Gyro

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

Notes

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

The Brain

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

Filing Taxes

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

Positivity

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

Dress Up Routine

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

Pizza

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