more food

I am enjoying this free time in my afternoon. And not having evening classes every night of the week is nice too. This evening I went running with Michael. (or more, he went running and I ran a lap and then walked 4 more) The red track on campus is very squishy. I foolishly thought my lungs would hurt and make me quit first but my knee won the race and twingingly told me to start doing my physical therapy exercise again or reap the consequences. I am taking this seriously by sitting on my butt and playing on the internet. Also tonight I made, Italian Wedding Soup, a guacamole/salsa concoction, and a tomato basil bruschetta topping. Then I made the actual bruschetta from a yummy French loaf with olive oil and real garlic.
Lots of recipes if anyone is interested I will take the time to type some up and email or post them.

tomorrow's lunch choices

ready boys and girls?
hot dog on a bun

or

fish treasures?

what is a fish treasure? only the brave will find out. The substitue teacher in class advised one 1st grader that it was probably like a fish stick. And no, it wasn't like a treasure with rubies and such.

mmm. yum. now I have to get my own lunch.
maybe chicken salad with apples and walnuts.

a boring update and a lunch survey

So here is a boring update of my life/weekend.

• classes started for me on Thursday, things seem okay, but damn here comes the collaborative group work again, and then there's the whole buying books thing. bleh
• I am only doing half days at school now. This is cool because I have never had free time in the afternoon like this. Maybe I will be productive and use it for work. or maybe I will start watching general hospital or something like that. doubtful I am more of an E! true hollywood kind of girl.
  
• I had a flashback to undergrad when I got home from my half day of work Friday. After grocery shopping and other errands, Michael and I had a drink and watched a movie. Then I called Alyssa and realized what I am really doing used to be a frat house thing in Bloom called a 6 to 9. It evolved into more of a 6-1am sort of event as the event moved locations. A fun evening was had by all as Michael got the chance to play beer pong with Coors Light while I drank a pretty decent (AND FREE) magarita in a frat house.
• I can't believe I just typed that last bullet I am REALLY OLD. But you would have enjoyed this Margarita too. I know ....it was so tasty.
  
• Saturday I volunteered at the YMCA exercise class for kids with Autism. (if I am lucky I will get paid for that, this will come in handy for those of you expecting Christmas presents from me)
• Today I bought one of my books for class and I read the Preface (man I think of the geekiest ways of procrastinating) Then we went to see Corpse Bride with the last of the Free movie tickets, yay...now I can pay to go see indie films instead of feeling trapped in my billions of free crappy movie theater tickets.
  
• Finally, in my widely exciting weekend I made my own chicken stock.
  

Well as you can see here, non-stop fun and excitement on this front.

One other thing I have been thinking of, Food. Right, like I am always thinking of food but this is in a different way, not just the "what food do I want in my mouth and tummy" kind of way.
People I work with eat a lot of crappy food. Things that come in boxes, that are prepackaged with extra food coloring, and with the labels proclaiming E Z prep. They have a lot of weird food things such as the girl that eats hotdogs dipped in apple sauce and the older lady that eats these interesting wrapped meat and cheese and condiment things that must be like some sort of Atkins/heartattack type lunch also the girl that doesn't eat any nuts and makes fun of me and another girl that eat fruit, (she calls us "healthy" and then laughs). Even better the cafeteria serves the kids such lovely items like mini corn dogs and fresh pizza bake. I don't know what that is....is it pizza? is it pasta? who knows?
I am so relieved not to be there at lunch now that I leave at 12:30. I can go home and eat what I want because obviously whatever sandwich or fruit or vegetable I am eating is entirely alien and disgusting to all parties involved.
What do you eat for lunch?

small children keep hugging me

It is highly disconcerting.


and sad


because the kids I need to work with are crying or refusing to work, and other random kids I don't know very well keep hugging me.

I guess this is what happens in 1st and second grade. oh I guess hugs, tears, and the whole learning to read thing.

just a reminder...

in case you forgot to celebrate properly, today is Talk Like a Pirate Day.
I enjoyed it thoroughly with the first graders who love pirates and saying "Arg, Mateys!" and waving imaginary hooks around.

Not so much with the second graders, who managed to forget everything they learned over their entire school career in just one short weekend. fun. Lucky for me they are only in second grade so we should be able to whip them into shape in a few days...weeks....months....lifetimes.


Also, I am volunteering with a kids exercise class sometimes. Those of you trying to get into shape should take note: skipping is hard work.

how I love this job I pay UC to attend every day...

So I've already had students sent home with lice and more throwing up, and to top it all off it seems like I make two kids cry everyday. In my defense all the sick/crawly kids are back in school. AND, its not really my fault if they cry in this situation.
unnamed 1st grader "How are you?"..."good work!"..."Get out your crayons!"..."Let's count ready 1, 2, 3..." student response, "Wahhhhh! I miss my mommy!"
Now truthfully, tell me, is that my fault.
Today, I felt like the meany meaniest teacher. Frustrated and tired of saying things like, "Get to work", "Pick up your pencil" "Now start here and write", "No, erase that, we need a BIG M not a little m", "This is your warning!". Arg, or as Caitlin and Nora would say BARG!
Yesterday was much cuter kid-wise, as are most days that I interact with students not on my roster. You know ones that are wearing clean clothes that can pronounce their R's. I am so mean, and yes, I know this is sped and truthfully I like my "poor pitiful Pearl's and Peter's"*
But really you need to know that I talk a lot of shit but I am not really bad. And usually I have patience that astounds even me. And hey, tonight I spent the evening creating a PAC-MAN board game to help my 1st graders learn to count. Because they are beyond the Hi-Ho Cherry-O game, but not yet ready to use two dice because 11 and 12 are still a mystery.**
The game is cute. I will take a picture just after I laminate it. Yes this is my life and lamination is super cool. how pathetic.

*reference of a prof. last year the opposite being, little miss princess / mr. prince
** hell sometimes 3-10 are still a mystery

more school (this seems to be a recurring theme, can you handle it?)

Today there was only one 1st grade crier and one bloody nose. I think statistically things are improving but it is too early to say. I spend most of the day helping people write letters and numbers and point along to words as someone else reads outloud....describing reading strategies and helping to sound out, also telling little ones they can go to the bathroom, get a tissue, get a drink etc. I also spend a lot of time saying things like "no, not that way turn it around" which unless you do this all the time you might not remember that p's and b's and d's look a lot the same to a 1st grader, or that 2's and 5's can also flip around and look awfully confusing. Hmm, school is definitely difficult, especially when I need to remember things like, which way does the < point to mean less than, and which way for greater? Did I learn this and, more importantly can I keep it straight when looking at someone's worksheet upside down from across the table? I swear I am sped too, and I hope that makes me good at this.

I don't like to use this as a space to really discuss anything other than the bleh stuff that fills my brain and might be vaguely amusing to my friends. However, most of what fills my brain these days (past the daily learning of letters and numbers, IEP's, autism and dyslexia) is New Orleans. I couldn't really even watch an entire news broadcast last week and in the car I would switch back from NPR news, to a song on my CD player, to the news again, because the news would make me cry with anger (whenever bush talks) and then sadness (all the snapshots of survival amidst devastation) For more reading of blogs that say things better than I can, try here or here. There are many more but these two are the ones I glanced at before I started writing this, so I thought I would share.