The results came back. I have pertussis and pneumonia. Gee, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to me. I am grateful to have gone in for a second opinion because if I would have believed what that yahoo of a first doctor had said to me, I would have been miserable and much more ill than what I currently am.

In better news, I had a family-filled Christmas. Christmas Eve was very low-key as we skipped our usual visiting and church services because I felt so rotten. I've never missed visiting on Christmas Eve, so it just didn't feel right. I feel guilty because we always go to visit my godparents. My godfather passed away in February of this year, and Christmas Eve was his birthday. My godmother just sold her house and moved into an apartment, and nothing was the same. I feel pretty guilty not going to see her because she's had a hard year. Even though Claus had living in the nursing home with Alzheimer's for quite a while, it's still difficult to believe that he isn't here with us, laughing and joking. I didn't buy a bag of Hershey's kisses for the first time in probably 20 years. I always gave him a bag of those for Christmas because they were his favorite.

Christmas Day I spent with my dad's side of the family. It was so nice to spend time with my nephews. I rarely see them except for holidays because I live 3.5 hours from the rest of the family. They don't come and see me, so I always have to make the trek to see them. It gets old, but I don't want to miss out on the boys growing up. I saw my stepdad's side of the family and some of my mom's family on Christmas Day morning while I was on my way to my Dad's. My parent's host Christmas dinner for those people who are without family or friends or resources at the store. My sister and her brood, and my cousin and her family came to help out. It sure was busy there! I wish that I could have stayed because it sounds like it was a lot of fun.

Every time I come back home, I feel like I really should move back. Maybe not back to my hometown, but somewhere that isn't so far away. I certainly don't want to teach up here again- been there, done that at most of the schools around via ITV. I'm still trying to work out what I want to do when I grow up. I love spending the time with my students, that's why I've been teaching for 9 years. It's the rest of the bureaucratic crap that I deal with that's pushing me away. Tell me in what other profession out there are the people who make the decisions and mandates not members of that profession?

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, or whatever you happen to believe or not believe in. 2009 is just around the corner, and may it be a better year than 2008!

I was tired of trying to deal with the doctor that I went to the week before last, especially since the pertussis test came back negative, but I still feel horrible, so I decided to wait until I could go to my regular doctor to see what was really up. Wow, that was a long sentence. Anyway, I just had a set of chest x-rays and a pertussis titer drawn. And the doctor took me seriously. Imagine that.

I got to see the x-rays, and there is definitely something going on in my lungs; they look "fuzzy". The dr. thinks that perhaps I have chronic bronchitis, pneumonitis, or asthma, besides having pertussis. You see, a negative throat swab test does not mean that you may not actually have pertussis. The blood test is a better test, but it's going to take 7-10 days for it to come back since it's the holidays. My symptoms are classic pertussis, and, shocker I know, someone actually believes me! I got a prescription for antibiotics and prescription cough medicine to help. I also found out that my backache is due to all of the coughing. The x-ray results should be back from the radiologist by Monday since the rest of the week is blown due to Christmas.

I'm hoping that this treatment helps because the next step is an appointment with a pulmonologist, and that will be way pricey!

Recently one of my classes was playing a board game that involved trivia about Spain. One of the questions asked was, "What is cocido?" The student being asked incorrectly answered, and so the student asking the question read the answer. It went pretty much like this-

Student says, "Cocido is a type of soup made with chicken pee."

Teacher chokes at desk and says, "Um, chick peas."

Student says, with a blank look on his face, "Huh?"

The other students' eyes grow wide upon realizing what other student had accidentally said, and they start laughing uproariously. It takes the poor student a moment or two to realize his mistake, and then he joins in the laughter, but with a bright red face.

These kids just crack me up!

I still wasn't feeling any better this morning with my cough, in fact I was feeling worse than ever, so I decided to call my hometown doctor to see if there was anything she could do. I talked to her nurse, gave her my symptoms, told her about my pertussis test last week, and she was astonished when I told her that I hadn't been given any antibiotics, cough syrup, or told to stay out of school for 5 full days of antibiotic usage. Unfortunately, my doctor couldn't diagnose me over the phone, so she told me to call the doctor I saw here and complain. So, that's what I did. Well, that's what I tried to do.

I talked to a nice nurse who upon hearing that I was a teacher said that she would talk to my doctor right away to find out what was up with my test and if I should be in school or not. She said she would call me back asap. This was 10:00am. Fast forward to 2:30pm, and she hasn't called back. The school nurse is offering to have the state health department call the doctor and pressure him into giving me something because they want to be very proactive about this and not let it spread. I told her to wait until I've heard back from the nurse.

So, I called again. It turns out that the doctor is out sick, and his nurse isn't there either, and that I was talking to a triage nurse in the morning. I leave a message for her, and she calls me back fairly quickly. She let's me know that the doctor was out ill and had my records with him?? The computers had been down that day I was there, and my records had been hand-written and not entered into the computer the next day as they were supposed to have been. She said she would check with the lab on my test and get back to me before the end of the business day.

Fast forward again a couple of hours, and she called me back. The lab had grown my culture in the wrong stuff. I didn't realize there was more than one kind of stuff to grow bacteria in. Anyway, they just realized this when she called about my test, and so they need to completely re-do the test. Have I mentioned that the test takes 8-12 days? She apologizes and then tells me she really doesn't know if I should be in school or not because the sick doctor has my records so the on-call doctor can make any assessments. She is apologizing profusely at this point and tells me that she will get this all taken care of as soon as the doctor arrives tomorrow morning. I asked what would happen if he was still sick tomorrow- no answer, so let's not go there! She also tells me that I should maybe think about taking tomorrow off while waiting to find out what to do.

Am I taking tomorrow off? Of course not! My principal told me that I should only take it off if I wasn't feeling well because she doesn't want to dramatize this whooping cough thing and doesn't believe that anyone will get it from me if I have it because the kids have been vaccinated. Newsflash! I've been vaccinated too!

And people wonder why I continue to do my doctoring in my home town?

If you weren't sure that winter had arrived up here, after this weekend you would have no doubt. We only got 7 inches of snow, but the wind and the temps have certainly created a mess out there. Last night I knew that school was going to be 2 hours late, so I set the alarm for 8:00am, and when I woke up, school had been canceled for the day! I love snow days!

I have a few Brazilian foreign exchange students that I can't wait to talk to tomorrow. They just couldn't believe that we could have temperatures below 0F, which would be -17.7C. The temperature is currently -11F (-23.8C), and when the wind chill factor is added in, it is -32F (-35.5C). And that is our high temperature for the day!

I'm getting really excited for Christmas. I love this time of year, and I really wish that the holidays lasted through January, the dreariest month of the year.

Every year I go to my mom's for Christmas Eve and my dad's for Christmas Day. I have no say in what I have at my Dad's, but I always get to pick the menu for Christmas Eve (which I suspect is because I have done the lion's share of the work making it since I was in upper elementary). Now don't think that my mom and stepdad are lazy bums; they work on Christmas Eve as they own a gas station/convenience store/pizza shop. They both work Christmas Eve morning, and my stepdad always works the evening shift so that the rest of their employees can be at home with their families. It's pretty dead in our little town on Christmas Eve after the early church services.

Anyway, we traditionally have potato klub as the main dish. Klub is a Scandinavian dumpling made of ground potatoes, flour, salt, and baking powder. You have to squeeze all of the water out of the potatoes before you can mix everything together because the dumplings are boiled, and if they are too wet, you will end up with klub soup instead of dumplings. Sometimes we put a piece of sausage or fat back in the middle of the dumpling, but I prefer to leave it out. They are boiled for 45-60 minutes along with a few chunks of onion and some sausage. They are served with lots of butter and are the size of baseballs. One will fill you up, and two will make you miserable. They are even better the next morning fried up in lots of butter for breakfast. Yum! I can't wait!

Also on this list this year: korv, creamed peas, and appetizers to hold us over through church and peeling, cutting up, grinding, and squeezing all of those potatoes. It goes a lot faster now that we have the grinder attachment for the Kitchen Aide. I used to have to attach the old hand-crank grinder to a stool and manually grind the potatoes.

Can someone please explain to me why a test for an extremely contagious illness takes longer to get the results from than the period of being contagious?

There's a confirmed case of Pertussis, aka Whooping Cough, at my school. The staff found out yesterday, and we all got Dept. of Health information sheets to educate ourselves about it and our students as well. According to this information, I have all of the symptons, and the fact that it is extremely contagious made me decide to go to the doctor and be tested. So I got a thin wire probe shoved up my nose and down my throat to "swab" for a culture. That just makes it sound so much more pleasant than it really was. And after this was done? I was told that the results would take 8-12 days to come in, and by then if I had it, I wouldn't be contagious anymore. So if I do have it, I get to go back to school and merrily spread it around.

Perhaps this is the reason why it's becoming much more common all of a sudden, hmmmm?

Could they make the trailer for Terminator: Salvation any more of a Batman rip-off? I understand they want to capitalize on Christian Bale, but where's the originality? I'm still excited to see it because Christian Bale has been one of my favorite actors ever since "Newsies," and I really liked Terminator 2. I skipped out on Terminator 3 because it just didn't look any good, even though it would have been neat to see some of the robots. Their track systems were made in my hometown by a company called Mattracks. After Terminator 3 came out, they had an open house at the company with tours that included one of the robots. It was very impressive to see in real life.

They got it! Wahoo! My 6th hour class was able to successfully grasp the concept of the present tense and use it as well! They were even reasonably quiet during notes, and most of them even wrote everything down as well. I was pretty impressed with them. Now the biggest hurdle will be for them to remember that nosotros means we and vosotros means you all.

I tried two new recipes today. One was Weight Watchers friendly, and the other was so not! I haven't had a chance to taste either of them, but they both seem like they'll be good ones. I have Chicken with Coke Zero Barbecue Sauce in the slow cooker, and Hollywood Squares, which are supposed to be better than peanut butter cups, chilling in the fridge. If they taste good, I'll post the recipes (and then quickly put the treats in the freezer to keep them for Christmas and away from me!).

Updated: Both recipes were smash hits! One day I'll remember to take a picture of what I make before I eat it or put it away.

Chicken with Coke Zero Barbecue Sauce

This is a perennial Weight Watchers favorite, but I changed it up a bit using Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke. The sauce seems like only a little bit at the beginning, but it was enough for twice as much chicken in the end. If you are counting points, the sauce total is 6 points, and the chicken I used is 2 points per piece.

I served this with pasta, using the barbecue sauce as pasta sauce, and it was delicious! Rice or potatoes would also compliment this dish.

6 skinless, bone-in chicken thighs
1 cup ketchup
1 can Coke Zero
2 T cornstarch
water

Put the first three ingredients in a slow cooker. Cook on High for 4 hours or on Low for 6-8 hours. When there is about an hour left, make a slurry out of the cornstarch and a little bit of water and add it to the slow cooker. You may want to add more cornstarch if you like a thicker sauce.

Hollywood Squares
Adapted from The Homesteading Housewife

Bar
2 C Crunchy Peanut Butter
2 1/2 C Powdered Sugar
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1 t Vanilla
1/2 C Butter, melted
1/2 C Graham Cracker Crumbs- I used 4 full sheets, even though it was a bit more than 1/2 cup worth

Topping
2 Oz. Semi-Sweet Chocolate
1 T Crunchy Peanut Butter

Mix all ingredients for the bars together. A stand mixer is good for this. Press into an 8x8 pan. Melt the chocolate and peanut butter together, mix well. Spread this over the bars and chill until set.

These are very rich, so I cut them into 64 pieces.

I work in a job where positive comments are a rare being. I'm sure you all remember being in school, and I highly doubt that you spent your days telling your teachers and coaches how much you appreciated what they did, or at least, I certainly didn't! Being on the other side now, when I do hear a positive comment, it really makes my day.

We just started Knowledge Bowl practice for the season this week, and I had a student come in and say, "You are the best Knowledge Bowl coach ever! I've been waiting for practice to start for a year!" It is so nice to get a pat on the back like that.

So my challenge for you is to drop a note (I cherish all of the hand-written notes I've received over the years) telling one of your teachers, or many of your teachers!, what you appreciated about them or their class, or even that you actually learned something in their class. You will certainly make their day.

You know, there's a reason why I teach high school and not elementary. This morning I wasn't sure which I was teaching.

I looked up from my desk this morning to see on of my junior boys digging his finger up his nose, digging for gold. I immediately looked away because that was just gross. Well, I looked back at him a few seconds later, and what do you think he was doing? His finger had traveled from his nose to his mouth! I really did think that I was going to be physically ill. I hope to never see that again in my life!

Today was a good day with my 6th hour class. I think, fingers crossed, I might be starting to figure out how they think. That's not to say that I like it because I think they thrive in chaos, but it's a starting point. I'm thinking of researching learning stations that work for high school students, the big drawback is that I can't clone myself to be at each of the stations to explain and help with each little problem. These kids have been trained extremely well to be helpless when it comes to any size and sort of problem. It's like all of their systems shut down, and they have a panic attack if they don't immediately understand how to do something. I don't think that I could re-train them, heaven knows I've been trying, to get them to read the instructions before doing something, which would cut down on at least 50% of the problems. One of the teachers who posts on the Foreign Language Teach list serve calls this "Learned Helplessness," and I have to agree with him.

Do you remember the first day back to school after a vacation? How tired you were in the morning, and how much you wished that it could still be Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Easter? I'll bet you never thought that the teachers felt the same way you did!

I had a particularly slow to wake up morning today, and it took me almost all of 1st hour to wake up. We're reading a short novel in that class, and while I was reading the chapter to them, I kept thinking, "Am I really reading this? Or am I sleeping and dreaming?"

Thank goodness my 2nd hour kids are much more active than my sleepy seniors and juniors 1st hour. I spent a couple of periods doing a straight lecture today, and gosh, did that feel nice! I enjoy lecturing, but kids don't enjoy it as much as I do (what a shock!), so I keep the lectures for the really big important topics. Today we were working on how to conjugate the present tense. I've spent 9 years perfecting how to introduce this so that it both makes sense and is simple to do. So far, it seems like it's all systems go. The real test is when I introduce this in my 6th hour class next week. If they can whine and complain their way through it and still get it, I know I'm good.

Speaking of those 6th hour kids, they're still up to their no-good tricks. They may have dialed back a bit though after they good the poor attitude comments on their report cards. Mid-quarter is coming up this week, so progress reports go out. We'll see if that keeps them on their toes. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the rest of my classes are stupendous. They are so great that if I didn't have this 6th hour nightmare, I would be floating through each day. So why is it that I can't stop dwelling on this horrid class? My guess is that I feel the need to fix everything. Oh, and being human, too. :)

Or rather, my guests survived Thanksgiving. Had I not had an 8 year old helper, I would have gotten out my camera to document my first ever Thanksgiving where I, not my mother, did all of the cooking. However, then I would have had to explain it all to my nephew, which would have lead to lots of questions about why I was taking pictures, and what were they for, and could we look at them after spending 8 gazillion hours on Neopets? So, I forewent the pictures.

I made Pumpkin Soup with Chili Cran-Apple Relish, dressing with onions, celery, and apples (left out the raisins for the picky family members- Mom!), mashed potatoes with way too much butter, milk, and cream, baked corn, and a turkey. We also had a layered lettuce salad, carrots and dill dip, pumpkin roll, and canned cranberry sauce (yuck!). I followed Alton's rule of taking the turkey out when it reached 161 degrees F, but I think I must not have had the thermometer in exactly the right place. It certainly was moist and juicy... but it was also undercooked! Luckily, my stepdad just didn't put that on the serving plate! I think it could have maybe cooked for an additional 20 minutes or so, which meant that it wasn't terribly undercooked, but there was still some pink right next to the bones. Now I know what to do next year. Oh, and I also found out that that plastic thing in the bird is actually supposed to hold its legs together. Huh, I thought it would melt so I spent 15 minutes wrestling with it trying to get it out. Next time I'll just leave it in.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!

I am so incredibly itchy. My fingers are just itching to start itching. I'm covered with a nasty, red, and very itchy rash on my arms and legs, and it's been there since Saturday night, and it's spreading. It hasn't been this itchy though. I've been trying hard to figure out what is causing it, and so far I've ruled out a change in soap or laundry detergent and softener, scarlet fever, rosacea, poison ivy or poison oak, impetigo, ringworm, chickenpox (but not shingles), eczema, celiac, atopic dermatitis, and Lyme Disease. So please, diagnose me so that I don't have to go to the doctor. Benadryl helped a bit last night, at least so that I could sleep.

Wahoo! I've lost 20 pounds as of today! Go me! I went Christmas shopping today, and to celebrate losing 20 pounds, I bought myself a new outfit that I can't wait to wear on Monday. And it was all on sale, too! I also managed to check 8 people off my Christmas list, only 13 more people to buy for...

I just saw the new Alton Brown Welch's commercial. So not a good look for him. He looks just like Michael Mckean, which would be wonderful, if he actually were Michael Mckean. Cut your hair, Alton!

I finally found the time and courage to try the rice milk that has been sitting in my fridge for the past month this weekend. It's a good thing the expiration date is May 09! Anyways, it was quite good. And it was really really good on the High Fiber Cereal from Archer Farms, who incidentally needs a better development team if all they can come with for a cereal name is High Fiber Cereal. I tried the unsweetened plain rice milk from West Soy, and I'll certainly be buying it again. Too bad I couldn't find rice yogurt.

Do you speak Spanish? If so, you have to check out the new series, Guante Blanco! I just watched the pilot episode, and it is fabulous! It's about a gang of high class thieves and the police who are trying to catch them. That description just doesn't do it justice. You see both sides of the crime, you get to know the families of the chief inspector and the leader of the gang. In fact, you come to root for the gang to pull off their heists, which they do without any violence and with a lot of thought. All five episodes are available here on TVE . So go! Go now!

Happy National Adoption Day!

What can I say? There are more prospective parents who say they are looking to adopt than there are children who are able to be adopted in the US. So why aren't they being adopted? I wish I could tell you! So consider this your PSA for the day. If you are looking to adopt, there are sooooooo many kids waiting in foster care for their own forever family. There are also many funds available to help with the adoption of a foster child so that it will not be a financial burden for those wishing to adopt. There are also funds available after adoption to help with health care and other costs. So please consider adopting from foster care. Those of us who were part of it, no matter how short or long of a time, are truly grateful.

This is Maru the cat. I think s/he must be related to my kitties!

It was a very odd feeling that came over me in the voting booth this afternoon. I actually felt like I could make a difference, and that I was making history just by filling in that little oval next to my presidential choice, Obama, for any who care to know. After 8 years of absolute idiocy, law-breaking, and complete disregard for the wishes of the American public, I believe that we will finally elect someone who can change our country for the better. I know that voting still hasn't ended, and it may be hours until the results are all in, but I know that the better candidate will prevail.

Driving home I was listening to the news on the radio, and it occurred to me that not everyone is as lucky as we Americans are to be able to voice our opinion. Women still are even luckier (as if it were come by with luck!) to be able to be who we want to be, do what we want to do, and have the same power to vote, own property, and be in charge of ourselves. I think about all of the women around the world who are disenfranchised, shackled to laws they have no say in, taught to believe that they are not as good as men, that men have all of the power, and I hope and pray that one day they will be afforded the same basic human rights that we in America have.

How about a swap? I'll even do it for free! Or maybe my left arm could just go on vacation for a few days.

I got both a flu shot and donated blood today. I'm feeling quite healthy and civic-minded, but boy is my left arm sore! I guess I should be grateful that both were done in the same arm. I wouldn't be a happy camper if both of my arms were hurting.

Since I started donating blood for the Red Cross, I've had one bad experience after another. I always seemed to get the crabbiest person, and they seemed like they didn't care enough to make sure they did their best to keep everything as painless as possible. Add to that the ancient equipment they had, and it added up to something I really didn't want to continue. I've never seemed to have the greatest luck getting a person who wasn't crabby, but it was 10 times worse with the Red Cross.

Well, today must have been my lucky day. I had two different very pleasant people helping me, and it was pretty painless, too! They had also gotten new padded cots for us to sit on, and they even had something to prop my head up because I'm so short and the incline is too much for me. The best part was that it only took me 30 minutes, total! That is absolutely unheard of. The last appointment I had with them took almost two hours! I was just excited when I was done that it had gone so well. Oh, and when I found out that I burned almost 650 calories just by donating a pint of blood? Well, that was the icing on the cake.

I realize that I've been a bit lax in updating my weigh-in status. While I was dealing with the unknown lactose intolerance, it was so disheartening to keep going up and down the same 2 pounds that I really, really didn't want to post about that. Thank goodness that is all taken care of!

As of this morning, my mid-week weigh-in, I am currently down 17.2 pounds. Yeah for me! I am really looking forward to hitting that 20 pound mark. It's a nice self-confidence and motivation factor to be able to say that you've lost 20 pounds. I'm hoping that in a week or two I'll be able to do that.

I went shopping in my closet last night when I was supposed to be trying to sleep. That's what I get for watching a show about people who believe in ghosts. Ugh. Anyways, I went through my tote full of my winter tops and tried on all of the school-worthy ones. I now have two piles, ones that fit right now, and ones that will fit with another 5-10 pounds gone. I was excited to wear one of my previous favorite fall/winter sweaters to school today, and it was a size Large! Wahoo! I'm hoping that I'll very quickly be out of all of my XL tops and into my L ones. Some of my fancy cardigans will take a bit longer to be wearable though. My chest just doesn't seem to be shrinking like the rest of me. I'm truly hoping and praying that it doesn't turn out like the past two times I've lost a decent amount of weight. The rest of me shrunk, and my chest went up a cup size, each time! I'm willing to give at least half of them away to a good home; I'd kill to be just a C cup.

Think about the most disgusting thing you have ever eaten in your entire life. Go on, I'll give you a few moments to remember...

Whatever it was, it cannot be compared to the absolute horrificness of soy yogurt. Apparently horrificness isn't a word according to spellcheck, but it honestly is the only way I can describe the vanilla flavored soy yogurt I attempted to eat this morning for breakfast. I usually dump in cereal and eat it mixed with my yogurt, but this morning I figured that I should at least try the yogurt before I do that so that I don't waste my cereal if I don't like it. I think that the smell should have told me something. I can't describe that either, acidic, and rotten, perhaps? I just barely dipped the spoon in the yogurt and put a little on my tongue. I thought I was going to throw up then and there. It tasted like sweetened Miracle Whip. Why would anyone eat that? My second thought was that my mom could replace her Miracle Whip combo in pasta salad with this stuff, and no one would be the wiser.

Long story short, don't eat soy yogurt unless your life absolutely depends on it. And even then I'm not sure I could.

Have you ever noticed that every Target store smells the same? How do they do that? Do they have some special "Target" air freshener?

I spent the afternoon shopping at Target and Cub because my cupboards and fridge were pretty bare. I like to shop for two weeks of groceries at a time because I hate having to make the 60 mile round-trip to Cub any more often then that! I know that I could shop at the small grocery stores (all two of them!) in my town, and I will grudgingly stop there if I've happened to misjudge the amount of a necessity, but I want more than just off brands of only the most commonly found supermarket items. For example, today I bought some rice milk and soy yogurt. I never would have been able to get those at my small grocery store. And, no, I'm not one of those holier-than-thou, can't-eat-regular-food, my-life-is-so-much-more-organically/locavoreally-fulfilled-than-the-average-peon. I just happen to have figured out that I'm lactose intolerant, and I don't want to spend my afternoons teaching and feeling absolutely miserable. And it only took the first 6 weeks of school and the helpfulness of my friend, the science teacher, to help me figure out what was going on. So now it's no more cow's milk or yogurt for me. Cheese is okay, though, phew! And did you know how many food items have milk or milk products like whey in them? So not cool.

Oh, and what was the dastardly milk product that lead to my downfall? Sugar free, fat free pudding- my lunch dessert. It sounds so innocent, so yummy, and now it's going to be made with rice milk. Keep your fingers crossed!

It's that time of year again. Yes, Homecoming is upon us. It's always a fun week of school filled with dress up days and coronation. Of course, since I teach in two different schools, I get to experience two different Homecoming weeks. Lucky me!

It was even better that on Monday of this week, which was dress up as weird as you can day, we had school pictures scheduled. I mean, what mother doesn't want to send out pictures of their precious child wearing mismatched clothing, spiked, twirled, and multi-colored hair, along with outrageous make-up? Let's just say that I voiced my displeasure of the choice to have school pictures the same week of Homecoming at our staff meeting last week, and many voices were added to it. Hopefully next year that will change!

I attended the big football game last night because I absolutely had to. My schools were playing each other... Dun, dun, dun! That never leads to a good outcome because one will inevitably lose! And for the record, I've never seen a tie when this happens, not in any sport. The game started with rain and the dash of the band kids to get their instruments covered. Luckily it stopped raining in about 5 minutes, or that would have been one miserable evening. I was undecided as to which side of the field I was going to sit on until the home team cheerleaders herded me to their side. Seeing as most are my students, and the good logic they had- when it's my other school's Homecoming I can sit on their side- I figured it would be best! I got a rousing mish-mash of Spanglish from the pep band from my students, most of whom have now had a good 4 weeks of it, which made me smile (and laugh because some of it was so absurd, but good for them to try, in public!). I also was able to catch up with some of my students who graduated last year. I always run into a few at the Homecoming game. Unfortunately the home team lost by 16 points, so I know that it won't be a good Monday at one of my schools.

Arrrrrgh, mateys! This upcoming Friday is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Well, I certainly can't not celebrate that! My pirate name is Princess Chantal Gale and my ship is Lady Hita Queen Of The Sea. How cool is that?

Get your own pirate name and ship here! Pirate Name Generator

It's been a longish week at school. I am still having the unfortunate problem of witchy girls in my 6th hour class. We've had a couple discussions about how it's not okay to whine, "Why do we have to learn this?" when the class is a college prep. elective. They all chose to be there, and I know that I have a decent reputation as a taskmaster. I imagine they chose to ignore the wise platitudes of their classmates and friends who have told them that I would make them work hard in class and that I don't let people slack off, or else they thought that since whining had gotten them out of doing things in other classes, I would be the same? I pity the poor students who have milque toast teachers like that!

On a happier front, I got my new desk chair today! I am fairly shocked that my requisition was approved because the school keeps claiming they have no money so we can't buy new textbooks and the like (so I want to know where it all goes!). My old chair was taken away this summer, and I've been using a student desk chair for the past few weeks. I was so excited to walk in this morning and see my new chair all put together for me even! It's the little things that make me happy. :)

Fridays are my weigh in days for Weight Watchers. That means I live in fear of Friday mornings, but not really. This is my second time around with Weight Watchers, and I'm really enjoying it. The first time I joined, I was living in my hometown where the meetings were held on Thursday evenings. I was did the program from February until I moved in July and then tried to do it all by myself because the meetings in this area are not in the town where I live nor are they convenient with my work schedule. Well, I lost a total of 33 pounds, and then I just couldn't do it by myself anymore. Without someone or something to be accountable to, I lost my motivation and gained 40 pounds. Well, the gain wasn't just from loss of motivation, I had one hell of a stressful year last year, and that certainly didn't help.

By the first week of July this year, I was so miserable feeling and so down on myself that I knew that I had to try again. I still can't make it to the meetings, so I reluctantly signed up for their Online program. I've tried a different online program before, E Diets, and that honestly and truly did not work at all for me, so I was very hesitant to spend the money. I am now just starting on my 8th week of the program, and I've lost 11.6 pounds! I have definitely gotten over my reservations of just doing the online program without the meetings. I am online constantly and having the Points Tracker there staring at me with everything I've eaten so far during the day is a great way to hold myself accountable. This time around I won't have a reason to quit the program, and I'm looking forward to reaching my goal!

I think one of the hardest things for me about the school year is sleep deprivation. I live for summer vacation where I can stay up as late as I want and sleep in as late as I want. When I don't need to set the alarm, I get between 10 and 12 hours of sleep a night and feel rested. During the school year I average between 7-8 hours a night and then feel like a zombie the next day. I am all for high schools that have pushed their start and end time forward because teenagers need more sleep. Well, some of us teachers do too, and I know that I would do a better job if I did get more sleep. But who wants to go to bed at 8pm when you've only gotten home from work at 5pm? Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday.

Here's a little clip that I showed in class today to my Spanish 1 students. It's a funny way to get across the idea that it really might come in handy to know another language.

It's only the second day of school, but I feel like I didn't have a summer vacation. Well, not that I didn't have a vacation in the way that I'm run-down feeling, but like that period of three months just didn't exist. I don't think it is necessarily a bad feeling because the faster I get into my school routine, the better it is for everyone involved. Perhaps I'm finally getting used to teaching here? This is only my third year here, but I've been teaching for 9 years. I think it helps that I actually know some of the students that are in my classes for the first time before they were my students.

I do miss knowing everyone, their families, and their situations before becoming their teacher. It made my job a lot easier. Yesterday I made a bigger deal out of a situation than I should have because I didn't have the background on a student. Students were filling out contact forms for me, mainly for use in finding chaperons, and he didn't put down anyone for parents/legal guardians. I insisted that he must put something down, and then joked that he should know his parents' names. Oops. It turns out that he's living with another family in town, not his parents. I don't know the why, but I do know that I need to be more careful when talking about peoples' families. I used to be in the loop about everything, which made it a million times easier. At least he didn't seem to be upset about it today, and I do take a bit of solace that even the school didn't know that he wasn't living with his parents. The secretary was wondering who could be living with Mr. and Mrs. X that had a certain last name after a phone call, and I had to inform her that it was my student. Hopefully things will get sorted out for this fellow!

I survived!

The first day of school can be just as anxiety producing for teachers as for students. All I could think about as I was trying to sleep last night was about how today would go. Would I have good students? More importantly, would I have nice students? Would I have enough desks to go around? And had my textbook order arrived? Oh, and just how darned hot would my classroom be?

Here's what I found out. My returning students are good and nice! My new students are rumored to be good, and they seem to be nice. I don't have enough desks in my 3rd hour class, and no, my textbook order did not arrive. Oh, and it was at least 80 degrees in my classroom. I truly thought I was going to melt.

I have a fairly large number of foreign exchange students this year. I have one from Colombia who will TA for me, one from a Scandinavian country that I've yet to figure out, one from Norway, and two from Brazil. I personally think the Brazilians are wasting their time in Spanish class, but I guess if they want to be there, so be it. I didn't have good luck with the Brazilian exchange student I had in Spanish 1 last year so I'm hoping this year will be better. Personality-wise I think the two I have this year are going to be much more likable people.

My good deed for the day was to rescue a poor little toad that had gotten in the school during the rush of students. He (or she) was hopping down the stairs headed for certain death, but I scooped him up and brought him outside. The rain we had this morning must have driven him out for a walk, and he got lost!

Overall, it was a pretty good day. I hope the next 177 go just as well!

All the cool kids are doing it, right? So I'm jumping on the bandwagon and starting a blog. I've toyed with doing this for the past couple of years since I enjoy journaling, but I never did quite seem to get around to it. Well, here I go!

So what are you in for? Hopefully some funny stories from school, my progress with Weight Watchers, and anything else that I think might be interesting.