Week in Review...

Well. It has been quite the week. Four down, one to go. I think I am ready for a few weeks of vacation (which are coming this friday...first hiking in NH, then to the beach in NC :) ) A few noteworthy moments from this past week...

At worship, our priest in residence was talking about the parable of the prodigal son. Allow me to preface this by saying that this man is like the definition of "grandfatherly:" balding, glasses, soft spoken, gentle... He was reading the story from the Message and came to a part where it described the prodigal son as having spent his money on whores. He paused. "Do you know what whores are?" The kids stared blankly, so he defined it for them. "Hoes." That word coming out of his mouth struck all of us as hilarious... (and yes, I did just check urbandictionary.com to make sure I pluralized it correctly....)

The 8th graders are making balances in class (out of pop cans, straws, string and clothespins, they are pretty sweet). One kid couldn't get his to balance..."Hey, my balance has a G lean!"

The other day the Lone Ranger looked at me as I was giving them instructions,
"hey, your eyes are green!"
me: "Well, sometimes they're green, sometimes they're brown, they're actually hazel."
LR: *Sigh* "Why can't I have sexy eyes?"

We took the kids to a baseball game this past week, which was fun. They didn't all fit in the van, so two of them rode with some of the staff. As we were waiting for them to get in the car, we decided that we got to pick the music. And we picked Rascal Flatts. You should have heard their whining, "pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease, let us listen to our music! anything else!!" I told them that this is what we called a "cultural experience." And by the time we got to the field, we had one of them singing along and confessing that she actually liked it :)
So we switched to Phil Collins for the ride home...

odds and ends...

First a couple of quotes from school this past week:

Flava Flav: Ms. Book! how are you?
me: I'm great, FF, and how are you today?
FF: I'm tired, hungry and constipated.

At least he's honest...


And in 9th grade, I was teaching pure substances and mixtures. When I teach heterogeneous vs homogeneous, I always point out that hetero means different and homo means the same, and I use the example of heterosexual and homosexual, because that's where they've heard the prefixes before. This discussion prompted the following exchange, initiated by the Lone Ranger (the only boy in the 9th grade).

LR: Can heterosexuals have intercourse with themselves?
me: What? [general uproar in the classroom in response to the question, while LR defends himself saying that this is an adult conversation and he used the proper terminology, meanwhile I am still not sure what he is asking me...finally...]
Girl #1: You mean hermaphrodites?
LR: Yeah, that's what I mean. Can hermaphrodites have intercourse with themselves?
me: No. I don't think it works that way.
LR: Well then what's the point?!?

I think I just left it there at that point...and tried to corrale them back towards a more relevant discussion.


Two other unrelated items, but worthy of note because they were so amazing.

#1 Driving downtown to a baseball game the other day, we saw a guy riding a unicycle down the street. Yes, a unicycle. Yes, he was actually riding in the street with the traffic, downtown. And yes, in one hand he had a water bottle AND a small jug of iced tea, while in the other he had a walkie talkie. I was extremely impressed.

#2 I was running with a friend last week, right as a storm was coming to an end (I like running in the rain...especially when it's hot.) We chose a route that crossed a bridge, and as we ran we started looking for a rainbow b/c it was right at the point when the sun was coming back out, but it was still sort of rainy and dark in parts of the sky. Plus it was evening, so the sun was lower, making perfect conditions for a rainbow. Sure enough, as we ran onto the bridge we turned and had to stop and stare at this aMAzing rainbow--pretty much we could see the whole thing stretched the whole way across the sky--there was even a slight double rainbow above it! So cool...too bad I don't carry my camera with me when I run...:-p Definitely the most incredible rainbow I have ever seen--and we had the perfect vantage point high on this bridge. It was pretty cool.

Recent purchases...

While I'm waiting for my dear roommate to exit the bano so I can get ready for bed...let me tell you about my most recent internet purchases. You are going to be jealous.

1. Would You Rather...? (465 provocative questions to get teenagers talking) by Doug Fields (a youth pastor, these aren't the perverted ones...) My youth director used to have this book and we would use it ALL THE TIME. I made up some questions as icebreakers for my students this summer and they loved them so much that I had to buy the book. Endless entertainment.

2. New Kids on the Block: Greatest Hits Please contain your envy. I feel like I missed out...I'm pretty sure I was still listening to "WeeSing Bible Songs" when NKOTB happened. And I probably didn't get MTV yet either. Not that I would have actually been allowed to watch it. Anyways, my new ringtone is "The Right Stuff," so I feel like I should be at least somewhat well versed in the lyrics. [I'm sorry that pun happened, it was unintentional.] Ahhhhh, sweet nostalgia...who doesn't want to go back to the 80s/90s???

3. This one hasn't arrived yet, but it is my new obsession: Moulin Rouge. I borrowed it from a friend and watched it three times last weekend (note: lest you think I am a couch potato, I was writing lesson plans/cleaning my room/cleaning out my closet all while watching). I'm pretty excited for this one to arrive...hopefully tomorrow...Ewan MacGregor can sing to me whenever he wants; I will listen.

it's written on the ceiling...

Today Molly and I found out just how gullible the 9th grade boys are...

Boy #1 (to Molly): why do you get to have your cell phone? We should get to have ours too.
Molly: I had to let Ms Caddy into the building earlier because the back door was locked, so she called me (this apparently happened during Boy #1's class). Otherwise she would have been stuck out there.
Me: Crying in the corner.
Boy #2 (incredulous): Crying?
Me: Well wouldn't you be crying if you got locked outside?
Both: No!
Boy #1: Why couldn't she just walk around to the front door?
Molly: It's against her religion to go through the front door of a church.
Both: What?!!? Are you serious!?!? Why?
Molly: Well her religion thinks that the front door should be like God's door and only He should go through it.
Boy #1: So you don't go through the front door?
Molly: No, I do, but she doesn't.
Me: Molly thinks she's God.
Boy #2: Well, I don't want to bash anyone's religion...but...that's really weird. What if she accidentally does it, like if someone pushes her?
Molly: Then she has to go to confession.

The conversation continued like this for awhile (and included us telling them a lot of other things, like that I have a robot that I built in my basement)...Boy #2 was still talking about it in my class two periods later. Hilarious.

This was also the conversation where Boy #1 said "Jesus was a G. I'll bet that cross was heavy. Like two telephone poles..."

Call it what it is...

Happy 4th of July! It is nice to have a day off in the middle of the week...

The 8th grade girls and I were discussing hair and hair styles in class yesterday. I mentioned bangs and that my sister used to sport the straight hair/permed bangs combo (weren't the 80s a marvelous time?). They were a little confused until we realized that to them a perm means that you're getting your hair straightened, while to me it means that your hair is curly. Once I realized that, I was like, "Oh, okay, so she had a white girl perm in her bangs..." They about lost it, they were so shocked that I actually called it that.

Then Distracted Boy (if he could actually focus on a task and not wander around the room, I would be a happy person...) called me "Miss Binder" yesterday. I don't think he was intentionally being a smartass, I think he was just so distracted by the fact that he couldn't find his science binder that he picked the wrong word. I thought it was hilarous. And I really didn't have any pity on him for being unable to find his binder/homework...I know, I'm a mean teacher... :-p

The forecast says "light thunderstorms," whatever that means. Hopefully it doesn't mess with my plans for fireworks watching.