Update...

"Who the HECK is listening to Justin Bieber!?"
...followed by multiple boys singing the words.

...followed by...
"Why do you know the words?"
"Who's playing that?"
"Dude, use your head phones!"
"Justin Bieber sounds like a girl!"

And they keep singing.

Can't help but love the Biebs.
How can you resist this face?

8th graders playing computer games

I'm sitting in a computer lab, watching 8th graders play games for 30 minutes. That's my Wednesday job. Watch the kids in the computer lab during "flex time."

So I'm listening to them yell things like:

"You suck at giving directions!"

"Level 9!"

"He got me! Dang it! I really can't seem to get anyone but myself."

"What kind of music do you like?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"Oh yeah! Front flip!"

"Look at my guy!"

"Why does he jump so far, dude?"

and lots of giggling...

I just figured I'd type all the things I heard and something would be funny. It's all funny to me. They're all hilarious little dummies who hold high priorities in killing zombies and the latest Blink 182 album.

You'd think I'd read more...

You'd think as a teacher of English I'd be reading a lot.
But I'm here to tell you that as a FIRST YEAR teacher of English, I do not.

I wake up at 5:30 and spend an hour trying to look professional. Heels. Hair. Tucked-in shirt.

I get to school early to grade and make sure everything is in line for the day.

I teach 8th graders for 6 hours, consistently reminding them, "It's my turn to talk now; you'll have a turn in a few minutes..."

I read aloud to them some days and they squirm in their seats and play with their hair.

Then the day is over at 2:45 and I sit at my desk, mulling over my next day's lesson plan.

I type up very minute details so I won't forget what I want to say and how I want to teach.

I read my 2 Post-It notes that are always on my desk:

"Teach like your hair's on fire!"

and

"I have to love it first."

I go back to my lesson.

I worry that the students won't have a long enough attention span so I add another activity.

I make copies.

I run around the building in my clicking and clacking heels.

I try to leave by 5 every night, so I still have a chance to see the sun once for the day.

I listen to podcasts on my drive home about Oscar Wilde and Lizzie Borden or the history of handbags and why women shave their legs.

And by the time I get home, I want to turn the dial to OFF.

So I sit on my couch

and I forget the big words like exasperated and dinner

and I just want to watch internet TV until my husband comes home.

He comes home about an hour later.

We eat. And dance. And run around like children.

And 3 hours later we brush our teeth and put on our pajamas and I think to myself,

I wish I read more...

I almost forgot

Oh. Also.

I cut my bangs at 6:20 this morning.

Just looked in the mirror, picked up some scissors, and...oops.

These things happen.

Back in college...

It's funny how quickly it's seemed that I've come to be able to say, "Back in college..." (awkwardly phrased sentence. But I'm leaving it...)

I'm teaching the book Make Lemonade to my 8th graders right now. It was a stretch, a leap of faith for me. It's a girl book, and I have a lot of boys. A lot of reluctant-reader boys. But, I took the chance and here we are reading Make Lemonade. A book about LaVaughn, a 14 year old girl, trying to earn money for college so she can get out of her awful neighborhood by babysitting for Jolly, a 17 year old single mom with 2 kids.

We talked about lemons. About how life will hand us lemon after lemon after lemon.

I thought about my own lemons.

And we talked about how we can make lemonade out of our lemons. How we HAVE TO. We have no choice. We can't just be sad all the time; we'll fall apart.

I told them, "Back in college...I had a professor who told me, 'Bad things don't happen; life happens.' and I've never forgotten that."

The next day in class, Gatlin told me, "You remember that quote you told us last time about bad things not happening, only life happening? I really liked that. I put it as my status on Facebook..."

And I have boys sitting in their desks, holding their books, their eyes fixed on the words like it has the formula to cure the sadness of the world. They're paying attention. They're into it.

And I'm into it.

And I'm so into having my students into it.

It feels so good when you go out on a limb and choose a book that's about feelings and students don't fall asleep.

Today we went around the class and said our CAPABLES because they went around their class and said their capables in Make Lemonade. They finished the phrase: I am capable of...

They were smiling and beaming when I'd yell back at them, "Yes you ARE capable of that! You sure are! Oh yeah!"

It feels good to be doing something. And especially to not be in college and finally be able to say, "Back in college..."

Did you know I'm an 8th grade English teacher?

blogging diarrhea

Is everyone sick of me yet?

Well, tough. Because I'm waiting for Kelly to come home but he is not home yet.

Here's how it usually goes: Kelly usually gets off work at 5, the bus comes at 5:30, and then he is shuttled to his car at the park-n-ride and he comes home at like 6:30 or 7.

Today, however, the bus didn't come until 7. Then that bus's chains were damaged so they had to wait for a replacement bus. So the replacement bus drove until they found another bus stuck on the side of the road and they stopped to save the innocent victims of that bus.

So now at 8, Kelly is finally on his way home. Hopefully. And I'm sitting in his parents' basement, blogging, watching internet TV with the roads too bad for me to go anywhere.

Oh boy.

Blogging Diarrhea.

Nice, Brazil

"Sharing is the nature of creation, it doesn't happen in isolation. No one creates in a vacuum. Everything comes from something else." - Gilberto Gil, Brazil's Minister of Culture

Exactly what I was thinking...

Apparently Brazil has got it goin' on with the creative commons thing. They know how to party.