Student Papers

I assigned my freshman classes their final project three weeks ago. It is due today. Before school even started I had one student come up to me to ask if she could turn her paper in on Monday. Excuse me? No. You've had three weeks, THREE WEEKS. There is no excuse valid enough. She exclaimed that her mom's printer wasn't working. Oh in that case go to the computer lab and print it out, no big deal. She then informs me she can't type that fast. What? You don't even have it typed up? Sorry, I have zero sympathy for you. It would be one thing if she had it typed up ready for me to print off. That I can handle. I don't like it. But I can handle that. The girl doesn't even have it typed up. I tell her sorry no. She tries to convince me to take it anyway because after all, she does have it written. Again, no. I'm sure this won't be the only excuse I hear today. Sad. I just pray I don't get angry parents. I hate that. Try to teach your children some type of responsibility people.

On another note, I found this email from a student today with his paper as an attachment.

print! :)
dont you hate how much ink cost?
and when you cant find one of your 30 bajillion flash drives!!

Too funny. His I will take.

Typing

One of the funniest things I have discovered is that my students flip out when I start to type. They are completely amazed at the speed at which I type. It's pretty funny to hear the "look at how fast she's typing" circulated around the room. If I want to really awe and amaze them I type while watching them. They can't seem to imagine how I can type without looking at either the screen or the keyboard. It's pretty amusing. So for the record my fingers are definitely not lightning fast but not too bad if I do say so.
85 words

Water Balloon Fight

At my school we have a missions team. Its a fairly new thing that has developed over the last couple of years. The past two years the teacher in charge has taken them to Mexico during spring break. It has been really incredible to see the reactions of the students when they return from these trips. This year they have also made the effort to visit a homeless shelter once a month. Its a really great thing for the students to be able to see outside their little worlds. This next summer they are planning a trip to Panama. Right now they are in the midst of many different fund raisers to lessen the cost. Even though these students are attending a private school, most of them can not shell out the extra money to go on these trips.

This past Thursday they had a fundraiser that involved teacher participation. I reluctantly agreed to go along with their plan. Honestly, I didn't want to do it (neither did any of the other teachers). But I couldn't tell them no as it was for a good cause. The fundraiser? They sold water balloons to the students to hit us teachers with. Can you see why I wasn't jumping at the chance to do this? They set up this big circle on the field and then another outer circle. The students were supposed to stay behind the outer circle. But who are they kidding, there is no way they stayed back there. We were bombarded with balloons. Initially, we all got pretty wet. It wasn't because we were being hit directly either. The splash from others catching the balloons was enough to get some of us pretty wet. I had a couple of direct hits, one to the face and one to the arm. They didn't pop. It hurt.

Some of the boys got a little crazy and were filling trash cans with water. The male teachers then tried to wrestle the trash cans away. It was quite the sight. I stayed as far away as possible during these skirmishes. Then the students decided to get out the hose. Well, thankfully the hose didn't make it all the way to where we were. But one of the teachers decided to wrestle the hose from them. He got it and started spraying the stands. Then he was doused with a trash can full of water. It was pretty funny. I stood there watching all this go on. I wasn't too concerned with getting hit anymore because basically all the balloons had been popped and all the action was going on far away from the circle. That's what I get for letting my guard down. All of a sudden out of nowhere I got hit in the behind. I turned around quickly to find one of the boys running away. This is the student that if there was a vote would be voted off the island by the teachers the quickest. Dang it! I had to be hit by him of all people.

So turns out my dread of this event was unfounded. It was actually pretty fun. Our missions team was able to raise over $200 too. Thankfully, I was smart enough to remember a change of clothes so I didn't have to sit in my wet pants for the last hour of the day.

A New Path?

Over the past few months, my pastor has had different people in the church teach lessons on Wednesday night services. I somehow was volunteered to do so. Just great. I wasn't too fearful as I was towards the end of a very long list of people that were volunteered just like myself. (Basically, my pastor went through a meeting and said you and you and you and you.) Imagine my surprise when I found out I was teaching Ch. 19. Ch. 19!! Are you kidding me? There were 30-40 people on that list. How on earth did I wind up at Ch. 19!

So last night was my turn to teach. I'm not ashamed to tell you I was flipping out. I was so scared of getting up in front of 100+ adults and teaching them anything. Who am I to teach all these adults anything? I still feel like a kid half the time. I was shaking from all the adrenaline (and am shaking even now as I think back). I was given the chapter I was to teach almost two months ago. So I had plenty of time to prepare. But if you've learned anything about me, you know I'm a procrastinator big time. I did read it that first time, I cried. This chapter was meant for me. God was the one that moved me to this spot in the list. I was meant to teach this chapter. Knowing this, however, did not calm my fears.

Last week I began my preparation and took a few minutes to read through it again and look up some scriptures. Then a few days ago I began making notes for myself on what I wanted to talk about and verses I wanted to read to go along with the teaching. I am so glad I was able to take yesterday off. I was able to spend most of the day reading through and familiarizing myself even more with my lesson. I also prayed and prayed and prayed. My mom and I were in constant communication as I kept asking her if everything looked good. She assured me it looked great.

The time finally came for me to teach. I was shaking. This was made very obvious by the fact that I had to hold a microphone, something I completely despise. I started off in a jumble of words. I noticed my parents mouthing to me "slow down." So I took a deep breath and slowed down. From that point on things went fantastic (except when the mic died and I had to wait for them to find a replacement, but I maintained my composure.) There was one point in the lesson that spoke about Sarah believing in the promise of God to give her a child. I had to stop for a minute to compose myself as I began to cry. At that point, my pastor said, "This is why you were supposed to teach this." I nodded in agreement.

After a few minutes, I relaxed and got into a flow. I know that God's anointing was on me because there is no way I could have done so well on my own. I must admit I rocked. I had many many people come up to me and J.R. after the service telling me what a great job I did. One lady told me that she hadn't been too excited about going on Wednesday nights anymore because she wasn't being fed. However, she was having a difficult time getting her daughter to go to youth. So she felt guilty about making her daughter go and then going grocery shopping instead. So she decided to stay. She told me thank you so much, you fed me tonight. That meant so much to me that my teaching had touched someone.

My pastor came up to me later and told me what a great job I did. I admit I was very nervous about his reaction. There have been a few people that have done a poor job and he has not made his disappointment unknown to others. He said I did such a good job he wants me to teach on a Sunday morning. Yeah I don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon. J.R. and my parents haven't stopped fawning over me and what a good job I did. While the appreciation is, well, appreciated I don't want to get a big head over all this. I'm trying to take all the praise in stride. My mom was amazed that I spoke with such authority. She wrote me an email today. She told me that I blew everyone away because I am such a quiet person yet when I got up there I spoke with such authority and confidence. She wants to get the CD of it so my brother can listen to it. I'll admit I won't be sad if I never listen to it.

So it was a success and I'm still flying high from the experience. I've always known I was created to be a teacher (which is why with all the frustrations I face, I love my job). However, doing this I felt totally fulfilled. I feel like I am stepping into something new (and scary I might add) that God has in store for me. I'll admit I'm not exactly sure where this might take me but I'm excited to see what journey the Lord is going to take me on.

April Fool's

This morning I was approached by one of my fellow teachers. He asked if I would like to play an April Fool's joke on our seniors. Quite obviously I jumped at the chance to fool my students even if for a little while. He had come up with the idea that he would tell them he had resigned from the school. We even got the secretary involved.

At the beginning of class, our secretary brought over Mr. B's class. Immediately, all of the students were wondering what was going on. They began to ask question after question. I simply told them that I was going to let Mrs. D (our secretary) explain. Mr. B had left a letter to be read to the students. It basically said that circumstances came up and he was having to leave and that I would be teaching both classes (government AND economics) until there was a replacement. Mrs. D did such an incredible job. As she read the letter to the students she actually had tears in her eyes. It was fantastic. I had a hard time not busting out laughing.

As she left the class, I then had the time of trying to control these students and be as vauge as possible in answering their questions. I began my lecture for my economics class and had the government class start on their work. I must say they were all fairly perplexed. They continually said, "This has got to be a joke, they can't be serious." As I tried to get the government class to do their work, one girl in particular was having a hard time adjusting and processing the whole thing. She kept telling me that they had been working on debates. I calmly told her that I just found about this whole thing this morning and that I would figure things out as quickly as I could but that they would have to be patient in the mean time.

As my lecture in economics continued, Mr. B had placed a slide in there that was outlining the term "Fictism." I continued on like it was a real word and a real issue in economics. Then the last slide said, "April 1, 2008 Mr. B and Mrs. R play an April Fool's joke on the senior class." As this slide went up, Mr. B burst through the door. This was accompanied by very confused looks on our student's faces. His class then proceeded to throw paper balls at him. It was so funny. He then began reading off all the text messages he had received from the students. They were all so concerned about him. They had been texting him asking if everything was ok and whether or not this was some kind of a joke. What a fun way to start a day.

Snowball Fight!

I've been meaning to post this for awhile. So rather than focus on the frustrations I'm experiencing in the classroom (stupid disrespectful students) and in life, I choose to focus on some happy thoughts.

While we were up at retreat a month ago us teachers had quite a bit of fun. Its wasn't just a time away for the students. It was a time for us to get away as a staff and get to know each other and relax. The second day we were up there Paul (the guy who basically does this entire retreat for us) had us coordinate some games for the students. The students were all split into teams. There were 3 main teams and then 8 more teams within the larger teams. So we had 5 stations split up with 5 different games going at the same time. It's quite a production. But it keeps almost 300 students busy for a few hours.

Before they sent the students our way we were just standing around in this huge field of snow. It became just a little too tempting for us. We began a snowball fight. We had a blast! (I'm going to take a quick second to note that the VAST majority of teachers on staff here are my age or younger, most of them being younger.) At one point, Melissa took a run at Mark and completely took him down. It was pretty funny. The rest of us then pummeled Mark with snowballs. He has since then not stop making excuses for being taken down by a girl and even now refers to Melissa and her best friend Eleanor as big bullies. Good times! I've got to say one of the things that keeps me sane while working here is having great coworkers.