A Little Lost...

Oh hey.

Haven't blogged since May. Yikes!!

Here is the problem: Twitter.

Thats right, Twitter got me. The "theme" of my blog, if you will, has generally been that I take a funny moment from life and sarcastically write about it to entertain my lovely blog followers. The problem with Twitter is that I can now share those funny moments quickly and just as sarcastically without having to sit here and blog for an hour. (Seriously it takes me a long time to post one of these babies. I've been at this one for 45 minutes almost!)

So, now I feel a bit lost here. I like blogging a lot, but I feel that I have no theme, no inspiration. Ah what to do, what to do. What do other people blog about? Life updates, inspirational stories, travels, reality tv, photography, and my favorite- Crafts! I love those darn craft blogs.

I'll figure something out. Just letting you know what was going on. We'll just have to see what develops....

On a Serious Note

Just a warning...I am about to get super sentimental. Perhaps even boring, but I just need to express my feelings ok????

I left school today at 3:15 pm and it is just now sinking in that I don't get to go back there on Monday and I don't get to go back in the fall either. I have ended my time as a para at Rosehill Elementary. Here it is:

In 2007 I applied for this job because I needed to do something that would pay me money and there weren't any music therapy jobs anywhere near me. Once I got the job, I was happy to have it, but was bummed that I was only going to be a para. I wanted something more I guess. That first year I did everything I could to try and get out of there the next year. Well, here we are three years later and I am so sad to see my time at Rosehill come to an end. When you work with people and see them every day they become like family and I am so thankful for all the great people I met and gained friendship with. I mean, there were some crazies thrown in there, but everyone's family has at least a few crazies.

The hardest part is leaving the kids for sure. I was with some of them for the whole three years I was there and I got to see them grow in so many amazing ways. My time with them is summed up nicely with this quote from Arrested Development, "I like to think they teach me. " They also provided some pretty great stories that I frequently used to entertain all of my blog followers. I know that this new season in my life will bring more opportunities to learn, teach, and laugh, but today I am going to be sad. I'm sad that it is done and I'm sad that I won't see those kids anymore. They are the best.

Here is what I learned from working at Rosehill:

1. The bottom line is that you get into teaching because you value children and education. When things get tough take a moment to remember that.

2. Assume that you are the only one in a child's day who will show them love and respect.

3. Value the people you work with.

4. Every child has something to say, they just need someone to listen.

5. Our society is weird about hugs, but they are not bad things...if a kid hugs you (s)he probably needs one.

6. Laugh all the time.

7. Get excited about the small victories.

8. Relax.

9. Even when you feel useless, hopeless, tired, and frustrated, you can still be impacting someone.

10. You never know when it will be the last time you see someone. Always make the last thing you say count.

11. Leave people better than you found them.

12. God can use me anywhere...even if it isn't where I want to be.

Although I have learned these things I know that I do and will fail at them daily. I just pray that I would love my class every day for all of the years that I teach. The kids I will get in my classes are put there for a reason and I don't want to close out every year feeling like I could have done better. They deserve my best every day. I know I can't do that on my own.

I wish I could put some of the kid's pictures up here, but I don't feel like that is legal. So, to end I will show you some of my wonderful friends. A few of them threw me a Hawaiian style going away bash today and I love them!

April Fools! Or Not.

I have a minor fear of April Fools Day. I am always worried that someone is going trick me in a huge ridiculous way and I will look totally stupid in front of a lot of people. I sort of picture it as similar to being on the show "Punked." I don't mind a good "group fool," it's just the being singled out foolings that I am watching out for all day long.

This morning I was driving to work and was reminded by NPR that it was April Fools Day and my heart jumped a little. I had a pep talk with myself with reminders to be extra alert to possible April Fools tricks all day. DON'T BELIEVE ANYONE! I was prepared for the worst.

Upon arriving at school and interacting with a few kids, I realized that I didn't really have much to worry about. The kids seemed to have no idea how to execute an April Fools joke. I suppose I had my adult co-workers to fear, but not much can really be done because we all need to be "good role models" for the students, of course.

For this post I decided to share some of my favorite lines from April Fools Day 2010. I also provided some commentary following each quote. It should be noted that I did not verbalize any of these thoughts to the children. They remained in my head and now they will be just between us.

On my report card I got an F...April Fools! (Probably actually true.)

I finished my work!...April Fools! (This girl rarely finishes her work, so I was on to her immediately.)

My mom died...April Fools! (We had to talk to this girl about not using death as a joke and later I heard her change it to "My mom had a heart attack!" Guess we sort of got somewhere.)

You killed my grandpa!...April Fools! (I didn't realize April Fools jokes could get you arrested. That kid's grandpa gets murdered and guess who they'll come to first!)

Rock Chalk Jayhawk!....April Fools! (Ok, that is just rude.)

There is a plant in Mr. Myer's room...April Fools! (I have to admit, he did get me with this one.)

Do you see Derrick?...April Fools! (This one frustrated me because, yes I had seen Derrick.)

My mom has a candle...April Fools! (This one came from the same kid who made the plant joke...got me again!)

(Pointing down) Your shoe has...April Fools! (What? He was pointing at my shoe and talking about my shoe. Why wouldn't I look? The "made you look" jokes were the most popular today.)

I mean, you have to give them credit for trying. I think they sort of get the idea. If any of you have fears about April Fools Day, I would highly recommend working with kids. Even if it is just for this one day of the year. As you can see, they don't really get it. All you have to do is act fooled every time they say anything and look every single time they point at something that you know isn't there. You could even rename this day to "Made You Look Day" if that would take away some anxiety.

And I'm pregnant. Ha! April Fools! Did I mention that I don't really like fooling people either? I am already feeling bad for writing that and sort of want to delete it.

The Best Idea I've Had All Day

I was driving home just a bit ago and I was thinking...why don't police officers ever pull you over for being a good driver? No, I didn't get this idea because I was pulled over. I just thought that if I was a police officer it might be fun to pull over like every 15th good driver I saw. You know- someone driving the speed limit, wearing a seat belt, and not on the cell phone. I mean wouldn't that totally make your day if you got pulled over and you were like, "What the heck did I do officer? I wasn't breaking any laws." and he was like, "I know! I am rewarding you for being a great driver! Here is a free ice cream coupon!"

It has so many benefits if you think about it. Number one, the police officer's day is instantly improved. Instead of having to deal with people all day who are pissed at you because you pulled them over, you could deal with some happy friendly people who just got free ice cream! Second, we would be using positive behavior management. Instead of scaring people into not speeding by threatening the punishment of ridiculous tickets to pay that probably weren't included in the pulled over-ee's monthly spending budget, you would be encouraging people to drive well for a reward! Maybe the free ice cream or perhaps a cruise! It's like when you were little in school- sometimes the teacher gave candy to the kids that were sitting nicely. Didn't everyone try so hard to be the one sitting the nicest??? And third, self esteem and community love and unity would blossom! Everyone would be happy and they'd feel good for doing good. Regular people and the cities authority figures would become friends who worked together to make our roads safer.

I have often heard people say, "My boss never tells me what I am doing well. He/she just tells me when I am doing something wrong." This is pretty much a police officer's job description. Tell us everything we are doing wrong and make us pay for it. So why not let us know when we are doing things well once in awhile? Just a nice pat on the back for a great job driving safely and obeying the law.

If any of you have any police officer friends, pass this on. I think I'm onto something here.

Heating and Cooling Part 2

Yes, that's right...PART 2! I did not intend to have a part 2, but here we are. It is necessary.

Before I go any further, I need to make sure that everyone is caught up on Part 1. You can go back a few posts and read the details, but basically my school has been facing some major problems with the heating and cooling system this year. A few weeks ago we had rooms with temps in the 40's! It is ridiculously inconsistent and today's story will further prove my claims that this has gotten out of hand.

Perhaps you should sit down if you aren't already. Today a life was lost. One of the first grade rooms was 100 degrees when the teacher came in this morning and she found that it had literally fried the class pet. Mrs. G.'s guinea pig could not survive the harsh heat and he perished. Mr. Gary (our custodian) somberly carried the cage out to the dumpster this morning. The children watched, trying to understand and the teacher didn't know what to do. She was mad and sad all at the same time, spreading the word around school that her innocent guinea pig had indeed been murdered. Murdered by the "decrepit heating system that should have been replaced ten years ago." (Quote taken directly from the furnace repair guy.)

When is enough enough? Did it have to come to this? We lost one of our own and this could have so easily been avoided. He didn't even have a chance. Perhaps he died for good, though. His sacrifice has saved all the other classroom pets that dwell in our school. Once the other teachers heard the news they grabbed their goldfish, rabbits, and other class pets and ran with them from the building. Because of our little friend and his death, others have been saved. I don't even know his name, but I will always remember what he did.

You Can't Say That...1st Edition

I've decided that I hear people say a lot of ridiculous things during my daily escapades around life and I desire to share them when they are extra ridiculous. Hopefully I'll have a "You Can't Say That" post to contribute every so often.

For today's "You Can't Say That"...

Setting: Teacher's Lounge @ lunch

One of the aides was sitting at my table and talking about the earthquake in Haiti with another para. They were talking about all the pictures of devastation that they have seen on the internet and the aide said, "Truthfully, I feel worse for dead animals than I do for dead people because there are more people in the world."

#1 That doesn't make sense.

#2 She is a cat lady.

#3 YOU CAN'T SAY THAT!!!!!!!

Heating and Cooling

Typically when it is hot outside you turn on the AC and when it is cold you turn on the heater. Not too complicated right? Well, at Rosehill Elementary this concept has for some reason not been grasped yet.

Oh, the daily battles with the classroom temperature. It baffles me and makes me laugh all at the same time. The temperature in our building is usually on the cold side, but it really depends where you are. We have all learned to adapt by dressing in layers or by bringing a sweater just in case. The teachers used to do this trick where you put a wet paper towel on the thermostat. It really does make warm air come out of the vent, but it turns out that it then causes cold air to go into the room next door. Oops. Really gotta put others above yourself in that situation.

This winter has been a bit more extreme and harder to adapt to. Something is always broken. The district guys who fix the heaters have pretty much become a part of our school's staff. Most of the classrooms I am in have cold air blowing into them. I don't understand. It is freezing outside and so the air is on?? Sometimes I think there is some big shot at the district who just sits by the controls all day and when he gets bored he turns up the air to make us miserable. Our head custodian, Mr. Gary, is running around all day responding to teachers whose rooms are too cold or too hot. He has this sweet thermometer that he holds up in the air to find the temp. I think it is fixed because he always ends up telling the teacher that the thermometer reads 70 degrees or something, but we are all wearing three layers of clothing and are still cold.

One day, while it was still cold in most parts of the building, one of the kindergarten classrooms got up to over 100 degrees! All exaggerations aside- the kid's crayons were literally melting on the tables. Then there is my favorite room- the third grade math class I help with. For about five minutes the vent blows out freezing cold air. You can walk by and get minor frost bite. Then for the next five minutes it blows out wonderfully warm air and everyone is fighting to stand by it to warm up. The teacher in that class loves calling Mr. Gary in to check the temp and see how dreadfully cold it is, but of course by the time he gets there we are in the five minutes of warm air time.

The other day we came back from Christmas break. It was like 6 degrees outside and I was running to get into the school. I got in, breathed a sigh of relief, and took off my coat expecting to be embraced by the warmth of the building. The weird thing was that I still felt like I was outside. Then we all get an email that said five of the heating units are out. The principle didn't mention in that email how many units we have all together, so that could have been all of them, who knows. It was 40 degrees in some of the rooms! Everyone had on coats and hats, kids couldn't write because they had their mittens on, teachers pens weren't writing and their dry erase boards wouldn't erase. Everyone's favorite thing to do that day was to put their cold hands on your face to show just how cold their classroom was. I don't like that game.

During lunch one of the heater fixer guys walked through the teacher's lounge. Mistake on his part. The teachers swarmed him and asked what was wrong and when it would be fixed and so on. I over heard him say, "Well, the problem is that your system is decrepit. It should have been replaced ten years ago."

I guess these children and teachers will just have to keep suffering in the cold with our decrepit system because the government keeps taking money away from the schools and gives it to the big corporations who clearly need it more than we do. Ah, but that is for another blog post on another day. :) On the plus side for that heater fixer man, if we did have a better system, he probably wouldn't have a job.