Hi again.

I just had a really important realization: it’s not that people are doing such special things with their lives. It’s that they are finding special things in what they do. 

So my rainy soul miasma doesn't come from me not doing something special with my life; it’s that I refuse to acknowledge that my life is special. 

With that in mind, I am going to try harder to reflect on each day for the foreseeable future and find the meaning in it. 

That being said, today I started back to school--teaching, not taking. Chatham starts again on August 26th, so I have some time. Today was the start of the Freshman Academy Success Academy, which is 8 days of acclimation for the kids coming into ninth grade. (On a side note, I love my job, and I am really happy that they moved me to ninth grade English. Wonderful!) 

The day started with a welcome presentation in the Auditorium. Two boys in the row in front of me-one that is rather nondescript, and one that has a Green Hat--have cell phones out- I give them a few seconds to exit out of apps and put them away, but of course, they don't. I went over to them and tell them to put them away. And I tried to smile while I did  it, but I'm self conscious about whether or not I look psycho or just inviting. They do put the phones away, though, and there was minimal lip about it, so I chalked it up as a win. A few minutes later, I noticed another boy, K (as we'll find out soon enough) had his cell phone out, on his lap, kind of hidden under his shirt, but not really. It looked like he is preparing to do something with it; he's trying to be sneaky, maybe, but maybe not? I leaned in. 

"Put that away," I stage whispered, realizing I'm pointing to his crotch as I do it. I wait for him to be snarky, but he isn't, to his credit. 

"What?" He asks. 

"The cell phone. Put it away." I gestured again. 

"Jeez, ok. Calm down." He slowly put it in his back pocket. 

Normally, telling me to calm down is the best way to rile me up (just ask a few from last year). I think about getting snarky back, but I don't, and put my stupid smile on again. 

I spend the rest of the time trying to get Green Hat boy to pay attention and stop talking and the two girls around K to stop talking. I look longingly at the back of the auditorium a few times. I scream "CR!" when the athletic director yells "WE ARE" to get the kids pumped up. The two girls and K look at me funny. 

When the students came to the classroom after the presentations, K walked in to mine, meaning it is 95% likely have him this year. (I'm suddenly glad that I didn't snark at him earlier.) I gave the kids a thought exercise (they are going on a year-long trip to mars, and they have a 13 member crew. They have to decide which four people to send back to Earth, and explain why). The discussion was really fun, and at the end we had about ten minutes left. Throughout the course of the period I had been trying to be upbeat and chill (for example, one of the groups said they would bring a 24 year old,beautiful, intelligent woman with a drug problem on the Mars trip. Their reasoning? "She'll be easy to take advantage of since she'll need drugs." Rather than flip the eff out on them and kick them out of class, I talked them through why that was so incredibly inappropriate.) I gave the kids the extra time to ask me questions about the high school, and classes, and all that jazz. 

When their questions petered off, I took some quick surveys--who read the summer books, who liked it, who would consider themselves an "English" person, etc--and K asked if they had had to read the summer books. 

"Because I didn't read mine. Well, I read the title page. I mean, what are we going to do with them?" 

I smiled when he said he didn't even read it, so he relaxed a bit, I think. I told them I wasn't sure what exactly we were doing with the books for the year. 

"It's OK that you don't like to read, K. Not everyone is an English person. I'm not a math person. I try to structure things--I mean, it is high school, and so you will have to read something--but you remind me of a girl last year who said, 'Ms. B, I haven't read a book yet and I'm not going to this year, either.' At the end of the year she held out a book that she choose and said, 'Ms. B, I read this, and I read it for you.' So, you know, hopefully you'll find something you like and you'll read that this year, and it'll be a good class for you. But it's OK if you don't like English. I don't mind." (I was rambly). 

K told me about a book he did read last year, although he can't remember the title or anything about it (he was under pressure, so that's OK). He ended it with, 

"Yeah, well, I think I'll like English this year. It always depends so much on the teacher, you know?" 

And I got all warm and fuzzy inside. He thinks I'm a cool teacher already! Yay! (World: remind me of this when K and I are inevitably SCREAMING it out during research paper season) :-D 

I saw Green Hat a few times throughout the day, too, and he was either mocking me by saying hi and pretending to be friendly or he thinks I really like him because I yelled at him a lot during the presentations. I'm not sure which...

I saw a girl writing at lunch instead of eating, and told her about creative writing club (which I just typed as creative wiring club. They might become sister clubs in the future...). She was literally speechless for a second, and then bumbled all her words in excitement. I also helped her open her locker later. 

So, three people that think I'm OK: at least one that I made really happy, and two that seem to like me that might not have if I had given into my more cranky tendencies. A good count for the day. 

Bonus story!: Today, as the kids were getting their stuff in the cafeteria, a bat came out of nowhere and dive bombed my assistant principal. The girls were screaming! No idea what happened to the bat. When asked if it was a bird by a student, I told her yes it was. 

"A nocturnal bird. With leathery wings." 

I mean, I can't go cold turkey on the sarcasm! 

Best part of the day: A tie between a bat bearing down on my boss in the cafeteria and K telling me he thinks he's going to like English this year. 

Quote of the day: 

Me: Think about what you are going to say before you say it. If you wouldn't say it in front of your grandmother, don't say it in my classroom. 

Kid: But my grandmother's weird...Ok, I'll think as I speak! 

Me: *Evil Glare with half smile smirk.*

Kid: Ok, before I speak. 

Me: There you go! *hopefully not psychotic grin.*  

Song for today: School's out for summ...oh, wait. Sorry! 

Ow.

So, I have a garage. YAY! Unfortunalty, it is manual, so as I was closing it today, I accidentally grabbed a seam and smashed three of my fingers. Silly me, I kept pulling the darn thing down even after I was in pain, because I didn't realize what was going on. Sigh.

I just mowed my lawn for the first time EVER. I did it mostly for the neighbors. It wasn't pretty. Melissa had to come down to turn the darn thing on for me, and she stayed with the dogs (hers and sadie) while I did the mowing. Sadie was terrified. It was cute!

So, I've been in the new house with a working phone for about 24 hours. I've already had 3 junk calls, all trying to get me to buy something. Sigh.

School has been going well. I'm in a science classroom tomorrow and Monday. That will be fun. At least it isn't math!

I'm off to DC tomorrow, to watch Wicked with Mr. Sean Meloy. Wheee!

Chatham was wonderful. I have some writing to do for next Friday, and I'm hoping to get a lot of that done tonight. I'm so excited. I have my loans, and I'm ready to go!

:)

So, OMG my life!

Hey all!

So, here's what happened! I was going to be moving in to my duplex next week, and Mom was going to come back down and we were going to set up my house. I was going to start the Success Academy on August 8th, and be ready for school.

And then I got accepted to Chatham!

So, here's what's going on with my life now.

I am still moving next week, on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday. Daddio is coming up to help me move, and then maybe we will hit the beach? I am now going to be going home to Pittsburgh with him to start my residency, which is a fancy way of saying that I am going to be in classes for 10 days for 12 hours a day. Luckily, I will be taking classes from August 1-August 8; I'm leaving on the 8th to come right back to Delaware to start the Success Academy. So, I'm missing a little bit of both things, but I'm really happy to get Chatham started ASAP. I'm going to DC to see Wicked! on August 12, and then I come back for a second week of the Success Academy. Then we have two days of inservice, and school starts.

I went to set up my class room today, and tomorrow I've got a meeting with the Freshman Academy English Department. I'm going to spend whatever time I've got trying to clean and finish packing --which is mostly done due to my awesome momma coming down and helping me pack--and then chilling in the +110 heat index.

Speaking of: Sadie got really angry today that we weren't going outside. It was in the 100s (heat index wise) so I did not want to take her on walks or leave her outside for any extended period of time. I would put her on her leash and let her out; she would cry almost immediately to come back in, but she would run down the stairs to her little spot and act like she was going to do her business. I did this about three times this afternoon. She still peed in my bedroom. TWICE. I was quite upset with her. Here's hoping tomorrow goes better, since it is supposed to be even hotter. Ugh.

That's about it for now. Momma and I had a great time going to Cape May via the ferry on Monday, and we had two very nice beach days while she was here. Check out my picasa link on facebook for more info!

Ciao! - b

I can has house plz? k thnx.

https://picasaweb.google.com/e.l.blumer/MyNewHouse

I stalk people on facebook and found this blog and I love this post.

You should too!

http://themonicabird.com/post/3273155431/date-a-girl-who-reads-date-a-girl-who-spends-her

Long time, no see!

Hi all!

It has been a while since a real update, so here goes!

1. School. It's going alright. This last week off was a Godsend. The week after such a late Easter is not a good time for a Spring Break. The musical is over (obviously). See "Drama!" down below for an update on that. We are preparing for a huge round of state testing now, and there are only 7 weeks of school left, if even that many. Our last day is June 16th; I will be leaving straight away for Turkeyfest '11, and then I unfortunately have to come straight back for training for the Freshman Academy. This brings us to the Freshman Academy! Things are going really well with planning for this. I am extremely excited. Nothing is official-official yet, as I haven't technically interviewed for my job, but I'm all prepared to apply and go through the process. Meanwhile, I'm still taking part in all of the prep work for the academy: we are planning curriculum, having professional development days where we learn how to teach in 90 minute blocks, and generally planning ourselves out for next year. As I'm sure you can imagine, I'm thrilled! This is so much fun!

2. Drama: The musical is over, and in case I didn't mention it, my title was "Assistant to the Director," which made me feel very Dwight. No one else seeems to think this is funny. I had "An Evening of One Acts," to which we got about 90 people. The first night, we had 8? I think? Anyway, it was three nights of audience-induced torture, but the kids did amazing. My drama III kids directed a show each, and I had one student do a monologue. They all really pulled it together and did some amazing work. Now the only not-class-related thing I have to do is Thespian inductions on the 14th; it is going to be torture for me. I'll sit in the school for 7 hours while the kids run everything. Originally, this started at 7:00 AM and went until 9:00 PM. When I said that I could not imagine that they are doing worthwhile things for 14 hours, I got mean stares and lots of attitude. So, I told them I would open the school at 11, and I wanted to be out of there by 9:00. apparently, I get to sit in the auditorium and watch movies on the big screen for the day. We've had three meetings about this so far, and I have not seen a whole lot to make me feel confident. At least after this I am done with extra curriculars. In terms of class, things aren't going so well. My drama 1s have essentially stopped trying, which is making me insane. My drama 2s were writing a play, but they decided they couldn't and I was unwilling to let one person write the whole show. Drama 3 and 4 are done with their jobs, so I don't know what to do with those kids. And please, let's just not talk about stage tech. The sooner we're done with this year, the better.

3. General Life: I've decided to go back to school for an MFA in creative writing from Chatham. It's a low-residency program, which means I get to do it online. It sounds AMAZING. I'm in the process of building up the confidence to e-mail professors that I had 4-5 years ago and ask for recommendation letters, as the committee wants recs about my writing. I have 5 really good rec letters, but they mostly discuss my teaching ability. So, I am trying to decide how to approach these e-mails. I'm tempted to send a picture of myself, and the papers that I wrote for them to help jog some memory. Would that be inappropriate?

I'm also looking for a new apartment, preferably on the second floor with a balcony and free heat for the winter. I was wandering the apartment today and realizing I'm going to have to pack up everything again soon, and that makes me really really sad. I think I'm going to have a packing party: I get lots of food and booze and bribe my friends here to come and help me pack it all up. *cheezy thumbs up grin.* I cannot see that not working.

4. Health: I'm OK health wise, except for my left knee. It has been bothering me A LOT for a while, and I'm going to an orthopedist on Friday. I'll keep you updated! My biggest fear is that I'm going to have to get surgery or something and then I won't be able to walk well for a while and Sadie will hate me cause of short walks and how will I get around all by my lonesome and lions and tigers and bears oh my! ;)

5. Sadie: Sadie is still a sweetie. In a wonderful show of solidarity, Sadie's back left knee keeps popping out of alignment, so we'll be on a walk and she'll start being a hopper, just sort of bouncing along as she lifts her back leg to give her knee a break. According to the vet, this is pretty normal for little dogs, and I should be giving her daily vitamin supplements to help her knee stay strong. I firmly believe that my dog already eats better than I do, so rather than pills I give her special doggie treats for joints. She hates them.

That's my life in a nutshell, people. I was supposed to get my hair cut today, but my lady has strep throat. I might head down to the mall anyway, just for some human contact, but we'll see what happens. Until I make up my mind, I'm going to read "A Raisin in the Sun," which I start teaching on Monday, and then watch some more Leverage or other equally awesome show on Netflix. Oh, for all you instant queuers out there, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is only available until Friday, so watch it again now! :-D

Ciao! -Bethie

6. Anything else?

Another choice, and I like it!

http://www.liveatfriendshipvillage.com/default.asp