.  My garden is still a work in progress - a very dry work in progress at this point.  I didn't lose weight, but didn't gain any, and I've been walking about an hour a day.  I'll miss that.

I'll also miss naps.

Yeah, well, I'm back...for a bit

So I haven't posted in a while because I've been out of town...and then coming back I realize that being out of town means not a lot got done around the house while I was gone.  (At least the cats were fed, but we won't talk about the litter boxes.)  To say I've been a tad busy pretty much sums it up.

And tomorrow I go in to school to set up my classroom - hopefully - it all depends on if the janitors are done with the floors.

To say that summer goes by pretty fast is an understatement.  It goes by horribly fast.  June is pretty much The Month of In Service, then there's Independence Day, then I was able to squeeze in a quick visit to see my mom in San Diego for a week - then back home, and then...school.  It goes by awfully fast.

And of course, after a week of glorious weather while out in California, I come home to humidity and heat.

Blech.