It’s about 2:15 am Thursday morning. Why am I up? I have some sort of nasty disgusting cold that hasn’t really allowed me to sleep very well, and I have been up for the past 45 minutes anyways because it hurts my head less to sit up. 🙂 I had heard 1 year teachers have to deal with getting sick a lot as we acclimate to the schools, but I didn’t believe it. 🙁

Anyways, things have been going pretty well overall. The kids amaze me with their different levels of maturity. Some students have me wondering, “Was I ever that smart when I was their age?” Probably not. And then there’s the opposite level- “Was I ever that immature and annoying?!” Some of the kids are just so responsible and mature, and I can hardly believe that they are only 12 years old. Other ones act more like they are 6. And as Jared and I taught the 6 year old primary class on Sunday, I feel justified in saying that. some of the 6 year olds were able to sit more quietly and still than my 7th graders!

Speaking of that particular adventure, Primary isn’t really my favorite thing. I do think that little kids are really really cute… but that’s from far away or for 5 minute intervals. (Depending on the level of cleanliness and whiny-ness, I can like them for up to a couple of hours at a time even.) But despite my convictions, this is the second time I’ve been put in primary at church. (At least Jared got dragged along with me this time!) And really, yes, the kids were pretty good, pretty cute… they all immediately wanted to sit next to me and Jared (or on my lap, or at least hold my hand as they went on various bathroom excursions), which surprised me. I expected at least a little “Getting used to the new teacher” phase, but nope.

I think the biggest problem was with my headaches and my overall pathetic sensitivity to chaotic noise. Since the kids did so well on their primary program at church, the chorister thought that it would be a great idea to start passing out kazoos. Small, plastic, brightly colored, and they make obnoxious noises! Who can resist? Certainly nobody between the ages of 4-8. As you could guess, without any directions with the kazoos, mayhem ensued during the “Sharing Time” of church. As long as that doesn’t happen again, I’d probably survive those 2 hours every Sunday.

Anyways, I think I am going to attempt sleep again, as my head feels slightly better from some of the medicine I took 45 minutes ago, and I have to at least try to teach later on today. 🙂 Cheerio for now!

So, this summer Jared and I got all excited about the show, America’s Got Talent. For some reason, we think it’s pretty awesome. We got hooked last year when we saw Terry Fator the singer/ventriloquist (if you have NOT seen Terry Fator, you are really missing out! Last year, we went to Utah’s State Fair where he performed for a hour and a half and it was absolutely AWESOME.) But I digress.

So Jared and I were hopeful that this year would be as promising as last year, and all in all, it has been. There’s always a few choices that the judges make that make me go “HOW DID YOU GET THE POSITION OF JUDGE?! COME ON!” but there was a surprising lack of that. And so then it got to the point where America votes. And they did a pretty good job… up til tonight.

The options were Queen Emily (awesome Diva singer), Eli Mattson (talented singer/piano player), Neal E. Boyd the crybaby, Donald Braswell the musical theatre guy, and Nuttin But Stringz, the amazing R&B violin playing brother duo. Straight out, I wanted Nuttin But Stringz to win. They were so creative, and so talented, and I absolutely loved the music they played. I was absolutely shocked by the results… Queen Emily left first, followed by Donald, then Nuttin But Stringz. I thought “Well, Eli’s got to have this in the bag!” But no. When they announced that Neal won first place, I thought I might just die.

My faith in the American Public has been officially broken. HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?! Seriously- he can’t even go 10 seconds without crying. I didn’t let Jared watch Neal’s finale song… let’s face it, he would be crying to hard to be any good anyway. I have nothing against opera; he has a pretty decent voice, but America made a big mistake tonight. Maybe there was a fluke with the voting system… or something.

I know I’m not the only one feeling this way. Right afterwards, Jared found this blog link, which made me feel a little better:
http://blog.zap2it.com/ithappenedlastnight/2008/10/americas-got-ta.html

Okay. Well, I think I can go back to grading again… now that I’m calmed down a bit. 🙂 Thanks for listening to my rant about stupid shows and the crazy people who vote for them. lol.

Looking back at my experiences in English, I realized that I have always loved reading. It’s a part of who I am. I inhale books. My students are amazed with all the books I read and how fast. We have a challenge going; they are setting their goal to read 100 pages or more a week (some have goals of 400 pgs!) if I keep up with my goal of 600. The point is, I’m a reader, of almost every kind of book out there. I love love love reading and how it helps me go to new worlds and introduces me to new ideas and ways of thinking. Each book becomes a part of who I am. (Sidenote: I just read “The Hunger Games” this week- really interesting in a disturbing way–I really hope it will become a series!)

On the other hand, I’ve never felt like a writer.

When I was younger, between 13-17, I wrote a lot of short stories and poetry on my own. Lots of teenage angst and drama. But I rarely showed it to anyone because I was embarrassed about how horrible it was. I did it just for myself–not something I would ever seriously consider “writing.”

And, I mean, naturally, I write papers. You can’t make it through high school or college without writing those. And it’s definitely a kind of writing. I even was in journalism in high school and enjoyed that. But I never felt like my teachers encouraged me to be a writer. We wrote a lot, but I never felt like anything I wrote really translated into my own life. Then in my English Education classes in college, suddenly we were told to focus on our students; focus on encouraging them to feel like they were writers and had more control of what they were writing, and how it was useful to them.

This year in my own teaching, I’m trying to teach that to my 7th graders. I want them to feel like writers. I want to encourage them and conference with them, but it’s hard because I didn’t have that when I was growing up. My teachers were supportive and wonderful in their own ways, but we never had things like “writing workshops” or “mini-lessons” in writing.

What really got me thinking about my own writing was something that happened this week. We’ve been alternating talking about poetry and persuasive writing. We have “mini-lessons” were for 15-20 minutes, I focus on just one aspect of writing/poetry and THEN students have time to write in their notebooks and revise the work that they have, using the different lessons. In the middle of one of the poetry lessons, one of my students asked, “Could we see some of your poetry?” And it happened in more than one class. And the kids got really excited about seeing my own writing.

It’s been awhile since I wrote for myself. In college, I rarely had a time or chance to. The time I felt the most secure in writing was in my Shakespeare class and my professor told me that my papers could be worked into an honors thesis. Maybe I should take up Jared’s suggestion and start writing seriously again. He finds my ideas entertaining. 🙂 And I really did love writing, and do, if I just had enough time!

I’m into my third week of teaching 7th grade!

This week has been so interesting. Hurricane Ike has been a big deal here, as a lot of refugees had to come here from Houston/Galveston. Well, the schools here work with the Red Cross to offer a place for refugees to stay–and my school was almost one of those. Teachers here apparently also double as volunteers/helpers when refugees are staying at their schools, so there was a bit of drama and stress due to that, as the school kept on being alerted that we were on and then off again a few times. 🙂 Fortunately, while those areas by the coast (like Houston) look like they’ve been bombed or something, we didn’t even have a drop of rain. It was a nice breezy day, partially cloudy.

Teaching has been so wonderful. I absolutely love the people I work with. They are dedicated to the students and so nice and helpful towards newbies like me.

Some highlights of the week are:

1) This was a partial highlight… one of my sweetest students’ family had to move suddenly due to a rent problem. That part made me sad, but it was so amazing to see how the other students treated her that last day. They all made her this big card and had everyone (including teachers) sign it. She also made me a little card (out of two index cards) as a goodbye gift to me. I’m going to miss her, but I also was so happy that her last day went so well at school and that she made ME a card over it.

2) One of my students knew how much I wanted to read the 4th book of the Lightning Thief series, (Battle of the Labyrinth), so he came to me right before the last class (he’s in my first class) and said, “Mrs. Boothe! I know you want to read this book–I just finished this in math class, so you can read it now!”

Say it with me… “Awwwwww!”

3) One student found this hilarious list of the most commonly mispronounced words. He thought it was really funny, so he printed out the list for me and gave to to me in class!!! So neat!

I’m so lucky to be here. The only downsides are all the extra stuff that I have to do… like being lunch detention lady and trying to keep up with lesson planning and contacting parents… and trying to get enough rest and dealing with the headaches. I need to call the doctor really soon …maybe monday… and see if there’s anything we can do to make these headaches stop. They are getting worse and worse again…

Jared and I also went “window shopping” for houses last weekend and today. This means (for us, at least) driving around neighborhoods looking for house flyers to get an idea of what areas we could afford, and the houses in that neighborhood. We saw some really neat things, like 15 deer in the middle of a residential area of the city… so neat! We also have hope that we might actually be able to afford a home before next summer, which would be so amazing! We really need to save up… but we’ll keep our fingers crossed!

I have successfully made it through my very first week of teaching on my own in middle school!!!!

I love Canyon Ridge Middle School! The students there are great. The other teachers, overall, are even better. I absolutely love my co-workers. They are absolutely, posititutely the most supportive and friendly bunch I have ever met! I feel so blessed and lucky every single day I am there that I stumbled across this job.

The only really bad day was Friday; it all started when my car battery was dead in the morning when I wanted to head out a little early. Fortunately, Jared was still home and our cars live next to each other, so he jump started mine and I made it to school in okay time. Then…. Language Arts classes had to take the students down to get pictures, so I had to go through that drama 3 times and my last class acted like a bunch of monkeys. My head started to really really hurt, and I had to tell them off when we all got back to class. Fortunately, they listened well after that. Each time we did photos though, it took a good 45 minutes out of class, so that was frustrating too. It’s better to over plan than to under plan, though.

Yesterday was the best though. Friday night I crashed about 9:30 and slept until 8:30-9:00 the next morning. I must have really needed my sleep to crash like that. After getting ready for the day and just hanging out and relaxing with Jared, we went out to lunch to one of our favorite places, Texadelphia, which has to have the best cheese beefsteak sandwiches ever. Then Jared surprised me and took me to the nearest Apple store and we used my teacher id to get me a new macbook!!!! We got a really good deal–We got the macbook, $100 off, iPod touch for free, and a printer for free.

It was a really big purchase, but I am really excited. My laptop has been a good, sturdy lappy for 5 years, but it’s getting old. Jared’s laptop is even more decrepid than mine, so it’s nice to have a reliable computer. 🙂 Especially because I’ve wanted a macbook for ages! 🙂 My husband is the best.

So, as you all can probably tell, it’s been a good week. I am really excited for this school year, and I think as long as I can get my headaches under control, everything will be really good!