there was a loose flock of chickens on the road on my way home. Probably 20 or so fancy-feathered chickens. What more can you say? it was an experience.

I bought this dress today. I get to be maid of honor. Again. Number 3. Luckily, I don't believe the three times a bridesmaid never a bride philosophy. Though, if it is true, I have until September to snag a guy or I will forever be single. Of course, they aren't technically engaged yet, but I guess with the contract signed on the hall and announcements ordered for September 1st technicalities like asking are a little irrelevant.

motivation

If I was ever going to become anorexic, I found the perfect motivation this evening. As I was going to the grocery store, Jimmy (the creepy obnoxious neighbor, mid-fifties I would guess and living with his mother and racing his motorcycle around the neighborhood) saw me getting home from the grocery store. He said hi, I mumbled hi back (don't want to encourage the man) he said, it looks like you are loosing weight, I saw you riding your bike today, don't do to much of that, you are too skinny already, I like my women with some meat on their bones. Doesn't make you want to get the big mac. If ever there was a motivation to diet, not being Jimmy's ideal is it. Don't actually worry about the anorexic thing however, I enjoy food way to much and way to much of it for that to ever happen.

spring optimism

I went on a bike ride today and noticed something. Everyone is nicer in the spring. Everyone I saw outside was smiling and friendly and greeting each other with an "isn't it so exciting that we are both outside and not freezing our tails off or getting soaked" kind of cheer. Even the people mowing their lawns seemed excited to be mowing because they were mowing for the first time of the season and that means things are growing (and they haven't had to do it for a while) When you are outside in september people are much less friendly. They have a selfishly hoarding the last days of niceness kind of attitude.

In other news, I am out of shape and have wonderful allergies to all of the new things that are deciding to grow and bloom right now, so I rode a whopping 4 miles. But then I went inside and did a little hip hop abs, so it all balances out in the end.

dilemna...

I can't decide which is better... A foggy, fuzzy brain due to sinus pressure and nasty allergies OR a foggy, fuzzy brain due to the medication that would get rid of the sinus pressure and allergies. There doesn't seem to be a non-foggy-fuzzy option right now... But hey, i only teach half days this week and then have the afternoons to go crazy and try to be productive in my classroom.

This was a nice weekend. I ended up directing and switching and producing (sounds important... huh?) Which means, in addition to my normal jobs, I was in charge of all of the video, and what cameras were on screen... Would have been fine if computers weren't randomly deciding they didn't like playing with each other. The switcher kept deciding it didn't want to talk to the graphics computer. and I don't have enough knowledge to force it to... then i found the "force acquire" button. gotta love that the mondo computer thing has a force button for when you REALLY want it to do what you are telling it to.

Then alissa and I walked Ruston Way. It was nice, sunny, lots of people, none of them were the hot bike cops that were there last summer. Maybe hot bike cops is just a summer thing.

And the most exciting of all... The ice cream truck was here. You know winter's over when the ice cream truck shows up.

to clarify

to everyone rejoicing over my conversion to mac land... I have always had a mac at school. frequently ancient ones. I converted from a pretty blue mac to a faster, smaller white mac. that is my computer knowledge. pretty blue to skinny white...

I also use exclusively macs at church. and let me tell you that propresenter is a wierd program, how am i expected to anticipate when the computer will freeze and which settings it will remember and whether the advance button will skip ahead one or three slides. the old pc was slow but at least it was predictable...

i have a pc at home. it isn't broke, why mess with it... and now that i don't use explorer, i haven't had any virus problems...

imac

A guy showed up in my classroom with a brand new computer for me yesterday. exciting. and work to transfer files, because my old computer wouldn't log on as me. So I can't just turn on my new computer and have all of my crap.

back to work

I wish I wasn't headed back to work, I could so easily stay wonderfully in bed for another week or so. But I made it through our choral festival yesterday, which I could not miss. So, I figure I should be able to make it through today. I will just have to not push it too hard.

day 2

Home sick again. Feeling a bit better. Well, as long as my body is horizontal I am completely fine. And if I sit up but don't have to hold my head up just my arms feel wierd. Heavy. Like they are 4 times the weight they normally are. So either I suddenly grew Popeye forearms or I have funny weak-arm disease. If I stand up or try to hold my head up on my own, I am fine for a few minutes, but that is when the whole world gets a little bit swirly. It is nice to be sick and not feel like crap. Because as long as I stay laying down, it is like a nice day off. Of course I have choir festival tomorrow to worry about. But we will take that one step at a time, at least I am not teaching for the day. I just have to monitor kids. I do need to teach my math class, and write sub plans and such... Oh well... life continues, even if the whole world is swirly.

I got sent home sick from school today. Complete with a visit to the nurse's office. She was quite concerned with my temp. And I was white and couldn't stand up very well on my own so I wasn't entirely convincing when I told her that 97.3 was completely normal for me. So they got me a sub, walked me to my car and sent me on my way. For the most part I feel fine. I took two naps and have had 4-5 dizzy spells since I got home, but the hours in between that have been fine as long as I was laying down or sitting down for short whiles. I will see how the evening goes and if I need to call in for tomorrow. I shouldn't, Choir festival is wednesday... but I will if I can't go for a couple hours without getting totally dizzy...

Sold Out

I took a three hour nap this afternoon. Which may mean that if I go to bed tonight at about 7, I may be ready to teach tomorrow. The jr high-college conference was this weekend at church. So I was at church from 4:30 to 10:30 Thursday, from 4:30 to 12:00 Friday night, Saturday from 7:00 am to 8:30 pm, and then today from 6:45 until 1:00. And I wasn't there near as long as some of the boys. It was a crazy-amazing weekend. But absolutely exhausting. I have no energy left right now. I am trying to work through my evening choices of activity. Lay and watch a movie, lay and read a book, lay and watch tv, and lay and do nothing are top choices right now. we will see what happens.

My favorite moment of the weekend would be during the concert friday night the bass player was trying to flag down someone for some help. Lisa was across the stage and saw it and thought, "I could go, but I probably won't be able to help him if it is a technical problem." So she runs into the control room, and yells at someone to get Daniel over the comm system (stage manager for the weekend, had momentarily left his post to get water for the camera guys and had a pile of ten water bottles in his arms as he was returning) As Lisa asks this, some joker walks by and says, "the bass player needs help? I am sure he just needs his yogurt." Lisa, in a different conversation, to someone else says, "yeah I am sure that is what he needs." Melissa, as part of that conversation jumps up and runs to see what it was (turns out--someone to wipe his brow--he was playing hard and sweaty) Meanwhile, they are yelling through the comm about how much he needs yogurt, Daniel throws his water bottles down in the hall and takes off running to search the church for some yogurt--that is going above and beyond... So they made a special yogurt trophy for his work...

commandments

Today was a commandment-y day. I have two funny kid stories. Both strangely having to do with the ten commandments (shh... that didn't happen in a public school)

So, a second grader comes up to me about to burst into tears, her charm broke from her bracelet. I don't really look at the charm and brush her off with a "if you put it in your pocket I am sure mom can fix it when you get home." She brings it back up when her teacher gets there. "My charm broke" Her teacher perfectly calmly said, "Sarah, that is the third time you have broken the ten commandments today. Why don't I keep them for you until it is time for you to go home." I almost cracked up, but I kept a straight face.

This morning I was trying (with varying degrees of success) to get my morning group to do math. DJ actually did one math problem accurately. This was a huge success. He is a big fan of filling in the blank with whatever number leaps into his head, after randomly carrying some ones and borrowing some different numbers just to make it look like he did some work. It doesn't matter the problem. He will carry numbers all over the page (whether or not there are actually any problems that require carrying. Anthony is not a big fan of doing anything. His favorite method of finding answers is to glance at any papers around him and go with majority. Maurice (I love Maurice, my kind of kid) thinks this tendency is great to play with. So he will work out the whole problem fevorishly, making a deliberate mistake somewhere along the line, excitedly call out the wrong answer, get Anthony to write it down, and when asked to explain how he got the wrong answer, will go through step by step and then when he gets to his mistake, erases and explains. being the good teacher I am, I question, why did you change? "Because I added instead of multiplied so Anthony would not get the right answer." Anthony isn't actually all that dumb, so he picks up on Maurice's strategy. But Maurice switches it up and half of the time he does it right and half wrong, so there can't be any prediction... They make me laugh.

But anyway, this morning, Anthony tells me that he shouldn't have to do anything he doesn't want to do. And not only that, but he is guaranteed the right to not do anything he doesn't want to in the "fifth commandment." I, of course, say, "but isn't that the one that says 'honor thy father and thy mother'" He says, "oh, it must be that other 5th thing" "the fifth ammendment?" "Yeah, that's it" "isn't that the right to a fair trial or something like that?" "oh, never mind", and he copies Maurice's wrong answer. Not only can I teach kids math (evidently quite well...) but I can also work in bible study, and US government into my lesson. I am the most amazing teacher ever.

Wednesday, I even introduced Anthony to the sad truth that chores don't end at 18. He was quite excited that he would be done with chores in just 6 more years. Being the wise woman I am, I ask, "do you ever plan on getting married." "Duh, I'm cute, I'll get a wife" "And she will never ask you do do any chores?" "I'm doomed," says the brilliant one. Krystal says, "I'll just have lots of kids, so I don't have any chores. ha." I couldn't help laughing at her. I broke the news gently to her, that no matter how many kids you have you will still have to assign chores and re do the things they mess up, and do the things they can't do. You never escape... I burst their innocent little bubble... you may wonder when in all of this I teach math, sometimes so do I...

record

I took a record 1.93 mile bike ride today. Well, I started out on a ride, and was interrupted after a mile, and so rode home. The sad thing is that my legs are tired right now. 1.93 miles tires my legs. I am a wimp. But then I realized I was doing the little green frog song with my kiddos, and I think hopping like a frog may be the real cause. Hopping like a frog may not be the thing to do on non-kindergarten legs. Or it may be the start of some amazing new workout craze. Try it some time. Do a full squat and then leap up as high as you can. Repeatedly. For 4 different classes. I may not be the brightest...

hmmm

I actually witnessed a 24 year old ask for clarification as to what the word "driveway" meant today. How in the world does someone not know "driveway"?

suck up

A girl asks me this afternoon, "Miss Olson, are you married?"

I, of course, reply, "You just called me 'MISS Olson', you'll have to figure it out."

She, being such an an angelic, wonderful child says, "I figured I was just saying it wrong, because you are much to beautiful NOT to married."

spring is coming...

To contrast the previous post that might indicate I do nothing other than eat and watching the occasional movie (this week occassional, other weeks frequent) Alissa and I did take our 2nd walk of the spring yesterday. It is now light enough out that if I come straight home from school and Alissa is waiting and ready and we leave right away, we have time to get to the park and walk 6-7 laps before it is dark enough and nippy enough that we need to head home. So with a 1/3 mile track around the park plus 1/3 mile there and back that ends up being almost 3 miles before the sun goes down. We wouldn't be so concerned about getting home before sunset, however there are some characters at the park, and who knows what they do after dark. Yesterday there was a guy with a bicycle tire hung in a tree that was making his big, nasty, well-endowed-in-the-fangs-department doggie jump up and grab onto it and hang on till he tapped his nose with a twig. One time the dog held on for a lap and a half. We walked half a mile in the time that dog was just hanging there snarling. I just kept thinking, "if that thing could hold onto a tire with only a couple moments of break between jumps for an hour... what could it do to my leg?"

So, you see, I eat food AFTER I do interesting things like walk in the park and watch people train vicious attack doggies.

asparagus

So yet another food post. I could write about other things like how busy work is or how upset everyone is about not having any subs and loosing planning time or how I keep barely dodging the bullet to have to go sub in classrooms--this week my strategy is tell them that I either get my grade deadline extended OR I do my own job... It has worked up to this point. I could talk about children who are out of control trouble makers that I have to continuously keep a firm handle on to get them to do anything, but what is the fun in that? Really, discipline your children. So, since I can't come up with anything other than a ton of things that I need to do like grades for 700 students by monday, preparing my choir for festival in less than two weeks, and putting together two different slideshows by next friday, I will say that I made some chicken and roasted red peppers (which i guessed at how to make and turned out amazing. It was tasty, and I discovered the best way I think I have ever had asparagus.

Here is what I did if you ever want tasty food...

Potatos

Spread 9x9 pan with olive oil
sprinkle with "it's a dilly" seasoning (dill, onion, lemon peel, and garlic)
sprinkle with salt
Place halved red potatos cut side down in oil, so they get a little crispy-crunchy
Bake 1 hour at 375

Chicken

Put chicken breasts on a cookie sheet
Splash generously with lemon juice
sprinkle with salt, pepper, and dill weed
crumble feta over the top

Bake 40 minutes at 375

then with about 5-10 minutes left on the potatos and chicken, I threw a bunch of asparagus, mushrooms, and bell peppers in the pans with the potatos and chicken and sprinkled them with more lemon and dill. Mmmmmmmmmmm.......

I like pasta

I realize I post alot about eating stuff. But I do eat every day. I sit here, trying to think of something interesting to say to convince people like my mother that I am still alive. And all that comes into mind is I just made some really nice pasta. I had some whole wheat/asparagus ravioli from safeway and some spinach marinara and then added a ton of mushrooms and peppers to the sauce and roasted some asparagus in lemon and spices and put the whole thing together and had some salad on the side with spinach and feta and cucumbers. I really enjoyed my dinner. and the nice thing is if I do it right, in making dinner, i can make lunch too and put it in containers and be ready for tomorrow. And make people jealous with my nummy lunches that way beat what people bring in a frozen cardboard box. Why would you want to eat something out of a frozen cardboard box?

Other than that, it is our 5th straight week of cleaning the house every Tuesday. Alissa and I are turning into regular little housewives--now all we need are husbands...

School is busy. Grades are due this week (which means that right now I am procrastinating)

I had to deal with a racial bullying incident today. One of my 6th grade math students came up to me and said "he just said I was white" My response was, "You know, Anthony, you are white." (maybe not the most understanding...) Anthony said "no--he said it in a racial way. I didn't like it. He told me "shut up you stupid white boy" So, being the good teacher I inquired a bit more and found out it was someone on the purple bus who was wearing a blue shirt. How old was he? "big enough that he could hurt me if he wanted to" says Anthony (an average size 6th grader) So I go onto the purple bus and I am looking around for someone in a blue shirt when I hear this kid say "get out of the way, fatso" so, hmmm, tip off, did you say blah, blah, blah to someone outside? yeah. the kicker is that he is a third grader. A third grader is bullying a sixth grader. What could he be capable of if left unchecked?

my hollow leg strikes again

Spent the day with Sarah. We went shopping. I bought random stuff (bath wash, a journal, looked endlessly for a butter dish) she bought assorted house stuff... (a mirror, coat hooks, etc.) we ran about alot. and then we went to olive garden. Shared a meal. (she is unemployed and going to school--I bought) It is a good deal because you get salad and breadsticks and stuff. We eat our bucket of salad minus the pepperchinis. We each have two breadsticks. we share a chicken/broccoli/garlic pasta dish. I eat my half. She eats half of her half. I could eat dessert if I wanted to, without feeling stuffed. She was complaining of discomfort from eating too much. I say "you get just the right amount of food when you share" she says, "isn't it nice that you got dinner for 3 of us for 12.95?" and brought her leftovers home and fed her boyfriend. Who was also content with half of a half of a meal. It is so nice to know that 2 people can eat and be full on what I consider an average-sized, not-stuffing-myself meal.

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace was an amazing movie. The little old man behind me was sobbing. It was sweet. All of the people started clapping at the end of the movie. I don't understand clapping at a movie, not like the actors can hear you, but it was a good movie. It was the most real, honest Christian movie. Usually as soon as God is mentioned in a movie it becomes a big ball of sappy. But it was really good. How do I best serve God? In isolation or fighting for His people?

It is one of those ones that if I taught high school government or something like that, I would force my kids to see. We were discussing at school the other day that kids have no concept of the places of discrimination and outright cruelty in our history. There is a crop of kids who don't have an underlying understanding of what discrimination was and when you explain it to them they think it is the most stupid thing they have ever heard and half of them think it is something someone made up. Which is so promising. Not that there isn't still discrimination. But when you think about it. Most of the parents of our kids are my age or a little older. so most of the GRANDPARENTS of most of our students were KIDS when the civil rights movement was going on. So you have to go back to great grandparents to find people who lived when segregation was a forgone assumption.

It might be different in other places. Our school isn't the most "diverse" in that 70% or so of our kids are white. But it is not one of the schools either that the other 30% is all black. or hispanic. or asian or whatever. There is such a diverse mix. Quite a few native Hawaiian families, they all came out in droves for the reading night this week. Black. Hispanic. Russian. Asian. two of my 5th grade boys actually hula. One was born in Cuba and told us about his mom waiting in line for food and how that was when he was a baby during our cuban music unit. It is crazy what comes up in random discussions of where our music comes from.