Vacuum Cleaner

I had a wrestling fight with the vacuum cleaner today. I got the middle part off no problem to empty the dust. I could not get it back on though! I'm not kidding you when I say it took me about 30 minutes to get the darn thing back on. I was getting so frustrated. I just bought it a week or two ago. I wanted to carefully put it back into place so I don't break it. When I moved in January, my friends saw how inept I am at doing things like fixing or putting stuff together. I really am! I need to hire a maid or something because of course I can afford that!

Karaoke

I remember a time when I would NEVER do karaoke. Then on my cruise in 2012, I badly wanted to sing in front of everyone for some reason even though I know my voice is atrocious. Ever since then, I've wanted to do karaoke all the time. There clearly aren't too many opportunities to do this around here. I looked it up and I could do it on week nights late at night. My bed time is like 9 o'clock on week nights. No thank you. I'll do karaoke again sometime.

Hwo to Say Numbers

When I was teaching place value to my kids earlier this year, I drilled in them how to say numbers. They would always say "and" in the number. For example: 42,357 they would say, "forty-two thousand three hundred AND fifty-seven. You don't say "and" if there is no decimal point! I often say and when saying numbers purposely to see if they are paying attention. If they are, they correct me. What typically happens is one person notices, and then when the rest of the class hears the one person say, "You said and" there's a 2 second delay, then the entire class says it. Because I had no idea they weren't paying attention. It's funny. It will be interesting when I teach decimals later in the year because you have to say and at the decimal point. That will throw them off! Just like I thought, I already wrote about this topic. Oh well. I'm running out of ideas after 952 posts!

Strangest Review Ever...

I check my books on Amazon often to see if someone reviewed one of them. I admit it, it's an obsession. I was very excited a few minutes ago that someone reviewed book 1. It had been a while since I'd gotten one. Then I saw it was a 1 star review and I was upset. Then I saw what it said and was very confused... "its pooop please dont buy!!! and sucks poopy with cheese sauce a waste even if it was two cents honestlyno joke a waste of 20 mins". If you're going to give the book a 1 star review, at least make it constructive instead of saying it's poop. That doesn't help me or people looking to buy my book. I'm guessing it's from a young kid whose mom made them read the book and they were mad at that. Whatever...very odd!

Bum

I was incredibly lazy today. It was originally going to be a work day for staff with no kids. As the weather got worse, they said school was closed for everyone. We got a whopping three inches of snow. We weren't supposed to get that much. That's a lot for this area. We are supposed to get more tomorrow night. School is closed again tomorrow for kids, but staff goes in 10-4. I don't think they will change that since tomorrow is supposed to be warm. I don't want to know when we will have to make these days up!

Outer Banks

I just booked my spring break to Outer Banks, North Carolina! I can't wait! It's a beach I haven't been to yet. The price we got for a condo was insanely cheap. Not only is it cheap, there are 5 of us going to split the price so we will be saving a lot of money. we are going to cook dinner most nights too to save money. We will be there 5 nights. Everyone keeps saying it will be cold there in April. I'm hoping for at least low 70's. It should be fine. Either way, it's going to be a blast and now I have something to look forward to!

Pitch Perfect

I saw Pitch Perfect for the first time last night. I'm not sure why I waited so long to see it. I love a cappella music. My friends and I enjoyed the movie. We plan on seeing Pitch Perfect 2 when it comes out on May 15. That seems like so far away. I know the time will go by quickly though.

Sauna

After running on the treadmill today, I decided to step into the sauna that is in my gym. I don't go in saunas often at all. I can't tell you the last time I went in one besides today of course. It's a room where they keep the temperatures pretty high so you can sweat. I think the point of it is for you to sweat so much that you lose weight. I wasn't in there too long. It was too hot for me. I'm also guessing it's not healthy to go in there often anyway. I just wanted to check it out for a bit since I've been pretty lazy all day. Normally I don't do stuff like that because I'm always on the go. Not today.

Make Up Days

I should really bite my tongue before I write this. As of now, my county doesn't have to make up any school days because of the two snow days we had this week. That was the only question my kids asked me yesterday. I didn't have an answer for them. Our county built in extra days throughout the year just in case we had snow days. My friends at another district have to go in tomorrow without kids. Haha. I don't mind teacher work days without kids, but I do on a Saturday! We are expecting bad weather net week too. We will see what happens.

Attention Span

Did you know that our attention span is half of our age in minutes? That goes for kids and adults. So I'm teaching a bunch of 10 year olds. They can only "focus" for 5 minutes until they get bored. It doesn't matter how engaging your lesson is. You need to change things up every 5 minutes to keep them focused. You need to teach something, them have them reflect on it. Then you have to somehow bring them back to attention and teach again. I learned that in my classroom management class today. I learned a lot of other good things too. I have to start taking the things I learned and put them into action. That's the only way my classroom environment will get better. I have to start with a positive attitude!

New and Improved

I hate seeing on TV that a product is new and improved. It can't be both! It can either be new or improved. I kind of understand why they say new and improved. I guess it's to make the product sound better than it actually is. But if you have improved an already existing product, clearly it's not new. That's my rant and I'm sticking to it!

Taylor Mali

I don't remember how, but I came across an inspirational teacher YouTube video called "What teachers make" by Taylor Mali. I urge all teachers to watch that video. I have watched it several times since the first time I watched it about a week ago and I love it more and more each time. He talks about what teachers make not in relation to money. He does it in a big, powerful voice in the form of poetry. He also has a book titled the same thing that I want to read one day. The last line of the video he says, "I make a goddamn difference. What about you?" It's an awesome video, go watch it.

Bed Bugs

My friends were talking about bed bugs the other day. I'm not sure how the conversation came up. Then a customer at a car shop I was at today was talking about bed bugs. Now I'm going to freak out about bed bugs. I remember as a kid parents would always say, "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite." I always thought it was just a funny thing you said. No, I didn't just realize bed bugs were real. I've known since before college. You just never think they would happen to you. However, with my luck with bugs, I'll probably get them sooner or later.

Spontaneous Expensive Purchase

I went to my friends house in Greenville this weekend. Yesterday, we went to the mall. We walked into a sports store because we both love sports. I started looking at the golf section because I always do that. I had absolutely no plans on buying anything. Then I saw a set of golf clubs and bag for $250 which is very cheap. You can spend $4-500 on one club alone! I asked a worker to make sure these were a good set of golf clubs. I had been half wanting a new set of clubs just because mine are old and I played a lot of golf last year. We left the store and walked around the mall. We then went back to the sports store and I bought the clubs. It was a great deal. Did I need them? Of course not, but oh well. It was my single's awareness day present to myself. Now I can't wait to go to a driving range and test the clubs out!

Cold

Although it's insanely windy here right now, it's nothing like it is in New York. It's supposed to be in the negatives all day tomorrow! I can't even imagine temperatures that low even though I dealt with stuff like that in Potsdam for four years. When it's 30° here I'm freezing! I guess I'm starting to get used to the southern weather. If we had temperatures that low we'd be out of school for a week! As I've mentioned before, one thing I definitely don't miss from New York is the cold weather.

Another Massage

I got my first massage since April 12, 2013 today. I only remember the date because I just looked it up in this blog! I remember not really liking the last one. I enjoyed this one. I had a lot of tightness in my back and shoulders. In fact, I still feel tight now. Of course when I was done, the lady recommended I come once every 2 weeks for 2 hours each time to get rid of the tightness. They were trying to sell me massage packages and of course trying to knock down prices because I'm a teacher. I told them I'd sleep on it. I'm sure they knew that that was code for...no. Massages are nice, but I'm not paying $75 every 2 weeks to get one. No thank you. I'll probably get one every few months or something. We will see.

10 Year Anniversary

I cannot believe that I took my trip to Germany 10 years ago! That seems like forever ago. I went as a senior in high school as an exchange student. It was incredible. We went to Frankfurt, Berlin, and Darmstadt. I would love to go back to Berlin as well as Munich. We learned so much about the history of Germany. One thing is for sure, no one in Germany can go on the Atkins diet because they all eat bread with every meal, yet everyone there is thin. I think about this trip often because it was that amazing. Hopefully I'll go back sometime soon!

Being Out

Being out of work is more work than working. Making sub plans is extremely tedious. You have to write down everything. I make plans as if the sub has no idea what he or she is doing. I want the sub to know exactly what to expect at all times. I was a sub for 3 years. I always appreciated when plans were thorough. Although making sub plans is more work than being at school, it's also beneficial to take a day off for mental health reasons. That's what I'm doing Wednesday.

Fractions

I'm starting fractions tomorrow in math. I enjoy fractions. We are going to spend most of the rest of the year on fractions. I'm guessing that by the end of teaching it, I won't like them as much as I used to. We will see. I'm hoping to create a song about fractions since we are spending so much time on it and it's a large portion of the test at the end of the year. I just need to find a current song that isn't too fast and doesn't hit any high notes. I'll figure it out over the next week or two.

Run

I have to get back into shape, and I don't mean round. I need to start running more because there are some 5K's coming up. My friends and I will be doing the color run in May. There's typically a run around St. Patrick's Day. There's also a run I did last year in April that they have this year. I went on the treadmill again today but couldn't run fast at all. I had no endurance. I have to change that in order to compete in a 5K!

On Demand

Time Warner sent me two codes for free on demand movies. One code for January and one code for February. I didn't use the one in January because there was nothing interesting to watch. I'm sure I won't use the one in February for the same reason. I know it's free, but I'm not wasting my time watching something I'm not interested in. I don't watch movies too much anymore. I'm too exhausted each night and I don't have the attention span to sit still for a long period of time.

D

School report cards came out today. North Carolina schools were graded mainly on how the kids did on the EOG tests. My school received a D. Many schools in North Carolina received a D or F. Many of those schools are low poverty areas. It seems to be a direct correlation. We as teachers do everything we can to get our students ready for the real world. Testing is a skill that I didn't have either. It's a shame that our schools are being graded mainly on test scores of students.

Awards Day

I'm part of a group at work that has to set up for awards day tomorrow. Normally I get to work at 6:45 and am one of the first ones there. Tomorrow, I have to be there at 6:15 to set up chairs and stuff. In addition to that, I have a meeting about a student right before awards, then have to present awards, and then bring the kids down from that and teach. I've got this!

Last Game

My friend and I went to what we believe will be our last UNC game of the season last night. We weren't going to go to the game. The only reason we did is because he has a friend who is a referee. He reffed yesterday's game and got us FREE tickets! They were lower level behind the hoop. They were a $64 value. However, UNC played Virginia and looked AWFUL during the second half. They looked good in the first half, but didn't play the second. They lost by 11. That's their first 2 game losing streak of the season. They need to get their act together!

What Great Teachers Do Differently

My principal has us reading this book. We had to read the first 5 chapters for our staff meeting tomorrow. I have several teacher strategy books. All of them are dry and boring, this one included. I generally don't like these books. This one is the few I have read word for word so far. I really don't like this book because the author, who was a teacher and principal himself, sounds like he's talking down to us. He tells us what to do differently, but doesn't tell us how to do it differently. "Don't ever use sarcasm or yell at your kids. That makes you a poor teacher." I guess I'm a poor teacher. I don't even want to read the rest of this book, but know I have to eventually for my principal. We will see what other people think of this book when we discuss it at our faculty meeting tomorrow.