While having a discussion with a colleague today after our department meeting, she interrupted our highly academic train of thought to ask me, in a rather surprised tone, if I had a black eye. I assumed, in typical me style, I had managed to get pencil, marker, or worse on my face.
Upon closer inspection, requiring two other teachers, it was decided that no, those must just be your veins. Corollary, you must be tired.
WOW.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
my favorite time of year...
Finally some sun! I know I live in a bi-polar weather region, but the sun usually sticks it out with us through the mood swings. It's that time of year at school, and the miserable weather so close on the heels of 30 degree very lovely summer weather was enough to turn my classrooms into packs of whiny, unpleasant adolescents. It's hard being 16! The expectation of showing up with a textbook is just plain not fair! ohmygodpleasehelpmenow.
With only 13 actually physical classes left, and even that is best case scenario since there are assemblies, pep rallies, and fire drills that have all been left to the last minute it is serious crunch time. How can I have a full unit left to do, if not two, in all of my classes? That does not include final review, or any of the "fun" stuff I've been trying to incorporate into the geometry units.
On the plus side, in 13 days I don't need to worry about any of it. But who's counting...
(Attempt #1 at fun failed miserably, and by the end of the class they were essentially begging for notes. So much for experiential learning. Attempt #2 goes today...)
With only 13 actually physical classes left, and even that is best case scenario since there are assemblies, pep rallies, and fire drills that have all been left to the last minute it is serious crunch time. How can I have a full unit left to do, if not two, in all of my classes? That does not include final review, or any of the "fun" stuff I've been trying to incorporate into the geometry units.
On the plus side, in 13 days I don't need to worry about any of it. But who's counting...
(Attempt #1 at fun failed miserably, and by the end of the class they were essentially begging for notes. So much for experiential learning. Attempt #2 goes today...)
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
WAHOO!
It been very unofficial, on the down low, blah blah blah that I would have a job at my school next year. Not that I was feeling unsure about this, or particularly concerned, I just wish administrivia wasn't so complicated and time consuming.
Today I got the official hand shake with a congrats you're here full time next year! Something about you're a good fit for our school, we like you, good times. What I heard? FULL TIME JOB BOTH SEMESTERS. This means I can pay my mortgage, something the bank enjoys even more than I do. Also, I'll be teaching essentially what I taught this year. All these good ideas I've been having lately won't go to waste.
I WIN!
Today I got the official hand shake with a congrats you're here full time next year! Something about you're a good fit for our school, we like you, good times. What I heard? FULL TIME JOB BOTH SEMESTERS. This means I can pay my mortgage, something the bank enjoys even more than I do. Also, I'll be teaching essentially what I taught this year. All these good ideas I've been having lately won't go to waste.
I WIN!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
29.75 sleepathon?
Yipes, life is hectic! It's the long weekend and I have no plans. Don't really want any either. A big thanks to queen Vicotria though, Monday is going to feel like heaven.
Due to working at school that never stops with the activities, unfortunately my Human Rights group had to organise their annual 30 hour famine for the long weekend. We also had to change the name since we are not sending the money raised to World Vision, so the 29.75 hour famine is born. I'm guessing it would never be a particularly easy task to get supervisors for such a big block of time (it is broken down into 2 hour shifts), the long weekend made it essentially impossible. Being the only advisor without other life commitments, I agreed up front to supervise the deathly 1:15am to 5:15am block. I also was feeling generous enough to sign Big Red up to assist me in my supervising.
As doom time approached, I was feeling less and less keen to force myself to stay up with 25ish hyperactive teenagers when my body was making it abundantly clear it really wanted to be in bed. I did go however, and was totally unprepared for what I found.
Upon arrival, I was a little confused that the two supervisors we were replacing were sitting completely removed from the kids, they appeared to be supervising a couple of chairs and a table in fact. The door to where the crazy should have been coming from wasn't even open. I congratulated them on their clearly superior supervising skills. Anything could have been going on in the auditorium, and here they were, making sure the table didn't move. That is dedication.
This is when they informed me that they were all sleeping, and had been since just shortly after midnight. WHAT?! I knew I was risking waking them all up, thusly creating 25 energetic since we just had a great nap students, but this was something I could not believe without seeing it. But it was true! No whispering, no fidgeting, just sleeping. What kind of teenagers are these? I was secretly dreaming that they would choose to at least try to sleep at around 3ish, but sleeping at midnight? In a large group of their peers? On the Friday of the long weekend? The bizarro situation almost made me want to go wake them up just to explain how my brain could not handle them acting in such an atypical fashion.
I didn't. Big Red and I then proceeded to sit for 4 hours, in a school without heat, never hearing a peep from anyone until our replacements showed up. I'm not even sure there were students present.
Due to working at school that never stops with the activities, unfortunately my Human Rights group had to organise their annual 30 hour famine for the long weekend. We also had to change the name since we are not sending the money raised to World Vision, so the 29.75 hour famine is born. I'm guessing it would never be a particularly easy task to get supervisors for such a big block of time (it is broken down into 2 hour shifts), the long weekend made it essentially impossible. Being the only advisor without other life commitments, I agreed up front to supervise the deathly 1:15am to 5:15am block. I also was feeling generous enough to sign Big Red up to assist me in my supervising.
As doom time approached, I was feeling less and less keen to force myself to stay up with 25ish hyperactive teenagers when my body was making it abundantly clear it really wanted to be in bed. I did go however, and was totally unprepared for what I found.
Upon arrival, I was a little confused that the two supervisors we were replacing were sitting completely removed from the kids, they appeared to be supervising a couple of chairs and a table in fact. The door to where the crazy should have been coming from wasn't even open. I congratulated them on their clearly superior supervising skills. Anything could have been going on in the auditorium, and here they were, making sure the table didn't move. That is dedication.
This is when they informed me that they were all sleeping, and had been since just shortly after midnight. WHAT?! I knew I was risking waking them all up, thusly creating 25 energetic since we just had a great nap students, but this was something I could not believe without seeing it. But it was true! No whispering, no fidgeting, just sleeping. What kind of teenagers are these? I was secretly dreaming that they would choose to at least try to sleep at around 3ish, but sleeping at midnight? In a large group of their peers? On the Friday of the long weekend? The bizarro situation almost made me want to go wake them up just to explain how my brain could not handle them acting in such an atypical fashion.
I didn't. Big Red and I then proceeded to sit for 4 hours, in a school without heat, never hearing a peep from anyone until our replacements showed up. I'm not even sure there were students present.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
mmmmuffins!
I ran into Xtina today, and as was bound to happen, we made fun of other people. This always happens, it's what we do. Not in a "we're totally evil bitches and we're going to hell because we say these things behind people's backs" kind of way, but in a "we're totally evil bitches because if they were present we would say these things to their faces" kind of way.
So I make fun of Xtina's lululemon pants, she makes fun of herself, segueing nicely into making fun of someone else, and while I'm laughing I hear her refer to someone as a "muffin-top." I had to stop her mid-sentence to repeat "muffin-top" for me. Of course she looks at me like I've lost it, muffin-top being choice vocabulary to describe a common affliction I need to comment on all the time.
Gold! It's the perfect description for a condition so rampant I've almost stopped complaining about it. I've replaced it with "why are you not wearing pants?" on my list of fashion faux pas to complain about if you were interested. Anyway, muffin-top! The condition where for reasons unbeknownst to other humans, girls insist on wearing pants 3 sizes too small. These girls typically aren't particularly large, but when forced into eeensy pants, their non-existent bums are forced up and over the waistband of their pants making them look totally ridiculous and much fatter than they actually are. The big mystery to the muffin-top is WHY do you want to make yourself look fatter? Buy pants that fit people! Do you have any idea what a pair of proper fitting pants can do for your bum?
While I would like to wage a war on the muffin-top, I'm sorta scared of strange girls. They could beat me up. So instead, I would just like for us all to bask in the glory that is the term muffin-top. It is up to all 10 of you who read this thing to spread the love and teach your friends. Hopefully, it will make it into the Webster's 2009 edition.
So I make fun of Xtina's lululemon pants, she makes fun of herself, segueing nicely into making fun of someone else, and while I'm laughing I hear her refer to someone as a "muffin-top." I had to stop her mid-sentence to repeat "muffin-top" for me. Of course she looks at me like I've lost it, muffin-top being choice vocabulary to describe a common affliction I need to comment on all the time.
Gold! It's the perfect description for a condition so rampant I've almost stopped complaining about it. I've replaced it with "why are you not wearing pants?" on my list of fashion faux pas to complain about if you were interested. Anyway, muffin-top! The condition where for reasons unbeknownst to other humans, girls insist on wearing pants 3 sizes too small. These girls typically aren't particularly large, but when forced into eeensy pants, their non-existent bums are forced up and over the waistband of their pants making them look totally ridiculous and much fatter than they actually are. The big mystery to the muffin-top is WHY do you want to make yourself look fatter? Buy pants that fit people! Do you have any idea what a pair of proper fitting pants can do for your bum?
While I would like to wage a war on the muffin-top, I'm sorta scared of strange girls. They could beat me up. So instead, I would just like for us all to bask in the glory that is the term muffin-top. It is up to all 10 of you who read this thing to spread the love and teach your friends. Hopefully, it will make it into the Webster's 2009 edition.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
you want me to what?
A little while ago, the other GSA advisor was approached by one of my former students to present a session on homophobia at a Western conference they were hosting in town. Originally, my partner in crime had agreed to do it solo - apparently she does the conference thing fairly regularly. Then, slowly - and without my forcing I might add! - she realised we should get our youth involved. Yay! Then she wanted me to present as well. What? I've done the small group session at a conference before, but never the lone person at the front of a huge room. The thought was intimidating to say the least. I mean, sure they are just teenagers, but there was going to be one hundred of them!
By the time we had gotten the youth presenters committed, we only had a week before the conference. So in a very focused planning session over a noon hour, we banged out what we wanted to do. Working with other advisor was interesting as when I work with youth I tend to get them to do everything (Totally a cop out for me, but also the way it should be. Convenient eh?) and other advisor loves to talk cause she doesn't want anything she thinks is important to get missed. Watching her brain acclimatise itself to giving over responsibility was really interesting. Not that she was overly resistant to it or anything, it just made me realise how much work needs to be done in changing the way adults think of working with youth. Her brain just wasn't used to thinking "the kids can do that, and that, and that..."
The conference itself was awesome. The kids did a great job, I didn't talk too fast and just may have pulled off sounding articulate, and other advisor's love of talking came in handy when we had a few extra minutes to fill. The kids in attendance, for the most part, asked intelligent questions and participated as well as could be expected after a full day of conferencing. The reason we were asked to come was very recently one of the youth in Saskatoon's Jewish community came out and they were looking raise awareness and tolerance. I thought this was so fabulous on the part of the organisers - opinions on homosexuality in the Jewish faith are mixed so for them to step up and be over the top accepting is really wonderful.
I'm guessing now that word is out there that we do public presentations there will be more requests, but I'm all for some revisions and letting the kids run it all!
By the time we had gotten the youth presenters committed, we only had a week before the conference. So in a very focused planning session over a noon hour, we banged out what we wanted to do. Working with other advisor was interesting as when I work with youth I tend to get them to do everything (Totally a cop out for me, but also the way it should be. Convenient eh?) and other advisor loves to talk cause she doesn't want anything she thinks is important to get missed. Watching her brain acclimatise itself to giving over responsibility was really interesting. Not that she was overly resistant to it or anything, it just made me realise how much work needs to be done in changing the way adults think of working with youth. Her brain just wasn't used to thinking "the kids can do that, and that, and that..."
The conference itself was awesome. The kids did a great job, I didn't talk too fast and just may have pulled off sounding articulate, and other advisor's love of talking came in handy when we had a few extra minutes to fill. The kids in attendance, for the most part, asked intelligent questions and participated as well as could be expected after a full day of conferencing. The reason we were asked to come was very recently one of the youth in Saskatoon's Jewish community came out and they were looking raise awareness and tolerance. I thought this was so fabulous on the part of the organisers - opinions on homosexuality in the Jewish faith are mixed so for them to step up and be over the top accepting is really wonderful.
I'm guessing now that word is out there that we do public presentations there will be more requests, but I'm all for some revisions and letting the kids run it all!
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
doomed to be a crazy cat lady
Why is it that groups of people (teachers) love to sit around complaining about how things don't work, yet treat you as if you have severely advanced dementia when you propose a solution?
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