Technology-Tied

SO, I may not be posting much for a while because I have realized I am too tied to my technology! I enter grades electronically online so if I am not at school teaching I am probably home online entering in grades. And then I start web surfing, and e-mailing and facebook checking, and wondering who has commented on my blog, and ect.,ect.,ect., and on my cell phone talking to whomever, and I just need to take a step back from all of the electronic noise! I even accidentally added a guy on facebook who is not my friend with the same name, who then proceeded to accept me as a friend and call me hot...and now, I JUST need to stop! :)

My Motivation: Gordon B. Hinckley

We have been studying the Purtians in my 11th grade class. They were such a guilt ridden culture! No forgiveness of sins ect. You know, The Scarlet Letter.... Well, we did a journal write on whether guilt was a good motivator for change. I told the kids if they said that guilt was not a good motivator, that they needed to tell me what is a good motivator for them. I received a variety of responses but this was my favorite:

"Guilt is an effective way, becuase you put a guilt trip on them. It's worked for me in the past when I did something wrong my parents put a guilt trip on me. but also my favorite motivator is Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley. He teaches the difference between right and wrong. He just teaches all good behavior. That's wy He's my favorite motivator." (17 year old boy)

This one was pretty good too:

"Guilt is an effective motivator, it eats the inside of you till you give in. It's like when you're in church and they say you can bare your testimony, even though you don't want to, guilt makes you go up there. It also makes you tell your secrets about everything, your life and other people's lives." (17 year old boy)

Only in Utah! :)

I'm Toxic

Yes, you are Brittney. But I actually feel sorry for you. Me, who is so overly judgemental of celebrites, feels sorry for you. Sorry that you are losing your kids. Don't know why, have always hated you, but it stinks. Thing is, the kids have got to be just about as bad off, if not worse, with Kevin Federline~.

www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/10/02/spears.federline

'Tis the Season to Try to be Positive

I like how Scully started her last post of “tis the season.” I was thinking how it ‘tis the end of September and time for me to hit my first burn out of the school year! I am exhausted, stressed, and everything that could possibly have gone wrong this week so far, has. So, I am trying to think about all of the good things about this season:
1. PHS won their first homecoming game in 20 years. My football boys are happy.
2. The mountains are turning beautiful colors!!! I love the fall!
3. I don’t have to use my fan at night, or roll down the windows in my car anymore.
4. I can wear a sweatshirt outside! Yeah!
5. I love the stormy, moist, cloudy, rainy, weather that comes with fall in Provo.
6. My classroom is no longer a sweat box of 90 degrees!
7. I had to scrape off my windshield this morning, it was covered in ice. Okay, okay, one complaint had to make it on this list!
8. And yeah, can’t think of a lot of good things right now, maybe there will be more good things tomorrow, after I post mid-term grades, after I spent all night at parent teacher conference, after I plan my lessons for the rest of the week….
9. I saw Hairspray, and it was really good! Love the music. I can’t wait until someone can say to me, “you’re old and your fat, but you will never be old hat to me!” Good show. I recommend it.
10. Late entry: Airborne. Airborne makes me happy; Zesty Orange flavor to be exact. Staving off the head cold—so far, mostly good.

Conspiracy Theory

You know how there was always that one teacher that you had your suspicions about? For me it was Mr. Swartz, 10th grade, Chemisty. He had a toupee, he just had to. No one's hair was that fixed. It never changed, and never moved. We speculated for hours. Now I, apparently, am the target of a conspiracy theory. Apparently, according to my 3B class, I am really a math teacher, trapped inside of an English teacher's body. Evidence: I misspell things on the white board: frequently. Guilty as charged? Who knew.

What is this the jungle?

I am being strong armed into the teacher's union! I do not want to join! I feel like I am in an Upton Sinclair novel, or in the middle of some other early 1900's story, where people are forced to join unions or die~. I know, I know, I should be responsible and join like every other teacher in Utah, not open myself up to harrassment and ostracisim from co-workers. The thing is, I don't want to spend $600 dollars a year right now on union dues. And I really, am bugged by the fact that the PHS representative of the union is my old bishop. Okay, sic my old bishop of me please! Whatever happened to separation of church and state? Of course I will feel guilty and join the union if you send my former ecclesiastical leader! Well, I love the man, I really do, he is great man. But I just don't want to be guilt-ed into the teacher's union! I have avoided him since he left me another phone call about joining the union....I also don't want to feel the need to avoid a fellow teacher/old bishop either (which said emotion I am currently feeling). But I-Do-Not-Want-To-Join! And it is my right not too!

A Thousand Words

The American Dream?

"An American Dream is something little. It is a dream that anybody can dream. It's something that happens at night when you are sleeping most of the time. It's when you dream about something American. I don't know what but something like that. You can even day dream about it. In fact that's what most people do in an American Dream. You do it in American of course. But ya, that's it what I think what an American Dream is."


I gave an assignment on the American Dream, and that response was so funny I laughed out loud. She is a conscientious student, but apparently has no clue. LOL! I also really liked the one below, and though I would share!


"I would say the American Dream is to graduate college, get a degree, have a family, and also to own a home and car. And not have to pay any more for them. Oh and to go to the mall and have a Paris Hilton shopping spree. And have no speed limits. You wouldn't get fat of off fast food. Well just to be able to eat what ever you want."


This one however, was really touching:


"It's what many immigrants think about when they come to the USA, I know because I am an immigrant; my dad told me he would hear the term all over his town "El Sueno Americano" in Mexico. Some of them achieved that just like my dad because my dad is way much better now than he was when he came here illegally. He is now a citizen and he made my whole family citizens. He says that in Mexico we would probably be really poor and I think that's true. So the American dream is freedom and being better than in the country you were in before."


I learned so much about each one of my students and our modern American culture from reading 150 of these! I hope you enjoyed stepping into the minds of my high school students!

Help! Advice.

So, that guy I kissed in CA, I have been emailing him, and we have talked on the phone a few times, now he is UT having major life threatening type surgery at Utah Valley, and I didn't know about it, until today, when his brother sent out a mass-email to his contacts about a blog they are keeping updates on his condition on. So, my question is, what do I do? anything? I emailed him after I found out, hope that's not awkward, kind of a good luck type thing, but ideas? We aren't in a relationship so, but still...what is called for? This is like a life time television movie. :)

Looks Like I Have Some Work to Do...

Your Vibe Is Secretly Sexy

Sexy isn't exactly a word you'd use to describe yourself But you have a quite allure that certain men feel appealing You don't need to flaunt your stuff to be sexier A little more confidence in yourself, and you'll really light up a room!

What Kind of Sexy Girl Vibe Do You Have?

I don't want to just be secretly sexy....ahhhhgh!

What the First Day of School Brings

To a high schooler the first day of school means:

1. You got to pick out a new outfit, lay it across your bed nights before, imagine your stunning entry in the said outfit, and tease your hair for at least an hour before you real entry into the high school.

2. Fantasies about how the guys must have gotten hotter in 3 short months, and don't guys grow any taller in that short amount of time either?

3. Maybe you will have class with just the right hot guy.

4. Maybe this will be the year you date just the right hot guy.

5. Seeing your friends on a regular basis.


To a teacher, the first day of school means:


1. The first day of sleepless nights for months.

2. The first day that cut offs are again not-okay, neither are messy buns, or flip-flops okay to wear.

3. The first day of 160 sets of hormonal/emotional either over or under inflated egos, needs are going to have to come first for 8 hours a day.

4. Home is no longer a sofa and a bed, but a classroom with 38 germ ridden desks, dirty windows, with flying white board eraser dust and a computer.

Women that Come to Tragic Ends

What kind of book characters are you normally attracted to? I have decided (just having finished The Widow of the South), that I have always been attracted to the strong women characters who have tragic lives. Hmmm. The Awakening for instance, or The House of Mirth, The Return of the Native, The Long and Fatal Love Chase, yes, The Scarlet Letter, or The Portrait of a Lady, or this most recent book I have read, The Widow of the South. There is something that awakes a sympathy in me for these women who have tragic lives, or who have tragic love lives really, sometimes undoubtably due to their own bad decisions. I just ache for these women who, some of them, marry tragically, tragically meaning, not out of love, and then find love outside of marriage and then cannot, or in some cases will not, do anything about it. (p.s. I don't condone adultry), I just feel for them! I don't know whether it is becuase I relate to the feeling, (melodramatic yes) of true love being out of their reach or our of the scope of their circumstances, do I relate to that? Never having been in love, I think the melodramatic in me feels that. Other people will read these same books, i.e. my mother, and think these women are shameful or whatnot, and I just feel for them! I guess because I long for that feeling of love myself and have never felt it. Anyway, I have one up on my mom becuase she liked tragic, revengeful characters when she was my age, Anna Karenia, Wuthering Heights, The Count of Monte Cristo, forbidden love and revenge and hate and selfish self-destruction. She laughs at it now, and can't seem to explain it. But what draws us to certain types of characters? I wish there was some sort of quiz that would tell us what book character we would be if we were in a novel. I think I would be Isabella in The Portrait of Lady. I just hope I don't come to a bad end like that....

Do you believe in Fate?

Beliving in fate has never brought me anything except for a whole lot of fantasy relationships with men! LOL. I always wonder if some things are put in our way over and over again to give us opportunity, or whether we are mysteriously on similar wave lengths with some people. I have decided, (and maybe the romance is just busted out of me by the time I am well, my age), but I can't think about it. I can't think about fate. But it always runs past my mind, and I have to keep it at that, tame. For instance:

Is it fate that I now live next door to a guy that used to not be able to keep his eyes of me, we are both still single?

Is it fate that I ran into a guy I haden't seen for 8 years who has been really good friends with a few of my friends in California at one of my best friend's house...

Is it fate that I accidentally went to the exact same temple session I did two weeks ago and the exact same cute, single man was working, and it was again, a little awkward with eye contact. I know, you don't meet people/hit on people at the temple!

Anyway, none of these things are really significant in my life, I have learned to avoid those thoughts of things being "fate," becuase then it just makes me think my life could be a Jane Austen novel, which it never will be, or I get my imagined hopes up for nothing!

Also, do you think we all have dopeldangers? I swear I saw Jennifer McFadden's today. Same hair and everything, those little weird bleach blonde strips in gelled brown curley hair....So weird. But it was not her, this girl is like 10 years younger!

AND: Elder Holland shops at JCrew. I saw him yesterday!

On Butterflies and Lightning Bugs

If you could be an insect, what kind of insect would you be? Aren't we done with these games yet? Nope. Same scenario, teacher inservice meeting, 99.9% of all the women in the room chose "butterfly," I chose "firefly/lightning bug." We had to draw our bug, hold it up and explain why we chose it for ourselves. Needless to say, I missed the butterfly mark! Why do I persist in being different? Ha ha. Anyway, my creation/choice elicited an interesting remark from our teacher-trainer, something about his hot prom date...anyway...thought I would share with you all some picutres of yes--butterflies that I took on my family vacation this summer. And to make you ask yourself...what kind of insect are you?! :)

I Confess, I Liked It.

Whatever might be said about this book being a romance novel in thin disquise--it's true. And the thing is, I have to like it anyway! It is a little bit over the top at times, but I have to hand it to the author--she has made a successful set of books! And, well, it's totally "escape" fiction, and relationship-placebo. I swear I am falling in love with the vampire at the same time the narrator is! Her mixture works, so that every woman who has ever felt "ordinary" before can imagine what it feels like to have a devistatingly handsome man choose her above all other women, and mean it. Every woman wants to be made to feel that way, by a devistatingly handsome man, or not, that there is someone who absolutely cannot stay away from her, and well, it works, it just does. So, if the plot is a little thin as well, I'm still in it for the way she hits that teenage-girl-fantasy that lives inside of each of us.

p.s. The real reason I picked up the novel in the first place is, that it is taking high school girls by storm (actually older women too) and I promised my students I would read it this summer, as well as we were all told in teacher training this week it wouldn't hurt us to be up and up on what all of our students are reading, this and Harry Potter! :)

So the Problem With...

So the problem with kissing a random guy in another state is...it makes you want to kiss more people. It reminds you that you have no one currently to kiss in your life, and that you really really, need to work on your in-house social life. So I have been listening to romantic music (this has got to stop) and every man I see is really cute. I couldn't stop staring at the institute teacher last night. Hmmm, sooo cute. My problem is, I need to stay on the horse. Ha ha. Because who likes this longing feeling?

Nothing is Wrong with...

Nothing is wrong with a little action right? Ha ha. Okay, lots of things to say about my 2 month long vacationing, however, lets start with the best part. Okay, so I was in Huntington Beach, CA, this past weekend, as the last part of my glorious vacationing. I stayed at a beach house 2 blocks from the beach with my friend Krista. We (5 of us) played on the beach, watched the U.S. Open Surfing competition, X-Games skateboarding, went to an Angel's game with her singles ward, and boogie boarded in the ocean, sunbathed, sunbathed, sunbathed, drank at least of gallon of salt water, and I hooked up with an old friend, a guy from my singles ward like 8 years ago when I lived at King Henry. Okay, "hooking up" is an exaggeration, we held hands and stuff and he kissed me, and we went to the beach Saturday night until 3:15 in the morning. I know, I know, you think I'm lying, you know me better than that right? You do know me better than that. But it happened, and it was fun, and you only live life once right? Don't judge me, I still won't regret it! LOL. And it was a very innocent kiss. I promise.

M.I.A.

I will be MIA these next few weeks, family vacation to the east coast! Itnerary: Family Reunion, Hannibal MO, Nauvoo, Gettysburg, Boston, Salem Mass, Washington DC, Philedelphia, and more! I will keep you posted, and post some pixs later!

Just throw them away E!

Do you have anything absolutely impossible to throw away? Every time I am home I try to go through some things and try to get rid of them. Inside my hope chest is a box of corsages from all of the dances I went to in high school. Quite a few I might add. Beautiful, still un-crushed in their little tissue paper, and still pretty-ribboned. Why do I still have these? I don't know. I keep asking myself! Today, I am going to throw them away! For heaven sakes, I still have the pictures of the dances, do I really need the flowers? Although I think having flowers in my hope chest reminded me of something romantic from a novel or what I imaged a romantic person would have in there...reminants of old lost, forlorn loves....

The Nancy Drew in You

Scully and I went to Nancy Drew last night and I was simply delighted by it. They cast Nancy perfectly and her cute little boyfriend, it touched just the right nostalgic bone in me that remembered the little Nancy Drew that is in all of us. Not her personality per say--but that sweet innocence--where everything before you is possibile, and slitghtly out of touch with reality--you will let nothing stop your dreams. The critics gave it a C-, but I give it an A+.

I'm a Big Girl Now!

I've reached a milestone in my life. My dad finally trusts me! I only ran into the garage one time during driver's ed and he never let me drive anything but my own car! I have been banned for years against any of the tractors and the riding lawn mower! Come on! But yesterday my dad let me drive the riding lawn mower for the first time in my life! Whooo hooo! It was so much fun. I did an awful job on the little parcel of the back lawn my dad left for me to mow (we have a gigantic amount of grass, and he let me mow a tad in the back where I could mess up and no one would see). It is harder than it looks! I left little patches of tuff everywhere and you can see the funny circles I made in the lawn for trying to turn around, but my dad didn't even scold me once! Ha ha. My dad letting me drive the riding lawn mower is a metaphor for the fact that my dad respects me as a grown individual who is responsible. My dad is truly wonderful, I hope that didn't make him sound like a tyrant, it's just one of those family things!

Small Town Provincial

Elder Eyring told Moses Lake we could be a Zion people. Maybe not in this generation, but that we have the potential to be, he sensed that about us. Which I thought was cool. I've been running that around in my head since I have been home these last two weeks. Not that the following is the receipe for a city of Enoch, but there are plenty of wonderful things about my hometown.

1. Scully's mom's funeral. The stake center was full to the brim. The salt of the earth people I have known my whole life, and from various wards in our stake, all there to honor her mother, and attest to the wonderful woman she was. I know funerals aren't happy events, but it made me cry to see a gathering of such wonderful people, all of whom had been apart of not only Scully's family's life, but all our lives, so interwoven. It's gathering to comfort, and mourn, to weed gardens, make dinners, and just be there.

2. My old YW leader Brenda let my aunt who is sick in bed a lot borrow her BBC movie, North and South, my mom borrows it from her, watches it with my sister, waits unitl I come home, and I watch it until 2:00 a.m., we give it back to my cousin who watches it twice in a row with her mom and sister in law, and then somehow the DVD gets back into the right hands. Well, on our street, us women of various ages all think North and South has the hottest man in it, and that it rivals even Pride and Prejudice.

3. My dad borrowed a loader from a neighbor to hoist us up in front of the house to paint it, another neighbor borrowed our BBQ-er for the YM BBQ, my dad volunteered to haul cattle to a slaughter house for my first date's dad, and the list goes on. In two weeks, so many neighbors helping neighbors. We were out riding horses at our family reunion and one of their non-LDS neighbors came out with her horse because she noticed that we had too-many-kids, not-enough-horses.

And I'm enjoying laying on the couch and the lawn and reading good books. So far: Of Mice and Men, The Secret Life of Bees, The Chosen, and I'm part way through Eldest.

Guinness Anyone?

I've waited 28 years for this to happen. Not that I anticipated it with joy. In fact, I thought I was in the clear! I have never been offered alcohol before---until this past week! I made it through high school and college with no such invitations; it took a gutzy 16 year old to do it! I was invited by one of my students to sneak into senior fling with him---he promised he would be bringing a keg of beer. I was so shocked by his overture! I knew just about anything I said would be incriminating, so I simply replied: "I don't drink, and I'm not a senior," and then walked away. Sadly his friends laughed at him, and I have been on silent treatment for a while. Gutzy kid. Odd, experience! But, hey, all those years of Beehives, Miamaids, and Laurels paid off huh? Peer pressure *psha*. I would make my young women's leaders proud. ;)

Since You've Been Gone

Or, since I've been gone....I just thought you might like to see a little bit of what I have been doing in my lack of blogging time. Looks fun doesn't it?! I LOVE it.







I especially like to do things that take my students out of their comfort zone: performing mini-plays, reading papers and poems outloud, peer-editing. However, we also have a dang-awesome amount of fun in my class too!

Waxing Philosophical

One of the things I like about teaching is how hopeful and optimistic the young dreamers are. I have a particular student named Jeff who wants to know anything and everything about my life. He sits right behind my desk and if I am ever over there entering grades or what not he asks me questions. A few days ago he wanted to know if teaching had always been my dream. I said no, it wasn't. He asked what I had always wanted to be. I went through the laundry list. I first wanted to be an author, then an artist, then a dental hygenist, then a broacaster, and now a teacher. He proceeded to ask me a million questions about why I didn't pursue this, why I didn't do that. He wanted to know why if I had played sports in high school I didn't try to play in college. I said, well, I knew I wasn't "that good," and he was so funny, he said you should have just tried. He asked why I didn't pursue broadcasting and I said I anchored ect., at BYU but decided it wasn't what I wanted to go pursue, and he was just so cute about it. He told me he wanted to be a sports anchor and play soccer in college, maybe at BYU like his older brother.

Okay, this sounds like a fairly uneventful conversation and it was, but he is such a beautiful dreamer, and it just struck me when he said, "but you should try anyway." I am stuck by these teenagers who try out for dance teams and sports teams and student government and try for that unattainable guy or girl and they try, try, try, even if they fail, they try. It reminds me of my graudation ceremony last week when the speak, (a CEO of Dell, formerly of Orem, UT), quoted the typically, oft quoted lines about how if you never try anything, you will neither fail nor succeed, and thus will live a safe, but boring life. This same day my dad was reminiscing about his mission and said his mission pres. (a millionare, invented the tater tot), used to say, "Bite off more than you can chew, and then chew it!"

I just love the viatlity of the human spirit. What dreams do I need to be dreaming today? And how can I go about pursuing them? There is a lot to be said about being an adult, but there is likewise a lot to be said about remaining a dreamer.

The Microsoft Babies

More later when I have the time and engergy, but I did interview last weekend in Bellevue, WA, where they teach all of the Microsoft babies! Its a far cry from Payson, Ut. 93% plus of their kids go to college up there and according to the curriculum director, "kids know if they go to school in Bellevue; not succeeding is NOT an option." Wow. They wrote their seinor English course a few years ago equivalent to an AP Language course, (but they also have an even harder AP langauge course), and then wrote all of the curriculum from 9 grade up to get the kids to the level they want them all to be by 12th grade. Again, a far cry from Payson. Here in Utah there is a "scope and sequence," but basically you can teach what you want as long as it meets the state core. Anyway--it was a little bit intimidating to interview up there--I'm not going to lie about that!

Four Square

Scully tagged me, so here it is:

Four Jobs I Have Had

Journalism/English Teacher
Bartender/Waitress at The PepperCorn Grill
Voice-Overs for McAfee Inc., and Customer Retention dept.
Fox 13 News, SLC (Bottom of the Totem Pole)

Four Movies I could Watch Over and Over

Bridget Jones' Diary (edited version)
Pride and Prejudice (The New Version)
The Hunt For Red October
A Cinderella Story


Four Places I Have Lived

Moses Lake, Washington
London, England, UK
Provo, Utah


Four TV Shows I Watch

October Road
Anderson Cooper 360


Four Places I Have Gone On Vacation

England
Ireland
Scotland
Austria
Germany
Canada
44 out of the 50 States
(I love vacations!)

Four Websites I Visit Daily

www.google.com
www.gmail.com
www.nebo.edu
www.blogspot.com

Four of My Favorite Foods

Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy's (with no cheese)
Cafe Rio - Shredded Chicken Salad
Yoplait Yogurt - I'm a confirmed addict
Ripe Red Tomatoes with salt

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now

1- Window shopping at Anthropologie, Pottery Barn, Borders, and Banana Republic.
2- Doing a Scrap-Night at the scrapbook store.
3- Sitting in front of the fireplace, wraped in a blanket, playing games, and eating popcorn with my family.
4- Driving in the mountains, windows unrolled, radio blasting!

*just breathe*just breathe*just breathe*

In and out, in and out, the universe seems to be constorting on wether or not it should be for or against me. In the next month I need to find a job, a house, fix my phone, make peace with the jerks at the gym, teach 160 16 year olds full time, and get all the paper work I need in to graduate! All in the next three weeks. I have been spending until 8:00 pm or later at school every night trying to grade research papers, get the school newspaper out, apply for jobs, and do the senior projects and endless lists of paperwork needed to get cleared for my teaching license, all the pointless projects to document my whole existence and evlaute myself as a teacher. I roll into bed exhausted. I still try to teach sunday school and run 3 miles a day. Just ask Panini how brain dead I sounded on the phone last night when she talked to me at like 9:00 pm. Everyone says don't let stress get to you. HA! That is what I would like to say! Did I mention that I lost my debit card too? Argh.

The Cutest Thing I've Ever Seen. My Nephew Joshua.

The Great American Dream

Donny, Donny, Donny. Even he could not help but laugh a little, okay, I know its his job, but seriously. Did anyone catch the opening night of this new game show? The audeince decides who's great american dream should be fulfilled with ABC's deep pockets. Okay, totally shallow, also, totally a set up to make one look "shallow," and one look "sincere."

First of all, hot guy, getting married. His great American dream is to have "hair" for his wedding. The other guy, not attractive, totally bald at 22, can't get a girlfriend. Wants hair. Second senario. Totally fake-jobed-everything pagent mom wants her daughter to be Miss USA. Nice, middle-class-church-going looking mom, wearing all-brown, wants her daughter to have a chance at being the hard-working rodeo national rodeo queen.

What I want to know is---these dreams? Superficial, and can you really buy them with money? Can you give the girls looks or talent with someone else's money? And give me a break on the two guys, I know I should feel bad that they don't have hair, but seriously, get a taste at what girls feel everyday when they don't match up to the Victoria Secret Models. Will having implants on their noggin make them happy and loveable? Great American Dream, what about peace, equal rights, a chance for an education or a house all paid for in a nice neighborhood? A car that runs, a computer?

Pin the Tail on the ...

Okay, so...Midsummer Night's Dream has a character in it named, Nick "Bottom," and he gets turned into an "ass" (Donkey) in the play, and we are reading it in my English 10 class. And Mrs. W, and I thought it would be really funny, okay....it was my idea, to have a class party today because it's the last day of term, and if we got a pin the tail on the donkey game, we could tape it up on the white board and label it, "Pin the Tail on Nick Bottom." Okay, that is funny right? The kids thought so too. It's educational right?!?! So----uh, had the kids fascinated, and guess who decided to pay a suprise visit? The prinicpal and the SUPERINTENDENT! Yeah, what are the chances. I introduced myself, and explained the game, and hoped I wasn't showing my-dying-in-shock/embarrassment!

Beach Blues

I have been joking about this song "Beer in Mexico," being my future-husband's theme song, but seriously, I think I'll join him! jk All of my friends lately have been telling me they are going to somewhere tropic, Ms.W, Heidi,Krista. Alas, this is as close as I can get! I long for those shores everyone seems to be going to....Shall we all just be irresponsible, leave our jobs behind and go and drink Koolaid in Mexico? And let the warm sun melt our blues away?

Beer in Mexico

Staring out into the wild blue yonder
So many thoughts to sit and ponder
About life and love and the lack of
And this emptiness in my heart
Too old to be wild and free
Still too young to be over the hill
Should try to grow up but who knows where to start.

So I'll just sit right here and have another beer in Mexico
Do my best to waste another day
Sit right here and have another beer in Mexico
Let the warm air melt these blues away.

Sun comes up and the sun sinks down
And I've seen them both in this tourist town
Up for days in a rage
Just tryin' to search my soul
For all the answers, and the reasons why
I'm at these crossroads in my life
And I really don't know which way to go.

So I'll just sit right here and have another beer in Mexico
Do my best to waste another day
Sit right here and have another beer in Mexico
Let the warm air melt these blues away.

Maybe I'll settle down
Get married or stay single and stay free
Which road I travel is still a mystery to me.

So I'll just sit right here and have another beer in Mexico
Do my best to waste another day
Sit right here and have another beer in Mexico
Let the warm air melt these blues away.

Down in Mexico...

My Celebrity Look-alikes

After putting several pictures into this fun little game, none of them said I looked like anyone! This one however did! I will totally take the Catherine Zetta Jones look alike. I've always been jealous of her looks!

My cool celebrity look-alike collage from MyHeritage.com. Get one for yourself.

Emo Style

There is a HUGE discrimination against Emos in my school! If you don't know, Emo is short for emotionals, and the kids listen to "hard core punk music," wear a lot of black eyeliner, orange eyeshadow--even the boys, and are commonly confused with Goths, which they are NOT. Anyway, its this huge saga, where the police were brought into our school because of a "war" for the jock hallway between obviously--the jocks and the Emos. Then, boys in my 3A class were making fun of an Emo girl in my class, and she made the counselor call all the boys in the class into his office one-by-one to talk to them about the discrimination that is making my female student feel unsafe in our classroom. They honestly, are just boys, they think the are funny and even flirting? and she sadly, feels like it is an unsafe learning environment. Then, my journalism students want to publish an "opinion" peice in our paper about how Emos, "need to get lives," I don't let them print it of course, and then a few girls print some off and slip them in the paper as "flyers." I got most of them out, but of course, administration finds out about it when some Emo parents call into the school upset. I tell on the girl in my class, but I feel awful! I feel more awful about my journalism student who is going to hate me, than I do about the few students who saw the flyer, but I am also livid about the student! Anway, Emo kids are NOT Gothic, do not worship the devil, just listen to punk music and dress hard-core 80's, i.e. good kids for the most part with identity crises like the rest of the bunch, but they choose to show it in their style. Anway, I asked my students why there was so much prejudice about it and they said, I don't know, they are just "new" and "different" I guess. WOW. Difference? There have been major battles in our country over the difference and our right to be different. What is it about difference that inherently causes discrimination?

Rock Star Variety

I was brought back down to earth a few days ago when one of my students told me I, "just need to relax," she said "you are stressed all the time." And my co-worker whom I share a homeroom with said if I work through lunch too often its a recepit for burn-out. So how did I unwind? Guitar Hero and pizza with Mrs. M, and Ms. E., during lunch! Not so professional.....well, oh well! It was AWESOME. I am an addict after only one round. Good thing I don't own this game. We hooked it up to ourLCD projector, luckily I was not the one setting it up when the Vice Principal walked in! Ha ha. Anway, yeah, I'm the rock-star-variety of teacher, althoughI didn't go so far as to join our school's Guitar Hero Face-off they had as a fundraiser, but Mrs. M did! Serious guys, its good stress relief! You feel like a rock star strumming that guitar to punk rock and 80's rock. Too bad playing the "real" guitar isn't that easy! Apparently I'm a natural.

Black

I'm feeling burned out. Burned out of everything! Today was not a good school day. And I have been sick with a sinus infection for the last week and 1/2. They say new teachers catch everything and it is true! I also admitted to myself that I like someone and that stinks because then you want them to like you and that leaves you feeling like you are wanting something, and I don't want to want something. I do want something. A break, a tropical vacation, a hot man, a pizza. Alas, my black cloud will leave tommorrow, I bounce back quick, you know me! but today. Black.

Suddenly...Back in High School

I am finding myself suddenly back in high school, only the high school experience I never had. Explaination:

1 - I am part of the big "Spirit Bowl," competition in the assembly tommorrow. Never done that before. (Licorise eating contest, should have just said no?)

2- 16 year old boy in my English class can't stop staring at me, in class, in the hallways, he turns his body around to 1/2 way face me if I sit in the back of the class to quiet the noisy ones. Okay, so I had that a few times in high school, this however, is creepy.

3- I was featured in the newspaper: favorite quote, who's your hero?, what are your aspirations in life, with a photo. Never been a featured interview before.

4- I am standing in long lunch lines for turkey gravy--this time however, I get to take cuts!

5- Bad, bad tests, however this time I get to write them! Jk. My tests are infallaible! LOL.

6- Progress reports, only this time I am sending them, instead of waiting for my parents to open them and read "Good student. Talks too much during class time."

7- Again, PHS shirt, wearing school colors, only this time it says, "Faculty." I have traded my maroon and gold for green and white.

8- Crushes on male teachers, mmmhmmm, only this time I could date a teacher? Weird.

Leaving Me Wanting More...

Gosh, a little taste here and there of the good life leaves you wanting more. I guess you take the good with the bad and focus on the good and be satisfied, enjoy life! I went to a grammar workship this weekend and my prof. who helped me get my job at PHS told me she was recommending me to other schools that are hiring, telling them how wonderful I was! Then at the Ms. Pulitizer Prize event Panini and I went to, I ran into my prof. who is helping me publish and took me to the UCUR conference was saying what a "brillian academic writer," she thinks I am, and put in a plug for graduate school again. Its nice to feel recognized! But today was a slightly disasterous day at school, it happens and you think hmmm, w here was the euphoria from before? Or, you get an email from a hot man, you go out with some hot guys over the weekend which Panini and I did, (the good-life-feeling), then you have 16 years old hit on you and creepy men at gas stations and you wonder...huh....how was that again? I'm convinced you just have to take the sweet moments and let them float you through the raunchy ones! That's life!

I will have to say Ms. Pulitizer Prize read her work to us, and I thought wow, if you could just transfer all the beauties of life, even the harsh realities of life--which in their own way are moments of grace, and are thus beautiful, onto paper, you could leave a peice of your soul, the peice of her soul, although not her own life experiences were so aesthetic and beautiful. I truely believe we are all aethetic and beautiful in our own ways. I wish sometimes we could really see people's souls.

Rambling.

I guess I just have the desire sometimes to do soemthing beautiful, to be something beautiful, to leave a mark on the world in my own unique way..."Oh, that I were an Angel," as Alma says....

Condoms Huh?

So, as you know I was presenting my paper Escape not Death: The Madness of the Metamorphosis on Friday at the UCUR conference, which went really well. But--the real drama happened while I was gone. Okay, background. Michelle and I have been having our students read a play by Steve Martin called, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and we had the students perform a scene. Michelle and I brought props from home, hats, scarves, shalls, jackets, vests, and little did we know one of our students had slipped a condom into one of the vest pockets. It remained there, for about 4 days, but it also remained a fun little secret with the boys all over the 10th grade! Yep, they circulated the fact that there were condoms in Ms. E's and Mrs. W's classroom. One "brave" student on Friday taunted Michelle and told her that there was a suprise in the vest. She was like, don't be dumb what is it. He withdrew the condom and laughing threw it into the middle of the classroom. Yeah, glad I wasn't there for that one! Can you image? Half the class was hysterical, and the other half were shocked out of their seats. Why do I get to miss all the fun? Jk.

Second Chances

Sometimes life gives us second chances. And I have recently had one. ...I had a professor at BYU who wanted to help me publish a paper I had written for her class on free speech and the budding future of the Internet in China, (yes, this was a while ago), and I was too nervous, strangely, to have her help me with it although she offered more than once to get it published. So this last semester at UVSC the assistant head of the English department, also my prof. wanted to help me publish/conference presentation with a paper I wrote in her class on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, applying the work of Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilizaiton and Deleuze and Guattari's Toward a Minor Literature. This time I wasn't dumb, and was a little more confident, and now my paper is going to be presented, at the Utah Conference of Undergraduate Research up at the University of Utah, on Feb. 2nd, and I'm excited and nervous. Oddly, I'm wondering first of all, what should I wear? LOL.

Good Thing I've Got Geico!

Okay, so things get worse? better? strange? I got hit on the way to work this morning, by a laborer in a big truck pulling a trailor. Good thing it was his fault and not mine. So, I was standing outside in like 0 degrees or less weather waiting for the cops for like forever, and am likely to die of hypothermia! LOL. School was good today though, so no complaints there. I did however have a really cute, unexpected visitor, the guy at my school, the single one I wrote about, he lives about a mile from me it turns out, and so he saw me out there, and like a true gentleman stopped and asked if I was okay, needed any help, needed a ride to work ect., I was fine, but what a man. Good guy. So, I went to school and he had checked in my room with my partner teacher Michelle to see how I was. I wasn't there yet obviously I didn't get to school until much later. I ran into him a while later and thanked him for being a gentleman or what not, smiled prettily, all good. Anyway---so all would be good except, Michelle admittedly says she has diarhrea of the mouth syndrome, and at lunch, ((((so embarrassing))) says to everyone, "who is the car hero?" and that was my que to run out of the room, since I was already on my way out, and he was like, I'm not a hero, I didn't really help....and that was all I heard. But way to make him and everyone else think that I was making a way bigger deal out of it than it was.....I am soooo mortified, but not wanting to cause a scene I didn't say anything about it when I went back into the lunch room, and also said nothing to Michelle about it, like "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" So. Now I am embarrassed. Really embarrassed. Everyone is going to think something is going on, or that I like him or something! Dang it!

Enemy #1

How do you not make enemies at school? Okay, so this girl is not an enemy per say, but she is acting totally weird towards me, won't talk to me, and I and my teaching partner Michelle have totally thrown off the dynamics of the "young people" table in the faculty room! This girl is another younger-than-me English teacher who likes the one-single-male-at-the-school, history teacher, who looks at me a bit. Okay, he is like 5'5" tall, and so--too short for me. But she, about his same height, is acting all like territorial about him, and kind of fending me off it that makes sense??? ANyway, gosh, I'm not trying to make a move on her man, who I am sure beyond sure that he has no-interest-in-whatsoever, and why does she apparently? need to see me as competition even though I am way taller than him, like3 inches and then my 2 1/2 extra with heels? Anyway. Whew. This is not Jr. HIgh okay? It's high school, and were are above that now! Jk. Ideas girls?

The Zookeeper

The Zookeeper. Yep, that is what you can call me! I got my Payson High "faculty" T-shirt and it is forrest ranger green with with a tan lion on it. My friend Michelle and I were trying them on in the bathroom and we were both wearing kakhi pants, and yep, we look like zookeepers! And the kids, well....teaching at Payson will be like working at a zoo. *Crack* Got my whip ready!

Happy New Year! 2007

I have exchanged my orange poppies for pink Chinese Cherry Blossoms, put away my Christmas albums, taken down the mistletoe, exchanged my Old Testament teaching manual for a New Testament teaching manual, and taped to the front of my closet doors: "17 thoughts that will make you thin." Happy New Year everyone! May your preparations and planning make this year a memorable one!

As for me, I might be spotty on the blog, I am starting a new job at Payson High School next week! The English education of almost all of Payson's 16 year olds will be in my hands....Yikes.