School, School, House, Yard, House and Car

well the third week of school is nearing completion and i'm still hangin in there! today i impressed the students by bringing in 'guest checks' that the waiter keeps your tab on and menus to chili's and olive garden that i'd printed off the internet. i let them take turn being the waiter/waitress and calculating the total price for their group's meal. it was a big hit with the number one question being 'are these real??' about the guest checks...which i'd picked up several hundred of at walmart for $3. my favorite question however was 'ms. do you have another job?' i said, 'no, why?' and the girl said 'o i wondered if you brought these from your other job.' no, actually this job keeps me plenty busy.

last nite was open house and i was pleased to see that my classroom procedures had been instilled properly in the students little heads. as i quizzed them in front of their parents about what they do when they initially walk in my classroom, without fail they all promptly responded 'we do our get it started.' and i had prepared a get it started activity for their parents as well. get it started is simply my bellwork, warmup, do now...whatever. i call it get it started simply for the sake of being able to walk in to class each day and say 'ok people. get it started. get it done. no laziness. get it started. get it done. take care of business.' :)

between ross' grad school, my school's open house, grading papers, housework, yardwork, small group, my teacher certification class, and trips to college station...ross and i have been having to carve out some time to hang out and also get some sleep! one evening last week ross called me on the way home from work and we met at our sailboat. ross grilled some dinner on our awesome propane stove and then we just hung out at the marina for awhile on the boat. we fed some ducks that like to hang out at the marina, watched the sunset, and then headed home. also, as of about 10minutes ago we are caught up on House, M.D. just in time for the new season that starts sept 25th.

last weekend i was able to go straight to college station after school on friday and hang out with jennifer and then go to the football game on saturday...yes, the whole game. i announced our victory in all my classes as i had told all my students i was going to the game (alot of them mentioned it to me on their way into class as well), but tried to be fair in that i also mentioned the longhorns victory and the cowboys victory. but not the red raiders. that gets to be a little too generous.

yesterday we had quite the rainstorm starting about 5.30am and continuing through 6.30am when i left the house. about 7am (halfway to work) my windshield wiper broke off my car. always fun! i got to school on time (7.59am) but was soaking wet. i got great leverage out of my story in all my classes, and that night at open house a lot of parents asked me about it so i guess word got out. i told them that i drove the rest of the way with only one windshield wiper because i knew they would be so disappointed if i wasn't there. they laughed. tomorrow they get their first sub (the afternoon classes only though) as i'll be across the street developing some math curriculum with a consultant and other teachers from the district. we'll see if they're still laughing when i return.