What in the World?

What in the world will 2015 bring? Each year on this blog I wrap up my year and look at the next year. Since I wrapped up my year on December 11, I'm not going to do that this time. I did that because that was a big one year anniversary for me. I have had 3 different jobs this year. I started as a computer aide for two weeks, then a first grade teacher, and I finished as a 4th grade teacher. This year was amazing! I've done so much more than I would have ever imagined I would do. I have no clue what's in store for 2015. I could land a job in a different state again. My books could strike it big. I could stay at the same school for another school year. I haven't the foggiest of ideas. I'm not making any resolutions this year either. Whatever happens happens. I will tell you that I am going to continue to take every opportunity I can. That means I'm going to keep going to college basketball games, concerts, and any other events that pop up if I can afford to go. I gotta live life to the fullest and enjoy every moment. I sure did that this year and I greatly look forward to the adventures that will take place in 2015!

Mockingjay Part 1

I just saw Mockingjay Part 1 today. That's the 3rd book of The Hunger Games series. I read those books awhile ago. I remember hating the book. But obviously I still had to see the movie. I'm glad it only cost $5 to see it. I saw it at a theater that shows movies that are almost out on DVD. That's why it was so cheap. The start time was 6:30 and it surprisingly had no previews. I fell asleep by 7. Pretty sad, I know. It was a 2 hour movie and it was slow. There was very little action. Obviously they are saving the action for part 2. Naturally they made it two parts to make more money. I had heard bad reviews about this movie but since I read the book I still wanted to see the movie. Hopefully the second movie will be better.

My Schedule

First of all, yesterday was the first day in a very long time that I unintentionally forgot to blog. My bad! No excuses. Anyway, as you know, the Cowboys made the playoffs! Woohoo! The NFL scheduled the Cowboys games perfectly around my schedule. They could have played this Saturday or Sunday. I wanted them to play on Sunday because my friends and I are going to Raleigh on Saturday. Dallas plays on Sunday. Perfect! If they win, I want them to play the following Sunday because I'm moving the following Saturday. If Dallas wins they will play the following Sunday at 1. I'm very glad the NFL was able to work around my schedule so that I can see my Cowboys play in the playoffs for the first time in 5 years. GO COWBOYS!

Flight Trampoline Park

I went to a place called Flight Trampoline Park today. It is exactly what it sounds like. It's an indoor place with tons of trampolines all over the place. You jump on them and some people do flips and stuff. They also had things where you could climb up a ladder and jump onto a big mat. It was a ton of fun. It's quite a workout. My entire body hurts right now. Naturally the place was packed with kids because it's more of a kids place and it's winter break. There were people my age there too. I would definitely do it again. You could go for an hour or two hours. One hour was more than enough time to bounce around. I didn't do any flips. I didn't feel like breaking my neck today. Maybe next time I'll try some flips.

Getting out of the House

It's weird. The day that I flew home to New York, I was all excited to come home. Now I do pretty much anything to get out of my house. It's not because I'm annoyed at my parents or anything. It's just that I'm so easily bored. I'm so used to being busy that I can't stand doing nothing. I went out to lunch with family today, came home, then immediately went to a friends house to hang out for a bit before my family came back. Now that they're gone, I want to leave again because I don't want to stay home and do nothing. I can't sit still!

Prime Rib

Our Chrismas dinner every year is prime rib, twice baked potatoes, and pasta with chirizo. There's nothing better. My aunt and uncle do an amazing job at cooking the food. I always bring dessert. This year, I brought magic cookie bars and brownies. I didn't need to. My aunt made I think 5 desserts herself. I don't understand why I even had to bother making dessert. Oh well, I'm thoroughly full now!

This Years' Movie

Like I said last Christmas Eve, my family watches an old movie each Christmas Eve. We used to watch it on VHS, but now we just watch whatever we have. This year we watched Mrs. Doubtfire. This was only my 4th time seeing it since Robin Williams died. My younger brother was getting annoyed at me for reciting every line in the movie. It's that good that I had to recite everything. I requested that we watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off next year. I haven't seen that movie in forever. We will see.

Easy

While working at my dad's liquor store today, I couldn't stop thinking about how easy the job was. I wasn't screaming, worrying every second, doing paperwork, calling parents, trying to teach while no one was paying attention, or any other job I normally do on a daily basis. I was scanning bottles of wine and bagging it. The hardest thing I had to do was a little bit of math when the customers handed me cash. Since most transactions nowadays are done with a credit card, I didn't even have to do much math. It was a nice change of pace from my daily grind. I'm only working 4 hours first thing in the morning tomorrow for my dad then I'm off until probably New Years' Eve.

Heading Home

I'm heading back to New York tonight for the first time since July. The only reason I waited this long into December break and have a flight at 7:40PM is because it was the cheapest option. Of course I looked for the least expensive trip. I could have driven home, but the weather might have been a factor so I decided to fly. This might be my last time home until July because my friends and I are looking at going to Nashville, Tennessee during the April break. I look forward to going home tonight and seeing my family and friends who I haven't seen in 5 months.

Pedicure

I got a pedicure for I think the 3rd time ever today. The lady told me I needed to buy some fungus ointment because my feet are that gross. Yes they are. The pedicure and ointment cost $35! Normally the pedicure costs $15. I really needed it though. I've tried foot creams and stuff like that before and they haven't worked. I'm sure this one won't work either. At least my feet look better now than they did yesterday. I'm sure that will last about a week if I'm lucky.

Packing

There is absolutely nothing fun about packing. I did a lot of packing today. It's amazing how much junk I have accumulated over the past year. I should have thought about it before I purchased some of the things I have. In my mind, I should have said, Don't buy this. It's going to be a pain to move it when you move again. Of course nobody says that when they are buying stuff. I have a pile of full boxes in my second bedroom. I have no idea how it's all going to fit in my one bedroom apartment on January 10. I have no choice but to make it work.

2 Weeks Off

I feel like I've never been more excited to have two weeks off in my life. But I'm so used to being busy, I'm going to enjoy being bored. We got out of school two hours early today. It was nice to just get home much earlier than usual. I also went to school half an hour later than I normally do. I was still there on time. I'm going to be bored the next few days because I will have nothing to do before I go home to New York. I didn't bring home anything to do school related. I'm going to go into work Monday, January 5th with no idea what I'm teaching, but it will be worth it!

Cool Gift

I got a really cool present today from one of the kids. It wasn't even from my one of my own kids. It was from a kid that I teach for 90 minutes a day. In my fourth grade room, we switch classes. I have my class for most of the day, but for 90 minutes, I have the other teachers class. I teach two math classes each day. A few weeks ago, I saw this neat idea for a teacher present. I wanted one. Today, I got that gift! It is basically a wreath with crayons. It's really cool! I love it because it's original and hand made. Of course I love candy, but original gifts are so much more unique. I immediately hung it up in my room and will keep it forever! We will see if I get any gifts tomorrow on the last day of school until next year! I hope so!

New Address

Of course I'm not going to tell you my new address. But I have to tell you the stress I have had with this new address already. So my new apartment complex emailed me with my new address. They told me it was South Beach Drive (not real address, but you'll get the idea once I explain). I called Time Warner Cable yesterday to change my address and they said they couldn't find that one. I had done a Google Maps search for my address too and it didn't show up. The lady from TWC said she found Southbeach Road, no spaces and road instead of drive. I searched that and it came up where it should. I went to my complex today to ask them and they were adamant that it was South Beach Drive with a space after South and Drive instead of road. But when I drove past the green road sign it said Southbeach Road. I don't understand why the complex is so confused about it. I went to the post office and they said it's Southbeach Road, no spaces, not drive. I'm trusting the post office over the apartment complex. I haven't even moved yet and there's already one strike against my new place. Not good!

Holiday Concert

I went to the holiday concert that some of my students performed in today. It's amazing to see so many parents show up to that when the majority of them don't show up to the science fair night or any parent teacher conferences we try to set up. Then when you do call and get a hold of them (after 4-5 times) it's always our fault. I often get, "Well what was said to make him act that way?" This is why my students are the way they are. If their parents are accusatory, that's the way their child will be too. It's scary. No matter how hard I try, I can't compete with the way their parents are raising them, whether it be the right way or the wrong way. I can only do so much to get them to understand right from wrong.

Playoffs?

I remember before the start of the football season, I predicted the Cowboys would get 3 wins. Luckily they destroyed my prediction and so far have 10 wins and 4 loses! With two games to go, they have a decent chance of making the playoffs for the first time since 2009! No one expected them to play this well. One of their key players just hurt himself but might be back this weekend. Hopefully he will be! I haven't been this excited about the Cowboys in a long time. Go Cowboys!

Christmas Clothes

I actually wore Christmas themed flannel pants and a Christmas t-shirt yesterday. The pants were really comfortable. My friends and I had a Christmas party of our own. There were only 5 of us so it wasn't much of a party, more of a gathering. One of the things we wanted to do was wear Christmas pajamas. We are weird. I know. I'll probably wear those pants once a year. Maybe I'll wear them on Christmas Eve this year. There's no other appropriate time to wear Santas on my pants. Oh well, we had a good time as usual and that's all that matters.

Tear off Calendars

I love tear off calendars. My mom bought me two of them last year. She bought me a trivia one and a teacher one. I just happened to look at my trivia one on my desk and see the date was October 21. That's the problem with the tear off calendars. I never remember to tear it off and read the facts. I just updated that calendar. My one at school is probably around the same date. I'll have to tear them off too. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some facts to read.

Coming up Quickly

I'm moving to another place on January 10th. I'm not moving very far away from where I am now. It's only about 2 miles. It's further away from my school though. Like I said, it's not that big of a deal. At least it's not 20 miles away from where I work like it was last year. I decided it's time to move because I'm done with this place. As you know, there are so many issues with the current place I live in. It was time for a change. Unfortunately, the new place I am living in is smaller and costs more but whatever. I gotta do what I gotta do. I better start packing!

1 Year Ago on This Date

My life changed drastically on December 11, 2013. That was the day that I flew down to North Carolina and had an "interview" for a 1st grade teaching position. I put interview in quotes because it was more like the principal asking me a few questions that he could have answered by reading my resume and then hiring me. I flew down to North Carolina and back to New York in that day. One year later, I switched jobs to another district and grade level in North Carolina. I have made an amazing group of new friends. I have had so many frustrations during my year of teaching. But I've also had so many more amazing moments that you have read on my blogs. I've seen Billy Joel, Tom Petty, and Paul McCartney while being down here. I've been to three hockey games, two UNC games, a Duke game, an NC State college football game, the NCAA tournament, and saw a practice round and three rounds of the U. S. Open for free! I went on a cruise in August, have gone to Myrtle Beach 4 times, and been to Carowinds amusement park. I published my 3rd "The Teacher That..." book and have consistently sold well over 100 books a month for 12 straight months! I've had more fun this year than I've ever had before. Ever since I took that risk to fly down to North Carolina for the interview one year ago and take the job, I've decided I'm going to continue to take risks, be spontaneous, and take every opportunity I can. I want to live life to the fullest. I believe that this year is proof that I have. It's been a wild year. If someone told me on December 5, 2013 that one week later I'd have a teaching job in North Carolina, I would have told them they were on something. December 6 was the day the opportunity came up and that next month was all a blur. I can't believe how much I have accomplished this year. I'm excited to see what the next year brings. I don't have a clue what's in store next!

Garbage Disposal

One day, shortly after I made the friends I have here, I randomly told them that people call me the garbage disposal because I eat a lot. They asked me who called me that. I told them that I guess I was the only one who called myself that. Today, as with every other day, I lived up to that self proclaimed title. I could not stop eating. It's amazing, I eat a small breakfast, small lunch, then go crazy when I get home. I can't stop shoveling in the food! I need to slow down though because I'm going to get fatter the older I get if I continue these unhealthy eating habits.

Reviews

I've gotten about 5 reviews in the past few weeks about my books. I had one from a kid that said it has inspired him to do better in school. The others have said my books are awesome and they want me to write more. These reviews are from people I do not know. That makes it so much better. The only "bad" review I've gotten on my children's books was a 2-star review because of formatting errors. Everything else has been a 4 or 5 star review. I wish I had time to write more books. I also have no ideas in mind. If I wrote about this school year, it would not be a kids book anymore. It would be an X rated book. Who knows when inspiration will strike again?

Hangry

It's never good to be around a hangry fat man. What's hangry? It's when you are so hungry that you are extremely angry for no reason other than the fact that you are hungry. That was me this afternoon after working out. I stayed at the gym a little bit longer than usual because they were giving away some prizes. However, they said that the drawing would be at 6 PM. It didn't start until 6:15 and then they took forever to call each name for the prizes. Naturally I didn't win any prizes. It was a complete waste of an hour which made me even hangrier. It wasn't good at all. Please note, do not come anywhere near me when I am hangry, it won't end well for either of us. Once you get food in me, I'll be completely fine. I have food in me now, so I'm good.

Resources

When I was in school, teachers would have to create their own worksheets for us to use. They would have to create transparencies to use on the overhead projector. They didn't have the abundance of resources available to teachers online. I just did a Google search for worksheets in the topic I'm covering in math and tons of stuff came up. I didn't have to have a username or password to get these worksheets. I clicked a few buttons telling them what I wanted and it created in seconds. I love it! There are so many great videos on YouTube of other teachers teaching certain topics too. It's overwhelming the amount of resources available to us. It makes creating lesson plans slightly easier. 9.5 more school days until winter break!

Getting Antsy

I've been looking up a cruise from Charleston, South Carolina during spring break for a long time now. The price keeps going up and up and up. It's like $800 for a 5 day cruise. I just looked at more cruises for fun. I found one during that week from Miami, Florida, 7 days for $559! That's a ton cheaper and 2 days longer! I'm getting really antsy to take another cruise. It's getting so bad that I'm starting to shake (not really). I don't think my friends will be willing to pay that much money though. I understand that but I'm going to talk to them tonight and see what they say.

Clap

The Nutcracker today was as boring as I expected it to be. I did have a few kids fall asleep. I was very thankful for that. That way they weren't interrupting any of the performers. Before the show started, the lady introducing the show told the audience that they should clap whenever they thought something was spectacular. The audience actually listen to her and took her words to heart. The audience was full of fourth-grade students all from the county I work at. They clapped at everything. It was actually a bit annoying. At least the ones who stayed awake seemed into it. The ballet was very long. I'm glad it's over with.

The Nutcracker

We are taking the 4th graders to see The Nutcracker tomorrow. From what I have heard from past years, we are in for a good time. I say that with as much sarcasm as I can muster through typed words. I hear that people sleep during the play. I can only be lucky enough that my kids will sleep during the play. I can see so many of them shouting out to me, "Mr. Pacelli, this is boring. I have to go to the bathroom. I can't hold it." On the bright side, I won't have to teach much!

Power Out

Today was just a very strange day. I live about 3 miles from the school. I take a right and then at the light about a mile down the road, I take a left and the school is 2 miles down the road on the left. I took my right this morning and noticed bumper to bumper traffic going the other way. That never happens at 6:30AM. It was also pitch black and foggy. As I get to the light to take a left, there was an accident ahead of me. Maybe that's what caused the traffic. The road leading to school was fine. I walk into school and we have some power. Some lights worked and others didn't. I learned that there was a bigger accident down the road where a car hit a power pole and flipped over. Shortly after the kids came in, many late due to insane traffic, all of the lights went out for about an hour. Teachers thought we would be lucky and they would close school. Nope. They fixed the power and the day went on as usual. I later learned that the insane traffic was due to the fact that Fort Bragg was doing extreme checks of every car. I heard there were delays of over 4 hours. That's insane! It was just an odd way to start the day and of course it made the kids even more off than they always are...

Hot Tub

Guess who doesn't want to go in a hot tub ever again? This guy! I noticed some red marks on my skin Sunday night. People suggested that maybe they were hives. I took Benadryl and they didn't go away. I went to urgent care and paid $87 today! Ugh. I knew there was a catch to free insurance. The doctor asked me if I have had any different foods, new detergent, new clothes, etc. to see if I was having an allergic reaction. I said no to all of that. Then she took a look at the marks and asked if I had been in a hot tub recently. I went in one Friday night while at Myrtle Beach. Apparently I picked up some sort of bacteria infection from that hot tub causing these marks. She put me on meds and hopefully they will go away! Ugh. That was a very expensive 30 minutes in a hot tub!

Run in December

I just went for a run outside in December in shorts and a t-shirt. I couldn't do that in New York! It was 70° today. I love it! It's supposed to be in the upper 50's up to mid 60's all week. Again, that almost never happens in New York. It's strange because I froze during my 5K run a couple of weeks ago. The weather here has been cold then warm then freezing then warm. Make up my mind! At least it hasn't snowed yet!

What a Weekend

Well that was quite a busy weekend! After hosting Thanksgiving Thursday and having my friends over for 9 hours, I had to clean that mess Friday. After that, we drove to Myrtle Beach to have dinner and then go to my friends favorite dance club, Revolutions, for her birthday. We didn't get back to the hotel until around 3AM. When we kind of woke up yesterday morning, we had to collect ourselves and drive to the outlets in North Carolina, about 3 hours from Myrtle. My friends wanted to go to this store that has lots of Christmas stuff to buy. I was bored but whatever. Then we went to the mall in Raleigh, about 40 minutes from the Christmas store. We went to Cheesecake Factory and then to PNC Arena for the Pittsburgh Penguins at Carolina Hurricanes hockey game. It seemed like there were more Penguins fans than Hurricanes fans. My friend is a Penguins fan and that's why we went. They won 3-2. I didn't get home until just after 12 this morning. I slept for a long time and am being extremely lazy all day today. Back to the grind tomorrow... ugh!

Thankful

There are so many things to be thankful for. Unfortunately, this year I didn't get a chance to go home for Thanksgiving. This is the first year ever that I have not been with my family on Thanksgiving. However, I am lucky enough to have a strong group of friends that will be coming over today for Thanksgiving. I am cooking as we speak. I cannot wait to eat the delicious bird. Back to what I am thankful for. I am so thankful that I have a job. I am also thankful that I have been lucky enough to go to so many sporting events and concerts while I've been down here. I am so lucky and thankful I have a strong group of friends that I made in such a short time in North Carolina. I am just so lucky that I have so many great things. I know that there are so many people my age that do not have the luxuries I have. Trust me, I cherish every moment I have and appreciate everything that I have worked so hard for! Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Productive

I actually enjoyed my workday today. I ended up getting a lot of stuff done. I photocopied three weeks worth of morning work. Now I'm all set with that until after the holidays. Normally I'm scrambling Monday morning to get the morning were packet done. Now I don't have to worry about it. I also got all of next week's math homework copied. Then I sharpened a ton of pencils for the kids because they always spend way too much time at the pencil sharpener because they like breaking pencils purposely so they can waste time. Hopefully now that I have some pencils for them they won't have to do that anymore. I'm glad today's over with. My turkey is brining and I'm ready to eat a big fat meal tomorrow.

Work Day

The kids don't have school tomorrow, but the teachers do. Well, at least some of us have to come to work tomorrow. It's called an optional workday. A lot of people wonder why I am going to work. I told them I have no problem going to work because I am here anyway so why shouldn't I be at work? I enjoy the day off with no kids. Therefore, I can get a lot of work done. Also, they have shortened tomorrow from 8 to 2 to 8-4. What's not to like about that?

Without Family

This will be my first Thanksgiving without my family. It's going to be weird. I couldn't go home though because flights were way too expensive. I didn't want to spend $800 round trip to be home for like 2 days. That's insane. It's okay though because my friends and I have a lot of activities planned for that day and the weekend. I'm going to be exhausted when I get back to work next Monday but it will be worth it even though I will be broke!

Brining a Turkey

I have never brined a turkey before. I'm cooking the turkey this year for my group of friends. I was told I have to brine it. I looked it up and it basically just sits in water for several hours before you cook it. I hear it's going to be extremely moist. I hope I don't mess it up. I'm excited to try this different turkey but I'm more excited to only have 2 days with the kids this week!

Mariah Carey

I already can't stand Christmas music. I don't want to hear it on Christmas or anywhere near Christmas. I especially don't want to hear it before Thanksgiving! Unfortunately, my friends are much different than me and started decorating their apartment with loads of Christmas stuff. Then came the worst Christmas song known to man. If I hear "All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey one more time I will scream! I cannot stand her whiny voice and the lyrics to that song. I hear that song dozens of times throughout the holiday season. I'm looking forward to January already!

Lame

I am the lamest person in the world on Friday nights. I'm surprised I'm awake right now at 9:18. I almost went to bed at 8! I'm so tired after a full week of work. This week was especially busy because of numerous parent teacher conferences. I thought the week would drag on but it surprisingly didn't. I actually did a little bit of grading tonight. It was more than I expected to do. I don't want to grade tomorrow and/or Sunday but I'd rather do it now than over Thanksgiving break!

6 Feet of Snow

Buffalo, NY got 6 ft of snow the other day. Not 6 inches, 6 feet! I cannot imagine that much snow! They are expecting another 2-3 feet this weekend. Insane! I got a lot of snow in New York, but nowhere near that much. The worst storm I can remember was maybe 2 feet. If we had that much snow down here, we would literally be shut down for a month. We just don't have the plows and stuff down here to take care of the mess. It's been cold lately, but now it's going to be 70 this weekend. We haven't had snow yet which is nice. I just don't know what's up with this weather!

Medication, Faltulence, and IBS

No, I am not a doctor. However, over the last few days I have almost felt like one during these parent teacher conferences. I have learned more about my kids than I ever wanted to know. I learned that probably 75% of my kids are on some sort of medication for ADHD, ADD, ODD, depression, biploar disease, and anything else under the sun. A mother told me that her boy was being bullied saying the other kid was saying he smells. I actually used the word flatulence to that parent, because her boy does fart a lot in my class. I have another student who has IBS and needs to go to the bathroom all of the time to the point where at times when he stands up, it just comes out. Those are just a few of the interesting conversations I have had with parents recently. It will be exciting to see what tomorrow brings!

Failure

I'm starting to realize more than ever that common core sets kids up to fail. I completely understand that they want the standards more rigorous and they want kids to learn more. I have no problem with that. However the amount of work they expect a 4th grader to do is insane! The way they want them to learn it is also insane. Once we start building up a topic, boom, we go to the next one. We have a pacing guide we have to follow in order to get to every topic before the big test at the end of the year. Some kids get the information quickly. Others will never get it. We do the best we can to tutor those students but we still have to move on. It's sad to see them so lost and scary to see what will happen to those kids in the future.

Parent Teacher Conferences

In the district I worked at in New York, kids had half days for a few days so teachers could meet with parents in the afternoon. The district I work in now used to do that, but not anymore. We had to schedule them after school. I have 40 of them to do since I am meeting with both classes I see. Luckily the other teacher and I are doing them together. Tomorrow, we have 9. At the rate we have been going, we will be lucky to see 5 of those parents. It's amazing how many haven't showed up. We even called someone today, the mom said she would be there, and she didn't show up. Another parent didn't show up and we rescheduled her and she still hasn't showed up! Now I know why my students don't hand things in. Since their parents clearly don't care, why should they? It's beyond frustrating because I can't teach kids to care. I can only attempt to teach them how important handing things in on time is even though some of their parents don't do that themselves.

Robert Morris at UNC

I'm just leaving the UNC basketball game. We sat center court row U second deck. I sat in the same section I did for the last Tar Heel game I went to, but I was in row G last game. It wasn't as packed as I expected it to be. The score was 103-59. Since they scored 100, we can get 2 sausage biscuits for 1.00 at Bojangles. Because I'm fat, of course I'm going to take advantage of that. They scored 100 points each game I've been to now. I can't wait for the Notre Dame game because I know the atmosphere will be much better than it was tonight. Go Heels!

Cold

It was insanely cold during my 5K this morning. I tried to run faster than I was going, but I couldn't. My chest was hurting so bad because of the cold. So many people passed me. I ended up running it in 25:36 which is far from my best time. I was 4th in my age group. It said that I was 28 on the sheet where they posted my time when I'm only 27! I didn't stay for awards because I knew I wasn't getting one and I didn't want to stay there bored and cold. I don't plan on doing another 5K until it gets warm out again.

Weather

The weather is so strange down here. In the spring and fall, sometimes you have frost on your car in the morning, then it's 70° in the afternoon. I have a 5K run tomorrow and it's going to be about 35° out. That won't be fun! The high tomorrow is about 48°. Then it goes to 70° on Monday and back to 45° on Tuesday. I guess they really want all of us to get sick or something. The drastic change in temperatures isn't safe! Oh well. We will see how my run goes tomorrow.

Turned Something Down

I made a very hard decision today. Of course once you continue reading, you will think I'm ridiculous, but I don't care. My friend asked me to go to the NC St football game again this Saturday. I thought about it for awhile and of course want to go. But I decided I need to stay home and catch up on whatever instead, especially because I'll be going to Chapel Hill Sunday for the UNC basketball game. Although I want to do it all, it's impossible to do that.

Anniversary

My parents are celebrating their 31st anniversary today! I know how lucky I am to have parents married that long. Most marriages don't seem to last 31 days anymore. I am definitely the way I am today because of my parents. I would not have the work ethic or drive I have now if my parents didn't instill that in me at a young age. If only I could get my students to put 1/10th of the effort that I put in into their work, I'd be golden!

Theme of the Day

I looked at three condos and two apartments today. When I told the property manager for the condos that I didn't plan on moving until January, she told me it wasn't a good idea to look at condos this early since they come and go so often. I knew that, but want to take my time looking at places since I was so rushed in January. After looking at the three places, I'm pretty sure she lied about the places coming and going quickly. There is a reason these 3 places are still on the market. Cockroaches, cockroaches, and more cockroaches! I'm not lying to you when I say that I probably saw 20 of them in the three places. Some were huge and some were small. The lady specifically said they were water bugs and not roaches. I don't care what you call them down here. I call them cockroaches and they do not belong in the place I'm going to live! The places were outdated, some had broken cabinets and the same place had this brown stain all over the door. I also looked at two apartments. One was hideously ugly and very small. The other was really nice, but a little pricey. I'm going to be looking at 4 more apartments on Saturday despite my moms wishes. She believes I should continue to live in a condo because of the space I get and the price I'd pay. I disagree because I don't need this much space and I've had nothing but problems in the one I'm living in now. I want to run away from the roaches and everything today pointed to signs that roaches would be in those condos too. We will see how the apartments Saturday look.

Day Off

Tomorrow is my first weekday off since Labor Day! The kids had last Monday and Tuesday off but teachers didn't because we had work days filled with exhilirating meetings. I'm shockingly pretty caught up on schoolwork. Therefore tomorrow I shouldn't have too much to do. I plan on apartment hunting tomorrow. That isn't too fun either. Oh well. I'd rather do that than be at work!

Long Division

I am going to have nightmares for the next few weeks. Tomorrow, I'm starting to teach division to my students. We will quickly jump into long division. This will not be easy for one reason only. My kids aren't fluent with their simple multiplication facts! If they don't know their simple multiplication, that means they don't know their simple division facts. If they don't know their division facts, long division will be impossible for them. I'm going to start off slow by going over their fact families and doing lots of repetition. I am determined to get these kids to learn something this year even when they won't put in that effort in return.

College Football Game

I'm not a fan of college football at all. I'm not sure why. I love pretty much every other sport besides that for whatever reason. Yesterday, my friend asked me if I wanted to go to an NC ST football game. His friend has season tickets and didn't want to go. He offered us two $50 a piece tickets and a parking pass for $50 total! Sold! We went to that and our seats were great and then there was an exhibition basketball game for free right after that. The football team lost by a lot and the basketball team won by a lot. We saw two different sports for $25. It was awesome! I love jumping on any opportunity I can.

Worms

We took the 4th graders to the Botanical Gardens today. We took a nature walk and learned about worms and other beautiful creatures. The tour guide gave the kids a pile of dirt and they were able to sift through it to look for worms. They were allowed to touch them and hold them. One kid wanted nothing to do with it. The kids asked me if I wanted to touch them. I also wanted no part in this. I'm not a big fan of nature and all of the bugs out there. I'm sure you haven't been able to tell with all of my cockroach stories. The kids seemed to have a good time and that's all that matters.

Grading

When I was in school, I used to get so mad when teachers took forever to grade and return work. I didn't care if it was homework, an essay, or a test. Even in high school, I didn't understand how it could take so long to grade things. Now I get it. I have probably like 7 assignments to grade. I've gotten so far behind because I'm lazy. I can't find the motivation to grade because I'm so exhausted when I get home. But enough about that... time to grade!

Cameron Indoor Stadium

I have a friend who went to Durham in March for a teacher conference. After that, he went to Duke to the basketball stadium to see the famous Cameron Indoor Stadium. While he was on the court, a worker comes up to him and starts talking to him. My friend bravely asked if he could hook him up with tickets for this year. He told him he could and to email him when the season is close. We got tickets to last nights game against a division 2 team. It was an exhibition game but it was amazing. I hate Duke but I'd never turn down a free game and Cameron Indoor is a bucket list item. The energy from the fans was unreal. The guy said that maybe he'd be able to get us more tickets. I hope so!

Pie in the Face

Today was the fall festival for our school. I was volunteered to do the pie in the face. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. I didn't mind though because I know how uptight normal people get about doing things outside of the box that are messy and out of their comfort zone. I love doing those types of things. Yes, I absolutely implied that I'm not normal. Anyone who knows me knows I'm far from normal. There were three of us getting pied in the face. The kids had to pay 3 tickets to pie one of us in the face. I probably got pied about 15 times. It was whipped cream, so I was able to eat it, which was nice. We were supposed to do it for 2 hours but we ran out of whipped cream after about an hour. That was fine with me because it was cold outside! At least the kids had fun.

Haunted House

The haunted hayride we did a week ago was only okay. On Friday, we did a haunted house. That was scary! The technology and props they used in this house were amazing. They told us that the actors in the house couldn't touch us and we couldn't touch them. Some of the props could touch us though. There was one point where one of the monsters got in my face and I kept walking which in turn pushed him. He got mad at me and said I wasn't allowed to touch him. I didn't mean to! There was another point where I got backed up into a sculpture that was on the wall. I hit it hard and hurt my back, but was fine after a few minutes. There was fog and we had no idea where we were going. It was the best haunted house I've ever seen and it lasted about 30 minutes. It was crazy! That was a good way to spend Halloween night.

Paul McCartney

My parents saw Paul McCartney in Albany on July 5. For those of you who have never heard of Paul McCartney, where have you been? He was a member of the most famous band ever, The Beatles. I saw that he was coming to Greensboro on October 30. My mom didn't want me to go because Greensboro is 2 hours away from me and the concert was going to start at 8 and it was going to be a 3 hour show. I kept checking for tickets the entire week leading up to the concert. Thursday wasn't a great day at school. After school, I vented to my mentor for over an hour. I then saw that tickets were a price I was willing to pay. I got in my car to go home from work, and the first song on the radio was "Come Together" by The Beatles. It was a sign that I had to go to the concert. I got home, bought my ticket, got gas, and was on my way to Greensboro less than three hours before the show started. I got there at 7:30 and they weren't letting anyone in yet. They started letting people in at 7:45 and the show didn't start until 8:40. My seat was very close to being behind the stage. It was still a good seat though. Paul McCartney is 72 years old and doesn't look it at all. His voice sounds exactly the same as it did 50 years ago. I've seen older singers and you can tell their voices are raspy and not as strong. Not with Paul. He played 39 songs for almost three hours! He was absolutely incredible and worth every penny I paid, even though I paid almost double face value. I am so happy I decided to go. I didn't get home until 1:20AM then had to work a few hours later, but it was absolutely worth it. Paul McCartney is a legend and I was honored to see him!

Screaming

Screaming at kids is never fun. I've been told many, many times by my mentor that I can't scream at the kids because they will stop listening to you once you start screaming. I understand that. However, if I have a bunch of kids doing the wrong thing, a simple, "Stop doing that," in a calm voice will do nothing to stop them. Screaming will get their attention. I screamed about 5 times today... BEFORE THE BELL RANG AT 7:45!!! My kids do not know when enough is enough. They do not care about incentives, rewards, or punishments. It has no affect on them. It's depressing and beyond frustrating. It clearly shows I'm a terrible classroom manager no matter what anyone else says to me. I hate hearing excuses like, "It's ok, you're a new teacher. You will learn the tricks and get better. It's because their home life isn't good and their parents don't discipline them." Kids need to know how to behave and when to turn off their voices and bitterness towards everyone and everything. I understand the horrible saying, "Kids will be kids", but my class is off the chain. I almost feel like they are worse than last years class. It's nuts! Deeeeeeeep breaths. Tomorrow is a new day. Deeeeeeeep breaths!

Kid Tricked Me

Because of my heightened alert of cockroaches, especially after one almost landed on my head last night in my house, one of my kids easily tricked me. She had no idea how much I despise cockroaches. So today, she had a pack of gum just sitting on her desk with one stick left. I said, "You know you're now allowed to have gum." She said, "It's not gum." I picked it up and pulled out the piece that was in the pack and out came a fake cockroach attached to the fake stick of gum. I jumped 10 feet in the air! I'm lucky I didn't swear or scream. She got me good and I'm not afraid to admit it. That was after seeing a cockroach crawling on the floor at school near the girls bathroom. We weren't able to kill it before it kept going wherever it went. I have no idea if anyone found that roach or not. Knowing my luck, it's in my classroom waiting for me and producing more roaches. Ugh! I can never get away from those stupid things!

Reason number 43940 why I need to Move back to New York

I found out the most ridiculous thing the other day. While doing my first quarter grades tonight, I cringed while doing this. We are not allowed to give lower than a 60% for the quarter. You read that correctly. I have to bump up grades that are lower than a 60. I had a kid with a 35%, but I nearly doubled his grade to a 60. Does a 60 look better on the report card? Of course it does. It probably makes the parent feel like their kid isn't doing that bad. I felt morally wrong changing kids grade to a better grade, even though a 60 is still failing. Parents need to know the exact grade their child has so that they can help him/her improve. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about that!

Sonic

My friends and I went to the Sonic less than a mile from my school on Friday night and it was closed. We had no idea why it would be closed at 7:30PM on a Friday night. Yesterday, we went back to the same Sonic for ice cream because we are fat. This time it was open. We asked them why they were closed the day before and what they said was the last answer we were expecting. The employee casually said that a sex offender had been shot by police officers at that Sonic. That's scary! Like I said, that Sonic is a mile away from my school. I'm surprised my school didn't have a lock down. It's scary to know that there are so many bad people still out there!

Haunted Hayride

The haunted hayride wasn't as exciting as we were hoping it would be. There were times when it was a little startling. However, there was a lot of talking about the history of the cemetery. Near Halloween, that's not what we were looking for. We went back to Festival Park today and checked out the food trucks and other festivities. As expected, it was packed. I loved being out on October 25th and it was 70 degrees. That doesn't happen in New York!

Halloween Festivities

We are celebrating Halloween a week early. We are doing a haunted hayride downtown tonight. I've actually never done anything like this before. It should be fun. Short post tonight. I have nothing exciting to say. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you how the hayride was.

Dollar Store

There's only 1 true dollar store left, Dollar Tree. Everything else is much more than a dollar. Dollar General is where everything is generally much more than a dollar. Family Dollar is expensive too. Yes, normally most of the stuff in any dollar store is garbage. But I've been getting a lot of stuff from the Dollar Tree lately. Today, I bought some Halloween pencils for my kids and some other useful things. I have no shame buying things from the dollar store because I'm cheap and try to save money any way I can.

Late Nights

These late nights really need to stop! This is the 3rd night in a row that I have stayed up well past my "bed time". I'm normally in bed before 10 most nights. It's now 11:04. I am definitely going to pay the price tomorrow morning. Yesterday morning, I looked like a zombie when my kids walked in and I told them not to go to bed late. All of them told me they go to bed past 12. I know they are all lying, but that's insane. I had a great night though with my Wednesday night dinner crew! I'm greatly looking forward to the weekend!

Double Planning

Each day, the kids have a 40 minute resource. They go to either art, gym, computer lab, library, or music. We have a 6-day rotation. On day 5, my 4th graders have double resource while teachers have double planning. They go to 2 resources back to back so we can try to plan next week's lessons. It's not fun! I wish those 80 minutes could be used to keep organizing things and getting stuff together. It's good to work on plans for next week, but in a group it gets chaotic. Last week, we spent half the time talking about some virus in our school and the other teacher tried to get us back on task. Let's see what tomorrow's planning brings...

Past My Bedtime

It is waaaaaaaay past my bedtime. It's 11:30PM on a "school" night. I know I'm going to do this next Monday as well because the Dallas Cowboys will be playing. I didn't expect to stay up this late tonight though. It's okay because I have a friend visiting from New York. She came in at about 8:45. We just went out to dinner and now I'm back. I'm going to be more exhausted than usual tomorrow at school. There's no such thing as catching up on sleep anyway.

Is it January yet?

When I moved to North Carolina in January, assuming teaching went well, I fully planned on living in this apartment for more than a year. I had the option of signing a lease for this apartment for two years. If I did, my rent would be even cheaper. I didn't because I had no idea where I would be in a year. So I signed for a year. Boy am I glad I did that! I cannot wait to move. There have been so many problems in this apartment that it's insane. The Internet works when it feels like it, the dryer died, my garbage disposal never worked, the water stopped working randomly, and oh yeah, my roach problem hasn't gone away even though I had an exterminator come. To top it all off, the company in charge of the apartments in this development never respond to things. Oh yeah, we also had a hole in the roof where squirrels lived for a few weeks. It's gross. I don't want to deal with the stress of moving again, but I gotta get out of this place!

Birdie

I can't tell you how long it's been since I hit a birdie in golf. No, I don't mean I actually hit a bird. A birdie is if the par on the hole is 3 shots, you hit it in 2. This was I think my 6th time golfing since July. I haven't gone golfing 6 times in the past 6 years! My game is pathetic. But today, I hit a birdie! I hit my drive on a par 3 to about 20 feet away. The put was impossible. It was downhill and very fast. If you hit it just a bit too hard, it would go 20 feet past. I just tapped the ball and it stayed on line and sunk right into the hole! The rest of the holes I played abysmally as usual. But it was all good because I made my first birdie in many, many years!

Hamburgers

I'm trying to put different things in my hamburgers to enhance flavor. Today, I mixed the burger with BBQ sauce. Last time I did that, I put way too much in and it fell apart while cooking in the Foreman. This time, I didn't out as much BBQ in and it still fell apart. Very disappointing but still good. Any suggestions on how to make the perfect burger?

Beard

I tried growing a mustache and a beard for a few weeks. No one liked it besides me. It's just hair, people. What's the big deal? I got bored of the itchy and messy look today. I decided to shave it and now I feel clean and have a smooth face. Everyone will be happy to see that I look 10 years younger again.

What I wish I Knew Before I Started Teaching

While I was working out today (finally), a thought came into my head. I always do my best thinking when I don't have pen, paper, or a phone around me. Funny how that works. My next book should be titled something like, What I wish I knew Before I Started Teaching. I could list so many things such as the things kids do that you don't expect, the way parents act, the way other adults act, administrators, how to deal with certain situations, and on and on. They need to have a book that tells teachers what to do if such and such happens. The such and such needs to be the most unexpected thing that no one would think of, because that's what happens every day in a school! Teachers have to be spontaneous, expect the unexpected, and react the appropriate way without a millisecond of thought. This book could sell millions of copies! Oh wait, I don't have time to write a book. I'll be busy writing lesson plans and grading papers.

Almost Time

Unfortunately, I think it's almost time for a new laptop. I've had this one for over 5 years. My Internet is awful, but I think that's the wiring in my apartment. As I was trying to write this blog, my screen went black two or three times randomly, then went back to the screen it should be at. Naturally right after I finished my car payment last month another big payment approaches. I'm going to hold off as long as possible because Macs are supposed to last forever. One thing is for sure, I will not be replacing this Mac with a Windows computer. I will spend hundreds more to get a Mac because they are 39472304203 times better than any Windows computer. Once you go Mac, you never go back.

4-Day Weeks Every Week

We had this discussion at Myrtle Beach the other day. Would teachers rather work 4 10 hour days and have a three day weekend every week or would we rather work 5 regular days and have a 2 day weekend? The answer was unanimous. We all would love three day weekends all of the time, even if it means longer school days. We also decided that Monday would be the day off to have, not Friday. No one likes Mondays for whatever reason. Haha. It doesn't matter anyway because obviously this would never happen.

Myrtle Beach 3.0

I went back to Myrtle Beach yesterday for the 2nd time in 2 weeks. It was my third time since mid July. Yesterday was about 90 degrees. I was out in the sun for over 4 hours and I'm not burned at all. Last week, we said that would probably be our last time going to Myrtle in 2014. We said the same thing yesterday. Who knows? I really do need a Saturday to myself to catch up on school work. I am very behind on grading and putting grades in the online grade book. Oh well. It will get done eventually. If only I had tomorrow off like most schools do! I'm only going to live once, so I might as well have as much fun as I can.

Catching Up

I was just on video chat with one of my best friends from home for over 3 hours! We both live very busy lives so we only get to talk to each other every so often. It was nice to finally tell him everything crazy that's been going on in my life and vice versa. The two things I miss most from New York are my family and friends and New York teacher pay (even though I was never a teacher there). I'm just glad I still stay connected with all of my friends from New York.

Columbus Day

Ever since I was a kid in school, I've had Columbus Day off. Columbus Day is this Monday. This will be my first year as a student or educator that I have to work on that day. It's a federal holiday, yet for whatever reason, this county doesn't honor it. I could really use a 3-day weekend too. I need me time so that I can catch up on things and slow down. I've been going nonstop the last few weeks. I had a meeting every day after school this week. It's been draining. Oh well. Such is life.

Lesson Plans

I cannot believe that in over 800 blog posts I have not once written about the joys of lesson plans. They take many, many hours. They are tedious. It requires a lot of creativity, time, and patience. You have to make sure you include everything. You have to make sure there is enough work for the block of time you'll be teaching. You have to make sure other teachers understand what you're talking about. It's not an easy or fun process. I just completed my social studies plans for next week and I'm on to science. They were due this morning at 9AM. Oops. I see that no one else in my grade has uploaded their subjects either so I don't feel bad. I'm determined to upload mine tonight though!

Full Moon

One day last week, my kids were a little off. Whenever that happens, I assume it's because there was a full moon. That's the term we always use in education. "It must be a full moon." Every day seems like it's a full moon at school. Well I actually looked it up last week and found out that tomorrow is really full moon. I even told my kids, "Guys, today's not the full moon. Save your ridiculous behavior for next Wednesday (tomorrow)". I'm not sure why a full moon causes everyone to act strange. They were very off today. So this must have been a precursor for what's to come tomorrow. Oh boy!

Pumpkin Pie Blizzard

Is there anything about that that sounds bad? No! I got the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard from Dairy Queen tonight. It was amazing! Every bite tasted of pumpkin goodness. I had been craving one for a very long time. What made me go get it tonight? I have no idea. I just hope I don't get motivated to get one again because if I keep getting them, I will be fat soon!

Shake it Off

This weekends theme song was "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift. I cannot tell you how many times I heard this song play on my trip to Myrtle Beach and back. I'm not kidding when I say it probably played 6 times in the 4 hour round trip. Not only that, it played many times at the restaurant and bars we went to last night. The water was a little chilly yesterday at the beach, but once you got in, it was nice. The wind was what made us so cold when we got out of the water. But it was awesome to go in the water in October! This was my second trip to Myrtle and it was so much fun. I know that last sentence was really elementary but I'm tried. We might be going next weekend too. I want to but then I don't. I really need to catch up on school work. We will see what happens!

Beach

The goal was to do some work tonight so that I could go to Myrtle Beach tomorrow with friends. Typically, Friday is my, "I don't do a thing related to work" night. It's only 8:29 and I'm incredibly tired. I don't see myself doing much work tonight. I see myself going to bed within the hour. I'm so lame for going to bed so early, especially on a Friday but whatever.

Drama!

I have never witnessed so much drama in my life from 9 year olds. It all took place today. The buckets we created and words of encouragement we made for each other meant absolutely nothing. The kids seemed to enjoy writing kind words towards each other in the morning, then recess came around and it was as if they completely forgot how to behave. Girls were saying mean things to each other. They were giving each other dirty looks. They weren't friends anymore. There were more tears today from both boys and girls than I ever dealt with last year in my 1st grade classroom. Tomorrow, I'm going back to the beginning and starting all over again with rules, expectations, and positive conversations between everyone. Yes, math first thing in the morning is important, but I can't teach when I have kids hating each other and not focusing on what they need to do. Let's hope tomorrow is better than today!

How Full is Your Bucket?

I read a book today to the kids called How Full is Your Bucket? It's about a boy who says hurtful things to his sister in the beginning. His grandfather tells him he is taking away from his sisters bucket. He thought his grandpa was joking. The next day, he had a dream about a bucket over his head. Then in the morning, his mom was yelling at him before school and kids were making fun of him at school. That bucket was emptying out. Then he was called to make a presentation and the kids loved it and his bucket filled up. The moral of the story was that we all have feelings and an invisible bucket. We made "buckets" today and tomorrow we will be filling it up with positive things. I still have something I did in 6th grade that was similar to that. Kids wrote positive things about me and my teacher put them together and gave it to me.  I will be showing my kids that tomorrow. My bucket was filled up this afternoon when a teacher who has been there for 9 years told me that I was one of the best first year teachers this early in the year that she has ever seen! She said that I take constructive criticism and make changes right away, show passion in my teaching, and keep pushing the kids for success. I told the kids that adults have buckets and need positive feedback too. It makes us all happy inside! Corny, I know, but we seriously do all need positive feedback in our lives.

Winding Down?

I'm thinking I might stop writing in this blog soon. I find myself running out of ideas. If you look back in my posts over the past month (which I haven't yet) you will probably see almost all of them dealing with school or my books. I'm guessing my 2 readers (if that) per blog post are getting bored with that. I'm going to try to stick it out to 1,000 blog posts, but we will see what happens!

Free Money

About 2 weeks ago, I had a meeting after school that I was required to go to. It was a 20 minute training on how to proctor a test we are giving tomorrow. I'm not even giving the test. The ELA teachers are giving it to the ones who need it and I take the rest and teach them math. It's for some reading program that parents volunteered their kids for. I had nothing to do with this program because it started last year when I wasn't at the school. However, just for going to the training and teaching a group of kids while the others are taking the test tomorrow during the school day, I get $100. So you're telling me I had to go to a 20 minute meeting after school and then do what I always do at work and I get $100 for my troubles? I know, I know, it's awful, but somebody has to do it! It's nice to get extra money for doing practically nothing more than I already do!

Birthday Presents

I am the most boring person in the world when it comes to giving people presents. I have no creativity. I typically give people gift cards. My mom's birthday is next Monday. I typically get her Pandora charms, flowers, or gift cards. I decided to get her chocolate dipped strawberries from Edible Arrangements this year. Of course it's insanely overpriced because they can, but I didn't have many options since I'm so far away from her. I'm sure she will like it.

Discounts

One perk of being a teacher in North Carolina is that many places give teachers discounts. I went golfing today and the weekend price is $36. Being a teacher and going a little later in the day, I was able to pay just $20 for 18 holes and a golf cart! You absolutely cannot beat that price. I can get a discount when I get a haircut too. A. C. Moore and Hobby Lobby also give discounts to teachers. It's nice to know that some places care about teachers.

Squirrels in Roof

I haven't had enough problems with my apartment so I wanted more. I got home from working out today and my neighbor asked me if I had heard any noises on the roof. I told him no and he explained that there's a hole in the roof and a family of squirrels live there. He showed me and sure enough, the squirrels were poking their heads out. I showed him the stain on my ceiling that I thought was a water leak. He told me that it wasn't water, it was rodent urine. There is some green fungus growing on the stain too. I had a pretty bad week at work and this wasn't what I wanted to come home to! Apparently my neighbors have been contacting the company in charge of our apartment and they have done nothing. I emailed the company with the pics and we will see what happens... Sigh...

Pinterest

Pinterest is such a great website. I go on there for teaching tools and more importantly, new recipes to try. Many people post their ideas and hand made teacher materials that they have used. It's pretty awesome. I found a few recipes I'll be trying next Wednesday when my friends come over for dinner: chicken bacon ranch pasta and garlic biscuits stuffed with cheese. It will be a very healthy, but delicious meal!

Flu Shot

I got my flu shot the other day. I only got it because I was able to get it for free from my district. I've only had the flu shot 2 times in my life, unless I got some when I was a baby, which I'm sure I did. I got one last year and this year. Everyone always cautions me because they say you will get sick from flu shots. I was fine last year and so far I'm fine this year. I'm glad I got it over with because being around hundreds of kids coughing, sneezing, and being gross every day is not exactly the healthiest situation to be in.

Killing Trees

Most teachers must not care about the environment at all. The amount of photocopies we make every day is insane. I probably make between 50-100 and day, and that's pretty low compared to some teachers! The hot times for the copier are first thing in the morning and immediately after school. If you want to make copies Monday morning or Friday afternoon, forget it. That's when teachers are being proactive or procrastinating. Naturally only 1 out of the 2 copiers will work at that time. One is always inevitably jammed. #teacherproblems It would be nice if there was a way we wouldn't have to use so much paper. I'm going to start using a math workbook for some of my homework. The kids can write in it since we won't use the book anymore after this year. It's still common core aligned, which is good. The less paper we use, the better it is for our environment. Save trees!

2,000

On January 28, I wrote about how I reached 1,000 book sales. It took me over a year and a half to get to 1,000 and I was quite proud of that. I just reached 2,000 book sales today not counting free books and borrows! It only took less than 8 months to get another 1,000 sales! I am blown away by how my books are selling right now. I've sold well over 100 a month (counting borrows) for 10 months in a row. I'm on pace to sell well over 200 this month alone! Maybe I can quit teaching soon and just sell books! I'm kidding, I would have to sell hundreds of books a day to get even close to quitting my job. Thank you for all of the support from everyone who has bought any of my books. I appreciate it!

Glasses

Yesterday, I picked up my new glasses. These are my first new pair of frames since 10th grade. I decided it was finally time for a change. My old frames were crooked and obviously very old. I signed up for eye insurance this year so that I wouldn't have to spend a ridiculous amount for new frames and lenses. After all is said and done with insurance and what I paid, I think I saved over $100 so that's good. Maybe I'll keep these new frames for over 10 years like I did my old ones.

Spelling Words

One of my biggest pet peeves as a teacher, no matter what grade, is when kids spell words incorrectly when it is written on the worksheet they are working on! I kind of understand when 1st graders mess this up, but not when 4th graders do this! I was correcting morning work today and so many kids spelled words incorrectly when it was on the paper! That's just pure laziness! Not only that, I go over morning work every single day. I collect it just to make sure they are doing it. I had to correct so many errors it was insane! If you can't do work correctly even when I go over it right after you do it, I don't know what more I can do for you! Also, spell words correctly when they are right in front of you!

Tom Petty and Steve Winwood

I saw Tom Petty last night for the 6th time! Steve Winwood opened for him. He only played 2 songs that I recognized, "Higher Love" and "Gimme Some Lovin". Tom Petty played for just under 2 hours. He played 18 songs including the encore. It was pretty much the same set list as last year when I saw him. As always, he was rocking it. He can still put on a show at almost 64 years old. I wish he would have played longer because he didn't play so many of his other big hits. I also understand that it's impossible to play every popular song he has since he has so many. I was able to get home from the concert in an hour and 20 minutes, which is really fast. I got home at 12:30AM. Today was rough, but it was worth it!

Math Conference

I'm trying to go to a math conference in Greensboro on October 30-31. Greensboro is about 2 hours from me. There's only one reason I want to go. Paul McCartney is performing in Greensboro on the 30th and I want to go. If I'm at this conference, that means that after the concert, I can just go to my hotel room instead of driving 2 hours home. It would be so much easier! However, there's a good chance I won't be going to the conference because of funding. My school might not have the money to send me to this professional development. If I do go, I might not go to Paul McCartney anyway because those tickets are more expensive than I want to pay right now. We will see what happens. I'm off to see Tom Petty in Raleigh right now!

America's Got Talent

My younger brother got me obsessed with this show a few years ago. Tonight was the finale of season 9. The winner was a magician for the first time ever. I was sure it was going to be a singer who I couldn't stand because of her old fashioned style. She ended up being runner up and I know she will go on to do great things. All 6 of the acts in the finals were incredible. Big Brother will be finishing next Wednesday. Then I'll have no TV shows to watch. I better find something so I don't consume my nights with nonstop school work!

Getting Much Better

I'm getting much better in all senses of the word. I started to feel sick on Thursday night. Sunday and yesterday were my worst days. I was coughing, sneezing, had a runny nose, and a sore throat. I went to bed early last night, took NyQuil and felt a million times better today. I'm still a little congested, but nothing like I was this past weekend or yesterday. I'm also getting much better at staying on top of things. I don't feel nearly as overwhelmed as I have been. I haven't stayed at school until 5:30 or so like I normally do. My new goal is to leave by 4 each day, which I think is very doable, unless I have a meeting in the afternoon. I also find myself not yelling at kids like I did last year. My mentor this year is very big about me not yelling at kids. Although I mostly don't agree with her on that, I am trying my best not to yell and it's making me happier. Overall, my experience at my new school has been 587349847 times better than last year!

Saying Numbers

I'm spending about a quarter of the year this year on place value and rounding. Part of that is how to say numbers, write them in expanded form, and write them in word form. I try very hard to teach my kids that they do not say the word "and" in numbers. The number 467 is four hundred sixty-seven, not four hundred AND sixty-seven. The and means decimal point. I will be teaching that later in the year. It's very hard to teach my kids this when adults all over the place say and in their numbers. Even on videos that are supposed to teach kids, adults say and! Seriously? I hear it all of the time in sports and in other news stories. It's not that difficult. When you deal with money, you say $26 and 15 cents. Why? Because there's a decimal point after the dollar amount. There's no decimal point in the number 529. Do me a favor and say your numbers correctly for your kids sake!

Eating Challenge

I've always wanted to try an eating challenge. I was looking at a menu today of a place that I go to when I'm in Raleigh. It's right across from PNC Arena so it's convenient. I'll be seeing Tom Petty there this Thursday. I will not be trying this challenge for two reasons. One, I'll be incredibly full and feel sick during the concert. Two, it's gross! It's a 2 pound burger with a pound of pork on top, a large amount of slaw on top of that, a pound of fries, and a gallon of sweet tea. The sweet tea kills it for me. I don't like tea. Plus, a gallon of any drink in one hour with that much food is not easy. I would feel soooo sick if I even tried. No thank you! Maybe I'll try another challenge another time.

Special Guest

The afternoon after I taught the kids about 9-11, I got a parent call. Her first words were, "I heard you taught the kids about 9-11." My thoughts were, great, a parent complaint already. "I wish you would have told me. My step father was one of the first responders when the plane crashed in Pennsylvania." She then told me the story. I thought it was so cool! Her step dad emailed me pictures and she came in yesterday and explained the pictures to the kids. Then we got her step dad on speaker phone and he answered the kids questions. The kids weren't very excited just because they still don't understand the significance of 9-11. I was so excited. I had never talked to anyone who played a huge role in the clean up of 9-11. He found the driver's license of one of the hijackers! How crazy is that? That was by far the coolest lesson I've ever given. Too bad I appreciated it more than the kids.

Teaching 9-11

I made the choice to teach my class about September 11 even though I know none of them had been born yet. My logic was simple, I was taught about WW 1, 2 and many other events when I wasn't born yet either. Kids need to know about this horrific event. It was not easy to talk about. It was also very hard for the kids to understand, but they asked some good questions and I thought the lesson went extremely well. Tomorrow, I'll tell you about the exciting aftermath of teaching them about 9-11. Today, I had a special guest talk about the events to the class. More on that tomorrow.

3 Parents

We had curriculum night tonight. That's when we go over what we will be teaching the children all year. It's different than open house because at open house, we typically just give them paperwork and go over our homework policy and stuff like that. All four 4th grade teachers combined in one room to house all of the parents. By all of the parents, I mean the 3 that showed up out of about 80. No, I am not under exaggerating. 3 parents showed up. It was frustrating to put so much work into it when no one showed up. Oh well.

Stories

One of my favorite parts about getting together with my group of teacher friends is the stories we share with one another. Kids will say and do the most hilarious things. Typically at the time it happens, it isn't funny. Later once things are taken care of, it's hilarious. Today, I had a situation that upset me greatly at the time. I called all parents of students involved and hopefully the issue will be resolved. Tonight at dinner, we laughed about it. Clearly I won't share the story here because you would need to hear it in person to understand it. That's one great thing about teaching. There is never a dull moment!

Smoke Detector

We all know that if the battery dies in the smoke detector, it makes a beep noise every minute or so to let you know to change your battery. Not mine! It makes a long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep noise about every 10 seconds. I legit thought there might have been a fire in my house. Once I got to the detector, I couldn't figure out how to take off the back to get the battery out. It took me a minute or two of listening to that obnoxious beep until I finally got it. I better get a battery soon so that I don't wake up dead because the smoke detector didn't alert me that there's a fire in my house.

Chick Fil A

I'm not typically a fast food guy. I much prefer to go out to a sit down dinner. That has changed completely since I moved. I've been to Bojangles, Hardees, Chick Fil A, KFC, Zaxbys, and any other chicken fast food place you can think of far too many times. Today I went to Chick Fil A for one reason. My school was having a fundraiser. A portion of purchases went to my school. That was my excuse for getting fast food today. I helped raise money for my school!

Call Me, Maybe

How do you turn an incredibly awful song into something more bearable? You change the lyrics of course! Last night at about 10 o'clock, I was insanely tired. I was about to go to bed. Then all of a sudden, I decided to try to create a place value song for my students. I started doing this with the song "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce because the lyrics "To the left, to the left" relate to place value. I got a little ways through the song and realized that it was too fast of a song and way too high for me. Then I tried to think of another popular song. That's when "Call Me, Maybe" came to mind. Every kid knows that song. Changing the lyrics to that song wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I look forward to singing it to my kids tomorrow. As a teacher, you can't think about how goofy doing something might make you look. You have to do what's best for the kids. 8 days in and my kids already know I'm strange, so I don't care. Kids learn information easier when they hear it in song form. Let's hope this works!

It's Here!

Football season is back! It's the best time of the year. My Dallas Cowboys are going to be amazing. By amazing, I predict that they will go 3-13. They are going to be awful! I have no expectations for them. Their defense is projected to be 32nd out of 32 teams in the NFL. I'm going to be in for a long season. Whatever, at least football is back.

Perception of Words

It's really funny the difference between "Yes ma'am" or "Yes sir" in the northern states and in the southern states. If I were to say that to my parents, they'd smack me because they would think I was being sarcastic. If a student said that to a teacher, they would get in trouble for the same reason in the north. If you don't say "Yes ma'am" in the south, you will get smacked for being disrespectful. I now use that while teaching. If I am angry at a child and I want a response from them, I expect "Yes sir". It's amazing how moving from one state to another completely changes your views on certain phrases.

Murphy's Law

I'm telling you, I can't catch a break here! Murphy's Law states that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Once something in my apartment is fixed, something else doesn't work. Yesterday my phone decided to not send iMessages or receive them. It also decides to use a lot of data whenever I don't use the phone. That makes sense, right? At least I was able to get on the phone and have it fixed today... for now!

Spider

There has been a spider right outside my door to my apartment every night for at least a month now. If I go out and come back at night, he is there in his web. The thing is huge! When it's day time, I see him on the ceiling sleeping in his web. Each morning when I leave for work, he is either still chilling in the middle of the air, or he is working his way back up to bed. What a simple life he lives. One day I'll take some spray and kill him. But for now, he's shockingly not bothering me so I'll let him be.

Recess

Up until today, I have never seen a group of kids want to go inside for recess! It was about 95° outside this afternoon. I know when I was in New York it never got that high. However, I still find it shocking that kids would want to go inside and do work instead of go outside for recess. I still held my ground and kept them outside because they don't realize that that time is also my break from teaching. It's going to be hot and stormy the rest of the week. Maybe it will rain tomorrow and the kids will have to stay inside. Then they will want to go out.

Tom Durkin

I'm sure that many people reading this post have no idea who Tom Durkin is. I of course do because I have an obsession with horse racing. I know you didn't know that. Tom Durkin was the track announcer at Saratoga for 24 years. He retired yesterday. He announced at tracks all over the nation in his 40+ year career. He is known as the best track announcer ever. He has such passion and enthusiasm when he calls races. He can be hilarious while calling too. I could give you many famous quotes from him but you wouldn't laugh unless you heard them on YouTube.He is one of the reasons I love horse racing so much. He will be greatly missed!

Best Month Yet

Well, that makes 9 months in a row with over 100 book sales each month! I sold a personal best 195 books this month! That's an average of almost 6.3 books a day. Incredible. I hit 1,000 sales at the end of January this year. I have a very good chance of getting to over 2,000 by the end of the year! Words cannot describe how thrilled I am with how my books are selling. I have no explanation for it. Thank you to everyone who has supported me and bought books! I am so thankful!

Air

As most of you know, I try to save money any way I can. I try not to turn my air on too often when it's hot. This week has been the exception. It's been over 90 everyday. Last night, I had the air on and it didn't cool off the apartment at all. Today, I had the air on and again it hasn't cooled off the apartment even though I feel air coming out. It must be broken because I did switch the filter. I don't have a digital thermostat, I have the old school one. It won't go past 90 degrees and that's where the meter is at! I called a company and they said they are not allowed to come over without Prudential's (the company I rent from) permission. I can't got a hold of them until Tuesday because of the long weekend. I just have my ceiling fans running on full blast and I'll have to deal with that until then.

Bus Ride

I was in for a real treat this afternoon. My principal wanted each of us to ride on one of the buses one time during the first 2 weeks of school to help control the kids on the bus and make sure they get to where they needed to be. I signed up for today since it was the first day available to me when the sign up sheet came to me. I know it's a Friday but I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. When I got to the bus, the driver told me he didn't need me but I went on anyway so I wouldn't get in trouble by administration. The bus was hotter than hot and I had to sit with 2 kids. It was Friday before a 3 day weekend and it was loud! I didn't do anything to help the driver. I just sat there. Then he wouldn't let a kid off without his parent being there so we had to drive around for a few minutes waiting for the parent. The bus ride was only about 20 minutes but that's something I'd rather not do again.

Endurance

It's very hard to get back into 5-day work weeks. I know, I know, you don't want to hear about me having the entire summer off. Either way, the exhaustion hit me today at about 12:30 so much that my kids were asking me if I was ok. All I was doing was stretching my body and yawning to stay awake. Apparently, I look weird while doing that. I don't know. I was only at school for almost 11 hours today. There's just so much to post on the walls, clean up, create, etc. on a daily basis at the beginning of the year that it requires me to be at school for longer. My 11 hour days should end soon though. Thank God tomorrow is Friday and I have a 3 day weekend!

Wednesday Dinners

There's a group of 6 of us, all teachers, who became close friends throughout last year. A couple of weeks ago, we decided that we need to start rotating going to someone's house for dinner every week. We decided to do Wednesday nights because it is hump day, it gives us something to look forward to each week, and it will get us through the next two work days. We started tonight at my apartment. I made a hamburger helper-like dish. It's hamburger browned up, elbow macaroni, mix them together with tomato soup and some spices. It's delicious if I do say so myself. I also made chocolate peanut butter ice cream pie. I found the recipe on Pinterest. MMMMMMM. We had a great time. I'm already looking forward to next weeks! Of course I would look forward to food!

1st Day

I survived my first day! Man am I tired! I did a lot of talking with rules and expectations and luckily the kids did not! That's a far cry from last years kids. They were very quiet, polite, and friendly. I know that it's only because it was the first day. I'm sure their true selves will come to life once school really gets underway. However, I definitely love my group of kids already and can tell they will be a lot of fun. I just need to keep going over the rules and expectations of all routines and procedures. Once it is drilled into their heads, behavior problems should be kept to a minimum. I had 18 of my 22 kids show up. We have high military turnover, so there is a good chance that those 4 won't show up and that I'll get many new ones throughout the year. That is going to be one of many challenges I will face this year. It's going to be one interesting and exhausting year!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day I've been waiting for since 6th grade. It is my first day as an elementary school teacher. Yes, I officially started in January of this year. However, I consider this the start of my career because I felt like a long term substitute last year. Also, I get to start at the beginning of the year so I can set the tone right away. I am very excited, but incredibly nervous. I'm not sure why I'm so nervous. I have had more support already this year than I had all of last year combined. I have substitute taught many times and have watched many teachers teach. I think I'm so nervous because I lack confidence in my classroom management. I need to show confidence because I know the kids will eat me up if they see the nerves coming from me. I'm not going to sleep tonight so that won't help tomorrow morning. We will see how it goes tomorrow and go from there!

Disc Golf

I went to a friends house this weekend to do a fantasy football draft. Yesterday, he took me to a place to play disc golf. I knew he had played it. I never have. It is exactly what it sounds like. You throw a disc into a basket in as few shots as possible. It was pretty fun. It was also free! However, you have to buy the discs. I would definitely play it again, but wouldn't buy the discs and make a hobby of it.

Gas Pump Lock

How lazy are we as Americans? Or, is this just another way to multitask? In New York, it was against the law to put something in the pump to hold down the lever to pump gas hands free. In North Carolina, they have a mechanism in the pump to lock it in place. I didn't know this until a month or two ago because I was so used to not being allowed to do it. I love it because now I can clean my windows while pumping gas. I always hate standing there waiting for the gas to pump because I don't have patience. Now I don't have to worry about it.

School Tools

School Tools is an overpriced store full of teacher school supplies. There is a store similar to this close to where I used to live in New York. It wasn't called School Tools, but it was the same thing. This store sells your typical school supplies like pencils, crayons, markers, paper, notebooks, stickers, etc. You don't get those type of supplies there though because you can get them much, much cheaper at Wal Mart or Staples. The store is known for the teacher supplies that you can't get anywhere else besides catalogs. They sell motivational quote posters, maps, globes, alphabet borders, name tags, common core books, manipulatives, and all sorts of other neat stuff. I went there today and the place was packed for two reasons: it's near the start of the school year and they give 10% off on Wednesday's. I spent much more than I anticipated but it's okay because I will get all of that back!

Laminator

A laminator is the most popular machine for teachers at the beginning of the year. It's a machine that you use to protect your worksheets or construction paper. It melts two pieces of plastic together on either side of the sheet. I've had to wait in line a lot for this machine all week. I was able to sneak in a few sheets during break today. Naturally when I needed it later, it was broken. I have several more things I need to laminate. I hope someone fixes it for when I get to school tomorrow afternoon after my all day workshop. I heard I could go to a store and pay to laminate, but I'm sure that will cost a lot. There is not enough time in a day to do everything I need to do!!!!!

Passport

I've had my passport for 10 years already! I got it in 2004 for my trip to Germany. Unfortunately now that it has been 10 years, it's about to expire. It's annoying that I have to spend like $125 to renew it. Since I go on 42398 cruises, I better renew it. I printed out the application to do so. It's just sitting in my room. I'll do it eventually. I'm just trying to survive the first few weeks of school. Once things die down, then maybe I'll spend more money because that's what I love doing oh so much.

Thirsty

Have you ever had a day where no matter how much you drink, you're still thirsty? That's me today. I have had so much water and powerade today on this 90° humid day and I am still thirsty. If I keep drinking, I'll be up all night going to the bathroom. You have to stay hydrated on days like this when I sweat by breathing. I stepped outside at 10 this morning to go shopping and I sweat! On a side note, I spent another $25 on school supplies at the Dollar Tree today. Three teacher friends and I went in and it was like Christmas morning for us because they had some awesome supplies for teachers and the Dollar Tree is now the only dollar store where everything really is a dollar. I found bulletin board borders that I will use that would have cost probably $5 a piece at the store specifically designed for teachers that I'll be going to sometime this week. Who says the dollar store doesn't sell good stuff?

$150

One good thing about my new school is that they are allowing me to spend $150 on school supplies and then I will get the money back. I have to bring the secretary my receipts. I've spent about $40 already. I need to do some more shopping next week once I get a better idea of what I need. I already have 482390393 and a half pencils, high lighters, permanent markers, crayons, paper, notebooks, folders, etc. I think I'll be buying stuff for bulletin boards and maybe some more decorative stuff. Since I'm a guy, I don't have a decorative bone in my body. But I have to make my room look pretty for the parents and kids when they come in Friday!

Ice Bucket Challenge

It amazes me that one person starts something on social media and then it becomes huge. The ice bucket challenge is that you either have to dump ice water over your head, or donate to a charity for ALS. We should all be donating to ALS instead of dumping water on our heads, but most people are just dumping water on their heads. There are many people that are dumping water on their heads and donating, which is awesome. My brother nominated me to do the challenge a few days ago and I declined. Yesterday, another friend nominated me and a few friends begged me to do it. So I decided to dump water on my head. It was pretty fun actually. I unfortunately did not donate money to ALS. Maybe next time.

Door Prizes

At the end of orientation today, they gave away door prizes. They gave us each one ticket and called numbers. All of the prizes were gift cards to various local and chain restaurants. They made a huge mistake. They didn't call my number! Since I'm so cheap, I was really hoping to get a gift card to whatever restaurant. Oh well. I'm glad orientation is over! I start workshops in my school on Monday!

So Much Information

I just finished my second day of 1st year teacher orientation. Since I have under 6 months of teaching experience, I have to go to these orientations. Some of the sessions are dreadfully boring. Others have been pretty decent. The website on my district page has an insane amount of resources for all subjects. It's incredible. I spent yesterday and today downloading many documents from this website because I know I will have to use it. At least I have gotten some useful information from these sessions.

Hush Puppies

Here I go talking about food again. Hush Puppies are a classic southern side dish. They are absolutely amazing. It's basically a fried dough ball. It's much more flavorful than fried dough because it's made with corn meal and other spices. Hush Puppies are what made today's first year teacher orientation bearable. Well, not really. Today was my first day of three teacher orientations. It lasted all day long and it was basically a bunch of people telling us their names and welcoming us to the district, because I'm going to remember those names and go to them for help. Ugh, I would have much rather spent the day in my classroom preparing it since I won't have time next week!

RIP Robin Williams

Actor Robin Williams passed away today at the age of 63 from an apparent suicide. My friend texted me this information and I was shocked. He was a comedic genius. One of my favorite movies of all time, Mrs. Doubtfire stars Robin Williams. He has a list of great movies such as Jack, Patch Adams, Aladdin, and many more. There were some movies he was in that I didn't like such as Flubber and Jumanji. Overall though, he was an incredible actor and comedian. I'm sure many kids don't even know who Robin Williams was. If you don't, go watch Mrs. Doubtfire and I guarantee you that you will laugh. I'm sad that there will be no more movies featuring Robin Williams.

New School Year

Tuesday is the official start of my new school year. Since I have less than 6 months of teaching experience, I have to go to first year orientation Tuesday through Thursday. That will be very exciting... At least I get paid for it! I plan on going to my school tomorrow to start setting up my classroom. I'm very nervous about having my own classroom for the first time at the start of the year. I just have to be firm with my classroom management and consistent. Piece of cake, right?

Food

As I'm sure you have figured out by now, my life revolves around food. I love food and eat a lot of it. Cruises are known to have amazing food. We stayed at a hotel in Fort Lauderdale before we went on the ship. They gave us food vouchers so we could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner there. The food was terrible. Our "dessert" was pudding. The food had no flavor and the selection was abysmal. I was able to stomach most of it and eat a lot because I have no self control when it comes to buffets. Before we got on the ship, we had to choose where we were going to eat both nights. One night we chose a sit down restaurant and the other was I believe a buffet. We didn't make it to the sit down the first night because we were busy with, um, exploring other things the ship had to offer. The second day, my friend said that we had to go to the nice restaurant for the $30 dinner because he needed a good meal. I didn't argue there even though I hate spending money because I was less than pleased with the food too. Even at the Bahamas for our all inclusive beach day the buffet at that hotel was dreadful. The $30 meal however, was amazing! We each had the 9 ounce Filet Mignon. I kid you not when I say it was one of the best steaks I have ever had in my life. It was juicy, tender, moist, and cooked to perfection. I was so full from the other food but forced myself to eat all of the steak because I didn't want it to go to waste and it was that good. Even though the food besides the meal we paid for was terrible, I ate way too much of it and I'm sure I gained a ridiculous amount of weight.

Timeshare

I would love to never hear the word timeshare again. Part of our vacation package required us to go to a timeshare meeting. We were told it would take 2 hours tops. We were in that building for 6 hours! These people would not take no for an answer. They started with a high offer and went down incredibly low. We made the mistake of telling them we are financially stable. They had 5 different people attempt to persuade us to buy a timeshare. We heard quotes like..."Which offer will you buy today?", "You are stupid if you turn this offer down", and "You are so much better and smarter than all of the people around you." I cannot tell you how many times they asked us why we weren't buying a timeshare. They clearly saw how uncomfortable we were. They knew they could keep us there forever since they had our cruise voucher. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I will probably never buy a timeshare strictly because of my unpleasant experience. If you are interested in buying a timeshare, please do a lot of research and ask many people who own timeshares to see if it is worth it for you and your needs. If you don't, you can easily get hosed for a lot of money. I will not be recommending timeshares to anyone.

Interesting Vacation

I just got back from Fort Lauderdale. I went there on Sunday and stayed until Tuesday. Then I went on a cruise ship on Tuesday and got back today. It was the most unique vacation of my life for many reasons. I will get into much more detail tomorrow. Right now, I'm cleaning up my laundry and going to bed. I'm very sleep deprived.

Fantasy Football

I believe this will be my 9th year of doing fantasy football already! I remember when my younger brother started it up. It was $20 to get in, which I thought was way too much. I also thought I wasn't going to like it at all. I was wrong on both accounts. $20 is nothing and I love fantasy football! I now do it for $100. It's a 5 month investment so at least if I lose the money, it takes a long time to lose. I love drafting the players and following how they do each week. My draft is three weeks from tomorrow and I am already a step ahead of last year. I actually bought a magazine and have done some research. I'm going on vacation tomorrow and plan on reading the magazine some more during my flights and my time on the beach! The football season cannot start soon enough!

My Apartment

I've lived in my apartment for 6 months already. There are still a few pictures and stuff I haven't hung up. I just bought a bookcase two days ago for all the junk I brought back from New York. I started filling it up this afternoon. My guest bedroom is still a mess of stuff thrown all over the floor. A lot of stuff on that floor is school supplies. I'm just looking for something to store it in over the summer and something that's easy to bring to school during the school year. Me leaving junk all over is just pure laziness. I'm sure if I had a house I wouldn't wait this long to hang stuff up and put things away.

8 Months

Last November, I sold 61 books. Then all of a sudden, my book sales exploded in December and I sold 148. I have no explanation for how that happened. Ever since then, I have sold well over 100 books a month for 8 months in a row! I believe my lowest total since December is 124 or somewhere around there. That's incredible for the "advertising" I do. I don't do any advertising whatsoever. I know I should, but I don't. They have this new promotion on Amazon called Kindle Unlimited something for $10 a month. That allows you to borrow unlimited amount of books a month. This started like 2 weeks ago. I have seen a huge increase in borrows since this promotion has happened. That's awesome for me because now I'll make more money! As I've said many times before, I'm blown away at how many books I have sold since my first book came out in July 2012.

Dog in Apartment

I had a few friends over tonight. One asked if he could bring his new puppy to my apartment. My original thought was no way. Then I said that he could and we would leave him in the kitchen. Naturally the puppy busted through the boxes barricade and was all over my apartment. Whatever. Then the puppy decides to pee on my carpet less than a foot away from the tiled floor a few minutes before my friend left. I used to love dogs. I begged my parents to get me one. Now I'm such a germaphobe that I don't like them around. That's what I get for allowing the dog to come over.

Flying vs. Driving

I'm not sure which one is better. I live about 700 miles away. I purposely make the drive in 2 days because I have friends and family in Virginia which is almost exactly the halfway point. I'm not sure which one is cheaper. I can typically fly round trip for about $400. When I drive, I have to fill up 2 or 3 times for about $60 each time. Then there are an insane amount of tolls that probably cost about $50-75. It's cheaper, but much more stressful to drive. The traffic from accidents and construction is so annoying and stressful. It took me 8 hours to get somewhere that should have taken 6 yesterday. Today wasn't as bad. I drove 330 miles in 5 hours and 20 minutes without stopping once, which is rare because my bladder is small. Flying is stressful because you have to go through security and then wait forever on the plane, then wait forever for your bags. I've thought about driving from NC to NY in one day, but then I get stuck and traffic and think twice about it. I should have booked my flight for December a few weeks ago before the prices went up! If I fly home, I don't have my car, but it is much quicker to get home. There are definitely pros and cons to driving and flying home.

Parallel Parking

I cannot stand parallel parking. When I drive somewhere, I try my hardest to avoid parallel parking. I just went to my friends apartment in Albany. I had to park on the street. Luckily there weren't too many cars parked there so I didn't have to worry about parallel parking. I'm not sure how I passed my driver's test because the first attempt at parallel parking I was very far away from the curb. That's one of the main reasons I refuse to live in the city. My driving isn't good enough!

Stuff

It's amazing how much stuff I have accumulated throughout the years. When I moved in January, I only took my car. There was only so much I could bring. When I came home in April, I flew, so I couldn't bring anything home. Now that I have my car, my mom wants me to take everything that's still in my room with me. I don't want half of the things she's giving me. That means I'll just throw them out when I get home in North Carolina. I've already started loading my car and there isn't much room for much more. I still have a few boxes to put in there! I'm sure most of the stuff I'm bringing back will just collect dust in my second bedroom now instead of collecting dust in my parents house. Oh well!

Weddings

Weddings are always a ton of fun. I just got back from a friends wedding. The church service was much longer than I'm used to at a wedding. It was a service in addition to the vows. It lasted over an hour and 20 minutes. The reception was at a country club. It was beautiful! The cocktail hour had a buffet in itself. After that, we got two meats, a twice baked potato, and veggies for dinner. We had chicken francaise and chateaubriand, which is a delicious and very expensive cut of steak. There were over 200 people at this wedding. They even had fireworks! The worst part was that the server put my dessert at my spot and when I came back after dancing, it was gone! How can they take away food from a fat man? I wasn't pleased with that. Other than that, it was one of the fanciest weddings I've ever been to. I can't imagine how much the bride and her family paid for this!

Maiden Races

I went to the track yesterday and shockingly came back with much more money than I came in with. I don't typically bet maiden races. A maiden race is for horses who have not won. They are hard to handicap because a lot of them are first time starters. Even if they aren't, how can you predict a horse who hasn't won to win? I put down an exacta box bet on a maiden race yesterday just to have rooting interest. An exacta is a bet that means the horses you bet on have to come in 1st and 2nd. I boxed the bet so they could come in any order. My bet was $2 exacta box on 1-4. So it can come in 1-4 or 4-1. It just cost me $4. Towards the end of the race, I didn't think one of my horses was going to make it. Then all of a sudden, it came flying down the stretch and my horses came in 1st and 2nd and I cashed in for $148. That was my big win that allowed me to be up a lot for the day yesterday!