8

=the number of weeks until we leave for senegal, africa. i saw pics last night. beautiful little children with bright eyes and big smiles. i might not come back.

a few things we learned at the meeting:

1 -- women on the trip will be helping the women from the tribe make food, wash dishes, clean, and care for the babies.
2 -- the men will be sitting under a tree drinking hot tea. "men" here refers to coacher. he's the only man going from second. poor man.
3 -- the babies don't wear diapers, so it's perfectly normal to be pooed on.
4 -- coacher and i have chosen to stay in the village, which means we will have no electricity, no running water (bucket baths), and no toilets (we will use the "squatty potty" out back.)
5 -- we must take our own toilet paper.
6 -- they are deathly afraid of snakes. this is because their snakes are deadly.

oh, the adventurous life..how i love it!

26

that's not my age.

that's the number of referrals i wrote in the first quarter of school. (there were actually more than that, but i threw some away because of the following situation...)


4 (or more)

that's the number of referrals that got sent back to me by a certain assistant principal because i did not call the student's home before writing a referral. i'm sorry, but i did not have time to call the student's home while he was pushing shaniqua out of her seat, talking nonstop while people were trying to read silently, then cussing at me because i told him to stop and he hates me, my class, and everything else dealing with school or authority figures. i will also be sure to attempt to control the other 7 kids in class who cannot control their own talking, and i will put their names on an ever-growing list of students whose parents need to be informed that their kids cannot control themselves in class.

next time, i will be sure to press a pause button so that i have time to call home and hear the student's mom ask me if i've ever heard of bipolar--because everyone in the family has it--and then ask me if i knew that one manifestation of bipolar is the inability to control the amount of talking coming out of the mouth. "we just can't control him...haha."

sure, i have plenty of time for that and 7 other conversations like it.

i understand. high school kids, who can drive and get jobs and make babies, shouldn't be expected to follow rules or be held accountable for their own actions.


i'm sorry. it's been rough...

logical fallacies part deux

here's another logical fallacy for you:

1 - we are teachers.
2 - we are still paying two mortgages.
3 - we are going to AFRICA over Christmas (the oppositve of cheap) to spread very good news.

but they do speak french there, so i will finally have a chance to put those 4 years of high school french to good use. (i remember about 5 words, which i will probably accidentally combine with spanish phrases, so i'm sure that will go over well. "bonjour, como esta? Je suis bien es fatigue).

i guess i will begin accepting tattoo ideas.

Salut!

logical fallacies

i know only 3 things about potato chips:

1 - i don't really care for them.
2 - they aren't particularly good for you.
3 - if i happen to be in a car with a bag of them when coming home from school/volleyball/south dakota/etc. i will end up eating them at some point.

this does not seem logical to me.

uh oh

this is on the second baptist church missions blog:

Christmas Mission Trip to Senegal, West Africa

9.9.09

December 21-30,2009

What a great opportunity to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Jahanka villages of Senegal, West Africa. Imagine sharing the Christ of Christmas at Christmas among people who have never heard the Gospel. If you are interested in participating in this trip, please attend an upcoming Informational Meeting Sunday, September 20 at 5:00 pm in room 209.




yes, that says AFRICA!! i might need to start looking at tattoo designs, per my promise last year. we shall see.

carry on.

iLike (stuff i don't have to have)

our new blue wall (and the green ones and the brown one...i just don't have a pic yet). someday soon i'd like to have a design painted on the brown one...a dandelion or something, possibly.


these new penguin books. i love pretty books.

peonies in a blue-green jar. what's not to like?

this jeep looks pretty sweet. it might have something to do with the fact that the mountains look pretty fun, but i've seen one of these around town, and i've grown to like it quite a bit. i'm in a green-loving phase.

this house is out near my parents', and the moment i saw it "i fell in love with it" (such a woman thing to say, isn't it?). if i were to live in it one day, i would change a few things. to start off with, it would not be so close to other houses. secondly, the porch would be even more "open" and the windows would get some shutters or something to soften them up. my tastes have changed quite a bit since college. i used to want to live in a really modern house with sleek lines. those are still cool to me, but they seem a bit unpractical.



note: please forgive me for not giving credit to the sources from where i pulled some of these pics. i forgot to save the pages, then got too lazy to try finding them again.

carry on.

oh boy

i will try to keep this quick, but i have a lot of things to record so i make no promises.

first of all, i made it through the first four days of school. i wrote 7 referrals in one class (over the course of two class periods) and was accused (by some students in that class) of being racist because most of the students who got in trouble were not the same color as i. i will say this to address the situation, then move on with my life:
1 - approximately 75% of the kids in that class are not the same color as i, which increases the odds that kids of that color will get into trouble, all things being equal. make sense??
2 - the kids who got in trouble FULLY deserved to get in trouble, as did several other kids in the class; i just ran out of time and energy to write them up. i have a long year ahead of me unless i can figure this class out.
3 - the rest of my classes are little darlings(!), and they are made of the same racial ratios.

that is all about that. here's what's going on this semester:
1 - teaching english 3 and reading classes (different from last year)
2 - head coaching volleyball (track in spring)
3 - helping with the college ministry at church. big things are happening there, and i don't want to miss out!
4 - fca at school.
5 - writing my master's thesis paper, which will take a LOT of time and energy. i found out on tuesday that my research proposal and applications for doing the research should have basically been done in july because of the school district in which i teach and their ridiculous procedures for research (they tend to reject most proposals, just for kicks.). i might not finish my master's program this semester, but that will be okay, because i would like to be a pleasant, non-anxious, non-tense person to spend time with, particularly for my husband. that is worth the 1,500-something raise i would get if i finished by december.

very soon i plan to cut down on the amount of "stuff" i do, but for now it is what it is.

now for some more fun things:
1 - applebutter-making day is coming up.
2 - our church is planning a trip to africa in december, which means i might need to look into tattoo designs.
3 - it's almost fall, and the weather is already crisp and cool, perfect for riding in coacher's jeep or a black mustang convertible.
4 - lr's football team should be pretty good, and i plan to watch them get some wins.
5 - babies are popping up and growing up everywhere, and the best part is we get to play with them, then send them home when they get cranky (or tired of us).
6 - in the past two weeks, i have gotten recertified in belaying for rock climbing and learned to golf. am i really good at those two things? not so much. but they are pretty fun.
7 - i have successfully made meatballs, and they were not too bad.

my blog name will change soon, but i'm still looking for ideas. all for now...