ZMS Single Ladies Talent Show

"The Dancers" perform at the ZMS Talent Show 2010. These twelve 8th graders hold a very special place in my heart. They worked really hard to learn this dance and I had so much fun with them these past couple weeks. Enjoy!

Down with the Sickness...

Lesson learned today: Don't eat cafeteria food - especially Bosco Sticks.

Fourth period today (right after lunch) I started to feel a little ill. It started with just being tired. Then as the rest of the day went on, it got worse. By fifth period I knew something was wrong. I felt dizzy, light headed, and exhausted. I ended up having to teach from my desk where I could sit down and go over the syllabus and procedures. But about 5 minutes before class ended, I knew I was going to be sick. Luckily, I was able to go into one of my storage rooms with a trashcan and throw up where no one else would see, hear, or smell it. Not the best way to end a class on the first day of the last night weeks of school. But I felt better after and was able to dismiss class just fine. However, I still felt a little down during sixth period and after school. I guess the only benefit of feeling sick was that I actually left the building before 4PM. As soon as I got home I went straight to bed until about 5:30. I'm about to go back to bed. I hate getting sick and then not knowing if I'm going to get sick again.

The bad thing about being sick today is that I wasn't able to go watch LOST with my LOST friends. :( I know that today is like 2 days after being originally aired, but we watch it on the TV via HULU. It's a great time to be had, usually on Wednesdays. This week we didn't watch on Wednesdays because of the Sojourn Vision Catalyst meeting. My sentences are all starting to sound the same. I should vary my sentence structures. This is the third strange random sentence. RANDOM!

I'm so thankful tomorrow is Friday! Jeans Day!!! I'm also thinking about going home to Lexington tomorrow so my dad can help me do my taxes. The only problem is that I would need to be back before 4PM on Saturday. I made a new friend yesterday and she invited me to a get together with some of her friends. God has really been blessing me lately with new friendships and community. I just need to work on cultivating those friendships and being more intentional.

Other good news:

• I'm one of the chaperones taking the 8th grade I-Leap (gifted and talented) students to see the Broadway Musical, WICKED in May. We're leaving from school at 12:45, going downtown for the show at 2, and then walking to 4th Street Live for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. All this and the students will have to pay no more than $30. We're trying to go lower if possible. Can you believe that?!?! The kids will love it and they totally need that kind of opportunity.
• Erin and I are going to hang out in Indy for two days in April for our spring breaks. Then about 2 weeks later, she and her boyfriend are going to come to Louisville to visit! I'm totally stoked! 
• I also might be going back to Holland for summer vacation. Whitney and I are thinking about taking a side trip somewhere else as well... maybe even Egypt!! How cool would that be? 

Well, I better get to sleep so I am fully rested for tomorrow. I talked way too much today in my classes. I hope it's not as bad tomorrow. I hate the first couple days of a new 9-weeks. At least it's at the end of a week. It's hard enough transitioning from procedures and syllabi to actual content, but even more so when it all happens in one week. The weekend makes it less awkward. Now just to keep structure and not be too relaxed on the second day, when I don't want to do any teaching and the kids don't want to learn. It doesn't help that I still haven't finalized my 8th grade content (stupid reading class...) and I want to change some of my 7th grade content. It makes planning very difficult. Oh well. I'll figure it out later. It's all good.

A good laugh

I have stumbled upon this great blog called Cake Wrecks. Well I guess it wasn't really a stumble as I had heard Brent Braun and other community group folk talking about it before. Anyways, reading through maybe 10 pages of posts today has made me laugh out loud many times, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites. These are cakes that have sadly been presented to someone or have been for sale. Here they are!!

For those who think that spelling isn't a big deal because of spell check, think again!!

I liked the sports theme too. I may be showing these to my students. Maybe...

And last but not least... not a spelling error, but definitely an error of millennial proportions!

That's all for now.  I'll post an update some time in the future. Enjoy your cake!

Facebook saves the day!

Yesterday morning I continue to push the snooze way past where I need to wake up in order to wash my hair. Thankfully I didn't need to wash my hair, but I still needed to get up. Instead of hopping in the shower I meander out to my computer to check my email and facebook. Thank goodness I did! I saw a status update from an old friend who is now a teacher in Lexington. Turns out that Fayette County had a snow day. That got me thinking... "I wonder if I have a snow day too?" And what do you know? I did! I look outside at this point to see just how much snow had fallen. Last I heard, we weren't supposed to get more than maybe one inch. According to my eyes the forecast wasn't far off. But nevertheless school was canceled in Bullitt County. At this point I was glad I hadn't gotten in the shower or eaten breakfast. So I went back to sleep... until 10am!! If it weren't for facebook, I would have ended up at school wondering where everyone else was!!

Now you may think that a snow day is grand. Well it can be, but it's very frustrating to have school canceled for apparently no reason (as the snow was gone by 9am). I had scheduled the computer lab for 2 of my classes and now I don't think I'll be able to get the labs this morning. I also had planned for a rewards day for one of my classes today, but I didn't give the students any notice about bringing snacks, so that will have to be moved to next week. Snow days through off a lot of plans. But they can sometimes come with some good.

If that wasn't enough for facebook to help me out in the morning, it comes through again!  My good friend Molly saw my facebook update about not having school. She then texts me to ask if I want to hang out if I get bored doing nothing on my snow day. Well of course I want to hang out with Molly!! We end up enjoying some of the second DVD of Pride and Prejudice with the one and only Colin Firth. Amazing! Unfortunately I had to leave before it was over. Cheerleading practice called...

Cheerleaders frustrate me. Especially 8th grade cheerleaders. That's all I really want to say on that subject before I say something I probably shouldn't.

Thankfully the rest of my evening was awesome. I headed over to the Cassin Casa to watch some LOST! God has really blessed me with this group of friends. Jessica made some fabulous homemade chicken noodle soup. I wish I had her motivation to cook homemade food all the time. But anyways, LOST was amazing. I love being in a group when watching it just so we can talk about all our theories. It also helps when I can't remember things from seasons past. After LOST, some other folk from Sojourn stopped by. It's great to hang out with new people or people I don't see much outside of the 930.

Speaking of the 930, tonight is going to be a great night! Dirt Poor Robins is performing at a CD release party. Dave Moisan is going to be opening. It should be an amazing concert. I'm really looking forward to it and getting to hang out with my twin, Jackie. Now, if only I can get through this school day and cheerleading practice (competition tomorrow!)! Prayers are appreciated. :)

New Post

Here's a new post in honor of the new layout. I'm tired of seeing that Christmas tree on the top of the blog (considering it's not even this past Christmas')!! Maybe new blogging will come soon... but right now I must go get ready for Church.

Happy Valentines Day to my fellow single friends!