"wheeeoooooo wheeeeeooooo"

we had our first fire drill today.  it consisted of john blowing an absurdly loud whistle, 
zach yelling "wheeee - ooo, wheeeee - oooo" and cody yelling things like "hurry up, seniors burn 
faster!" and "you're wearing an apron with paint on it, those burn faster!"  while all of the students walked outside grinning because they were out of class.  

and because it was friday.
fridays are nice because everyone is so exhausted from the week that no one makes any trouble in class :-p  or at least not in my class...

8th period on a friday with seniors.  now there is a low energy class.  it's like i'm paddling the chemistry canoe through molasses.

in other news, my car decided that all of the new parts it got this summer weren't enough and so it would have to start drinking power steering fluid like koolaid again.  i am not paying another $600.  i am investing in a large bottle of power steering koolaid.  cheers.

"she makes the blood flow through my veins"

I just watched the first few minutes of Deal or No Deal and I had to stop.  the first contestant
introduced himself by saying that he was 43, he lived with his parents, he loves barbara streisand 
(see above quote) and he has a 13 pound chihuahua.  wow.  i hope he wins.

some days school just doesn't go.  today i taught metric conversions on the fly to my physics kids.  
i was planning on talking about speed and velocity.  i knew i was in trouble when i asked, "how
many meters are in a kilometer?" and they stared blankly.  i thought i was asking a semi-rhetorical question.  so then i had to whip up a lesson on converting between metric units.  how
do you get to 11th grade and not know how many meters are in a kilometer?  argh.  my 8th graders know!

yesterday one of my favorite...ok, i won't lie...my favorite...8th grade boy--the one who is approximately4 feet tall, has a personality three times that size, and claims he will one day achieve NBA stardom--had the following conversation (monologue? he talks a lot) in my class:
"man, aaron grows facial hair so fast!  i had one on my chin and i was pulling it to try to make it longer, and i pulled it out!"
i love him to pieces.

awake

 i fell asleep on my notebook last night trying to plan a lesson on metric units.  it was 9:30.  then i woke up and just went to bed and got up early.  and i need to do that more often because for some reason i work really well at 5am.  why do i never learn this?  everytime i do this i act like i'm surprised that i didn't die.  i suppose maybe it's true...early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy wealty and wise....or... early to rise early to bed makes a man healthy but socially dead.

hah.

i'm playing the piano for worship this morning.  three verses of amazing grace.  i am not quite sure how it's going to go...hah.  good news:  i no longer play like i have webbed fingers.  bad news: i can't consistently play without stumbling over at least a few notes.  ah, well, i suppose it really doesn't matter...as long as i play it well enough for people to sing along...and make my mistakes confidently...:-p

i should go to bed right now...

but instead i am going to join the great and mysterious world of blogging.  i've thought of my life as 
a story for a long time...maybe more like a series of episodes.  hm.  yeah, something like that.  so,
for better or for worse, i guess i might as well write about it, because usually it makes me laugh.

like today, i definitely had an extended im conversation with melissa, while she was in the next room,
and it was hilarious.  it included me inviting her to listen to the relevant podcast with me (apparently
we can't listen alone...) and her responding with:
"if you can wait a minute i'll gather up some beads, a herd of elk, my crochet hook, and my pink lemonade and high tail it over there"

i found it amusing.

but first we had to go to giant eagle and buy ice cream "for lisa...because she's sick and it will make her feel better." (translation: we wanted ice cream and lisa was sleeping, possibly harboring streptococcus bacteria...)

and then we listened to the podcast and i graded physics quizzes and wrote a lab report rubric.  all in all it was a good night.  And I have to be at school in 8 hours.  that is a sobering thought...and so i'm going to sleep.

good night.

ummm...

 let's give this a whirl...