I had such a good day! I must be starting to seem quite bipolar, but I really think it depends on the stress level of everyone else in the school...we all build off each other, off the students, until it is buzzing with frustration. That sounds horrible, but we really have to interact with a lot of people and the pressure is to be consistently peppy, and it can be grating after a while.

But today was perfect: my students were well behaved, on task, and enthusiastic; it was fiesta day in the staff lounge and we had flan; and I finally met with the principal (after a cancelation) to evaluate my teaching. After working so hard this year, his comments were very generous and my most desired birthday present...plus, he checked the tiny box that guarantees me a job next year!

Tonight is my farewell to cheese. I'm giving it up for Lent and I realized that their is much more food that contains cheese than I thought in my refrigerator. Aww. I'm going to miss cheese a lot :( I'm a cheese girl...it's going to be painful.

On Sunday, I'm planning on waking up very late and then watching the red carpet commentary. Please come over for the Oscars if you want! If someone else feels like throwing a "party," I'll come, but I'm not good at sitting and just watching tv and talking about it. I usually do lots of other things (wash dishes, reorganize my shoes by color, knit, give myself cornrows, etc.) I just get antsy quickly and it usually drives people crazy. How amazing is it that John Stewart is hosting the Oscars on my birthday though? I'm so excited!

Breakfast at Tiffany's
I was driving in my car this afternoon and I heard "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something, one of my favorite songs. In my intro to psych class senior year, Prof. Trick-testquestions taught us that often people's favorite music is what they listen to during their early twenties, i.e. the "most wild years of their lives." So I always wonder what music I'll be humming in my wheelchair at the nursing home. My grandpa still loves Patsy Cline...no other music has touched him as much since she was current. But I'm wondering if my turbulent high school years and the lingering effects have changed my psychological timeframe. The last time I was carefree-happy, the kind when you forget everything but the present happiness, was when I was a freshman in high school. I had a huge group of friends, first big crushes on the boys lacrosse team, and I was sitting pretty in my stable family and small town. That's when I was listening to "Breakfast at Tiffany's." I almost started crying when I heard the song today, because it reminded me of those times. Everyday, I get closer to myself, the free and easy me that I had then, and a piece of my horrible high school years drops away. And that song will always make me innocently smiley and nostalgic. Visit me when I'm 80 and I'll definitely be playing the instrumental version on the Golden Valley community-room piano:)

:)
Woo-hoo! (little hula dance)
My principal told me today if I'm not rehired by my school, he will personally find me a job in another school in our district! I'm a one-year sub for someone and she has less than two weeks to decide whether or not she's coming back. I would love to stay at this school...everyone is so nice and dedicated to the students, who are amazingly inspirational in themselves, in their drive to learn English. I wish I had more freedom in the content I teach, though. I need to reinforce all of the strategies and stories that they work on in the mainstream rooms, instead of my own choices. So today I put up a poster of Shani Davis, to celebrate new Black history, but none of my students would be able to understand the article, because I couldn't find one for kids. Maybe some random safety patrol kid will read it and buy some ice skates.

I'm going to try to get a job in Puerto Rico this summer with a child advocacy organization. More than teaching, helping children is what I want to do, so this will be practice for other potential careers. And I also desperately need to improve my Spanish. Yesterday, I forgot that acabar means "to finish."

I got home at 6:50 tonight, which may be nothing to you working stiffs, except the fact that I am constantly running from 8:35 to 3pm, with a 20-minute lunch break. There's none of that sitting at my desk and surfing the internet, especially since my desk is in someone else's classroom and I have to sneak in to get my purse!

On Thursday, on dress-like-your-favorite-book-character day, I'm going to whip out my Snow White costume (which is tame in terms of teacher costumes). I was going to go as the Giving Tree, but I thought that might be really unflattering, like all brown clothes and leaves in my hair? No. One last reason I love my job, is that I can do crazy things like wearing a costume to work on a day I'm being observed by the principal and I'll be rewarded for my spirit:)

Anyway, who wants to go see "Thunder in the Valley" on March 4th with me? I think that could be my birthday party, as I'm definitely going to request a song and then do a bar crawl. Then we can all sleep in until 5pm and watch the Academy Awards, which might also involve a drinking game (like, whenever Jon Steward wiggles his tie as a punchline, everybody drinks). I'll send out an email soon, too.

Migraines!
I need this to stop. I had a "light" headache all day and effectively did nothing. I'm so mad about this- I want to be more prepared and do more work for school. My lesson planning is barely started, which means I'm going to be running to catch up all day tomorrow. But I don't know what to do. I finally took a imitrex, my $22 pill, but it hasn't helped yet. All I can do is sit in my moon chair and stare. Or take naps in my bed. I hate feeling like a lazy bum; I need to get things done! This weekend was so much fun before today, though. My brother is so supportive and nice to me! He got me a "Roman Holiday" poster...from Rome! It's in Italian and it will fit in well with the other posters in my apartment.

Busy Weekend
So much has happened already this weekend! On Friday, I left work at 5pm, after cleaning/redecorating the staff lounge and taking a free, circa 1960 microwave, and ate a quick dinner at home. Then Jessica, Amy, and I went to the Hexagon Club to see Thunder in the Valley. The club is a mix of hipsters and men in flannel shirts- maybe because the cowboy look is so "in" right now? We sat at the bar for about three hours and the band still hadn't gone on...at 1:00am! Jessica wanted to leave, so we all walked back to Amy's house. It's unbelieveably cold here at night, so it was horrible. (I was wearing long-underwear under my fancy black pants, which seems like an oxymoron, but at least my legs were toasty). When we got back, Amy and I both wanted to go back...since the point of ladies' night really is to meet guys. So we drove back and got to see the band...they were so good! They sound like a mix of 1920's music and contemporary pop music. We stopped to chat up the handsome keyboardist and it turned out their next gig in on the day before my birthday! So I'm definitely going to go.

I slept in until 11 on Saturday, which is the first time I've slept that late since college. I guess it takes staying up until 3am these days to get me exhausted enough! I felt kind of spacey all afternoon and the only things I got done were a bubble bath and pinning my hair up in curls. At 5, I decided I had to make myself do something fun, albeit outside, so I drove to Nicollet, which is called "Eat Street," and did some grocery shopping at ethnic stores. I found so much interesting noodle soup in a bowl for next week! I also bought hummus in a can, which turned out to taste like something that's come from Lebanon in a can, and a little Vietnamese doll for my collection. I love having dolls from all of the countries of my students; it lets them see themselves in our classroom. My Jordanian student was amazingly excited when I brought my Arabic doll back from Dearborn, because she was wearing a hijab (Muslim headscarf), just like her mother does. It must be strange to spend all day with people who dress so differently from your own family. My new little doll is so cute.

Then, yesterday night, I met Chris, Jess, and Mark at Bryant Lake Bowl, but it was way too crowded. It looks like so much fun though...I hope we go back sometime:) Mark and I were freezing, so we sprinted to Arby's, but it was already closed, so we all decided to go back to my apartment. There, they thought Oliver looked like Puss in Boots from Shrek- which is true- and we played "Scene It!" and watched British "Coupling" with Joe, Bri, and Ben when they arrived. I wish I had a bigger living room sometimes! It's quite small for entertaining.

I already missed church this morning. I think I'll stop doing things on Saturday night, so I can actually get up in time. This morning, I'm going to vacuum, do my dishes finally, and then try to get some lesson planning done. John's visiting at 2:30, and I think we'll probably walk around downtown, watch Happy Gilmore, and then have dinner with relatives.

I love three-day weekends! Although I'm not sure if anyone celebrates it, Happy Presidents' Day! Maybe acting diplomatic should be tradition...I'm not sure if there's a lot of other behavior worth emulating:)

The Two Valentines' Days
Last week, I had developed a theory and plan for Valentines' Day this year. It wasn't that I was afraid of the holiday, but all of the emphasis and hype is placed on it was driving me crazy. My theory was that since I'm not currently in a couple, I really have no right or reason to celebrate a "romantic" holiday. And I the idea of somehow replacing that love with chocolate, whining misery, and happiness over any Valentines I might receive from my kids seemed so needy! I've always been too independent to hate the holiday...once I threw a party, just to drink and hang out with friends, and everyone cancelled because they were too sad to attend a party. So to combat the misinterpretation of the holiday, I thought I just wouldn't celebrate Valentines' Day this year. I wouldn't try to find a way to celebrate Memorial Day, since it doesn't apply to my family, so why should a find a personal way to celebrate today?

I realized, though, that there can be a dichotomy: Valentines' Day can be about friendship, kindness, and silly enthusiasm. I think you might need to be a teacher to understand how much fun it is to see all of the kids at school suddenly drop all of their disagreements and petty rivalries and give everyone a little Shrek valentine. And it was cute to see almost everyone wearing red or pink. It was fun in a silly, childish way, that I appreciated so much! A kindergartner stopped me on my way in, whispered in my ear that she had something for me, and unzipped her backpack so I could dig for a candy:) All of smiles made me kind of giddy...I started tapdancing during one class, as a deversion which some students caught up with the rest of the class. I think I'm going to be the teacher that they always remember...because they probably think I'm high! Oh well, it's fun to experiment with passing on positive attitude, especially to students who do not have easy homelives. Maybe seeing me act out 28 verbs in succession is a spirit-lifter? I hope so.

My conclusion is that,
one, it's perfectly fine to celebrate Valentines' Day in a non-romantic way, as long as it doesn't devolve into "I love me" fest or "why me?" melodrama;
two, I will never be a "I hate Valentines' Day" kind of person, because there's such a sweet element to a holiday all about love.

A few quick responses:
*I know, isn't licorice horrible? I can't stand it! That's why it's up there with cheating. *I think it would be special to drink soda with a red vines straw, but only because those aren't really licorice, so maybe that's not what you mean. Real licorice is like eating sweet dirt, but different... in a bad way! *You would pay to see me in a roller derby league? Could I trade you that for helping me with my taxes? :)

Saturday
I spent all morning, and most of yesterday with the nastiest migraine. Whenever I moved my head, it would bang against my left temple. I had to close my eyes and hold my head every time I stood up at school all day...it scared my students! And it drives me crazy because I wanted to get so much done today!! I spent all morning trying to make it go away (mostly with lots of Red Bull) but it finally took a nap to stop it. Finally! Then I spent all afternoon rearranging my apartment, which is fun and scary at the same time...why do I like moving furniture around so much? I actually made a little scale plan to fit in my new IKEA carpet and wardrobe. It looks quite snug now (pictures below).

I just finished reading "Leap of Faith," by Queen Noor of Jordan. It was so interesting to read about how an American could assimilate to a Middle-Eastern culture and help lead a country to more stability and equality. I told my grandma that one of the Princes of Jordan was handsome (in the photos in the book) and she panicked a bit. Honestly, abuela: I'm Episcopalian and live in Minnesota, so the chances are more than slim. Although my LOVE of hommous and pita might improve the odds a bit. And I know how to say, "did you need to go to the hospital?" in Arabic, since I had fun figuring that out on Thursday- my Jordanian student was confused by my brace:)

Here's my new living room:

My crowded fridge...










I'm running out of room for all my books!

Things that make you go hmm...
My dad is training for his yellow belt in jujitsu.

I have tendonitis- but in my left hand. How did that happen? I hardly type at all. One of my colleagues is going to spread the rumor that I'm in a roller derby league...we'll see if he gets away with that! I'm going with "my back handspring was off by just a little."

A little bit funny...
one of my student was reading the day's directions and instead of reading
"We will talk a little bit about Coretta Scott King," he said
"We will take a little bite of Coretta Scott King."
I laughed a little...oops. But it was so cute.

Things I hate:
(this list is small- I think most things are understandable at some level).
When children are abused, neglected, or made to feel unworthy of love.
When people deliberately or unfeelingly hurt my family or friends. I hate when people cheat, especially with love.
I hate licorice.
That's it.

New things I love:
*Apple Pie Snapple...I can taste the crust flavor!
*Contact paper. I can make beautiful laminated flashcards. I'm actually thinking about visiting the 3M headquarters to stock up on the latest post-it products...obsessed with school supplies much?
*Polish apple tea (Jabluszko!)
*Jon Stewart is hosting the Academy Awards on my birthday:)
*Project Runway. I remember the good ol' days, when I wanted to be a designer. I made a model platform shoe that had the word "fabulous," written in cursive, shrunk down to 10 point font (at Office Max), and repeated in a striped pattern. I got a "C." I was completely not appreciated during my time...just kidding! It was just too ugly.
*Hollywood Video's selling off all of their video tapes! I bought these yesterday:
-The Royal Tenenbaums
-Shrek
-E.T.
-Oliver & Company
-Sword and the Stone
-How the Grinch Stole Christmas
-Dumbo
I have a need to stock up on Disney movies, because they have that screwed-up "vault" policy, where they take old movies out of stores for 10 years, so they can justify having a celebration when it's reissued and then charge you $25. And Oliver & Company is one of my favorite childhood movies...Oliver is Joey Lawrence, the Dodger is Billy Joel, and the poodle is Bette Midler.
*Marmite. It's fermented yeast paste and I love it. It reminds me of Oxford, although apparently me and Adam's middle-aged mother are the only two people in England who do.

The same student that I mentioned before walked by me in the hall today and said "What up, girl?" I told him that he can't call a teacher "girl," which he felt bad about; he honestly doesn't understand what he's saying.

I have an observation tomorrow and one on Thursday. I'm so nervous because I haven't had much time to prepare.

My Classroom
I went a little crazy with my camera on Friday. For everyone who wants to see one of my classrooms- or if you're looking for decorative ideas for a bus-stop entry room:)- here are some pics of my 3rd grade room at school:










We have a word wall with every new word we've discussed from the weekly stories, separated by parts of speech. My Chinese dragon is above our "new word" reading strategies (so the students learn how to figure out a word when they're reading alone). Above the white board are our four Reciprocal Teaching reading strategies, which we just starting practicing last week...the students came up with the replies to each statement or question, for example:
"Will you help me figure this out?"
"Sure. Why not? Let's figure it out together: teamwork!"
On the right side of the board is our theme of the week and new vocabulary that the students requested help understanding.










Our Teamwork mural, inspired by "Detroit Industry" by Diego Rivera. We had to spend a lot of time brainstorming words to use when talking about teamwork, but now they bring it up all the time. We worked on prefixes and suffixes at the beginning of the year, and we brainstormed a list of plural and singular adjectives. Finally, on the bottom is our influential immigrants wall. My students saw an article on the table one day about Elaine Chao (the US Secretary of Labor) that I had ripped out of a magazine. I explained that she moved to the United States from Vietnam and had to learn English, too, and now she has a very important job that helps many people. They got so excited to learn more about other former ESL students. It was so hard to find biographies of successful Guyanan-Americans!

The heat is my room is so mixed up. It's below zero until 8:30, when the doors are finally closed. Then the heat turns on and it goes up to 80 degrees. Layering is a must:)

Two stories and an evaluation
I know that kids stories can get trite, but these were funny:
*One 3rd-grade boy walked by me in the hall, slapped me lightly on the back, and said "Hiya, Teach!" wth:) Where did he pick that up? It was completely something out of a Mickey Rooney movie, when students wore knee socks.
*A second-grade boy, who is in one of my reading groups, has the most amazing ability to make connections from the text to his life. We were reading a story about a horrible dog today. He looked at one of the pictures showing the chaos that the dog had created in the back yard and said "A dog can't turn on the sprinkler...he doesn't have opposable thumbs!" Then he explained that humans and apes have them, but he wasn't quite sure what opposable meant. Apparently, he learned about this on the TV show "Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius."

I was observed and evaluated by my mentor and the head of staff development for our school district. It went amazingly well! They were so nice- it completely made my day; especially when my mentor said, "It's obvious that you do a lot of work." Oh my gosh, thanks, yes, yes I do! Whew. All the work is only worth it if it shows in the students' improvement:)

The New World
I went to see it tonight and I loved it. I read a review that said that you can love it or hate it but nothing in between. And I definitely realize how someone might die of boredom during the millionth silent walk in the woods. What touched me, though, was the romance. Terrence Malick has a way of capturing the subtle glances between two people just as well as he exposes the captivating beauty of unaltered nature. I started to get a leaden weight in my chest at all scenes of silence in the forest: I miss New Hampshire so much. And I was so jealous of the characters running around the pine trees. That something, so primative, has been missing from my life for a while. It almost feels like a spiritual absence. Even before we moved to New England, I was enchanted with having some sort of natural freedom. I made my mom drive me to an overgrown lot in Rochester, New York, so I could pick wildflowers, while wearing a flowing skirt, and put them in a wicker basket (I was quite a precocious 6-year-old). Even 13 years later, I still feel that longing for a quiet forest. I'm such a city girl now, I'm not sure I would make it, even just to visit nature today. I'd probably run into some Minnesota-specific natural danger, like hidden thin ice, or some bizarre indigenous animal. Anyway, The New World was a beautiful movie; it was almost more like a PBS history special than a narrative story. I loved it, though. Anyone who wants to drive to the woods with me sometime and run around:), please let me know.

The traditional romance in the movie was serene, too, but also extremely lustful. Words sometimes ruin everything, don't they? It's much better when you can't understand each other and might as well not talk. (Cynical laughing...) I very much miss romance. I won't actually say how long it's been since I was really romanced, but he had an accent, and that's much too long ago.

So, and my friends agreed, an evening watching Colin Farrell and Christian Bale run around the woods was very nice, but no substitute for being in the woods myself.

My Favorite Music
In honor of the fact that I've learn about so much good music this year (through my friends at Radio K ;), here is my top 20 for 2005 (but without caveats, because I don't mind disagreement):
Original of the Species by U2
Emmanuel by Chris Botti
You're Beautiful by James Blunt
Use It by the New Pornographers
Tired of Being Sorry by Ringside
The Autumn Sweater by Yo La Tengo
The Comeback by Shout Out Louds
Diamonds from Sierra Leone by Kanye West
Brighter Than Sunshine by Aqualung
Gravity by Embrace
Wires by Athlete
Ashes by Embrace
Contigo (With You) by Federico Aubele
Goodnight Goodnight by Hot Hot Heat
Take It Easy (Love Nothing) by Bright Eyes
Lover I Don't Have to Love by Bright Eyes
Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice
Cannonball by Damien Rice
Cathedrals by Jump Little Children

I made the bad choice of going to the Humane Society on Monday, just to visit the animals. I am so sensitive about pretty much everything everything (except people who cut me off) and I saw a cat who was so cute that I couldn't just leave him there. It was an impulse buy! :) His name is Oliver, like Oliver Twist, because he was orphaned when his owner was taken to prison (the police brought him to the shelter. He's so adorable.

A strange thing I heard on the Fox News Channel:
*When interviewing the "Vampire" gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, a reporter said, "Well, you worship Satan, which could be hard to overcome, but your education plan is good."

This is such a diverse state! Just when I think I understand Minnesota life, something bizarre pops up. I think I'll always be a New Hampshire native...although I guess I never completely understood "Live free or die."

My Favorite Things

Days off from working,
and freshly cleaned tables,
Urban Outfitters,
and sesame bagels,
beds from Ikea,
my Tibetan ring,
these are a few of my favorite things.

Fa-la-la lattes,
and fresh, springtime breezes,
a plate of triscuits with sharp cheddar cheeses,
New York Times' Op-eds,
and Dickens' writings,
these are a few of my favorite things.

In staff meetings,
or hot airplanes,
other times I'm mad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
and then I don't feel so bad.

My week...

*Five of my students who don't speak any English- and whose parents don't speak any English- did not understand the field trip forms that were sent home only in English. So I spent one morning running around the school, arguing that all forms should be sent home in Spanish as well and desperately trying to get my students permission to go. I worry so much about them: one girl cries everyday because the days are so short! And I can't imagine what they daydream about during the hours of school when they have no idea what's going on. I printed 10 new Spanish books for them last night...but that's not enough at all.

*Kwadwo walked across the 2nd grade room to say "You look nice today, Miss Walters." It was so sweet, after my morning of running around talking to parents liasons and the principal.

*My classroom looks so colorful now! I put up photos of influential immigrants- there are so many more than I thought, including the Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao, Sen. Mel Martinez from Florida, and Betty Nguyen from CNN. My students were so excited! I should have thought of that before. It must be so hard when there are so few role models of English language learners.

I need a drink tonight...does anyone want to go out?