I do love them!

My period one class chose not to write their exam on the last day of classes, so instead we had cookies and hot chocolate and discussed our favorite tv shows and random things. (This actually happens more than I should admit...) While we were "sharing fellowship" (the Catholics have words to justify everything, including eating and doing nothing. I may have switched systems, but I will steal what I deem appropriate.) one of my students took a few moments and personalised my Christmas card. It seems appropriate to share.

Twas 3 days before Christmas
And all through the school
Students chattered of the upcoming yule
In the math class Mme sat at her desk
Patiently awaiting 2nd periods test
She then glanced at her class and realised
Oh my goodness I love these guys!
So her class shouted with cheer
Merry Christmas Mme and Happy New Year!

a christmas explosion!

I know this is way late, but it seems really wrong not to post about the last day of school before the break.

It took me a little while to get into the Christmas swing of things this year. There was just so much to do, and so little time for things Christmas. However, by mid December, I was right into my typical love of Christmas. Greatly aided by Rach and Mariltio arriving home of course. School was certainly a festive place indeed - so many goodies, Secret Santa, and festivities galore. I was quite impressed at how contained the festivness was from my students this year. I don't always love the last week before Christmas because dreams of sugar plums and new ipods tend to distract my always attentive learners. This year, I managed to keep the darlings learning right up until the 21st, and even had a class who wanted to write their exam on the last day of classes. Dedicated to learning they be! I had to stop myself when I realised that I was the one trying to talk them out of learning/thinking on the last day of school... Bad teacher!

So yes, it was a good season, and I was very happy to see the 22nd arrive if only it meant I would get to sleep in the next day. I was prepared for a fun relaxing, and generally Christmas-y day. It would appear what had been going on in the ways of the spirit inducing was not satisfactory to the SRC. Acceptable, maybe, but they were not totally convinced that everyone has been completely submersed in the Christmasness. The week had been mild and gentle sprit. The 22nd was a full on spirit assault. Labelled dress up day, I was shocked at how many kids actually dressed up. Crazy elves, Santas, Mrs Clauses, presents, angels, Christmas trees and Reindeers were everywhere. The band and choir had also been recruited in the war against the unspirited - around every corner was another small group of students singing or playing Christmas carols. Several different times during the day I witness "spontaneous caroling." The whole afternoon was dedicated to Christmas cheer - no classes were even held, instead we had a pep rally dedicated to the love of Christmas full of silly antics.

I left school that day so full of the Christmas love I thought I might burst. So of course, I did the only thing possible - went home and cleaned my house like a madwoman so I could have the girls over for our annual Christmas get together. It was awesome.

3 more days!

Well the craziness is officially in full swing. So much to do, so very precious few non working hours. Being as responsible as I am certainly is tough. For when you are a responsible professional, you don't stay up til 1am decorating Christmas trees and gingerbread houses with your bestest friends. Especially not when you have an exam to give the next morning that is not finished or photocopied. Never! This would require you to get up at some ghastly hour, hoping there is still enough sugar in your system from all the icing and candy you didn't eat while you weren't decorating a gingerbread house to finish things that should have been done earlier. You also wouldn't be making blog entries from school while your students write said exam, so if it existed you could post pictures of the marvellous creation that was really just an excuse to eat more candy.

But enough about what I haven't been doing...

Through a somewhat complicated, yet simple system, we managed to get our hands on a Wii last weekend. It involved tickets, WalMart (I know!), bribing my bro, and someone else with more money than myself. The end result was awesomeness. Jeff has posted some pictures on his blog. I love that in 2/3 I look totally unimpressed with what is going on. The truth? I probably haven't had that much silly fun since I was a preschooler. No lies, the Wii is just as awesome as everyone thinks it is, and then some. For one, I can actually play it (unless we start talking about tennis...). This is a pretty big deal in the land of the 3D console games and confusing controllers that my spatial abilities just can't handle. The actually moving to accomplish stuff on screen is awesome. It's fun cause you're doing stuff, and it's fun cause you and everyone else look just a little silly "pretending" to do stuff. We only had Wii sports to play, I can't wait to get back over now that an extra controller and Monkey Ball has been purchased.

Shopping is slightly stressful this year, mainly because I have no time to do it. I put a good dent in it last weekend, but have zero hours allotted to completing it. That and finding what I consider to be the simplest of items has been difficult this year. My gift ideas are so fabulous, everyone else has already bought what I'd looking for... My new best friend, Elise the massage therapist, has been helping my poor back recover from my abuse. More on Elise, the lady with magic hands, when I'm not supposed to be inspiring the leaders of tomorrow...

my body is a wonderland?

More like my body is a freak show. I have been somewhat at war with my body for the last little while. You see, there is some kind of super cold/virus/flu thing going around that is knocking people out for weeks at a time. I have been feeling on the verge of getting sick for over a week. Hence the war. My body is normally pretty good at fending off evil colds and flus until I have a break - most typically Christmas break. I trick my body into thinking team chelle doesn't have time to get sick by keeping up a steady routine of not getting enough sleep, working bizarre hours and not eating properly.

You would think I would do the opposite - eat well balanced meals, go to bed on time, etc. to keep the immune system happy. This, however, is a language my body doesn't understand. Forgetting my body does not understand preventative measures, I actually got to bed early last night. I mean early as in 10:45. This is only 15 minutes earlier than my idealistic bedtime, and 45-60 minutes earlier than my real bedtime. I also let myself sleep a whole 20 minutes later this morning.

How does my body reward such kind actions? By thinking it's the holidays and time to get sick. I kid you not, I had a runny nose by 9 this morning. By period 3 I was downright miserable and my staple drug of Advil Cold and Sinus was at home. My grade 9s must have sensed something was up, because they were uncharacteristically cooperative today. I sure was happy to be home at 4! I rewarded myself with le Advil and some Minish Cap. One dose of Advil just didn't do the trick and I had a very important supper date that has been in the works for just about a month, so I took two more before heading out for supper.

To really prove what kind of freakshow I'm running around here, when I got home from supper I was totally in the mood to go for a run. WHAT?!? I am never in the mood to go for a run. Most days I would rather donate a kidney to a stranger than hop on the treadmill. So, against all better judgement, I went for a run. While running I read an article on how it's okay to run if the only thing you are sick with is a cold.

Now I've got some work to do before I can go to bed. 8 more days of school til holidays... Not that I'm counting or anything.

it's beginning to feel a lot like christmas...

I'm sure you've noticed by the lack of posts that it's that time of year again. The time of year where even just thinking about taking time out of my day to post on my blog causes my blood pressure to rise and for a mini stress crisis to start brewing. Oh December. Month of holidays and more work than I normally do in the first 4 months of school combined... Or maybe only slightly more work and way more "social obligations." Please understand that I consider a social obligation anything where people I so much as moderately like and food and/or beverages will be present. It becomes a moral obligation if the food is related to chocolate or cheese.

All this work and eating aside, exciting things have been going on. For example, just the other day I spotted my very first set of truck nuts! I literally clapped with joy in my car. I was really wishing Marlito or Km would have been here to share in the moment, seeing as these were a very subpar set of nuts. They weren't round, but instead flat on one side. They were also a disturbingly accurate fleshy colour, and their one sided flatness made them look rather droopy. I had full intentions to linking to Km's blog, where he discusses these little beauties in more depth, but can't find it. Km's blog has a tendency to break my computer, it's full of that much goodness.

Today, 3 girls performed for me an original Backstreet boys medley. For a project, they rewrote the lyrics (in French!!) to 4 different sections of popular BSB's songs, to teach a "sick classmate" about inverse variation. They even added actions. I'm not sure if you've ever really experienced being a teacher until you have 3 girls, singing in French, to your favorite teenage songs about math. I should have videotaped them (had they given me any kind of notice this piece of wonderfulness was going to brighten my Monday).

Big Red moved at the beginning of the month, to his own place. It's pretty sweet he no longer lives in the middle of some kind of wild zoo.

I've become totally addicted to Zelda's "Minish Cap." This is not good. What is good is that I'm almost done.

I'm also trying really hard to get all my school stuff done before Friday when Rach and Marlito will be home. This is not particularly easy considering I'm reinventing 2 units and only sort of have resources for them. I know I could cheap out and do it the old crappy way, but that's not the way I'm rolling this year.

That being said, this trend of no posting will probably hold steady until the holidays start. Just have some more chocolate and Christmas cheer and you won't even notice I'm gone. Hopefully because I'll be visiting with you shortly!