blue and orange

We're hosting the girls championship basketball game in our gym (ok, it's not ours, it's rented) tomorrow night! Go Bulldogs! Then the boys play a playoff game at 9pm at another gym a few minutes away. It should be an exciting night. Tomorrow's events were also the reason that the entire staff received the following email today:

Tomorrow is a school spirit day. Students and staff will be permitted to come to school dressed as long as it is in blue and orange. Any questions let me know

John

All I could do was sit at my desk and laugh. I need to go track down some blue and orange...

Yesterday in eighth grade (somehow all of my stories are from 8th grade...) I was talking to the boys about this neat article in Popular Science.

Me: "Okay guys, I found this neat article in Popular Science, which is a pretty neat magazine if anyone wants to look at it..."

someone: Miss Book, are you a science nerd?

Me: (holding up magazine) Yes. Now this article...

FS: You are!?? (eyes wide) You're a science nerd? Really? Can we call you that? Science Nerd. SN.

It was like he'd never met one before...:) hehe

Same class period, I am standing next to FS's desk, holding up the article so they can see it, and talking about it. I feel something touch my wrist and look down...FS is apparently completely distracted by the blue veins in my white wrist and has decided to trace them with the end of his pen. I didn't really catch on to what he was doing at the moment, I was so distracted by what I was saying, but that evening I was at a class I have to take to keep my state certification and I realized what he had been doing. Which made me start laughing to myself. The other people at my table probably thought I was crazy...:-p

another week...

As per request of my lovely sister, I have decided that it is indeed time for another update.

Yesterday was unbelievable. The juniors were supposed to go on a college visit in the morning, so I wasn't going to have them for class. However, as a result of a light dusting of snow/sleet, it was decided that they would not be going. Logical conclusion: they will now go to class instead. So fifth period rolls around. A couple show up and ask "are we having class today?" My response: "Ummm, yes." Them: "Well, can I get my stuff then? The other teachers didn't have lesson plans." Me: "Why wouldn't we have class? You all started an activity yesterday, now you can finish it, I don't have to do anything!"

I then had to track down the rest of the class, most of whom were hanging out in the art room. I was heated.
"What are you DOING?"
"We didn't think we had class today...we weren't supposed to..."
Completely unbelievable. I was appalled. Man, I am getting angry just thinking about it.

Anyway, so the other day in the morning before classes started, one of the 8th grade boys went into the school store to change his shirt. Apparently one of the other boys closed the door on him, so it locked (I wasn't here for that part). I arrived to hear knocking from the inside of the door and Favorite Student going, "Someone's locked in there!" (I have suspicions that he's the one who closed the door...). I asked who it was, he claimed not to know. He was shaking the door handle "Who's in there? I hope you aren't close-trophobic!"

We also had a great time in 8th grade yesterday; I assigned them an article called "Alternative Energy" that was about a dairy farm that uses cow manure and biogas digesters (bacteria) to generate power for the farm. So we talked about poop all period. The boys were pretty into it. "So this digester tank...it's sort of like a big stomach?" I forget which one of them said that, but it was a great analogy.

They were also amazed when I told them that fossil fuels used to be plants and animals. "So you're saying that the gas in our cars used to be dinosaurs?" Yep...sort of...

"Which came first, the dinosaurs or Jesus?"
that one was from FS. Though he also asked what the temperature on the moon is, which I thought was a good question. I had to look it up. If you are curious, it gets hot enough to boil water there when the sun is shining on it, but in the dark it goes waaaaay below zero, like -170 degrees Celsius. That's because the moon doesn't have an atmosphere. Pretty cool, huh? :)

In other news, I went snowboarding last week on one of our snow days. It was my first time within the snowboarding/skiing arena (unless you count cross country skiing in gym class once in elementary school). And it was amazing. I love snowboarding. Though it was a little painful. I think I like it because it takes a lot of thinking. And it involves a lot of physics. I like physics. But not as much as I like chemistry. And this is the part where I stop talking...

test-mobiles and holy water

So it's been awhile...maybe I should write something :) Beware: it will be random.

Ranking up there with the unbelievable: last week when school was cancelled/delayed a few times because of the cold... On one of the delay days, a student's mother called and said her son wouldn't be coming to school that day because he was too cold. WHAT?!!? Contrary to popular belief, our school IS heated, and on most days I am sweating because it is too warm. He ended up coming to school.

There is no school today because of the snow. Super. I can see everything they learned in the past week and a half just leaking out of their brains. I was planning on giving tests to all of my classes...which they should have had last week, but were pushed back because of the snow/cold days. I'm plotting a "test-mobile"--my car, in which I will drive to each of my student's homes and personally administer their tests. I think the test-mobile should also play music, like an ice cream truck. However I don't forsee kids sprinting to catch the test-mobile--"wait!! I want a test!!" Maybe stealth mode would be preferrable.

Saw an interesting sight in the cafeteria last week. I walked in to get some coffee and one of the 9th grade religion classes was set up to have a baptism debate. Father Zach was in his priest robe (okay, there is probably a technical term for this, but I don't know it) chanting something about the 5th council of Nicea (I totally made that up, it was something like that), and sprinkling them with holy water. Except the "holy water" came from a plastic pitcher, and he was using the kitchen's dish brush to sprinkle it on them. He chanted something about how they should be grateful that it wasn't a toilet brush. I was highly amused.

Speaking of holy water, we walked in to the church for worship last week...and Jonathan pointed to the holy water, claiming it was a sign of the apocalypse. It was solid ice. A holy ice cube, if you will.

negative three

That was the air temperature this morning. Subtract 13 and you'll get the wind chill. Coldest it's been in 10 years...good enough reason to cancel school I guess.

I went to school anyways and was very productive this morning. On my walk home I came upon a guy walking the same direction as me, he turned around and was talking, and then walking next to me...but I wasn't really sure when he was talking to me and when he was talking to himself...
He proceeded to address me by a number of appellations...honey, baby, precious...then he asked me my name....
"Alexis! You got a black girl's name!"

Then we got to the corner, and I told him to have a nice day.

Now I am going to the dentist.

a long week

Wow. It was a week of long days, between labs and basketball games and induction class (for my certification)...fun times though.

"Ms Book! Smart Boy keeps assaulting me about my height!" --FS, who is short. Very short.
"Insulting?" --me
"Don't bother, Ms. Book, we tried telling him, he's just going to keep saying it."

For some reason, FS gets one word in his mind and won't correct it even when made fun of.
"Yeah! I typed 30 words and no arrows!" (computer class)
"Errors! The word is errors!" --all of the other boys

I think he just craves attention. Case in point: somehow we got on the topic of ninjas in science class this week. This was his contribution to the conversation:
"One time, I was in China, and I went to the projects, and they don't use guns, they use karate."
me: "Oh? When were you in China?"
FS: "Last year..."


Speaking of guns, I had another reality check this past week when one of our students lost a cousin...the police shot him during a confrontation because he wouldn't put down his loaded gun. Not to far from the school either.

And they reinstituted "sex patrol" this week. Which basically means assigned posts throughout the school for the period of transition between school and afterschool activities. Preemptive prevention of hanky panky in the halls. For which I had to yell at a kid during a basketball game...he kissed his girlfriend...for an extended period of time...so I yelled his name down the row of seats. I think he was sufficiently embarassed...:-P

Oh! I knew I forgot one. This one is straight from Obsessed with Charmed...one of the 8th grade boys at breakfast one morning:
"Ms Book, you look like Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

What!?!? Okay, so far this school year I've been told that I look like Audrey Hepburn and Sarah Michelle Gellar. I think it's because I'm white and thin and have long hair.