Word of the Day: Responsibility

Quote of the week


Took Fluffy to the vet (an hour away), and minutes before she got the rabies booster she inadvertently bites me… Great now I’m going to start foaming at the mouth. In her defense I was holding her favorite green treat and making her gnaw on it while I held the other end, all the while waiting for the vet tech inside the vet’s office. (Turns out we’re both nervous eaters.)

On a more class related note, I’m trying to figure out why my “Jr. High” kids need me to remind them when to come back to class… Remember those technological devices you are not supposed to have but obviously do? They have a little clock feature as does the main building… not to mention the assumed responsibility of a 12 year old to be able to know when to return to class. I would have more sympathy if I didn’t already yell for them at the start of class. They are all like the special ed. kids I used to work with… They need a constant schedule and two minute warnings to change gears. I amuse myself by thinking of how they would get absolutely swallowed in a more urban school. One of my kids told me she wanted to change schools because they had bells to tell them when to go to class. I would love to introduce them to Pavlov. These of course are the same children that hate to conform. The idea of homework, sitting in an assigned seat, being on-time to school, not leaving until school is actually over, and having to ask to leave the room or use the phone gives them conniptions.

Today not a single of my 14 little lovelies remembered to do their homework, so every single one had to stay in a recess to do it. 20 minutes of reading… it was as if I’d assigned a 10 page research paper and a pop quiz. Combined with the 10 minutes they now owed me due to being late to class by those same 10 minutes and their two 15 minute recesses suddenly got a whole lot shorter. Enter the wicked teacher of the west. The best part is they are so difficult to teach, some were still late back from lunch, and they have a yard duty and two minute warning during that break.

I’m antsy to get back to my previous reality more than ever, counting the days and making social plans much farther in advance than normal. And to make it all just more perfect (without the rabies scare, two hour drive to town and back after work, hand injury, and class of spring fever Monkeys) the rain is making a comeback. And to add insult to injury, my computer decided to freak out and now I can’t play DVDs on it. I have to go back to the “city” to get my back-up disk and reinstall the driver. Now how am I going to entertain myself?

Ending on a positive note, I did have a gloriously sunny weekend and met an aide from the other school who provided me with ample entertainment for the ritual Sunday night dinner at the casino. I also took a long walk on the local runway which is surrounded by fields of poppies and lupine. Gorgeous.


















And today, thanks to a rather cool aunt, I received some WWII era postcards and actual letters from a woman I’ve never met. I was absolutely overwhelmed at this stranger’s generosity and am thankful for the reminders that some people still exist that do good things just for the sake of helping others. I’ll post more about them when I share the cards with my class.

Today’s Postcard update:
Nova Scotia
1. Looks like the Bahamas.
2. Is not Jamaica or Belize
3. The sailing ship on the dime must be the Titanic (I told them it was famous).
4. Is not on a world map (Thanks for that one… we’re still trying to find it!)
5. Is in Canada
6. Canada is on both the world map and the US map.
7. Is really far north, yes near North Dakota, and no, the green colored state is in fact a state and not a part of Canada.

Thank you to ALL my postcard friends. I’m sorry I haven’t remembered to share them all on here. I will be sure to make a post when we are finished listing all the places we’ve made friends. THANK YOU AGAIN so vary much! If nothing else, besides the geography lesson and motivation for my class, it reminds me of the very large and small world out there and of all the friends and people around the world that are supporting and thinking of me. Thank you.

Here's what we have so far...













For those keeping score at home, today’s internet speed is 19Kbps. That’s up five from this weekend! It should only take me about 10 minutes to load a website now.

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