Look At Me Still Talking When There’s Science To Do
In Grand Rapids… thinking about Barrow (among other things)Archive for school
Miss Liebig, you know how to do math?!?
Someone who knows both my local mailing address and the fact that I am interested in arctic ecology must have been behind the package I found in my mailbox. It contained one book and no identifying information. The return address is that of the book’s author.
I have my suspicions! Thank you very much, and I am excited to have reading material delivered to me on the eve of my release from academic bondage. Last day tomorrow!
Birds pass by to tell me that I’m not alone.
I just finished my Last All-Nighter of college.
There was no reason for it, really, but I have to turn in my Last Homework later this afternoon, and one thing leads to another. Fortunately some other things got crossed off my to-do list as well… forms, emails, and applications about which my mother is going to ask me and about which I am going to be evasive unless I get a response.
I am kind of tired and hungry and it’s raining, but today is the Last Tuesday of student teaching.
And tomorrow is the Last Wednesday. By the time I get to the Last Friday, on Friday, I’ll hardly be able to contain myself.
I’ve heard that you guys can be really cruel.
Congratulations to the NCDA National Champions, the GVSU Lakers!
Lakers, clad in black
Little sister and I were more than excited to rush to Grand Rapids on Saturday for what is undoubtedly the most exciting sport to watch or to play. Nationals were held at GVSU for the first time this year. Though many have heard my dodgeball spiel before, may I remind you: 50 minutes of action, headshots legal, ten balls, thirty players, shots over 70 mph! Local West Michigan magazine, “Revue,” even included an article and pictures on the number one team in collegiate dodgeball three years running, and one local TV station included a clip. I can hear you laughing, but I don’t care. It was intense and we like it that way.
Saturday and Sunday were spent watching dodgeball with some equally dedicated fans, including but not limited to: three former players, the queen of the 2009 National Tournament Ad campaign, and a stuffed monkey. We were pleased to offer the crowd some poignant observations and topical remarks on the state of the game, the quality of the opposing team, and the distastefulness of the sight of one player’s exposed underwear. Monday was spent cooking and sleeping, and today we’ve just finished eating leftovers from Monday’s impressive dinner and watching American Idol after a ravine hike and a trip to Yesterdog.
We also talked to Bob and Papasaurus and ate some of THIS. It smelled and tasted like… well I won’t say here, for propriety’s sake, but the description included the word carpet, and it was mushy like a soggy muffin.
Tomorrow I will educate my peers with science.
Something tradical happened one afternoon.
I assume that I drove to campus (when I didn’t really need to, [instead of going home after school] where I subsequently made some decisions that resulted in my keys being locked inside my car with my laptop and phone) on a very important whim that hit me for a very important reason, such as avoiding a terrible automobile accident that I would otherwise have encountered, or saving a drowning baby that was somewhere with the solution to my new key, phone, and laptop problem.
The very important reason didn’t turn out to be that someone had planted a bomb in my car, because it was still in one piece when I returned an hour and a half later. It wasn’t that I was supposed to run into some friends I haven’t seen in awhile and invite them to hang out with us tonight, because though I did run into them, I just waved. It was nothing about a baby, drowning or otherwise, and I didn’t find a lottery ticket or a dinosaur or participate in any thrilling coincidences.
I guess it could have been just that I needed the exercise of walking across the campus and back home from the bus stop and back to the bus after Mary let me in to get my spare keys. It could have been that I needed the information that I overheard while riding said bus about the effect of pornography on relationships, the male to female ratio at Grand Valley, and the fact that that kid’s name was not- though his ‘friend’ “was close!”- Zach, but Kyle. It could have been that the mere sight of me walking down the street with my green jacket and my $1 reusable eco-friendly Meijer bag brightened someone’s miserable day.
My CT would likely say that it was because by the time I got my car back and made it to my semi-final destination of the library to pick up some holds, the smartie pants boy from second hour was there with his mother and sister so they could collect reading material for their spring break trip to North Carolina while I was on hand to inform his mom with a smile that if he read a mystery book and filled out a form he could earn extra credit and achieve over 100% in our way too easy class. He was so pleased to have me let her know, and he said “Gee, Miss Liebig, you are mighty helpful- and so into run-on sentences today!”
Of shoes– and ships– and sealing wax
My cooperating teacher and I wore the same shoes today. The next eight school days cannot pass quickly enough- we can’t have me morphing into an English teacher unintentionally.
Friday was dress-down day, of course, so I wore sneakers. They came from Payless and cost something like eight American dollars, but some girls (Shmisa comes to mind), will squeal over them anyway. One fourth hour student commented that I looked shorter, and I cheerily reported (remember! warm and enthusiastic) that I was wearing different shoes that day.
“Yeah,” said the kid in the opposite corner of the room. “She has a million pairs of shoes.”
Yet another blow to my fragile psyche – never did I think I would be mistaken for someone with more than five pairs of shoes! Ack.
Cute shoes or no cute shoes, the kiddies are getting tired of me. One boy politely asked when my “time serving this postion” would be over. As a parting gift I am giving them an opportunity to boost their grades by memorizing and reciting a poem for the class.
To prove how much fun this opportunity is, I was able to whip out one of the most trusty weapons in my arsenal, my old poem standby, “The Walrus and the Carpenter.” They didn’t get it, but that’s ok, because my CT thought that I’d memorized a 108 line poem in two days, so I may end up with bonus points for “dedication” and “preparation” come performance review time.
Is this what you’re like outside of school?
I’ve always rather liked Friday the 13th. It’s charming. And so blue.
My students freaked OUT about Friday the 13th, however. Everything we did in school was suddenly more “dangerous.” What if the posters give us paper cuts? What if the science project breaks and hits someone in the eye? What if a book falls on someone? Never mind that they throw peanuts and markers at each other as a matter of course. An accident was sure to happen. They weren’t even joking. Maybe this is a superstitious small town. Or maybe this is what people mean when they say “I love teaching middle schoolers- they’re so funny!”
Well, sure, if by ‘funny’ you mean ‘not likely to listen to anything the teacher says, ever- and inexplicably interested in zombies.’
I’ll tell you what’s funny. I am on my way to a vegan party. HA! HA!
I’m actually waiting for potatoes to bake. They’re my potluck item, and they contain no meat or animal products.
Change your clocks when you change your socks.
I think that when I was awakened from my nap an hour ago by a phone call I was dreaming the plot of a “classic movie.” It involved a bathroom and donuts and pizza and it was a comedy, but since I’d always been under the impression that this “famous film” was a horror movie, I was quite on edge. As a viewer I was also able to interact with the movie, and was certain that the naked baby handed to me by the male lead would bite me viciously. My roommate Mary would likely find this funny. Baby lover!
My roommate Mary and I haven’t seen much of each other lately, since the time we have between our various obligations is often taken up by naps… when we aren’t feeding ourselves and doing laundry.
For me obligations include being at the school until 5:30 or later more often than not. My professors and College of Education advisors keep yammering on about young teachers being unwilling to put in enough time, but really, if the time I am putting in is not enough for a student teacher, they are insane. And I, as we know, am more unwilling than most of my peers to be a success.
The yammering goes on to suggest that principals love to see your car in the parking lot late into the afternoon and evening and that if they notice you get major bonus points. I doubt that the principal even would know that the silver Neon, truthfully one of the last cars left when I finally leave, belongs to me. I could write my name on the side in big letters, but, oh, wait, this principal can’t do anything for me. The district is trying to eliminate several teaching positions for next fall, and if he did have a job for me I probably wouldn’t want it.
That’s not being completely honest. I get it that jobs are important and hard to come by, and if I were offered a teaching job, there’s a good chance I would take it. Much of my disgruntlement is the result of not being paid and… well, I’ll not air my grievances here, out of the kindness of my heart and the very real possibility that my students or coworkers could track me down.
Either way, I am tired all the time. Losing an hour this weekend did nothing to help my sleep health, but it did mean that the clock in my car is correct again. I maybe didn’t change it last fall.
Two weeks from today I will be finished teaching Language Arts- and that’s 3/6 of my day. Sure, I’ll have a stack of seventh grade poetry to grade, but the promise of being able to sit in the teacher’s lounge all day with a red pen is quite cheering. Verily.
Like a woman.
I’ve been sick since my last post and am too exhausted and too busy to write down all the things I hate today.
I told most of them to my mom, however, when I called today to tell her Happy-Birthday-ps-I-cut-off-my-hand-with-a-bandsaw*, so call her and ask about them. They are so hateful and boring, you ca’n't think.
*This is a private joke. It is very funny.
Boop, dead.
Guest post from the writing log of the girl (not named Casey) from the front right corner of third hour. My only contribution is to change the misspelling of a single word, which pretty much makes this kid the best speller in the whole of the seventh grade. Oh, and for the information of the reader, ELA stands for English Language Arts.
Entry #12: Tall Tales
A long time ago there was a college student named Miss L. She was a student teacher in ELA . She ended up hating ELA so she made everyone do first grade English instead of seventh grade. She hated it so much that she stormed out when someone said “Hi.”
You have to know that Miss L. loved only one student, Casey. She was so smart she was supposed to be in college when she was only three hours old. Casey answered every question and she could speed read every book. She was so fast at reading that she read every book in the world. So every day Miss L asked her how many books she read and one day it was up to 4900 trillion. It went up each day by 10.
Miss L was so proud of her she stormed out and let her teach; that is how much she hated ELA. That night Miss L died because she was looking at ELA for too long.
