Only In The Midwest

Kid #1: My mom was in labor for 15 hours when she had me
Kid #2: My aunt had her baby in 5 minutes!
Kid #3: I had a cow that did that once...

The Time Traveling Teacher

I love the fact that people in this profession have no clue what we do every day. I think they go to sleep at night thinking that I must spend every waking hour grading, planning, making notes, and making copies. It's almost laughable...almost...I love overachievers...really I do...but this was a little much. It made me laugh a little at first...

OA (over achiever): Ummmmm Mrs. Cheese I was wondering if you know what we are going to be doing on May 10th and 11th?
Me: Come again??
OA: I wanted to know what we are going to be doing on May 10th and 11th. I am going to be gone and I wanted to know if there was anything I needed to make up. My dad made me ask.
Me: Ask me on May 8th.

First I thought it was a little endearing that she thought to ask so early. Funny for sure because as all teachers know it is absolutely ridiculous to know that far in advance. Maybe I'm naive and I should have my whole year planned out, but I rough sketch my quarter plans, then plan in-depth every Monday morning for that week. I know there are some teachers out there that have all this under control, but not me. After I got over the internal giggling that I had, I stopped to think...What the hell was this parent thinking?? Does he really think that I would seriously know what we are doing on those days?!?!?! How bout I call him and ask him what he will be doing at work on May 10th and 11th?!?! WHO KNOWS THESE THINGS?!?! I barely know what I'm doing next hour, let alone next year!!!!!!! Which goes back to my theory that people think that we have no lives...or that once we teach something for one year, we do the exact same thing the next year. SO. NOT. TRUE.

We Need A Break

We need a break from school, and we need a break from each other. Here are my reasons why we all need Thanksgiving Break:
1. I have ZERO motivation. I'm writing on a blog in the middle of school, nuff' said...
2. The kids are looking like zombies.
3. I'm getting sick, I can feel it. I'm doing everything I can to prevent it, vitamin C, Airborne, sleep (sort of) and keeping a positive attitude. But I just know that come November 24th at 3:00 pm...I'm going to hit that wall, and feel like death. It's just my luck.
4. They salivate every time the word turkey is spoken. I seriously had a kid say in the middle of class "Turkey? did you say Turkey?"...no I said for lunch I brought beef jerkey...
5. I don't even want to do math...I want 5 full days of bliss away from school, math, grading, coaching, and everything else that goes with teaching. And when I say I don't want to do math, that's pretty bad. But too much of a good thing...

TGIF

I just want to state for the record. Thank the Good Lord that it is Friday. And thank Him again that we only have 7 days left until Thanksgiving Break! I cannot wait for turkey, sleep, and the opportunity to be around family, and other adults! I am exhausted, the kids are exhausted, and they have already checked out for the semester. Hopefully Thanksgiving Break will give them the energy boost they all need to finish out the semester!...

So here's to Friday! In all its "I'm so tired because of this week, but I still have practice, but after practice I'm gonna go home and celebrate but I probably won't end up celebrating because I'll be so tired so I may just grade some papers and go to bed at 9" glory!!!

A Good Ole' Fashioned BJ

Sometimes we say things and then as soon as they come out of our mouths we wish we could take it all back...but in this life you can't, so we just hope to God that nobody heard and move on...

I don't have that luxury in teaching, because odds are never in my favor. No matter how lucky you think you might be, when something slips out of your mouth odds are that at least 1 out of 30 people will hear you...

Case and point: I am drawing a triangle up on the board and I am leading towards finding the circumcenter (and yes, I said circumcised twice that day...get over it!) I name the triangle "ABC" which I normally do. But at that point I need to choose a letter for the circumcenter. Last time I checked I had 26 letters to choose from. And for some reason only God knows, I chose "J"...I am a teacher, I think ahead...so I'm running this through my head...AJ...BJ...CJ...wait, what the hell?!?!? BJ?!?!?! Cue the panic setting in...Deep breath...now, how do I get myself out of this one. I am in a room full of 16 yr olds that have raging hormones and think everything that is inappropriate is the funniest thing EVER. I've got it! I'll make one of them say it!!

"Ok class, so if the circumcenter is equidistant away from each vertex of the triangle, the AJ is equal to"....................silence......my face is super red at this point....so I repeat. "AJ is equal to...." And like an angel sent from heaven a tiny little voice in the back (a boy mind you) says..."BJ???" Whew! Snickers and giggle fill the room, and I refuse to turn around for fear of them seeing my red face and smile...but I survived.

Now I know what you're thinking...seriously Mrs. Cheese? You subjected a student to utter embarrassment and the potential of being called "BJ boy" for the rest of the year, just so you could save face??? Yes. Yes I did.

SAS not ASS

One of my favorite things during the dreadful unit of proofs is teaching the kids side-angle-side. It is the one time in the year that I get to cuss and get a pass. I have to explain to them that you can only have side-angle-side not angle-side-side. I tell them SAS not ASS...SASsy not ASSy...you can be a SAS-bag but not an ASS-bag. I could go on for days. (I usually stop with SAS not ASS though, there's no need to traumatize them!) It is one of the times throughout the year where they are all sitting doe-eyed, staring at me. I realize at that moment that I've truly got em'! I had a teacher in high school that said if you associate something you need to memorize with sex or money it will stick every time and I really believe that!...I tell myself that I am only cursing for the educational well-being of my kids!

The Dreaded 69

Just food for thought...
Why is it when you ask kids for their favorite number someone always shouts out "69!"??? Oh yeah, because they are 16 years old. I remember being in high school and everyone would snicker when the answer to a problem would be 69, but these kids truly would be proud to have 69 tattooed on their foreheads! The worst part is my first few years of teaching the boys would be the ones to yell it out, now it's the girls!!! Don't they get enough sex-ed in bio???

Must Be The Moon

The kids are weird this week. It must be the moon phases changing because they are wearing me out. Or maybe it's the fact that I have late practices all week and I'm not getting home until 7! But that's neither here nor there...Three quick stories for ya:

1. Why do I have 14 yr olds in class that smoke??? And I'm not talking "my clothes smell like smoke because my parents smoke", I'm talking "I can't help you with your math problem because not only are your clothes reeking of smoke, but your breath is kickin'" kind of smoke. Granted neither my husband nor I smoke, but we have some friends that do (and we're talking pack-a-day smokers), and even those friends don't have breath like this. I almost gagged a little in my mouth. At least if you are going to smoke, have good hygiene for gosh sake!...** Oh no here she comes again!!!**

2. Boy #1: Ummmm Mrs. Cheese, I'm going to go ahead and turn in my homework but I'm just letting you know that there may or may not be inappropriate pictures drawn on my homework. I'm not really sure how they got there but I tried really hard to erase them
Mrs. Cheese: Ummmm ok, well if you hadn't told me I probably wouldn't have noticed.
Boy #1: Oh you'll notice...
Mrs. Cheese: Ok, well you do realize that now I'm going to look for it, it's like a car accident, you can't just pass by without looking
Boy #1: Ok that's fine, I just didn't want to be known as that kid from Superbad who draws penises all over his paper...
Mrs. Cheese: I don't think of you like that...but now I will

3. Class: Is it bad if you pop your fingers a lot?
Mrs. Cheese: Well, I'm not sure if this is true, but I've heard that when you pop your fingers the sound you hear is fluid popping...and again, not sure if this it true, but I would assume that would cause more fluid to build up, sort of swelling your fingers...but I'm no science teacher, only a math teacher
Boy #2: So if I keep popping my fingers will they get longer???
Mrs. Cheese: Oh wow...

Oink Oink

So they are seriously dropping like flies around here. All of a sudden, this week and last, there have been a ton of students gone. I have put together more absent work the past 3 days that I have done in the past 3 years. I am thankful that up to this point I have not gotten what I am hereby referring to as "the sickness." The Sickness is bad. You have a fever, and you feel like you are going to die. At least that is what all the kids are saying. The nurse is having to turn kids away there are so many coming in. I went by the guidance office yesterday morning and she had a piece of notebook paper (front and back) full of kids names that were absent. No Joke! I bet I have about 3 kids per hour coming up and asking me if they can go to the nurse. And trust me, it's really hard to reply without breathing, which is what I have resorted to doing when a kid is talking to me. For some reason they feel like it is necessary to be 1 foot away from you when they talk. Not only does this invade my personal bubble, but it completely freaks me out when it comes to The Sickness. Here's to hoping that I don't come down with The Sickness...because I'm too busy!