Smile Moments

The week started off pretty awful as I lost my keys at school Wednesday and didn't realize it until I was ready to go home after practice around 6:30. Needless to say, I literally spent two hours looking for the keys with the only people left in the school, the head janitor and his wife. The keys eventually turned up (locked in the secretary's office) but it made for a horrible night and consequently an awful start to the week. I felt like I was playing catch-up all week because of that one awful night. Throw in parent teacher conferences on Wednesday night and you have one rough week. The good news? Less than 1 week from now I will be in Monterey, California!

I have an awful lot of work to get done before then however. I have a stack of papers to grade that is about 2 weeks old that I need to knock out today. I have to finish cleaning the apartment, pack, plan, get some dry cleaning and ironing done that I've been meaning to do for MONTHS, and hopefully a couple decent workouts in and some lesson planning.

Despite my lack of sleep and planning, I somehow managed to make it through the week with my sanity intact and I even had a couple "smile" moments. The first was the day after the great key fiasco. I apologized to my kids that they had to take so many notes today, but explained that I lost my keys, got home very late and didn't have time to make them a worksheet. One of my students who is an office aide immediately responded, "oh, those were YOUR keys? We were trying to figure it out!" She went on to explain that they were examining my key ring and saw the Army keychain and stopped to think "now what teacher would have an Army keychain?"

Immediately another student in the class responded, "the one who loves World War II!" It seriously made my day. That is indeed my favorite historical period and is pretty much the reason I became a history teacher. I never told that to my kids, but I'm glad to see I conveyed my enthusiasm well. If all they remember 10 years from now about their 10th grade history class is that their teacher 'loved WWII' my life will be compete haha! It definitely also made me laugh that she was trying to figure out what teacher would have the Army keychain. She admitted she thought it might be me 'cos of how I talk to her about her best friend who is about to go to Afghanistan and how much I know. They definitely don't know about JC (I keep my personal life personal) so they just think I know a lot about the Army. I think some of them actually think I served, which is kind of comical.

Another smile moment came Thursady during track practice. I had to work with the distance squad for the first half of practice and then the head coach wanted me to do something with the girls team (only about 5 girls) to get them away from the boys he wanted to work with because, as he put it, they "go into heat whenever they're together". So for starters, in case I haven't mentioned it, I was a distance runner in high school. I have no natural speed and like running long distance because there is so much opportunity for improvement and personal advancement. Well, the 5 girls I had to work with were all 8th and 9th grade girls who - except for 1 - lack any real natural talent. That's perfectly fine with me, but add to that the fact that they have horrible attitudes and call themselves "the Black Mafia", are lazy and are only in the sprinting group because they just don't want to run anything more than a lap and you get an idea of what I had to work with. Now I come to practice every day in running attire. I like to run with the kids when I get a chance, especially the girls, even though they complain the entire time. The kids all know I have a distance background and I think whenever the Head Coach (we'll call him Coach T) says "go with Coach R" they are terrified because they think I'm going to make them run a distance workout.

So he told these 5 girls yesterday to go with me and you would not BELIEVE the complaining he and I heard. When I told them we were going to go run through the woods on the cross-country trails, I may as well have said we're going to fly to the moon. I told them I would run it with them and they seemed to accept it a bit better after that. I fudged the distance and told them we were running about 1 mile (it's really closer to 2200 meters, which is almost 1 1/2 miles). They complained for the first 5 minuets almost nonstop. What if we get attacked by a bear? What if a "wild Cujo dog" runs out and tries to kill us? What if a crazy man runs out of the woods to get us? What if we got lost? What if they got impaled by a stick? Complain. Complain. Complain. After about 3/4 of a mile they all started taking off their sweatshirts (I honestly think it's the first time they've worked up a sweat in track practice). When we popped out by the back baseball field with only about a half mile left they were all in pretty good spirits. I honestly think they couldn't believe they did it and that it was so much easier than they thought. We got back to the track and, for about the first time all season, we stretched as a team. One girl remarked "I really feel better after stretching." AMAZING. Another finally admitted "that was kind of fun." Still another - the one with the worst attitude in the world who scowls all throughout practice - asked, "can we do that every week?"

I was seriously on Cloud 9. The girls found something they like to do at track practice and it involves running more than 100 meters. I'm excited because I think it will be good conditioning once a week to build up some distance. I also think it really helped those girls realize I'm not so scary and I won't make them run 10 miles. I doubt they'd ever admit to it, but I think they liked that I ran it with them.

Another good thing that happened this week: JC's running shoes are now being worn by 2 of my favorite boys on the sprinting team. Like most of the track team, they were running in pretty sorry looking basketball shoes before. I have made it my goal to get them all in proper running shoe and thanks to the donations of a parent and my old pair of shoes I have now outfitted 4 athletes (out of about 30) with lightly used running shoes. Never mind that one of the boys is running in my size 11 girls shoes and has no ideas. Running shoes are running shoes and they're definitely better than what he used to have.

Other smile moments include an exchange with a particularly tough parent at conferences. A father that came in noted the flag on my wall and the several pictures I have on my "Heroes Wall" of people in uniform. He asked where I got the flag and I told him my boyfriend who returned from Afghanistan in November. He seemed to have an interest so I asked if he served. He said, "still do. I'm just on medical leave." I asked what branch and he responded, "the ONLY branch, the Army". I immediately replied with an instinctual "hooah", which just made him grin from ear to ear. It was a very tense conference up until then and after that he slapped me on the back! It was a fun way to end parent teacher conferences. I relayed the exchange to JC later that night and he complemented me on my excellent use of 'hooah' and told me he'd never been prouder.

Today has been a more productive Saturday than usual. I have been alternating cleaning, organizing and grading (packing will be added in tonight!). I do a little of this and a little of that and the day has flown by. I actually have to run to Kroger to go get my ingredients for my cooking date tonight. We're doing it tonight because JC has a big German test on Monday and I have a fantasy baseball draft. We're making a couple of old family recipes his dad passed along to him so it should be fun. I ate both things we're making back when I met his family back in January and they were delicious. I'm definitely looking forward to having them in my fridge all week.

In other news, my ex boyfriend will be deploying for Afghanistan. I found this out last night via Facebook and my stomach has been all queasy ever since. He is going to a particularly volatile and dangerous part of the country. I talked with JC at length about how I felt about him deploying. It's his 3rd deployment and his first as a sergeant in charge of other soldiers. Despite not being the right guy for me at all, he is a good person with a good heart and an outstanding soldier. Obviously, he is not a part of my life anymore like he used to be, but I still care about him and would ask you to keep him and his soldiers in your thoughts and prayers throughout the year.

Alright, I'm off to go pick up the ingredients for "Burger Puddin'" and "Ro Ro Salad". I do love my South Carolina boyfriend!