Before I Forget...

SWOTD: El Fin: The End

Just had a laughing fit in the middle of class. Some of my students are finishing up their story books in class. I told my student to write The End at the end of her book. So she erased "finished" and replaced it with with two letters. DN

Bruise by cupcake

Today is Sam's day for blog mentioning. He's one of two of my Cambodian students in my Portfolio class. Before class started he asked, "Hey Miss Mathis, you want a cupcake?" My mistake was to say sure. I held out my hands and he tossed it to me. Instead of neatly catching, it bounced off my hands and hit my jaw. Man, I should have known better. Cafeteria cupcakes are like rocks! I obsessed for a minute or two, but the red faded into the normal red that is my cheek. I wasn't looking forward to explaining away that bruise. "Yeah, it was horrific. I was socked in the face with a cupcake."

Later in the period, Sam asks from across the room, "Miss Mathis, what does puta madre mean?" Students look up in mixed shock and amusement. My glare was not reserved for Sam... but for Claudia behind him.
"Claudia..."
"It wasn't me... he said someone else said it to him and he wanted me to explain it."
"What does it mean, Miss Mathis?" Sam asked again.
"It's something bad about your mother. It means she sleeps with a lot of men. And gets paid for it."
"Ohhhh..."
"Sam, you're lucky. You could probably curse up a blue streak and the only one who would understand you would be Inthivorn.

On unrelated notations, my palm hurts. I had a half an hour battle with a bottle of light corn syrup. It was in a recipe and I'd never opened the bottle before. It had been in my cupboard for at least a year... on one of my "get those items you probably only use once in a blue moon, but hate when you don't have" shopping trips where I purchased things like corn starch, cumin, and evaporated milk. Anyway. The lid would not come off. I seriously got so mad at it that I used like three knives to cut it off. It did take an entire half hour to remove... and finally I was successful and cutting out a wedge and popping it off with the leverage of a double ended crochet hook.

Netflix news? I watched Swordfish on Wednesday, which I liked, eye rolling at the gratuitous Hale Berry nudity, but admiring the shirtless Hugh Jackman at the beginning of the movie. Overall, pretty good, if a little predictable. I did however, love the behind the scenes comment of Don Cheadle. I paraphrase here: "Hugh's Australian which means he's pretty much illiterate. There are cue cards hidden everywhere... but he's pretty useless. He does a great Wolverine impression though."

Yesterday I watched Lost in Translation, which I found slightly disappointing. I was expecting something a little more profound, considering all the hype. I like the humor of it and the fish out of water, but it just seemed to drag on. I'd have to rate it an okay, but not one to own. I'm glad that LOTR won the awards over it.

Completely unrelated to info above, I called Mom on the way home from school yesterday.
Without preamble, Mom demands, "Tell me what's wrong with work?"
"Excuse me?"
"Something's wrong with Liz's work, Tricia told us."
"Ohh... no that's Melissa. Melissa's the one working with Psycho-Secretary."
Told the story to my mom.
"Tricia said she read about it somewhere, but I don't know where."
MOM ALERT : CHANGE OF SUBJECT
Had sort of quick panicky moment and totally realized how Tricia felt when Mom started reading her blog. I suddenly had visions of half told tales related completely out of context to all the various relatives.
"I know where she read it. I was actually calling about Saturday..."

Chiles Rellenos, CAT6, and Capt. Janeway

The conclusion to a student essay:
"After you eat the fried chilies you have to let them cool down for about five minutes. Then you can feed the hungry people, but do not eat too many chilies because wehn you go to the bathroom, you will see what it is to take a poop after you have eaten chilies rellenos."

Nice.

Why oh why does it only have to be Wednesday? At least testing is over. Yesterday only went off with a few hitches. I was borderline assaulted by a student who thought it okay to grab my wrist with both hands and drag me towards her teacher's door so that she wouldn't have to go to OCS. I had a big red welt on my wrist right above the two inch scar my sister gave me years ago.

This was all after I had to get the department chair to come in and explain the CAT6 to a colleague who refused to listen to me and planned to administer the test in an illegal manner. The CAT6, unlike the CST's are timed tests. For example, you have 40 minutes to take the Language Arts part 1, then a small break and then another 40 for LA part 2. He just handed them the test and said, you have 50 minutes and when you're done with part 1 just go on to part 2. I tried nicely to explain how this was wrong, but he refused to listen. I was soooo mad. Everyone just keeps telling me "just wait. He's retiring." Yes, but that doesn't give him permission to break the law!

Last night I drove down to LA and met Liz and Annelise at McCormick's and Schmitt's... yeah my spelling sucks I think... anyway, Liz caught me up on my Alias and then we ordered too much food. ;) Part of that wasn't our fault. When Annelise's nachos arrived they had beans on them. I never knew that Annelise found beans so abhorrent. I knew Ken doesn't like cilantro or tomatoes... but beans were news to me. K&A and her brother are buying a house. I'm excited for them... but she and Ruthye started talking about interest rates and I rather tuned them out.

We met Ruthye at the Ahmanson and then headed in to see the play. It was The Royal Family, about a family of actors, some of whom think they want a normal life, but they can't tear themselves away from the stagepeople that they really are. Kate Mulgrew (aka Capt. Janeway) was Julie Cavendish, the center of the family. She really reminded me of a middle aged Kathryn Hepburn. The play was entertaining... not excellent, but good.

On my way home I hit fog just as I got to Long Beach. After the killer heat, it was such a strange sight, it seemed surreal, especially while walking down the alley. The field lights across the street were still on and the whole world was dark and light at the same time.

Sunburns, Dreams and Ideas

Note to self: when putting on sunscreen... make sure you get both shoulders. It's strange how my burns hurt much worse today than they did yesterday. Slightly above my clavicle makes it hard to move without an ouch.

I got burned during the Festival of Books. Had a great time, wandering around, getting free stuff, checking out authors and books, and signing up for all the junk mail lists on the pretense that I might win something. Liz and I wandered about, occasionally joined by Adam and Rob. Though how Rob found us out of 70,000 people, I'll never know. We were at the poetry stage... which was probably a good bet. Anyway, after wandering we stopped by a few panels and then walked to the Village for CPK dinner then home. People I saw: Julie Andrews, Nicholas Sparks and his brother Micah, Francesca Lia Bloch, Richard Peck, Gary Soto, and David St. John. It's rather cool yet intimidating to see the authors behind the books. I'll say one thing, the Sparks Brothers are definitely cute. Too bad both are married. sigh.

That brings me to the second section of the title. I had a dream on Saturday night. It was quite odd for some reason and hung with me most of the morning. I usually have two sorts of dreams: ones where I'm me and dealing with people I know usually in locations that I'm familiar with... but things are oddly off, and the other kind... where I'm someone else and the people are more oddly stereotypes... they have faces, but not those I recognize if I think of it. This one was rather a mix of the two. I was climbing in the window of an old house to "talk" with this guy.(Keeping this somewhat G rated for obvious familial readers) We kept getting interrupted by people that I knew. Doesn't seem strange here, but there was something about it that seems odd. The memory of it feels so real it gives me the shivers. And I'm pretty sure the guy was James Marsters.

Mufasa just died. My students not taking the science test voted and The Lion King won over Beauty and the Beast. I've been resisting singing along with it... mostly.

Got an idea in the shower this morning. Get Ideas all the time, but the book started writing itself in my head. It had been trying to put itself together since Saturday, and finally it started out. First sentence. "I knew it was going to be a bad day when my biology teacher Mr. Sark explained that two blue eyed parents can only have blue eyed children."

Difficult Days

SWOTD: bobo - goofy
So far it's been a difficult day. I had to sit in my room today with 11 freshman and supervise them while they got to watch the movie of my choice. So we watched my favorite - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I was happy that even with the subtitles they were laughing at most of my favorite parts. I think it's a great movie to show to ELD kids because it does have so much action and physical comedy with only a small portion of violence.

Of course this is nothing compared to my friend Mel's psycho-secretary problems. She told me the story yesterday afternoon and it made me livid. A few days ago, the secretary at her office, in front of several other colleagues made a fat comment to Melissa. Later, one of Melissa's colleagues reported the secretary to her boss. Melissa, believing the comment to be unintentional was called into the boss's office where the secretary admitted that she purposefully made the comment in order to gain revenge and make Mel cry for some comments the secretary had heard about second hand.

Now I think to myself, if someone told me that someone else had called me a "nosy bitch."
Would I
A. Cry and then get over it.
B. Report the gossip to my boss.
C. Confront her in a professional way and clear the air.
D. Make nasty comment in return and then admit it to my boss.

Obviously... Secretary chose D. But wait, it gets better. Once I had left my boss's office, after being called on the carpet by a colleague for a comment I made to another colleage would I
A. Chew out the colleague for snitching on me.
B. Avoid both snitch and targeted person.
C. Admit the unprofesional behavior, and try to rectify it.
D. Secretly poison and kill the snitch's fish while she was out to lunch.

Hmmm... what a hard choice. However Psycho-Sec started with A and finished with D! I told Mel to call the ASPCA... and possibly the guys in the white jackets. This woman is a sociopath. Murdering someone's pets for revenge.

I think Mel's taken the correct view of things. One more comment and she's going to lawyer up. Go Mel! Creepy... just creepy.

"I Feel Pretty and Witty and Wise"

A liberal amount of sarcasm should be applied to the title. Yes, I've had that song running through my head for ages. It's one of the Bernstein tunes we're singing for our Spring Concert. But no, I'm not feeling quite up to par. I was having a pretty good day until 11:05. My story telling activity that I created worked well in Period 1, and I managed to get Period 3 into the library to type their essays... and magically most of them stayed on task for 75 minutes. No problem. I borrowed some of the new ESL videos to preview and headed back to my room with a stack of videos and papers to grade. On my way up the steps I tripped over my own two feet. There's nothing like falling flat on your face with a large audience to watch.

So now I've got two large scuffs on my khaki pants and a knee that's going to have a nice big bruise. Peachy Keen. Still have to walk home and wait until 5:00.

About the first video. Whoah. Lady with 80's hair, glasses the size of Aruba, and the least talent for acting I've seen since watching The Scorpian King. I think I've seen enough. Too much, in fact. The husband has equally large glasses... and a mullet.

Spring Break is Over

SWOTD: vaciones de primevera (I think that's right for Spring Break)
Right. So sitting here listening to my kids pretend to read. For many of them that's simply holding a book open and putting their head down on their desk. I know it's early on a Monday morning after spring break and none of us really want to be here, but I brought my PS2 in to show them some news reels from the 1940's. I thought it would be cool and it sort of goes with the Holocaust that we're about to hit hard and heavy.

Testing starts next week and tomorrow the top 100 from PGL come out. I'm sooo googly stomached about the whole thing. I mean, I really don't want to get all excited because I don't want to have my hopes up too high. We only have a 10% chance of making it from the top 1000 to the top 100... but if we make it, then Mel is going to fly out and we have to scrape a video together.... I haven't made a video since high school... but I'm going to give my students that option today.

Lunchtime: Nobody wants to work today. You'd think the one time I brought in video clips for them to see, they'd actually watch them. Nope. Both classes so far have shown no more than a passing interest. I really don't understand the mentality of "it's in black and white, it's old, it's no good." or as Omar put it, "Es feo Miss Mathis." It's ugly.

Boggled

So I went on a rundown of my usual site during lunch and I noticed Michael suddenly had comment boxes... and I wanted them too! So I stole them.

It was actually fairly easy to do... but as I was doing it I noticed mysterious message in my tagboard from VH. Creepy really. Is that really you Vuong? And if it is... how'd you find me? And why haven't you said "Hello!"

I guess I begin to think that none of this is public and that only the people I beg to read it go and check it rather than random people from the ether hovering, visiting, and commenting on a story about a classmate from eleven years ago. Of course it's *mostly* accurate... memory tends to hyberbolize events, especially humorous ones. Anyway... if that really was YOU Vuong that stopped by, and not some random April Fool's joke, then drop me a note.

Babies and Fools

As of last night - details are sketchy as to everything but the date, the sex, and the name - my aunt is a grandmother and my grandma is a great grandma. Keith and Marcie Skelton are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Haley on March 31, 2004... sometime in the evening I believe. I'm not sure if that's even the right spelling, but congrats are in order anyway.

We got school newspapers this morning. The front page had a story about our VP's new vehicle... she's famous for her golf cart, but she's upgrading to a tank. Another article discussed new open campus policy. Kids are going to ditch... why not let them? The sports page discussed the closing of the football field for more bungalows and the recent incident where a pole vaulter was impaled... including a picture. It was great! I knew it was a joke, but just for those slightly slow witted, when the paper was opened to the second page, there was a huge "APRIL FOOLS!" printed. Page three began the real newspaper. I wish our paper had thought of that. It was quite amusing.

I remember being in the fourth grade and my Girl Scout troop had just finished our first aide patch. We'd cut up sheets to make slings and I wore one to school. I told everyone I had fallen down the stairs. So one student wrote for me and it was great fun until recess, when I got tired of it, and put it away. The teacher was furious. I remember crying and crying when she yelled at me. I don't think she understood that's what you're supposed to do on April 1. Now that I think back about it, as a teacher, I would have expected a note from a parent to accompany a homemade sling.

But anyway, nothing tops Vuong and Ms. Barnes. I take credit for the whole thing. Vuong was one of those "too smart for his own good students" who got like a 1450 on the SAT, but couldn't sit in class long enough to pass. So one day, he was goofing off in English class and Ms. Barnes sent him outside for a while until he could behave himself. Instead, little guy that he was, he managed to climb on top of the locker bank and make fishy faces at the class through the window before she actually noticed him. For some reason, the class was mainly laughing, and she wasn't really mad. We began to discuss what to do with him. She didn't want to write a referral, but she did want him to stop disrupting the class. I, sitting in the front row, remarked, "Ms. Barnes, you do know that's it's April Fool's Day, don't you?"

I still remember the gleam in her eye as she pulled out the referral form and began to fill it out. She paused on her way out the door to collect herself and replaced her giddy amusement with abject disgust. She swung open the door and held the referral out to Vuong, who had climbed down from the lockers.

"Go!" She said. He tried to apologize and plead with her. The whole class watched, trying to keep a straight face. He was practically on his knees. "No," she demanded, looking away from him. "Just go!"

Vuong grabbed the referral and stomped toward the office. She closed the door, picked up the phone and told the secretary to say "April Fool's" and send him back.

Two minutes later we hear a scream coming down the hallway and Vuong threw himself against the door. Everyone laughed and we really didn't get any work done that day.

He got her back for it though... well, sort of. One of the last days of the school year, he and a friend or two were caught by the principal while saran wrapping her car. They were almost suspended. Instead they received several detentions. Ms. Barnes went into the detention room and demanded they serve the detention with her. Then she let them go.