sometimes...

i run out of time and forget to write.

and then I forget to email my sisters.

and then I forget to call my friends.

And sometimes freshmen are immature.

And sometimes juniors are immature. Well, maybe I should modify that to that one junior named James who happens to be in my 4th period class. The rest of them are great.

Especially the one who came into my classroom at the beginning of all of my classes today to collect money so that I can win the "lets slime a teacher" contest we're currently having. Because he really thought I would love to get slimed this Friday. He's sweet. And I got him back when I taught his pre-cal class. Hehe...

I lost $10 today....

The very $10 that was the last cash I had for the month of January. The $10 that was supposed to feed me for the next week. All because it's Monday morning and raining and my Chemistry students were tired and bored and I wanted to wake them up, so I told them if they could catch my $10 bill they could keep it. And Nick caught it. And kept it. I knew I should have only let them each try once. That's what I get for getting cocky.

But I got a free meal on Saturday, all because I answered my phone without looking at the number, and when I heard a male's voice on the other end, a male's voice that sounded shockingly similar to my friend Michael's, I assumed that it was Michael and sounded way too excited about having dinner with him. And then I realized that the voice did not, in fact, belong to Michael, but did, in fact, belong to Brad. The same Brad who has been calling me for months and once asked me "Do you like me? Cause I like you. That's why I was staring at you yesterday. So do you like me?" and made me feel like I was back in second grade. So we spent a rather uncomfortable hour eating Indian food while he commented continuously on how it was way too quiet in the restaurant, and that made him feel like he had to talk, which he just didn't like. To which I responded "well, it is 3:30 in the afternoon. Not too many people eat dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon."

The moral of the story is, check your caller ID. And never trust teenagers.

much better today

I had a rotten day yesterday, mostly due to the fact that high-school freshmen can be brats.

But then I went to my Chemistry class, with the sophomores and juniors whom I love so dearly, and Ryan informed me that he had to leave class early to go to the doctor, and that, while he was excited to get out of school early, he was sincerley sad to be missing my class. He is the best kiss-up I've had in a long time.

And then I went home and read the lab reports that my Chemistry students wrote, and found explanations such as Matt's "The decomposition was meant to show how violent decomposition reactions are. We heated some copper sulfate pentahydrate and five minutes later it turned gray," and Mikey's "We then placed 4 drops of potassium iodide solution in a watch glass, and added 4 drops of lead nitrate solution wondering what could possibly happen this time, and as soon as contact was established, it turned bright yellow. Astounding," which made me want to give them both A's, until I considered that it's probably not appropriate to use sarcasm (or run-on sentences, for that matter) in a formal write-up. So I let them build rockets today instead of discussing empirical formulas, the whole class was entirely grateful, and everyone was happy.

And my freshmen were not such brats today, mainly because I told them that if they could catch the $20 bill I dropped, they could keep it. Nobody caught it, because you'd have to have a .17 second reaction time. Which none of them do. Suckers!!

i think my brain may explode...

I've made it my lifelong goal to never stop learning. And this weekend, I kept that promise to myself.

I learned first of all just how much !FUN! it is to run into a student while shopping for bras, and debating between the pink polka-dots and the blue with peach bows. We pretended not to notice each other until I had checked out and said bras were neatly tucked away in their pink bag. I think we both handled that situation fairly gracefully.

I also learned that, just because an overhead lightbulb was only on for 30 seconds before it burned out, it is still hot enough to burn a hole right through your sweater in .5 seconds flat. And that students find that surprisingly amusing.

And that students also find it funny when you trip over their backpack and lose a shoe.

And that The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a fantastic movie, and if I were the type to cry in movies, I would have cried in that one.

And I think that's it.

have you missed me?

Well, I'm finally back. And if you guys haven't missed me, I can assure you that my student sure have. Sam even thought about me a couple of times while he was in the shower. I wasn't exactly sure what to think about that, but the rest of the class certainly was not at a loss for snide remarks.

I spent my week back wondering what exactly had happened to the luggage that didn't make it back to Georgia with me, staring at the phone that had died and could not be charged due to the fact that the charger was in aforementioned lost luggage, and wondering why, when my car decided to break down on my way to school, standing in the middle of the road doing my best to look helpless and pathetic did not persuade anybody to stop and help me push my car out of the intersection. It did, however, merit several dirty looks and possibly a few obscene gestures. So much for southern hospitality. I then spent the remainder of the week feeling sorry for myself that I was not in Texas long enough to see baby Mabel, trying to figure out exactly how much Ace Automotive ripped me off when they "fixed" my broken-down car, and informing them that I am not actually as stupid as I look and that, no, it is actually not okay for them to charge me to fix the parts that they broke.

At school, much of my week consisted of pretending to be impressed with Tony for having "that bad-boy thing going on." Apparently it really works for him. I also made a few chemicals explode, burned a hole in my sweater in the process, but decided it was all worth it in the end, since my students were actually excited about something we were doing.

On a brighter note, Christmas was fantastic. I briefly considered returning the adorable pink shoes I received based on practicality issues, then realized that with my wardrobe, they are quite possibly the most practical shoes I own. I'd be hard-pressed to find an outfit they don't match. The pregnant olympics were unfortunately cancelled for being referred to as the "special" olympics one too many times. Apparently pregnant women do not like to be referred to as "special." Who knew? We enjoyed a few riveting games of Taboo and Speed Scrabble, and had a good laugh when, as we were looking for something fun to do, Shawn suggested, with the utmost enthusiasm, "Hey, let's do something PRODUCTIVE!"

I'm an aunt!!!

And I'm already the favorite aunt. Obviously.

Mabel was born Monday night at 11:20, weighing in at 6 lb, 8 oz. She's adorable.