Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tuesday Morning Confidence

I just had a great interaction with a co-worker.  For those of you who work/have worked at my school, I'll give you one guess who he is... :)

Co-worker:  You look old today.
Me: Wow, thanks. I'm not sure that's considered a compliment.
Co-worker: Well it's true.  You look old.  Yesterday you didn't.
Me: Well thanks (insert heavily sarcastic tone).
Co-worker: Yesterday I'd say you looked like you were 21. Today it's more like 32.
Me:  Sorry for the confusion. I'll be sure to never wear this outfit or my hair like this again.
Co-worker:  Okay, have a nice day!

Men.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Notes from substitutes

One of my "favorite" parts of coming back from an absence as a teacher is reading what the substitute had to stay about my students.  In the past week and a half, I've had 6 substitute days.  SIX!  That's a lot!  I've had all sorts of meetings, conferences, and...oh ya...an amazingly fun trip to Orlando (more details to come).

When I came in this morning, I had all sorts of great notes from the substitutes.

Here are some favorites...

"Not many of the kids were good.  ______ and ______ were especially obnoxious."

One sub had my students write notes to me about what happened in class.  Here are some of the notes (with their same spelling)...

"My friends and I were throwing pencils at each other.  The sub took us into custidy"
 "I only goofed off a tad bit."
"The other guys were goofing off, and they blamed me so I got sckrewed."

And my favorite from a sub yesterday...

"Please dock points, take away free time, give extra homework or whatever you can to punish this class.  They were terribly rude and disrespectful, especially ______, ______, and ______.  Well, too many to name, actually.  I had to yell and make them sit quietly the last 10 minutes, after a talk on respect.  So when they say, 'That sub was mean!', they would be right."

A note to my #1 sub, Brittany:  I love the notes you leave.  Don't worry...the kids you named were the same ones the other subs left notes about.  Was I surprised that they were on the list? No.  It's been a wild term with them.  They're being taken care of today by the administration.  :) And I love when you leave notes about listening to Celine Dion.  I'm sure the kids loved it!  And thank you for leaving positive comments.  I don't feel like as much of a failure as a teacher when I know that some of them are good.  :)

Thursday, October 6, 2011

About 3 more weeks!

Remember how I'm running the Halloween Half Marathon?  It's in 3 weeks from Saturday!
I've never been a runner.  I never thought I would be.  In fact, my friend Carie says she remembers me once saying that I would never run a 5k.  I wouldn't say that I am one of those die hard runners like my friend Heather who wins these things. But I've been doing quite a bit of running lately, and it's been a fun new adventure!  It's also been a good "outlet" as I've powered through some rough past couple of months.  When I'm having a hard day, nothing's more therapeutic than running out my frustrations.

A lot of people say, "Slow and steady wins the race."

Well, that's not always true, but at least it finishes the race, right?
 
I'm so slow.

I run slower than 1-15 traffic in Utah County construction on a Friday afternoon before a BYU football game.
  
Now that is SLOW!

I'll probably have an 11 minute mile on this half marathon.

But...