Cabin Fever

It was a long weekend, a very long weekend. School was canceled Friday because of the icy roads. The roads also kept me from going ANYWHERE for the past three days. (Except church, but that's only a couple of blocks from my house.)

Since I couldn't go anywhere, I had to keep myself entertained at home. I'm like a four-year-old when it comes to entertainment. I am easily bored.

On Friday I managed to grade most of my students' papers (I had a four-inch stack), do the laundry, burn off a cd, and watch two movies (House and Groundhog Day). Saturday I finished all my lesson plans for the week and the weekly agenda that I give to the students. I don't think I have ever before finished everything I had to do for school over a weekend, but the snow and ice drove me to it.

By 2 PM on Saturday I couldn't stand to be in the house much longer. Since I was warned against driving, I went for a walk instead, if you can call it a walk. I think I slid more than I took actual steps. I'm still sore. Almost falling dozens of times is better than crunches at working those abs.

Later on Saturday, I decided a project was in order. I have a book of sewing projects using old jeans, and I've been collecting them for a while in preparation for this. Finally I had time to work on it.

What I made was a balloon skirt. The instructions call for one pair of old jeans. The problem is, you are supposed to cut the legs in half for the bottom part of the skirt. Since they are folded under, however, that makes the skirt shorter than I think people would appreciate from me. Instead I used two pair of jeans and didn't cut the legs in half. Viola! A knee-length skirt. Much better on the eyes. I also patched up all the holes in the top part of the jeans with another pair of jeans. (Hey, these jeans were thrown away for a reason!) Oh, yeah, and another alteration was that I had to put a triangle of fabric in the hip area. These weren't my jeans to start with and weren't exactly my size. Picture follows.


I was so happy with my creation (despite being told it should only be worn on Halloween) that I wore it to church Sunday night. (It would have been much warmer if I had leggings to wear under it.)I I felt like a biker chick because ended up wearing a black dress shirt and black boots with it. I don't have a picture of that, unfortunately.

So tomorrow, back to work (assuming I can get there) and no more boredom for a while!

Having Fun at Work

The best part of teaching is playing games with the students. I love it when a class has a running joke with me, or even when a kid has a running joke with me. It makes the day more cheerful if we can have a little fun.

My 8th period class is one example. At some point, I told them that I thought David Archuleta was cute. Of course, they ran with this. Things have progressed so that now David and I have been dating, engaged, and through a break-up. They add to the story almost daily. I pretend to be annoyed, but I actually think it is rather funny.

Fifth period always tries to outsmart me with some kind of word play. This is my pre-AP class, and they are stretching their mental muscle. Since I've got a few years on them, it's hard for them to catch me, but occasionally one of them does. Then that student is happy for the rest of the period.

One of my favorite games to play is "pretend mad." This is what I do when they are not getting something that I've been teaching for days. I also pull this trick out when they are doing something that's slightly annoying, but not bad enough to get really mad. To be "pretend mad," I put on my actor's hat and get loud and over-dramatic with my hand and arm movements. Basically I gripe them out with a smile on my face. It's similar to how I act when I'm really mad, but they can always tell the difference.

Maybe I complain a lot about my job (and it is difficult), but I do have fun at work as much as I can!

I Was An Idiot... And I Still Am

Do you ever feel like a straight-up idiot? I do. A lot.

Yesterday I had one of those idiot days. I was taking teaching licensure tests (yes, the dreaded PRAXIS tests). For some reason I did not know all the new rules they have now. (It was probably on the web site in the fine print somewhere. Does anyone ever read all that stuff you have to agree to? I think it would use up 5 years of your life if you did.)

Because of my lack of attention, I failed to realize that cell phones were not allowed. Thus I had mine out while I was checking in. (Hey, I was trying to turn it off.) The proctor told me I would have to set it on another table during the test. Oh well, I thought, I guess it's not the worst thing that could happen.

Later, when I went to the second test of the day, I asked an official-looking woman sitting at a table if I was supposed to check in with her. She said, "No, go check the sign to see where you need to go." So I checked the sign to find the room. Then I tried to go in, but they were still testing in there. Double oops. So the woman jumps up and says, "You can't go in there." Well, I know now, lady, why didn't you tell me before? Then I feel like an idiot again.

So I finally get into the test, and I'm sitting there, waiting for the test to start. The proctor reads an extremely long list of rules. I'm feeling proud of myself because I didn't bring my cell phone to this test. Then she reads: "Mechanical pencils are not allowed."

What??? Why are mechanical pencils not allowed? Can a person cheat using a mechanical pencil? Can they roll up the answers into the barrel and pull them out during the test? Ugh. I place my two mechanical pencils (that I used on the first test) back into my purse. Thankfully, I had picked up a spare regular pencil just in case.

I managed to survive the day in spite of the fact that I was a complete idiot. Whether or not I passed the tests remains to be seen.

Should You Have Skipped Christmas?

You Know You Should Have Skipped Christmas and Gone to Barbados Instead When

• Your sister regifted you with a FunYun-scented candle.
  
• None of the parties you went to served those mini sausages. All they had was sour Kool-Aid masquerading as punch and generic brand cream-filled vanilla cookies.
• Instead of a White Christmas, you had a Wet Christmas. Because it wouldn't stop raining.
• You got a Christmas card from your brother, but only because he was in prison and didn't have anything else to do. Also, he asked for money to buy Cheetos.
• Santa Claus didn't visit your house. It was too far out of the way, so he sent his cousin Larry the Leprechaun. Larry sold your gifts to add to his pot of gold, but still came to eat the cookies and milk.
  
• Your kids got carried away with the Christmas decorations and spray-painted a wreath on the front of your car.
• You went to a department store after Christmas to buy discounted Christmas items, but all that was left were Dora the Explorer ornaments and fruitcake.

There, now doesn't your Christmas seem a lot better now?

Always happy to help!

Guess it will be back to work tomorrow; back to the grind and ho-hum. It's all well and good. I was starting to get bored without my chilluns anyway. :)