how do you fail...

...an open book test? I mean come on...i'm practically handing out free A's.

Jazz Fest and Jazz Hands

is it sacrilegious if I opt to shower during my Jazz Fest trip when the students are having their worship time? It's the only time I can think of when I won't be trapped with the 20 7th/8th grade girls fighting over the one shower and one outlet. 

I need to maintain some level of secrecy about how I get looking so fine. The students need to see the finished product, NOT what it takes to get there. If they saw my crazy lion mane hair before it's straightened, they might not respect me anymore. I gotta keep that respect when most of them are taller than me to begin with!

wait...you're the teacher?

The following are reasons why I am mistaken for a Junior Higher on a daily basis:

- in a sea of students during passing period, I am by far NOT the tallest. in fact today, a student rammed right into me like I was his buddy and then was like "oops, sorry Mrs. Haslam"

- sometimes I am wearing the same shirt as one of the girls in my class

- I see lots of clothes I have in my closet at school and I make a mental note never to wear them to school

- unlike most female teachers at King's, I don't even own a denim jumper

- I have an iPod, cell phone, myspace, facebook and I've read Twilight

- in no way do I look almost 25. Most people would probably figure I just got a drivers license, not a Master's degree

if i had unlimited money...

...i would purchase a car with a battering ram and rear end cars with bumper stickers i don't like.

i must have been so annoying

to my former teachers, please accept the following apologies:

- I'm sorry for raising my hand and shaking it like it might fall off if you didn't call on me. i now know that is SUPER irritating

- I'm sorry for keeping my hand raised when clearly you weren't going to call on me for the 14th time in a day

-I'm sorry for asking questions the moment I walked into the classroom. You never acted like it bugged you but I'm sure it did

-I'm sorry for those few years when showering seemed unncessary. hopefully I didn't stink but I know my hair was greasy greasy

-I'm sorry for passing notes and talking to friends. I thought I had you fooled but I know you saw it all along. thanks for not getting me into trouble as often as I deserved.

thank you for educating me as you did and instilling in me a passion for learning. my hope is that I can inspire my students the way you did me.

and most importantly, teach them not to be as annoying as I was.

a belated valentine's story

it's valentines day at king's jr high. well really its Feb 13th but we don't have school on Saturdays so the 13th is when you share the love.

i get a few valentine's from some of the girls in my fan club. at least i think they are in a fan club that has my name in the title. they like to hang out with me and i get it cause i'm like only 10 years older than them AND when asked i knew about the Chris Brown saga.

best moment of the day comes right before 2nd block. a sweet young man is standing outside my room with a rose (so clearly not for me, i'm not Mary K. Letourneau) and he looks like he might throw up right then and there. i then watch the following happen while trying to pretend not to:

this boy awkwardly walks towards who is apparently his new girlfriend. he hands her the rose without really making eye contact. they hug (which is strictly forbidden in the JH but it's the day of love so i let it slide). she mutters thank you and then they both make a dash to their friend groups where the girls are all like "OH MY GOSH...oooo, ahhhh) and the boys are like "duuuuude (insert many high fives)" 

the bell rings and he comes in still red in the face. i wonder if he is going to pass out cause he looks like that is a real possibility. a few minutes pass and he collects himself. he knows he is the man. she knows he is the man. and i know they got away with an illegal hug. 

old friends, new friends

i have been thinking a lot lately about my friendship circle and i've come to the following GOOD and BAD conclusions.

GOOD:

- i finally have the best friend (other than david of course) i've always wanted and for the first time in my life I feel like the person I call my best friend is actually someone who cares for me as much as i care for them. that's a good thing to feel.

- all of my friends know how to make me laugh. that is something that is so important to me. i think laughing is one of the best thing you can do with friends.

- i have a small group of close friends. i will choose a small group of friends over a large group of acquaintances every single time.

BAD:

- i have some "former" friends that i wish weren't so former. i have not done a good job of staying in touch with some girls that were a huge part of my life and i feel bad about that. its not totally my fault since they didn't stay in contact with me but i miss them. the problem is that it's been so long i'd feel horrible/stupid to try to get reconnected. i'm not sure what to do.

- i feel like some of my friends take a lot and don't give much back. that's not to say that i'm in my friendships for what i can get but it starts to feel one-sided after awhile. i'm trying to decide if it's worth keeping these friendships since i made a promise to myself a long time ago that i would not let myself be used by a friend ever again. if you are one of my friends who NEVER initiates hanging out with me or cancels frequently or makes excuses, I may be talking about you.

- i REALLY wish David and I had some married friends. none of our friends are married yet and most of them are not even close. shoot, at this point I'd settle for some couple friends, you don't even have to be married.

not sure how to conclude this one. i'm a lucky girl to have the friends i do.

lunch duty.

Every teacher has a part of their job that they hate. Some teachers don't like correcting...i love it. Some teachers don't like being a disciplinarian; believe me, that is not a problem.

My hell? lunch duty.

I despise lunch duty. It involves walking around, saying "throw away your trash" about 1,533 times and generally being freezing cold. Seeing as how I hate regular lunch duty, one might imagine my feelings on lunch duty when there is SNOW on the ground. For me, snow lunch duty is worse than taking a drivers test, a bad break-up and running over your cat combined. Snow lunch duty is literally the worst.

My most recent experience brought me to my snow lunch duty breaking point. Monday is my day to be a lunch nazi. Monday there was about an inch of snow at King's. The minute I walked out of the door, I saw one boy lob (sp?) a giant snowball directly into the back of the head of another boy. Enter Mrs. Haslam screaming "NO THROWING SNOW" for the first of countless times. Now I know some people will think that it's just normal fun to play in the snow and throw snowballs. This is true when you have the ability to excercise self control. Junior Highers do not posess this ability. What may start as a friendly snowball fight quickly becomes a larger student ramming a smaller students face in the snow pile until they bleed. This is why snowball throwing is NOT allowed. but back to the story:

I escorted this young gentleman to the office for the remainder of his lunch all the while hearing complaints about how I'm not fair. As soon as he was safe within the confines of the office, I went back outside. Not to my surprise a student who I had warned previously about not throwing snow lofted a large snowball in my general direction aiming for a friend. I went over to this boy and said "what part of not throwing snow did you not understand?" BAD IDEA to ask sarcastic rhetorical questions to an 8th grade boy. He responded with something snotty which made me want to spank him (clearly not allowed) OR ram his face into the snow myself (also probably a bad idea). I made another trek to the office where I deposited my second student of the day and ventured out for the last 20 minutes of hell...I mean lunch duty.