Dear Dysfunctional Roommate

First, I hope you don't read my blog.  Second, let me be frank.  We haven't known each other long, since you only moved in a month ago and have generally been gone as your life seems to fall apart in a new away every day.  I sympathize, empathize as much as I am able, even though at least half of this seems to be self-created.  However, your indecision, impulsive decisions, deciding that you're moving out, that you're not moving out, that you're moving out this week, or that you're moving out next month is affecting more than just yourself.  And I don't just mean Randy, our other roommate/landlord, who is listing and unlisting your possibly empty bedroom.

I'm talking about your cat.  Your dear, sweet, annoying cat you have for some reason named Muumu.  Last week, when you didn't come home for three days, I texted you to ask if you were ok.  You asked me to feed your cat.  That's the only time you've mentioned it, despite being gone five out of the last seven days, again.  So I continue to feed your cat.  I even bought more cat food when you ran out.  I pet your cat, and I chase it off the furniture and counters for you.

Let me make myself clear: I do this not because I am thrilled to have a cat in my house.  I do this because there is a cat in my house, its owner is neglecting it, and I'm not coldhearted enough to let an animal suffer from neglect in my own home.  I am growing increasingly worried.  I'm worried that the longer this goes on, the less comfortable I get with the idea of Muumu being ok with you when you do finally move out.  Not only that, but you have mentioned giving her away once or twice.  Basically, I am increasingly convinced that you are unable to adequately care for your cat.  Your dear, sweet, annoying cat that is the most talkative damn cat I've ever met.

I'm worried that since I am already taking care of your cat, loving your cat for you, and apparently more concerned for your cat than you are, I would be the natural choice to take care of your cat.  But I do not want your cat.  There are plenty of reasons that I got a tortoise instead of a cat.  The biggest is that I'm gone a lot, and I don't think my lifestyle is stable enough for one.  But apparently, neither are you.

So please, I implore you, come home, stabilize yourself, and take care of Muumu.  Because if you're gone another week, I'm going to have to learn how to clean out a litter box.

Miss E.

Gripe

This morning I got the go ahead from my administration to start building a debate program.  So the first thing I did was look up the cost of membership for our school in the National Forensic League.  There's a junior league for middle school and the high school league for grades 9-12.  However, I teach at a junior high, with grades 7-9.  Should I sign up for a junior league membership or a high school league one?

So I called the NFL headquarters in Wisconsin to ask.  Do you know what they told me I needed to do?  Buy both.  The junior league membership is $35 a year, and the senior membership is $99 a year.  To buy both means I would need to convince my administration to fork over $134 a year, just to make the school an NFL member.  That would not include the fact that they're willing to let me create more classes (meaning I'll be able to teach fewer English classes), talk about tournament fees, etc.  

Grrrr.  $134 just to have my three grades of students get memberships. One $99 membership could get four grades at a high school.  

Sigh.

Trying My Patience

Today is my students' monthly book reviews, where they take a test on a book they've read over the course of the month.  One girl, who hasn't brought a book to class all month today brought The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan and told me that she "didn't exactly finish" her book.  She's on page seven.  But she's writing a book and has been working on that.  So I tell her to do her book review on the book she's been writing and I can give her partial credit for that.  She thinks about that.  She "didn't exactly finish" writing the book.  I explained she could write it on a fairy tale, and I could give her credit for her analysis, if not for her reading.  She thinks about that.  Wait!  She's been reading a book in her reading class!  She "didn't exactly finish" the book, though.  But she's 95% through it.  So I tell her to write her book review on that book.  Then she asks me for a pencil.

So I bring her a pencil, full of lead, from my desk.  She pulls it apart and says, "There's no lead in it."  I pick it up and shake it to show how much lead there was.  But now she can't get the pencil back together.  She's broken it.

Sigh.  Sometimes I think the most valuable asset I have as a teacher is a poker face.

Compensation

Whenever I feel like I'm not really contributing to the world, I remind myself that I have, at the very least I have introduced roughly 1000 students so far to freerice.com, and that they have probably played enough to save several people from starvation for several days.  If I do nothing else worthwhile with my life, well, that's not too bad.

My Mother's Daughter

My mother is a fantastic teacher.  She is the kind of teacher I mentally refer to as "a program builder."  This means she does a whole lot more than "teach a class."  She takes those classes and turns them into burgeoning programs at the school.  Soon there are extra curricular opportunities and competitions and festivals and the general quality of the program is shooting upward.

I have no idea if I'll ever be able to build a program like that, but I'm noticing that my instincts keep steering me in that direction.  Last school year I started a small, rather rinky-dink debate program at my school.  By the end of the year, I was campaigning to get an intermediate-level debate course added, and nearly succeeded (high hopes for next year).  Today I spent any extra time I had browsing the National Forensic League website looking for ways to expand this one semester, one class elective into some sort of soul-expanding program.  I know it will mean extra work for myself, extra hassle, and more working with many of the school's most independent minded and rowdy students.  But I can't help it.  I see a way that it can be expanded, and I'm emailing my administrator asking for permission to get right at it.

Sigh.  I might be my mother's daughter.  I'd burst with pride if I wasn't so busy signing myself up for extra things.

Overheard in My Classroom

"I started watching the Twilight Zone...Best TV show EVER!  And it was made in the 1960s!"

She went on to explain how it was black and white, and how she was watching it with her dad, since it was the show he grew up on.

Later, after class started and I was signing reading logs, one student raised his hand and called me over:

"Guess what?  Israel is going to invade Libya!"

"Oh no dear, you mean Gaza, and maybe they are."

"AND they're sending in missiles!"

Y'know, Libya, Gaza, same difference to a 12-year-old.  The important parts are the words "invasion" and "missiles."

A Review of My Experience As a Politically Active Person

I got my first "I Voted" sticker yesterday at the age of 27, in the third presidential election since I turned a voting age.  This may be surprising, since during my senior year of high school I wrote a ten minute speech about the importance of voter participation, and spoke passionately and competitively.  I wrote that speech and believed it.  I paced back and forth while writing it (probably at two in the morning), my conviction lifting me out of my seat.

Then I learned about the electoral college.

Then I went to my own college, and had five thousand more pressing, more personal, and more immediate things to think about.  It was 2004, and it was my first real semester in college.  My roommate and best friend from high school taterbugs got very political, joined campus political groups, and soon was off volunteering and campaigning.  I watched my first presidential debate, and she and I overnighted our absentee ballots to our home state because we waited until the last minute to mail them.  After pooling our pocket money for the $13 to share one overnighted envelope and proudly mailing it, we walked home from the campus post office and realized our votes had cancelled each other's out.  Not only that, but, being from Idaho, our electoral votes were going to Bush anyway.

Four years passed, and I always meant to pay attention to senate and local races, but there were always plenty of other things to distract me.  When the 2008 election came, I was in my third month of my first year of teaching, I was moping about a boy, I didn't know where to vote or how to register, couldn't be bothered to find out, and, I admit it, I didn't vote.

My first classroom, a world in itself.  I didn't travel outside of it mentally until school got out in May.  

But gradually, things changed.  In a fit of service I ended up helping with a food drive for an organization that called itself "Obama's Angels." A friend invited me to an Inaugural Ball.  Four years of secret shame for not voting and worked upon my conscience.  I discovered the Colbert Report and The Daily Show.  I switched schools, and my new coworkers neglected the usual lunch-time conversation of topics of recipes and sports, and instead spoke passionately about politics.  I became an Education Association Representative at my school.  I dated the son of a Utah state senator for six months.  I began to teach debate, and, through needing to be able explain politic and current events to my debaters, I began paying close, close attention.  It's no longer a normal day unless I've read two different news sources, at least one international.  I listen to news on the radio, I watch it on the TVs at the gym.  I talk about it at lunch, with my friends, with my students.

Charlie's Obama's Angels

After advertising at 120 apartments, this is all the food I collected.  

On our way to the ball.

Halfway through my move, it's been difficult to register to vote, and to prove my address, but unlike in years past, this year I was motivated to make happen.  And yesterday, I left work early to drive to my polling place before the lines got long, armed with opinions on almost every state and local race.  I voted, collected my sticker, and even participated in an exit poll run by local poli sci majors.

Then I met up with some friends for dinner and a victory party to watch the results.  It was a lot like watching a football game: every ten seconds there was some update to cheer or boo.  People were obsessively updating statistics, discussing history of individual players, and chasing cheerful little kids through the crowd.  The biggest differences were that everyone was dressed up, and that there was more wine than beer flowing.  We watched as the electoral score tipped back and forth, gradually rising like an unsteady balloon toward that 270 mark.

The game changing update was at first lost in the sea of statistics for a few moments.  The first few spectators began to cheer, and, as realization rolled in a heady wave over the crowd, everyone heaved themselves to their feet, fists pumping, hands waving, hugging, laughing, screaming, whooping, hollering.  As news cameras and interviewers from half a dozen different channels worked through the crowd capturing "live reactions," chants of "FOUR MORE YEARS!!! broke out, held sway for a while, than gave way to screams and laughs and general gaiety.  As we left the party because it was, after all, a work/school night, we noticed many people had been willing to park illegally and get tickets to attend the festivities.

Having now been both politically involved and politically apathetic, I have to admit, I enjoy and feel better now that I know what's going on in the world and my community.  I enjoyed being part of the national conversation, and I enjoyed the spirited individual conversations I had with friends.  At the same time, it has had its disadvantages.  I now have opinions, and opinions can be challenged, critiqued, and sometimes resented.  Additionally, the world is too big and too complicated to ever know everything.  The more you figure out, the more you feel obligated to keep listening, researching, and questioning.  And I hated the few arguments about politics I got into with friends who disagreed.  It was easier to talk politics without getting heated when I didn't care.

But the whole political process, the challenge of figuring out the truth, the drama, the successes, and the defeats, is addicting.  I'm beginning to understand sports junkies get so intense, because I could easily see the same happening to me with this new sport I've found: politics.

New Places

At long last I shall produce pictures of my new room,  In another three months I'll get around to posting pictures of my new living quarters as well.  Don't get your hopes up though.  This is all about all I can give you of my new home:

It's a beautiful boa constrictor named Rod.  He belongs to my housemate Randy.  Someday I'll actually tell you about the move, but let's start with the classroom.  I probably spend more time there anyway.  Last year, as much as I loved my old classroom, I requested to move rooms.  I had two requests: a window and a bigger room.  I still don't have a window, but my new classroom is much bigger.  This summer, I used to the fact that I was moving as a reason to spend a much more time and money than I had before to decorate and set up my room.  Here's a few overview pictures.

If you're not a teacher, you might not notice, but those are bigger, newer, sturdier desks than my old classroom had.  My old room wouldn't have fit 40 of these babies, it barely fit 40 of the little rickety ones.  Not only that, but the room is big enough for me to have set up the desks in my favorite (so far) configuration, rows of pairs.

Zooming in to look at specific elements of my room, this bulletin board has been in the plans since my first year of teaching.  I finally have a bulletin board dedicated to letting my students get to know me.  It's got pictures of my family, my childhood, my crazy hairstyles, and my various adventures.

Next, we have the trophies.  Since graduating from high school, my trophies from high school debate, mock trial, and elementary school spelling bees have gathered dust a variety of places.  They've lined the top of bookcases at my parents' house, opposite of my sister's collection of similar trophies, and later they were packed into a box to be stored in my bedroom closet back home, right next to my junior year prom dress.  A few years ago, I almost took them all to the trophy shop to be cannibalized for spare parts.  However, last year I started a debate class.  Now the trophies are proudly displayed along the top of my cupboards.

When my debaters ask if I've ever debated, or if I've ever won a round, I just point to them.  They're still gathering dust, but now they're gathering dust with purpose, which is about all you can hope for high school trophies.

Next to the trophies is this sign.

I inherited it from a teacher who left year.  She though long and hard about who to give it to, and decided that I fit the profile.  I was truly flattered.

Another addition to my classroom this year, is this framed poster from postertext.  I found on a google offer just before school started and fell in love.

It's the entire text of Grimm's Fairy Tales, with a beautiful representation of Red Riding Hood and her wolf shaped from the words themselves.  I use Little Red Riding Hood for an example for about 300 different concepts, and I knew I wanted this picture from the moment I saw it.  

Of course, no classroom of mine is complete without my pirate flag.  I bought it my first year of teaching, and it's hung over my desk in three different classrooms at two different schools.

You'll notice that in front of the flag, floating over my desk are a small flock of paper cranes.  These represent books I've read this year.  In fact, I have cranes all over, some for decoration, some for motivation.  I challenged my students to read 40 books this year, over several genres, and for every book they read, they fold a paper crane as well.  Books that are 400 pages or more count for two, and so far we have put together an impressive amount of paper cranes.  The school year is only one quarter over, and I have over three hundred.  So far my students have responded well to this, and it's been a great way to see how much they've read.  Each color of crane corresponds to a different class.  I even give my students small paper cranes folded from fancy paper on their birthdays.

Here are cranes for decoration:

Here are cranes for the books they've read:

This is my desk at the end of the term, or it would be my desk, if it weren't covered in paper.

Look!  The teacher next door came in and offered me a donut!  I win!

7th Graders

The room is dead silent, everyone is bent over their journals, when a student comes up to me at my desk.  He tells me he is fighting off a cold and begins to describe his symptoms.  He's sneezed, he says;  he coughs, he tells me; and he has a lot of mucus.  Finally, he gets to the reason he's telling met his:  he wants to call his mom to have her make a doctor's appointment for him later.  

Talking to 7th graders requires some patience and faith.  Faith that there is a point to what they're saying, and, given enough time, they will eventually get to it.  

Made My Day

If you look through the pictures, you could swear that turtle is smirking.

Escaped tortoise impounded after stroll through neighborhood.

Oh, I guess I'm Crazy Then.

After all the exciting weight losses and gains over the last two years, I only have one pair of dress pants that fit at the moment.  Because of that, I've been wearing skirts a lot.  Out of all my skirts there is one that gets far more compliments than any other.  The English teacher next door asked me where I had gotten it a few weeks ago.  After thinking a moment I responded, "At a free store at an anarchist venue in Tucson."  It's true.  It was my first trip to Tucson with Cuny and we had stopped at Dry River, the local venue for bands and home to the local Anarchist collective and free store.  They had this skirt, it fit, and I loved it.  

Then, this morning, my teacher friend noticed the brightly skirt I wore today.  "Is that another anarchist skirt?" she asked.  I looked down at the skirt and said, "No.  It's just another hippie one.  I got this at the reggae festival in Tokyo."  

Then I realized that my life is pretty awesome.  Some day this spring I'll have dreads again, then I'll be the hippie teacher who wanders around barefoot and sits on the floor and teaches her students to chain themselves to trees.  I can't wait.  

Picture Source

Highlights of a Day

In the last 24 hours:

After not exercising more than once for weeks, I climbed for an hour and then went to a grueling yoga class. During the final meditation, as the trembling slowly ceased in my limbs and the blanket of sweat on my skin evaporated, my mind and body had a little chat.  We'd been feeling disconnected from each other lately, so it was a good chance to reconnect.  During our conversation, my body requested that I go vegetarian again.  Since my mind and body communication is usually a battle over who wants to eat the most cookies, I immediately made the goal.  Vegetarian again.  I will probably still eat meat on occasion--socially at least.  But no more buying it, fixing it, or eating it on my own.

This afternoon, after teaching four classes in a room in which the fans were not running, it was so warm that my projector was overheating.  During the journal discussion, one of my dear, sweet, 7th grade girls raised her hand when I asked, "What are places, people, and events that have influenced your personality?"  I called on a few students, and then when it was her turn, instead of contributing to the discussion, informed the whole class and me, "You have a shiny forehead!"  Oh really?  Thanks for mentioning it.

It's My Turn to Ramble about My Pet! Finally!

After almost four weeks with Zhivanna, I can wholeheartedly proclaim that I am completely in love with her. Currently she's basking on an impromptu log I rigged up out of a rolled up rug, a towel, and some shoes so that she could eat breakfast and bask in the living room while I checked my email.  Now she's venturing off, peering over at me frequently to see if I'm going to bother her.

Things I have learned about my tortoise:  She's curious and undaunted. Wandering is what she likes best.  I almost wish I had a bigger apartment so she had more room.  She is nearly always in motion.  Sometimes she does laps of a room, circling the perimeter, stopping to sniff anything interesting or squeeze herself under something too small for her. I've watched her investigate every corner of my apartment, constantly seeking out a challenge.  If there are three ways to get over, through, or around something, she will pick the smallest opening or the hardest climb.  Although she'll pause and pretend she's not there when you're looking at her, if you're just sitting there, she'll climb over your feet and inspect your toes closely to see if your red toenails smell like anything edible.  When I let her out to roam around, she doesn't hide in a corner and attempt to escape like many reptiles/hampsters/guinea pigs when you let them out.  So I can let her out to have free run of the apartment when I'm home, checking only occasionally to make sure I have a general idea of where she is.

She also thoroughly explores the apartment looking for things to climb.  And boy howdy, can an Agrionemys horsfieldii climb.  I saw this picture on the internet:

Picture Source

And I had noticed Zhivie's penchant for summitting whatever she could.  Anything she thinks there might be a slim possibility she could climb, and she'll spend fifteen minutes trying.  She purposely crawls over shoes, piles of clothes, pillows, and anything else in her path.  However, I didn't believe she could really climb as well as the picture above made it look, until a few days ago when she was in my bedroom and proceeded to climb a nearly vertical yoga mat.  I hadn't seen her in a while, so I went to check on her.  At first I couldn't find her, but that's because she was several feet higher than I'm used to looking.  I have evidence:

No wonder they chose turtles for ninja mutants.  

She hung out on top of that mat for ten minutes, climbing up a little, down a little, to the side, trying to find a way to get higher.  I finally took her down and put her back in her enclosure because I was leaving the apartment.

I've also learned that tortoises are smart.  If she knows I'm taking her outside on the grass, or to wander around my apartment, she hardly struggles at all when I carry her.  She knows me.  She reacts differently to me than to anyone else who comes over.  She doesn't draw back when I reach for her to pick her up or to scratch her head unless I startle her.  If I come over to her enclosure, as soon as she sees me she get as close to me as she can, climb as high as she can, and then reach her neck up expectantly, "asking" to come out and wander.

And as far as pets go, she's pretty dang convenient.  If I'm gone all day, all she needs is to have clean water and some veggies left out for her, and I can be gone from sunrise to sunset.  If I'm home, she'll spend hours wandering around the apartment, stopping every once and a while to check on me.  Her breed is from the semi-arid regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan, northeast Iran, Northern China, etc.  Because of this, Russian tortoises will wait to go to the bathroom until they know there's more water available.  This means she usually pees or poops or both when she's either eating or drinking.  So, instead of needing to change her entire substrate, all I have do is wash the dish.  And even when she does pee or poop on the carpet (It's happened.), it takes about 30 seconds to clean up.

All in all, I'm very glad she's mine.  I look forward to having her for decades to come.

Also, turtle yawns are adorable.

Zhivana

Meet Zhivana, the beautiful little Russian tortoise that I brought home yesterday.  After years of pet cravings, long debates with myself and other people over whether or not I had a kitten/puppy/furry creature appropriate lifestyle, and wandering through the pet store multiple times in the same day for at least half an hour each, I have finally taken the plunge.  Zhivana is mellow enough to not mind if she sits in her enclosure all day while I'm gone, but social enough to like exploring and having her head scratched.

A bigger and better enclosure is in the works in the next few months, but apparently Rubbermaid has an unwitting monopoly on temporary reptile housing.  Seriously.  Ask the most reputable tortoise forums on the internet, ask pet shop owners.  Rubbermaid is where your reptiles live until you build them elaborate homes.

So far she is still getting used to her new home, so I've tried not to stress her out much, but here are a few pictures.  So far her favorite foods are romaine lettuce and green peppers.  She'll eat carrots when the rest is gone.  The largest she'll grow is about 8-10" and she could live 25 years with proper care.

Her nickname is Zhivie.

I have a surprise

Today I fulfilled a long-time dream.  I can't tell you what it is yet, because I'm waiting for morning to take pictures, but I'm bursting with excitement, so I have to say something.

Seriously.  I was so happy today I nearly cried.

Stay tuned for pictures and explanation tomorrow.

Sigh...It's like waiting for Santa to come.

AAaand Here We Go

Summer is almost over, I have meetings beginning on the 9th.  Whenever I say that, people ask me when the first day of school is, and I tell them I don't know.  I figure someone will tell me on the 9th, and not looking it up makes the summer feel longer.  But...the back to school dreams have started. Last night I dreamed it was the first day of school, so when I woke up this morning I thought I'd check.  Apparently my subconscious knew.  This morning is exactly one month till the first day of school.  Well-played subconscious, well-played.

The dream is fairly uninteresting if you're not a teacher.  The first day of school must have come as a surprise, because I was totally unprepared.  The dream involved things like only having seating charts for the first class of the day, not having my disclosure docs printed, and not even being sure which classes I'm teaching that day.  Of course, there was also the grand constant of teacher dreams:  the students act up, then refuse to listen when you try and give them the stern speech, and soon you're yelling while they continue to giggle and ignore you.

I used to have teacher dreams my first few years of teaching, but they were much less specific.  Now the dreams reflect my experience in teaching:  something goes wrong and I come up with a clever adaptation to fix it, only to have something then go wrong with that.  See?  I'm much more experienced now.  I also for some reason this time went to school in a tank top, and so tried to scramble to my old classroom to grab my back up sweater (I'm changing classrooms this year), and in the process, mistook the second bell for the first, and came into class five minutes late.  Sigh.

Okay universe, I'll think about school more seriously.  I'll think about my disclosure documents, I'll actually start planning.  Besides, I moved my back up sweater to my new classroom months ago.

Bring it on.

Last fall, my old room, my old dreads, my new shoes.  

Grown-Up Girl's Cry More

The following is not a plea for sympathy, simply an observation of changes in my own behavior as I grow up:

I've been watching Cake Boss in my spare time the past few weeks of summer vacation.  This week I saw two baby episodes, and I bawled through both, tears of sympathetic joy, and then longing.

That didn't used to happen.

Dread Reprise (Someday)

Since summer started, I have been craving dreadlocks again.  I want to be able to drive with the windows down on the freeway and not worry about my hair.  I want to be able to camp, hike, backpack, climb, swim, and work out with my hair looking like I'm about to go on a date.  I want to meet my original dreadlocks goal, the one inked on my bucket-list: to have dreads for at least a year.  I want to see what it's like to have long dreads, I want to experience what dreads are like at six months, a year, or two.  I will get dreadlocks again.

But not yet.

I'm still researching, for one thing.  After last time's failure, I have a lot to think about and decisions to make. Second, I'm enjoying having long, classy, loose hair right now.  I like being able to braid it, curl it, do it in elaborate twists, and watch the highlights--absent for the two years I had a pixie cut--reappear and streak through my hair.  I enjoy being able run my fingers through my hair, or letting a boy play with my hair.  Third, it's probably that this time, I would get my dreads professionally done.  Last time the burden fell almost entirely on Di, for which I felt awful.  Then, when I had to take them out, I felt worse.  If I have my dreads locked at a studio, it will probably cost me several hundred dollars.  At this point, Japan, Boston, camping trips, etc., have cleaned out my disposable income and my savings.  Right now I'm telling myself that when I finally get my car paid off, I will get dreads again.  The earliest that might happen is next winter, but it might not be until next summer.  So I have six months to a year to make some money, pay off my car, and enjoy my hair while it grows.

But still, oh internet, this is your official notice.  Dreadlocks are coming back.

Since the dreadlock craving hit me, I've been once again feverishly researching dreadlocks and information about creating them.  This time, I'm approaching it with even more of an open mind than I did the first time.  I emerged from months of research last time convinced that I should backcomb, wax, and use rubber bands.  Now, having pulled out the gluey mess of disintegrated rubber bands out of my dreads, combed out my dreads to discover months old wax and dirt caked in the center, and having watched the knots that had been so painstakingly and friendship-strainingly created migrate out the ends and into nothingness, I intend to neither wax, use rubber bands, or backcomb.  I'm investigating other methods that sound promising.  Plus, my hair will be longer, and I'm willing to dread my locks a little thicker, all of which should contribute to healthier, longer-lasting dreads.

To remind you of why I want dreads, here are few memories:

Whew! Ugh.

I'm tired.  Since school got out less than a month ago, I have been to Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point State Park, participated in a three day workshop on the new Utah Core curriculum, led a trip to Yellowstone, completed a three-credit hour class on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, and taken a trip to Boston where I toured Plymouth, Lowell, Lexington, Concord, the U.S.S. Constitution, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston's graveyards, and went to two Red Sox games in Fenway Park.  Now I'm sitting in the third day of my last class this summer, Creativity in the Classroom.  In between I've tried to squeeze in climbing, other exercise, family, friends, cooking, and cleaning.  Oh, and sleep.  That usually ends up being last.  Cooking, cleaning, and sleep.  This morning I looked at the dishes in the sink and realized they'd been there for four days.  I skipped a shower and washed half of them.  Maybe tonight I'll tackle the other half and the ones on the stove.  

But here comes the next stage of summer: adventure.  If I do everything possible so far, not counting last minute climbing trips that will probably get suggested by friends (I've already turned down three this month), I will assist in the pilgrim reenactment for Freedom Days, go camping in Glacier National Park, summit the Grand Teton, and go backpacking with my family.  That's just July, but my meetings for school start on the 9th of August, so there's not much summer left after July.  If I do all of that, I will have a grand total of 2 1/2 weeks of un-scheduled time, assuming I do nothing but those planned trips.

Here's the catch, I'd love to do all of them, but here are some things I have to get done this summer somehow:  Move and rearrange/redocorate my classroom, complete another 3 credit hour history course, adapt my English curriculum to the new Utah Core, read about 20 books I'm supposed to teach my gifted students next year, and figure out what the heck I'm teaching my gifted kids next year.  In there somewhere it'd be nice to get 8 hours of sleep (hasn't happened in weeks), do the dishes before they mold, and maybe hang out with some the friends I put off all school year because I was too busy.  And make healthy, good food.  Or try a new recipe for the first time in a year.  That's an impossible order for 2 1/2 weeks.  If I try to fit in all of those trips plus all those necessary plus a 10th of the things I'd like to do, I'm going to hit the school year exhausted, which is a bad way to start a school year where I will be teaching three subjects, one of them new, and once again taking evening classes.

But what do I take out?  This may be the only time I have an opportunity to hike the Grand, though it will require a lot of training I don't have time to do.  How can I not do that?  I already turned down the Freedom Festival opportunity this morning, despite the fact it would give me credit toward my history endorsement.  The family backpacking trip is also a must that cannot be skipped.  Not going to Glacier National Park would free up six more days, nearly a full week.  It's my longest time commitment for the rest of the summer, the easiest one to drop.  An extra week I could sleep and train and work on school stuff and do my dishes and work on school stuff.  But man, would I disappoint my parents and sister who have been looking forward to and planning this trip for a month.  I've only gotten to see my sister and my dad once since summer started, and my mother not at all.

Sigh.  I'm tired.  Yesterday morning I was so tired I lost my breakfast, so I skipped my training after class and went home and slept for three hours.  I didn't get up early this morning and exercise, I slept.  I've got a sore throat, and I'm feeling whiny (can you tell?).

Hee Hee Hee Hee Hee

Guitar Pee Urinal

Just go look at it.  And then think for a minute or two, and then laugh.

Miss Wesel and Miss E. Run Away to the Desert

School got out on a Thursday afternoon, and Friday morning Allie and I packed up her car and drove to the desert.  In two days we saw Dead Horse Point State Park, which Allie had never seen, and Canyonlands, to which I was a stranger.  It was crazy warm, but while the heat saps your energy, but it also warms your soul.  We saw jack rabbits and prairie dogs and lizards of all colors, sizes, stripes, and spots.  Here are some pictures, though we used Allie's camera for Dead Horse Point, and mine for Canyonlands, so these pictures are only of Canyonlands.  

The bathroom at our campsite had neither roof nor door.  

Sunrise at Mesa Arch

A week ago, after months of searching, I finally found a cowboy hat that fit, looked decent, and  cost me only twelve dollars.  It also meant I had to take a great deal of ridiculous pictures.  

Chillin' on the edge of the Grand View Point

Of course I didn't hit the button on my camera and dash toward the edge of the cliff to get into position before the picture took.  Of course I didn't.  

As we were leaving Grand View Point, it began to rain.  In the Quran, there are multiple times when it refers to "God's mercy," and a footnote will tell you plainly that "God's mercy" means rain.  Being in the desert in the heat of summer for a few days, and walking on paths where sandstone is returning to sand and baking white, the rain is magical, merciful, and heaven sent.  

Teaching Beliefs

Sitting in training for the new Core Curriculum on the first Monday morning of my summer break.  In the opening ceremony, they asked us to write down some of the core teaching beliefs that drive our practice.  This is what I came up with off the top of my head, unedited and fresh.

Students respond to honesty.  If your are honest about yourself, your subject, and your assessment of them, they will be more honest with you.

Students respond to respect.  If you look down on their hobbies, their clothes, their hair, their grades, their peers, or their opinions, why should they not look down on you?  And how could you believe you don't deserve it?

Students value your opinion.  Deep down, both teachers and students are human beings, they want to be liked, they want to trust you, they want each other's validation.  Just like original analysis is often the most important and interesting part of a good paper, the times you step out of Information Dispensary mode and into What You Really Think About That Information Mode are often the ones that even the kids you think have turned into zombies while they sit there will perk up their ears to listen.  

Students want to like your class--no one wants to be bored, left behind, or talked down to.  At the beginning of the movie Hitch, the main character points out that no matter how emphatically a woman says she's not looking for love, that she doesn't have time, that she's really into her career, etc., no woman wakes up and thinks, "I hope I don't get swept off my feet today."  The same applies to students.  No matter how much they say they hate you, your class, or school in general, no student wakes up and thinks, "Gee, I hope I'm miserably bored and fail today."  

Students can achieve, but you have to give them something they see as worthwhile to do.  If they don't like you, your subject, or the assignment, the only reason they'd complete it is because they already have a habit of obedience and success.  If they do, congratulations to their former teachers and their parents for instilling it in them.  However, they only form about 10% of your students.  The rest are going to need at least like one of the three variables to even try.  

Students respond to recognition.  Whether it be for their achievement in your class, their good fashion sense, their witty disruptive comments, their martyr-like position in the family, that their cold makes them sleepy, or that they doodles they draw on the worksheet you gave them are works of art, even if the worksheet is otherwise blank.  After repeatedly complimenting one student on his drawing, and even mentioning it at parent teacher conferences, he suddenly started turning in his worksheets, coming to talk to me before or after class about what was had happened over the weekend.  He still failed my class, but he started enjoying the class and learning from it, which I cared about a lot more than his grade. 

Students respond to patience and consistency.  You will be with those students for nine months.  Nine months of junior high is a lot of time for the quickly changing and developing students.  Keep patient with the ones that drive you up the wall first term: they may be your favorites the next term, if you haven't driven them away or written them off.  In a world where they themselves and all their friends are all changing physically, emotionally, psychologically, and friendships are formed and broken and mangled and affirmed multiple times daily, your consistency and the steady and dependable conditions in your classroom will be appreciated more than your or they realize.  Unlike their hormonal friends, you do not fly off the handle with no reason.  Though their families are growing, moving, changing, or even breaking, your classroom is always in the same place, with consistent rules and expectations  Your consistency and patience is an asset to both you and them.  

Students have the right not to listen, like you, or do their homework.  You can make them be quiet, you can make them sit still, maybe you can even make them copy down the notes, but you can't make them learn or care.  You can invite, encourage, threaten, plead, and gently tease, but there will be students every year who hate you, hate your class, and think you're a terrible teacher who tells bad jokes.  Some students will fail your class.  The government will tell you that every student should pass, but the government's never had 250 students.  In any sample of 250 early teenagers, a handful of them really will fail your class.  You can make them stay after, put a pen in their hand and a worksheet in front of them, their parents can threaten and bribe, and yet they will sit still, stare into space, and not do the stupid worksheet.  Don't look down on the student for it or for hating you if they hate you, they have that right.  Don't try and take it away from them.  

The second to last day of school, this was in the office.  It's a balloon version  of our mascot, the Caveman.   All I can say is wow.  

Adventure

To Infinity and Beyond!!

I almost said no.  When my brother called at nearly bedtime two weeks ago and invited me on a sailing trip that would drain my savings, require two weeks off of work, preparing two weeks of sub plans, using up all of my accumulated personal leave of years plus unpaid leave, and returning only in time to grade my students' final projects before the school year ends.  I said no.

But then I emailed him the next morning and said yes.  And I talked to my administrators, my English department, and my students.  I arranged for a sub, I resigned myself to not paying off my car by the end of the year anymore and to not having any savings, and I started buying things for the trip.  I borrowed cold weather clothes from my sister, but I bought warm weather clothes, a sun hat, boat shoes, a Kindle, and a set of international plane tickets.  Because this sailing trip?  It's in Japan.  We're starting on Hachijo Jima and sailing to the Ogasawara islands, and maybe further on to Iwo Jima.  After that we'll come all the way back to Tokyo.  It's over 600 miles round trip, and could involve humpback whales, snorkeling, hammerhead sharks, plants found nowhere else in the world, flying fish, typhoons, days of sailing in the open water under sun, cloud, and stars, and who knows what else.

So I said yes.  My sub plans are half done, my G/T class is finished early, my last presentation for my Teaching American History cohort is over, my bags are ready to pack, and I'm starting to count down days.  Three.  Three days until I leave.  That means I have only sixteen days left to teach till the end of the school year.

I won't be blogging while I'm gone (not that I've been blogging much lately), but if you want to see information and adventures from the trip, my brother has a temporary blog for the trip.  He's already out sailing this week with his family, and I'll join him on Sunday along with one of my other brothers.  So here I go, for what I think is probably my craziest, biggest, adventure yet, short of the time I slept in a park in Wendover, or perhaps the summer I lived in Japan.

And, because I'm leaving on my next adventure before I've had a chance to blog about my last one, here are a few pictures of my spring break trip.

The Sinkhole Bandits of the Jackass Flats of the San Raphael Swell

Brian at one point went on at great length about the dangers of falling asleep next to ledges.  Then he did this.  

The Colorado River does impressive things, even if you're a long way from the Grand Canyon.

My first slot canyons.  I fully intend to drag multiple friends and family members through these at later points.  

Little Wild Horse Canyon

After five days and many days of desert hiking feet I could have conducted an archaeological dig in the dirt on my feet.

You can't see it well in this picture, but I was bright, bright red.  I put on sunscreen (SPF 50) every day, and burned right through it every day.  Hopefully I'll learn my lesson and reapply more often on the sailing trip.