Island

In the education world, teachers call "a desk that is on its own" an island. That desk is away from any other student. We put students on an island if they are distracting others in hopes to end that behavior. A week or two ago, a student comes up to me and asks if I can tell another student to move his desk back because when he swings his feet, it kicks her desk and bothers her. A few minutes later, that student comes up to me and says, "I don't want to go to an island." I say, "Who said you're going on an island?" He said, "You did." I said, "I never said that. However, I'd give anything to be on an island right now. I don't care if it's Jamaica, Bahamas, Aruba, Bermuda, or Hawaii. I don't know about you, but I'd love to be on an island at this very moment." He didn't respond to that and walked away. I tend to go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the issue at hand if I feel it is minor and I shouldn't have to deal with it. I thought that was the perfect response to my students' "island" issue. Needless to say, he didn't like it, and I'm still not on an island and neither is he.

Confidence

How can I preach confidence to my students if I don't have confidence in myself. At this moment, my confidence in my classroom management abilities are in the gutter. I just feel like nothing works. I can't show that lack of confidence to my students. I need to keep pushing and pushing and showing them who is in charge in a respectful way. I need to keep doing character building activities to get all students on the right path. It's going to happen. It's going to work! That's the confidence I need to have each and every day!

Home Alone

I'm not into Christmas movies. However, Home Alone is a Christmas classic that was popular when I was a kid. After the basketball games tonight, I was flipping through channels and found Home Alone on TV. I'm not sure why they are playing it since we are nowhere near Christmas. Whatever. I'll continue to enjoy the movie until I go to bed.

Brwery Tours

I went on two brewery tours yesterday. I've never been on one before until yesterday. They were interesting. The first guy talked way over my head about the process of how beer is made. Breweries are unique in that they don't make the typical big name beer. They put their heart and soul into the beer they make. We got an amazing deal. The first tour cost $7. That got us the tour, 5 5 ounce beer samples, a glass, and a bottle opener. All of that would typically cost much more than $7. The second tour cost $8. That got us a free beer, a free 6 pack of beer, a glass and some bumper stickers. We made out really well. It was a ton of fun besides the fact that I missed the college basketball games because of the tours haha.

Wallet

For whatever reason, most men put their wallet in their back right pocket. I refuse to do that. I do not want to sit on my wallet. How is that comfortable? I put my wallet in my front right pocket. Therefore I don't sit on it. I'm not sure where that tradition started. Because I'm weird, I like to break tradition.

3rd Quarter

Today was the last day of the 3rd quarter of the school year. I feel like this quarter went by faster than the first two. I can't believe I'm 3/4ths of the way done with my first year of teaching. I think it went by so quickly because of the snow days we had. It's strange that it ended on a Thursday and not a Friday. The scary part is that I only have about 30 more school days to prepare my kids for the end of year math test. I'm getting more nervous about that as the days go by!

Motivation Breakthrough

A teacher in my school sent me a link to a selection of YouTube clips called Motivation Breakthrough. I didn't plan on watching all of the videos that lasted over an hour total in one sitting, but I did. It talked about the many unique types of motivation for kids. Kids aren't lazy. They are motivated to do what they do. Everyone does whatever they do for a specific reason. They are motivated to make that decision. The guy also talked about how there are kids who need power and are argumentative. He gave us little tips for how to give them a little bit of power and to avoid confrontations with them. He talked about how if a kid is hungry, he/she will not be motivated. If they have to go to the bathroom or they are thirsty, they won't be motivated. It made me look at what I'm doing differently. As a teacher, it's so hard to give kids those freedoms of using the bathroom when they have to, letting them get water when they are thirsty, etc. He recommended buying snacks and bringing them in for hungry students. However, if I feed one, I have to feed all. That would get extremely pricey to buy snacks for 21 kids every single day. Every single person in the world has different motivations. As teachers, we try to motivate kids based on what motivates us. It doesn't work that way. I'm glad I watched those videos.

North Carolina Zoo

We took the 4th graders to the zoo yesterday. We didn't have a ton of time. The zoo is about 5 miles of walking. Let me tell you, it is not easy to walk through a large zoo with 10 young kids with you. It was fun, but we needed more time. It was so quick that we were like, "Hey kids, look, an elephant, okay, let's go see the next animal." We literally had to move that quickly. Then at about 1:45, we got horribly lost when we had to be back at the bus at 2. We went in a circle. We didn't get back to the bus until 2:30 and therefore got back to school 30 minutes later than we were supposed to. I want to go back to the zoo on my own time when I can take time to read about each animal and have time to really see them.

Change of Seats

As I said yesterday, there was another reason yesterday was so memorable. After getting pulled over, the rest of the trip went smoothly, even though the cop followed me for about 10 miles. We get to the arena at about 10:45. The first game didn't start until 12:10. We decide to just go into the arena to walk around and stuff. We hand our tickets to the person scanning. She scans mine and I hear a buzzer sound that means no entrance. I also see an X on her scanner. I nearly have a panic attack because I had just bought the tickets the day before from a reliable website. She said the message on her scanner said that our seats were moved. We had to go to the box office and get new tickets. Those new tickets worked. We go to our new seats and see that we are one section over to the left from where we were, but we are row C instead of G, so closer. Not only that, we have the seats that they put behind the rail for handicapped fans. They are comfortable chairs, spaced out, and lots of walking room behind us. I have never had that before! Normally you are put in so tightly that you have no choice but to rub up against the person next to you. These new seats were so much better! The games themselves were a little boring. In the first game, there were too many fouls. In game two, Duke blew out San Diego State. However, it was still an amazing experience and one I won't forget anytime soon.

Memorable Day

There are two reasons this has been a day I won't forget. I'll tell you one reason today and one tomorrow. My friend and I bought tickets to the NCAA tournament in Charlotte since today's games were at 12:10 and 2:40. I got home at about 8:30. If the games were any later, we would not have gone. I was nice and drove us both the 2 and a half hours each way. We were probably about 20 miles into the trip when I see flashing lights behind me. I pull to the side assuming the cop wants to pass me. Nope. He pulls behind me. Oh no. I have never been pulled over in my 11 years of driving until today. He asks me why he pulled me over and then he said it was because I was going 70 in a 55. He asks me if there is anything on my license that would cause me to go out in cuffs. I tell him no. He says that he would check and if it's clean then I'd go on my way with a warning. He comes back about 5 minutes later and says, "Do you want the bad news or the good news first? The bad news is that you have two warrants out for your arrest. The good news is that I'm just kidding. Drive slower out there and have a good day." Phew! I got lucky. He then followed me for about 10 miles where I went no faster than one mile over the speed limit. I'll tell you the second part of why it was such a memorable day tomorrow.

Forgetfullness

I am so forgetful sometimes. Earlier today, I thought about what I wanted to blog about tonight. I was pretty sure it was something I haven't written in my previous 970 posts. Unfortunately, like most things, it just went out of my head. It could have been something really insightful and useful to you. My old age must be catching up to me. Maybe I'll remember it tomorrow.

Points

I reached the points I needed to reach! I purchased a Southwest credit card shortly after I moved in January. I should have done it before I moved since I used my credit card a lot for the move. The promotion they were having was if you spend $2,000 in 3 months on that credit card, they will give you 50,000 points. That's almost enough for 2 free round trip flights! I was told by my apartment management that I could use my credit card to pay for rent without an insane fee. They were wrong. They wanted to charge an extra $21 on top of my rent to use my credit card. That wasn't happening. I thought that there would be no way I would spend $2,000 in three months. Then I bought new golf clubs, paid property tax on my car, got it inspected and an oil change, and paid for a condo in the Outer Banks. I easily spent that $2,000 in three months. I now have that 50,000 point bonus, which means I can have at least one round trip flight somewhere for free. It was worth it!

Tickets to NCAA

Some of the NCAA tournament games are in Charlotte, which is about 2 and a half hours from me. There are games there tomorrow afternoon, night, and Sunday. I just looked at tickets and they were insanely cheap! If you buy one session, you get 2 games! They are so cheap that they are only like $5 more than I typivally pay for 1 game! However, I have to work tomorrow like s responsible adult. We will see what time the games are in Sunday and how much they cost.

Dinner With Friends

I know I've written about this before, but I need to write about it again. Starting at the beginning of this school year, a group of 4-6 of us get together every Wednesday for dinner. We take turns hosting one Wednesday. We have gotten together every single Wednesday during the school year! The only few Wednesday's we have missed were the day before Thanksgiving for obvious reasons and of course Christmas break. I look forward to these dinners. We spend the entire time laughing and joking about everything. Today, I laughed so much I was almost in tears. We like having them on Wednesday's because it breaks up the week nicely. We are all teachers so we get to discuss our, um, strategies for handling the unique situations that we deal with on a daily basis. That's pretty much the root of our laughter. Wednesday night dinners with my friends is one thing that keeps me sane each week!

Parking

I am probably the world's worst car parker. No, really, I am. Today, I pulled into a parking space in my apartment parking lot with NO CARS AROUND ME and had to back up and try it again so I could stay in the lines neatly. It's pathetic. My friends make fun of me all the time for how poorly I park. I don't know how I passed my driver's test because I messed up parallel parking the first time and the guy just had me try it again. Maybe I'll become a good parker one day.

Washed my Car

My friend texted me yesterday and said he washed his car and cleaned the inside of it. He motivated me to do the same since it had been so long. Now that it's almost spring, pollen is in the air. It's as if I never cleaned it! I have yellow all over my car. It felt good to clean up the car though. I used to be good about cleaning it more often, but then it got cold. Although cleaning anything is no fun, after you finish cleaning, whatever you cleaned sure looks good, even if it is for a short amount of time.

Selection Sunday

The best day of the year is here. It's selection Sunday! That's when the teams for the college basketball NCAA tournament get selected. I'm trying to get tickets to the games in Charlotte next Sunday, but am waiting to see what time the games will take place and how cheap I can get tickets. Charlotte is 2 and a half hours from me. If the games are Sunday night, I'm not going because I won't get back until well after midnight. I'll wait and see what happens. I'm just excited to pick the teams for my bracket. Everyone's going to have Kentucky winning it all. It's just a matter of who they have before that. Whoever has the best bracket before that will win, assuming Kentucky wins it all. I love March madness!

Pi Day!

Today is Pi day. Pi is a math term that I definitely don't teach in 4th grade. The number is 3.1415926535 and keeps going and going and going. I used to be able to name a lot of numbers for pi because in high school in one of my math classes, the teacher had a lot of numbers listed for pi on the wall. Instead of paying attention to her teach, I would try to memorize pi. Today is the ultimate pi day since the first 5 digits are 3.1415 and today is 3/14/15. That won't happen again for another 100 years. All this talk about pi makes me want to eat pie! Unfortunately I don't have any here right now.

One Student at a Time

Almost any teacher will tell you they teach for one reason: to change children's lives. Of course the same goes for me. This past Monday, I gave the students an index card with some motivational words on them. I personalized each one to show them how much I care about them. Yesterday, one of my students came in and handed me a little slip saying I'm a great teacher. It was awesome. Then I saw her handing out slips to every student! I wanted to do cartwheels I was so excited! I guarantee she would not have done that if I didn't do it a few days earlier. It's moments like that that remind me why I'm a teacher. One down, many students to go!

Elton John

Before my two friends and I went to the concert, we went out to dinner. That took forever. For some reason, the service was slow. Oh well. When we got close to the arena, traffic was heavy as expected. Since I am weird, I would hold my tickets up to the window and try to get the car next to mine's attention to see if they were going to the show. I think I got three cars attention and some took out their tickets to show they were going too. It was a fun way to try to pass time. The concert was great! One problem was that I was yawning the entire time, not because it was boring, but because I was exhausted! He played for about 2 and a half hours. I tried to tape his last song, "Crocodile Rock" because that's the song I sang on the cruise ship in August 2013. Unfortunately, moments after I started recording, my phone said I didn't have enough storage to video tape anything else. It's funny because I used to hate "Crocodile Rock" before I sang it on the cruise. Now I love it. That's the song that I stood up at during the concert and jammed out to the most. After the concert, it took forever to get out of the arena. I didn't get home until about midnight. I felt like a zombie in the morning. Somehow, I ended up feeling like I have more energy at the end of the day even though I'm drained. I don't understand it. I'm hoping to go to another concert in April, but haven't bought tickets yet. We will see!

Concert

I'm off to my first concert since Paul McCartney in Greensboro on October 30. I've seen this guy in concert twice with Billy Joel. Tonight, Elton John is performing alone right in my home town! I don't have to travel an hour and a half to Raleigh to see him. The two teachers I'm going with are so worried about how tired they will be tomorrow. I've gone to sporting events or concerts in Raleigh numerous times and gotten home well past 11. This time, the concert's about 20 minutes from me. I should be home by 11-11:30. Even though I'm typically in bed by 9:30, it'll be fine. I can't wait to see Elton John in a few hours!

Focus T25

The teacher I work with everyday wanted us to do a workout after school. She wants us to do it like 3 times a week. We've been saying we would do it for a week or two now. We finally did it after tutoring today. Once the kids were gone, we changed into our workout clothes, popped the DVD into the computer, and did the workout. The program is called Focus T25. There are 11 different workouts. There are a few workouts under the Alpha program, which are lighter/easier workouts. Then there are a few under Beta, which are more challenging. I didn't know this until I just looked it up. We chose one out of the Beta program...ouch! Each workout is 25 minutes long. This video had us jogging in place, going to the ground, doing lunges, nonstop for 25 minutes. My legs are on fire right now! I was dripping bullets by the time it was done. I sprayed Lysol in my room before I left so it doesn't stink when I go in tomorrow. It was an intense workout. We aren't available to do it tomorrow and I can't do it Thursday. I think we are going to try to do this on Monday's, Wednesday's, and Friday's for now on. We will see!

Part of Whole

I made yet another math song for my kids. I changed the lyrics to Sam Smith's "Stay With Me". As usual, my kids laughed at me when I sang it to them. I also know that they weren't paying attention to the meaning of my lyrics. It's hard to do that when you're ignoring the song and talking to your friend while your teacher is singing... I digress. I had a friend suggest that I make a CD of my songs and sell it. I only have 3 songs so far. I'd have to make several more songs before I would sell a CD of them. I highly doubt I'll do that but ya never know!

Spring Ahead

In my 27 and a half years of living, I have never been awake when the clocks jump ahead an hour or lose an hour. I was very close last night. Normally bars are open until 2AM around here. Last night, they were open until 1 because of the clocks going ahead an hour. That makes no sense to me because if it closed at 2 as usual, then the clock would change to 3. Oh well, whatever. We stayed until 1. I got home at about 1:30 and then went right to bed. I was so close to watching the clock turn to an hour, but didn't make it. Maybe I will in the fall!

Gyro

I went to lunch today with a couple of the 4th grade teachers I work with. We went to a Greek restaurant that has gyros. A gyro is a pita bread with lamb meat, lettuce, tomato, feta cheese, onions, and cucumber sauce. I've had gyros before when I was in college, but knew it wasn't the best quality meat. I was a little skeptical today at first to have lamb. However, it was delicious! I would definitely go to that restaurant again.

Notes

I gave the notes I made to each student yesterday. Most of them asked what it was. I'm pretty sure I didn't receive one thank you from any of them. I was worried I would see some of them in the garbage can. Luckily I did not. I saw many of them under their desks. I'm trying like hell to get the kids on my side, but when it comes down to it, when they don't get the love and support they need at home, it's nearly impossible to keep them focused at school. I'm just going to keep doing the best I can possibly do...

The Brain

The brain is such a complex part of the body. We talked a lot about the brain today in my classroom management class. It takes 3 stages of 21 days each to repair any negative damage done to the brain. By that, I mean if I say something negative to a kid, it takes 63 to repair that and get the brain on positive thoughts. Wow, do I have work to do! I'm writing a personalized note to each student and handing it to them tomorrow. I've got to start somewhere. I have so much work to do to get my class back to where I need them to be. Wish me luck!

Filing Taxes

I went to my bank today to have them file my taxes since I finally received all the papers I needed. When I got there, they said they don't file taxes from other states. Since I moved here in January of 2014, I had a little bit of work in New York that I had to deal with. I went home and tried to file them on H&R Block's website which claimed to be free. They did say state tax would be $9.99 per state. Since I have royalty 1099 forms, I had to purchase this package that included the forms for $20...whatever. When I filed my state taxes, they wanted to charge me $37 per state. Because I bought the $20 package, state taxes were more expensive because of the package I bought. It makes no sense to me because state taxes have nothing to do with my royalty forms. Either way, I haven't officially filed them yet because I wanted to call H&R Block first to ask if there was a way around it. When I called, a computer said I could talk to him like he as a human. I didn't want that, I wanted to talk to an actual human. I was on hold for 15 minutes, then hung up because I had to leave. Ugh! I'll try again another time. But I don't want to pay $95 for my "free" taxes...

Positivity

It's so important to show positivity all of the time, especially as an elementary teacher. We forget that when kids act up kids will be kids. We forget where they are coming from. Most of my kids come from home lives that are far from "normal". They have probably dealt with things I have never or will never deal with. Being positive is also incredibly hard when kids aren't doing the right thing. That's one thing I absolutely have to work on. I have to have to HAVE TO be positive at all times so I can influence each and every child in my room!

Dress Up Routine

My friend and I are weird. We have a pattern of clothes we wear each week. On Mondays and Tuesdays, we wear shirt and tie. On Wednesdays, we wear polo shirts. On Thursdays, we just wear a dress shirt. On Fridays, we wear our dress down t-shirt. I'm sure no one has picked up on our pattern. This week, I have to throw my entire routine out. I'm going to do polo Wednesday tomorrow because this week on Wednesday, we have school pictures. I figure I should look good on Wednesday and wear shirt and tie. I gotta do what I gotta do.

Pizza

Everyone knows how delicious pizza is. I love the specialty pizzas more than the regular pepperoni or whatever. Today I had a pizza with red potatoes, bacon, sour cream, and spicy ranch on it. It was very different and amazing. I purposely didn't eat it all so I could have left overs tomorrow. Mmmmm pizza!