No Trick-or-Treaters

I am so sad. I did not get one single trick-or-treater. I was so looking forward to handing out candy! I got this adorable box with a pop-up ghost from Gooseberry Patch to put my candy in:

I even put a big sign on my door that said, "Trick-or-Treaters Welcome!" The only person to knock on my door tonight was the UPS man. So he got some Smarties.

On a totally different topic, I was doing a little shopping on the Disney website. I'm getting a really cute Eeyore outfit to work out in (including matching shoes). And I was wishing that it was socially acceptable to wear things like this:

Maybe if it was a hoodie. Or maybe when I'm like 40 and married and have 5 kids... no, probably not even then. I need to squash these nerdy impulses! It's bad enough that Disney World is pretty much my favorite place on Earth...

Halloween Festivities

I heart Halloween! I've been doing my best to fully participate in every Halloween activity possible, although my efforts have been hindered by my cold. (I can't believe I'm sick AGAIN!)

Friday was a half day of school, and it was also the Halloween parade! I dressed up as Miss Viola Swamp. Although I don't think I did such a good job, because everyone kept asking if I was the wicked witch of the west. It must have been the striped tights. Anyway, I did lots of heavy makeup and eyeliner and I looked all Goth and it reminded me of how much I loved that look. I tried to listen to Goth music on the way to work, but unfortunately, my ipod is filled with country and Christian music. Most of my kids were not that creative with their costumes, but one boy dressed up as mitosis, and it was awesome. He wore his school uniform and had a fake body attached to himself, also in uniform.

Friday night I watched An American Haunting. I thought it would be super scary, especially since it was a true story. But the end was pretty lame. I still ended up sleeping with my closet light on, though.

On Saturday, one of my favorite friends came over. We attempted to go to a pumpkin patch at a neighborhood park, but we were told it was only for kids. So sad. (And a little embarrassing.) We had lunch at Lou Malnati's on the west side and went back to my place to knit/embroider and watch the Scariest Places marathon on ABC family. It was nice and relaxing, which was good since I was starting to get sick. After Whitney went home, Nina called to invite me to a party in the south loop. I got all dressed up and added my Minnie Mouse ears so I was technically in costume. Nina was supposed to call me when they were like, 10 minutes away and I would meet them there. But she didn't call till midnight, and at that point, I could barely keep my eyes open. So I brushed out my curls and took off my makeup and went to bed.

Since I was up late on Saturday, I didn't go to my new member's class at church on Sunday morning. Also, it was Reformation Sunday (a big Lutheran holiday), so I was sad I missed church. But Nina and I hung out for most of the day, so that was nice. And we went to Dave and Sarah's housewarming party, which was fun. Then I went home and felt more sick and was up late doing homework, so I called in to work today.

So I know that watching scary movies doesn't sound like a lot of Halloween activities, but there are more exciting things coming. Tonight my small group is carving pumpkins. And tomorrow night, I'm going to Trails of Terror at Peterson Forest Preserve up on the north side. And, of course, Wednesday I'm going to put a big sign on my front door that says, "Trick-or-Treaters Welcome!" and pass out candy from this really cute pumpkin bowl I bought. I really hope I get a lot of trick-or-treaters!

Parents

Today I had issues with two parents. They are upset about their child's grades. I am so tired of dealing with this. Everyone thinks they are VIP and policies don't apply to them. Or, they don't put any responsibility on the child- it's either their fault or mine (and it's usually mine). 6th grade is old enough to write down your assignments every night, don't you think?

Anyway, I'm really tired of it all, and I just remembered a story about a teacher at the middle school last year. A parent was all upset that her child was failing, even though he was failing because he had so many missing assignments. There was a meeting with the principal and the parent and the teacher where the parent was making a big fuss and insisting that the grades be changed. Finally, the teacher said, "Fine, your son has A's for the rest of the year, no matter what he does." And walked out. This teacher is my hero. If only I were tenured...

Video

Today my principal called me in her office because she wanted to show me a video. I thought I was in trouble at first, but she said she saw this video over the weekend and knew I would love it. And she was right. I was skeptical at first, but by the end I was standing there crying in her office. I went home and watched it again, and cried again (and you all know I'm not a crier). It just says it all.



P.S. I went to the Kapelle reunion this weekend and sang Bach and saw old friends and it was amazing. But I will have to write about it later- it's past my bedtime. :)

My Day

8:00 Arrive at school and remember I'm getting a new student. I had the girl's brother last year. He was good, but never did any work. The reason she is just now starting school is because she went to live with her mom in another state, but it did not work out. I have a feeling things are not going to be easy with this girl.

8:25 No faculty meeting! Sweet! A few extra minutes to grade papers.

8:55 Kids enter my classroom. They are being crazy and out of control. I make them go back in the hall and line up. They are not allowed to enter the classroom until they get it together.

10:05-11:00 The kids are at computers. It's my long prep day, and I am very productive. I'm in a great mood when I pick them up. They are being crazy again, and I have to calm them down before we enter the classroom.

11:05 I realize the new girl is not with the class. I'm informed that she went to the nurse.

12:20-12:50 Lunchtime. One of my students comes back from taking her inhaler in the nurse's office and tells me the new girl isn't there. After dropping my kids off at lunch, I find out she was sent home and no one told me. I arrive in the teacher's lounge and discover that my Weight Watcher's meal has already been eaten by someone else; the box is in the trash. Another 6th grade teacher tells me that my students have been distributing pictures of other 6th graders, and there are mean captions under the pictures. She asks me to look into it.

12:50 On the way to pick up my kids from lunch, I notice 6 of my students in the office. The principal tells me a story of milk throwing, food throwing, and fighting. Oh dear goodness.

1:00 Class discussion about what happened in computers. The discussion ends with me telling the kids to secretly write down who was doing what. After reading through the papers, I've determined that there were pictures of other students saved on all the computers. My kids starting mixing up their heads and bodies and just playing around. Then someone got the bright idea to print a bunch of copies, write captions on them, and distribute them, especially in the "victims'" lockers. (That's how one of my kids worded it.) Now, of course it was wrong for my students to do this, but where was their teacher during all this? This is the lady I have some issues with after the Houston trip last year. She complained to me that they were out of their seats, etc, so why didn't she put a stop to it? You would think she would notice the printing and whatnot. But I am also guilty of not knowing every little thing that goes on in my classroom, so I shouldn't judge.

1:15-1:45 Extended recess for the kids who were not throwing food or seriously involved in the computer incident.

1:45 Bathroom break. L. is angry that I'm going to tell his mom about the computer thing and starts going off on me about how I'm a little tattletale. The kids look at me to see what I'll do, so I have to send him to the office. I send down a referral a few minutes later.

2:15 The principal stops in my room to ask me questions about the referral. She walks into a lesson on dominant and recessive traits and sees my kids rolling their tongues. Seriously, every time she walks in, something weird is going on. At least she didn't walk in yesterday when I had K laying on some desks and was pouring salt all over him to prepare him for mummification (a little demonstration I do).

3:00 Finally, they go home. And I am exhausted. Because I haven't eaten and I was out late last night with some friends from high school. Why do they always pick days like that to misbehave?

Here is what I can't figure out about my class. They are reasonably well-behaved for me. (I have minor issues occasionally, but they listen to me and respect me.) Why are they little monsters as soon as I leave them?

Anne

On Friday I had one of my favorite students ask me if I had ever read some book about an orphan who went to live with these two people, and the man was really nice, and the woman was kind of mean. Oh yeah, and the girl had red hair.

"Anne of Green Gables?!" I shrieked. And let my class turn into mayhem as Estella and I talked about our favorite parts. And the great thing was, Estella didn't know there was a movie. I own the videos, but they're still at my parents', so I bought the dvd this weekend. I'm going to lend it to her tomorrow, but tonight I watched it while I worked on homework. I forgot how much I love this movie.

I'm not quite sure what the appeal is, but there's something amazing about this movie. And I know I'm not the only one who feels like this. I wish I was Anne. I wish I lived at Green Gables. Most of all, I wish I had a Gilbert.

I also love Anne of Avonlea, but what were they thinking when they made the third movie? Why didn't they stick to what was in the books? I want to see Anne and Gilbert as a happily married couple in Rainbow Valley with all their kids. And I was thinking, the actors would be at an age where that wouldn't be unbelievable. I wonder who I could write to...

Hiking

Every Saturday morning I wake up and just want to go somewhere. I want to have an exciting adventure. I rarely get to do this. I'm usually broke and have lesson plans and papers to write. My usual fantasy involves going hiking somewhere where there are lots of cliffs or mountains or waterfalls or just anything out of the ordinary. I want to climb and do something slightly dangerous. This is nothing new; remember when I went to Apple River Canyon and had to ford the river?

But one silly little hike did not satisfy my craving, so tomorrow, I'm finally going hiking again. I'm going by myself, because it is hard to find friends who are available for a whole day and also want to go hiking. I was originally going to go up to Devil's Lake in Wisconsin, but my friends keeping going on and on about how that would be unsafe or something. More important than that, it's kind of far to go for just a day. So instead, I'm going to Mattheissen State Park, which is down by Starved Rock. Here is why I'm going:


"Hike only the marked trails. Unmarked areas are dangerous. Numerous people have been seriously injured or killed in this park."

Sweet! I'm sure you know what I'm thinking. Don't worry, I won't go too far off the trails...

Things that Make Me Happy

I have been in kind of a funk for the past few weeks. I don't like feeling like this; it's not who I am. So, instead of complaining (which is what I feel like doing), I'm going to list some things that make me happy.

1. The new outfit I wore today. The dark orange flats from Dillards were perfect for today's fall weather.

2. Since it is cool weather, I can sleep in my Tinker Bell pajamas with my windows open.

3. Today during literature circles, I heard a group having a great conversation about one of my favorite scary books, Coraline.

4. My principal is trying to do more walk-throughs. Today she came in as we were doing body-spelling. It's where we physically spell out the word wall words. She said it was the first time she'd actually seen a teacher using her word wall, and loved that I was doing something to reach my kinesthetic learners. The praise felt nice, although I just got lucky about when she walked in. I'm always afraid she'll walk in and catch me grading papers.

5. I am putting down a deposit on my parents' retirement gift this week.

6. I will most likely have hot water again tomorrow.

7. My grandma is sending me her apple pie recipe.

8. I am going hiking this weekend.

9. Sarah is coming over tomorrow night to watch Ugly Betty and The Office.

10. In 172 days, I will be at my favorite place in the world- Disney World.

Halloween

I am so excited for Halloween! I've started putting my costume together for our "Fall Parade" at school. I'm going to be Viola Swamp (from Miss Nelson is Missing). If I end up going out to the bars that weekend (which I hope I do, because I have been so boring lately), Nina and I came up with this plan to get some people together and dress up as the 1985 Chicago Bears. We would each wear different jerseys, and have the black marks under our eyes, and do the Super Bowl shuffle. But if we're actually going to do that, we really should start planning like, now...

I took communion next to a dog

It has been one of those long, emotionally draining weeks, which is why I haven't blogged. I didn't want to sound too depressing (which apparently I did in my Martha post; I'm really not depressed, I just give up :)).

There were lots of problems with my students this week. Like on Thursday:
-L. came back from P.E. crying hysterically and wouldn't tell anyone what was wrong. We found out later that her aunt had died (a while ago), and she really misses her

-I found out a little more about why A. is the way he is- all of his male role models are in prison. His behavior has gotten progressively more disturbing. A few weeks ago, he slapped this girl, T., across the face with a rolled up paper. Then he dropped it and demanded she pick it up for him. She did. The first weird thing I've noticed is that T. seems to enjoy being treated like this. She's been hanging around with A. more and more and trying to see what kind of behavior she can get away with. She's trying to be his partner in crime, and he is completely awful to her. I came down on her really hard and had a good talk with her mother, so hopefully that behavior will improve. She's a good kid, so I'd hate to see that change. It's just so strange; isn't 6th grade too young to be in an abusive relationship? Besides the awful behavior towards T., A. is constantly making comments about other boys in the class being gay. He'll tell me that they blew him a kiss, or tried to touch him, or all this other crazy stuff that I know isn't true. (A. is one of the biggest liars I've ever met. He'll hit someone right in front of me, then when he receives a consequence, he gets so upset, claiming he didn't do it. He gets so worked up, it's like he convinces himself that he is actually innocent.) Anyway, all this gay stuff really bothers me; why is he so obsessed with this? To make things worse, there is a boy in the class who I think might actually be gay, so I don't want there to be any negative talk about it in my classroom. This boy told me the other day that A. approached him in the bathroom while no one else was around and made suggestive comments to him. Obviously A. needs some psychological help, but my district doesn't like to give special services, so I don't see that happening. I just keep documenting and trying to work with him the best I can.

-L. (another L) finally opened up to me and talked about what goes on at home. I knew he had low self-esteem because he is always making fun of himself, but the other day he told me about how is mom is always calling him a dummy and thinks he's stupid. And when I call home about his behavior, he gets put on punishment, which means cleaning all the time. So then he doesn't have time to do his homework. He said he might be moving soon because his mom can't pay the mortgage and her parents won't lend her the money this time, but his other teachers said this is a pretty common situation.

-A. lost her shoe. We went out for recess, and apparently she tackled M. and stole his shoe, so he tackled her and stole her shoe. But it was never found. I had no idea what to do. I told my class that even kindergarteners come back from recess with both shoes on. Another girl lent her an extra pair of shoes, and they traded back on the bus that afternoon. I thought it was pretty hilarious that A. arrived home with only one shoe on. Probably not so funny for A., though. Anyway, the class spent their P.E. time looking for the missing shoe the next day and still couldn't find it. They concluded that a wild animal must have gotten it.

-T. punched someone at lunch, shoved two kids out of their seats, and squirted ketchup on them. He's usually a good kid.

-6 of my kids got lunch detention this week. I made them write to their parents explaining their behavior. They were to get the letters signed and bring them back. A.J.'s said:
Dear Dad,
This week I had lunch detention because I was playing too much at lunch. Unfortunately, I did not get a referral. Next week I will try to do better.

-"If Macbeth didn't die, he wouldn't have learned his lesson." (from N's Macbeth essay)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. It has just been a crazy week. This weekend hasn't exactly been normal, either. Yesterday I went to Mr. Bowman's memorial service. It was really nice to hear everyone's memories of him. There was a lot of laughter. This morning I went to church as usual, and it was the blessing of the pets. So I took communion next to a dog. Then, when I was trying to get home, there was all this craziness! Helicopters, ambulances, police cars, fire trucks, and so much traffic. I have never seen so many people and cars on my street, not even when the Bears were in the playoffs. (I live on 18th Street, just south of the loop.) I just found out that the Chicago marathon was actually stopped because of the heat. Craziness.

Okay, usually when I have really long posts it's because I'm putting off writing a paper. Today is no exception. My Action Research Project proposal is due tomorrow, and I soooo don't feel like writing it! They want you to do everything to their specifications, so you have to be careful of every word you write. It's because they want you to be able to publish your paper in a journal when it's done, but I don't want to be published! I just want to be done with this degree so I can start on my next one! Actually, I won't be done till May, but I'm starting my master's in Reading in January. So I'll be doubling up for a few months. Anyway, I guess I should get back to work...