The snow is falling and I am sitting on my couch watching Sex and the City enjoying the joys of a 2 hour early dismissal and the prospect of a day off from school tomorrow. I thought I would jump on the blog and make a dent in my 30 Great Details. So here goes: Tuesday, January 25 in great detail.
I woke up around 5:30 thanks to my two feline roommates. My alarm is set for 6 AM, but I almost always wake up before that thanks to my two cats. I usually lie in bed for a while and roll out and officially start my day around 6:16. I don't shower in the morning 'cos if I did I'd have to get up even earlier. Plus, I usually work out after school and I don't like to shower twice a day. I turned on WSET to see if the weather forecast for the week had changed. I swear it has changed about five times in about two days - from rain to sleet to 1-3" to 3-5". I fed the miserables, picked out an outfit (which always takes me a while), ate a bowl of cereal, and walked down the three flights of stairs to my car. My forty-five minute commute was not too awful. I got caught behind a logging truck on the last 15 minutes of the drive, but as my school is located about 6 miles down the road from a Georgia-Pacific Plant that is a normal occurrence.
I arrived at school around 7:30 which leaves me about 45 minutes to prepare before my first class. As per usual, the copier was not working. The copier is probably the source of most of my frustrations at school. There is ONE copier for the entire high school and middle school. It breaks down and is out of commission at least two days a week. It jams at least once almost every time you visit it. The machine drives me bonkers. I did not know a thing about copy machines before I arrived at this school, but I am now! I actually met a new student teacher in the school while I was at the copier. It felt so funny to talk to her as the "2 year veteran" teacher. I know I'm only in my second year and am hardly a veteran, but it was amazing to look back at her and remember MY student teaching. I showed her how to work the copier like I remember someone showing me, told her tricks when you unjam it, gave her a lesson idea for her government class (she has the regular government class I taught last year). It was a neat moment.
My first three periods zoomed by. My 10th graders took a quiz and we finished up imperialism. I think I taught it this year much better than last year. All my kids from last year remember is that I showed them a picture of people being strapped to a cannon (the ill-fated results of the Sepoy Mutiny). I'm telling you kids and violence and horrible methods of execution...they love it. They all loved when I taught them about the guillotine during the French Revolution. It's ridiculous. Anyway, the next big unit is World War I, which I really love teaching.
I didn't pack a lunch so I headed to the cafeteria to buy my sad little cafeteria salad and a fruit cup for $2.50. Lettuce, carrots, cheese, broccoli, croutons and ranch dressing. It's nothing special, but I'm pretty impressed that the school even offers it. All you hear about is how unhealthy school lunches are, but the high school I went to certainly didn't offer salad every day. I ate Funions and SmartFood! Lunch with the girl on my floor flew by much too quickly. It was the usual teacher lounge stuff: we talked about the possibility of snow, complained about students, gossiped about what a certain student had done to get 10 days of out of school suspension. Alas, the bell rang and I had to get to my seniors.
It is the class I look forward to least and I'm not sure why. I think it's just 'cos it's after lunch and I wish lunch was longer (a lot like my kids). We actually had a pretty good class. They were learning about the War Powers Resolution and I split them up into groups. Each group read a different article about the Iraq War and the powers of Congress and the President to wage war. They did a REALLY good job! At the end of class I gave them a silly quiz I found online called "How Much Do You Know About the State of the Union?". It was a fun quiz and even I only got 4/7 right. They were so excited to see how they did. I honestly don't know if they've ever been that excited. Their homework was to NOT watch the State of the Union and instead to fill out the chart I gave them about what they thought he would talk about. (We watched it in class today and they checked off what they were right about).
I had my planning period next and I hopped in the car and drove 1 mile down the road to the local post office to finally mail the package of all JC's old stuff back to him. No more blankets, shirts, sweatshirts, or anything of his in my apart ment. Hooray! I graded my history class quizzes and looked at pictures of my new niece on Facebook and then got ready for my 6th period, which went just like 2 and 3. 7th period was my other government class and I was really impressed at how well they did also. The class was cut a bit short 'cos we were handing out report cards, which means kids report to their homeroom at the end of the day. School gets out at 2:40. Lately, I've been getting out of school pretty early - around 4:15-4:30 - but last night I had gate duty.
Gate duty is one of those responsibilities teachers have that people don't realize. Three times a year we have to sell tickets and work the gate at a sporting event. I always choose the boy's basketball games because I'm friends with the boy's basketball coach and I have a ton of boys on the team. That's not to say that I don't have a lot of girls on the girls team, but I just can't make myself watch girls basketball. I really only get to watch the last quarter, but still. I brought my computer so I could multitask and make my WWI PowerPoint for tomorrow while I sold tickets. Usually I just sit there for 4 hours and do nothing but eat nachos and play with my phone. I was pretty pleased with my ability to multitask. It also just felt so much more familiar. My gate duties last year were so new. I felt like such an outsider. Here I had someone sit down with me and ask how the track team was looking this year. The girl selling concessions behind the counter shouted out, "hey Ms. R, can I get you anything?" (I had her bring me a hot dog and a Dr. Pepper). Lots of my kids from last year came over and said hello and asked what we were learning. I told them I was putting together a PowerPoint on WWI and they were all excited to show me they still remembered stuff from last year like the Lusitania and Franz Ferdinand and who was in the Triple Entente. It was actually not a bad night! I usually hate gate duty nights and go home exhausted.
I came home and since I had done most of my planning at the game I could relax a bit. I called my high school pal who I haven't talked to in a while. She is such a good friend and ear to listen. She is the friend I tell stuff to that I don't tell anyone else. After I got off the phone I watched the State of the Union, showered, and then got a surprise phone call from a friend of mine out in Wyoming. I call him my "little brother" and I've known him since he was about 9 or 10. He's currently a sophomore in college, which is just crazy, but I can save that for another post. Anyway, his phone call was such a surprise and it was so nice catching up with him! He is so excited to have me back out at the ranch this summer. The last time I saw him was my sister's wedding almost 2 years ago and we had so much fun dancing all night! I am so proud of what a wonderful young man he has become. I spent a lot of time with him when I lived out at the ranch and even tutored him his junior year so I like to think I have a little something to do with that. It was a nice way to end the night, even though I stayed up a bit later than I planned on talking to him (2 hour time change and all).
And that was my day in - as the title asks for - excruciatingly great detail.
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