LOST

I've got a theory. Actually it's more like an explanation. Actually, this is what I contemplate at 6:00 in the morning as I get ready for school.

Remember connect-the-dots puzzles? A picture is created by connecting the numbered dots (or letters of the alphabet) in the correct order. LOST is kind of like that, only more maniacal. They are connecting dots for us to create the larger picture that will be revealed at the end of the series. The audience is expected to follow the dot-connecting to a logical end. First problem: we don't know the larger picture so we don't know what we're shooting for. Supposedly the producers do, but this is LOST we're talking about. Anything could happen. Second problem (and this is the biggie): the directors and producers aren't playing fair. They're not giving us the dots in the correct order.

Example: They give us A, and then connect B and C, but don't show us the connection to A, they skip D completely and go to E, connect to F, connect to G, show us H, skip to K, skip to L, go back to D, connect G to H, skip ahead to W, skip back to M, and then connect it to L, etc. The audience never knows where (or when) they're going or what dot it is until way after the fact. Kind of makes composing a timeline a wee bit more difficult, especially since we don't know the big picture.

That's the beauty of it. Complete confusion for an hour a week. And besides, it gives me something to think about during the early morning hours. :-)

The new favorite thing for my students to do to kill extra minutes at the end of class is to find big words using the letters from bigger words. I never anticipated them loving it so much. I actually posted a big piece of paper with supercalifragilisticexpialidocious written on it. They filled that paper with words within two days. (I never realized before that word has no 'm' or 'n' in it.) They're now working on the word cinematography (not as long, but it's got a lot of letters). One of the aides commented that she had found at least 12 words just using the letters in the word March. I didn't think it was possible, but decided to see what I could come up with. I just found 14 words:

• mar
• arch
• char
• cram
• harm
• car
• cam
• ram
• rah
• mach
• arc
• ah
• arm
• am

Darn competitive side. . . . :-)

Good Times

I'm such a slacker! I gotta get caught up on the joyful moments of Tuesday and Wednesday!

Tuesday:

• We finished the IPT test! (That's the big standardized test that I was coordinating for our site.)
• My big trouble-maker was mellow and calm; he was actually focused on his work.
• The snow was interspersed with sun - my two favorite kinds of weather! It actually wasn't too cold and the wind wasn't blowing!
• I took my kids to the gym for our weekly gym time at the end of the day. One of my boys had on crocs that were almost too small. We were playing kickball and he almost lost his shoes every time he tried to kick or run. He started to do this goofy "flat-footed-toes-first" run that cracked me up.
  
• One of my girls (in the gym) came up to me after they'd been playing for a few minutes and told me that her shoes were making her feet sweaty. She knows that going barefoot is not allowed, so I'm still not sure what she expected me to do about it.

Wednesday:

• I got to school at my usual early morning time and was super-productive!
• Once everyone finally showed up, I had full attendance. (The last kid rolled in around 10:45.)
• I've been doing quarterly assessments in math all week and today we finished all but one small part of one kid's assessment.
• I intended to leave directly after-school, but one of the older elementary students wandered into my room and wanted to use my globe. I figured from her evasive responses to my questions that using a globe was not allowed. I spent 20 minutes naming states and telling her when she found the right one on her own (unlabeled) map. Not necessarily the most educational way of doing things, but we were having fun.
  
• Walking home from the post office, I had the wind at my back. Made the uphill walk in soft snow much more pleasant.
• I have chocolate.
  

I've been in a bad mood since. . . ummm. . . actually, I can't remember that time I was actually in a good mood for more than a few minutes. I think maybe it was Christmas break, but the unhappiness straddled that two weeks. I realized last night that if I'm ever going to kick this mood, I've got to start focusing on the positive. I've been so concentrated on the negative side of things for so long that I lost the joy of teaching and the joy that is inherent in life. I decided that this week is going to be different. I am going to write down the good things, the joyful things, the fun things, and dwell on those instead. By writing them down, I can 1) actually remember them, and 2) keep myself accountable to not dwell on the downside. Here was today (keep in mind that each of these has about 3 negatives to go along with it, but I'm trying not to think about those).

• One of my 2nd grade students came into my room before she went to her homeroom this morning. She hadn't even taken off her hat or gloves yet, let alone her coat. She came in to show me her new shirt. I asked her if her mom was back (from three weeks in Nome) and if that was where her shirt was from. She nodded and then proceeded to tell me that her mom had also brought back a "walker" for her baby sister. She also told me that her dad had to lower it because her sister's legs were too short. I could tell that her heart was bursting with happiness because her mom was back, but she related all this in a calm, matter-of-fact way that made my heart smile.
• The sunrise this morning was beautiful! There was a slight break in the clouds right at the horizon, and a brilliant purple and pink sunrise showed through for about 10 minutes and then was gone.
• I have been coordinating a standardized test for our school site and we've been waiting on one student to actually come to school to make up the last section of the test. She came today! We're done!
• No after-school tutoring this week!
• I had full attendance in my class for the first time in weeks!
• I let myself sleep in until 6:00 this morning because I didn't have loads to do, due to the workday on Saturday.
  

The Roller Coaster of Life

Since Friday, I have been on an emotional roller coaster. There have been so many ups and downs that I hardly know where I am anymore.

THE UPS:
The basketball games this weekend were cancelled. Bad news for some, but I was scheduled to take admission at the door on Friday and wasn't particularly excited about it. I cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom instead - both were in desperate need of attention.

The weather cleared up on Monday, which meant planes were flying again.

IPT testing (the huge standardized test that I was coordinating for our site) went off without a hitch!

The sun was shining bright today! Not a cloud in the sky!

I took my kids outside this afternoon instead of going to the gym. It was bitterly cold (like 20 below), but it was so much fun to see my kids get to run and play. They were making snow angels, digging tunnels, and burying each other in the snow (like some kids do with sand at the beach).

I had 6 of the sweetest kids come to after-school tutoring today!

THE DOWNS:
My roommate is still gone. She left last Wednesday, leaving me a note that said she'd be back on Saturday and to call if I wanted anything from Anchorage. That was the last anybody has heard from her. At this point, I'm pretty convinced she's not coming back and I don't blame her. The principal did nothing but give her crap, and it was an unhealthy amount of stress for her. It's still a bummer that she's gone. I'm lonely!

The weather this weekend was awful. Planes weren't flying - that's why the basketball games were cancelled.

Friday was Valentine's Day. Enough said.

The days at school have been wearing me out, but I don't want to come home to an empty apartment.

I fully expected my roommate to be home this weekend. I was stressed out wondering who, if anyone, was flying and if she'd be back. I knew, though, that most likely no one was flying. I was super-alert at the times that planes normally come, listening for the drone of an engine. It was all in vain, though.

Sigh. . . .

Battle of the Books

Battle of the Books is finally over! Most people have never heard of Battle of the Books; I think it's mostly an Alaskan thing with a few other miscellaneous states and school districts thrown in to keep things interesting.

Here's the break-down. There are 7 grade groups (K, 1st, 2nd, 3/4, 5/6, JH, and HS) and each has its own set of 12-15 books. In 3rd-12th grades, students from a participating school form a team of 3 (per grade group), read the books, and then battle. In BSSD, that battle is in the form of a video-conference, because we're cool like that. Each school connects on their particular battle day and time. The district librarian asks really hard questions about nit-picking details in the books. The team decides which book they think it came from. 5 points for a correct title and an additional 3 points if they came up with the correct author. The team with the highest number of points wins the district battle and goes on to the state battle. K-2 is a little different. There is no state battle, so our teams can be as large as we want. It generally takes the shape of however many kids are in that particular grade. Kindergarten has 5 books, 1st grade has those 5, plus 5 more. 2nd grade has those 10, plus 5 more. Our battles are a little more relaxed; we're basically trying to hook them on Battle of the Books so they will want to participate when they get older.

As site coordinator for Elim, this year's battles started last spring. I ordered the books so that we would have them right away in the fall. They were waiting for me when I got here in August. I'm also the first-grade coach, so I know the k-1 books like the back of my hand. We didn't have a junior high or high school team this year, and our 3-6th graders didn't do too terribly well at the district battle during the last week of January. Our k-2nd graders, though, did awesome! Because our district is so large, we actually battle in shifts and then the schools with high enough scores go on to the "finals," - a final battle to determine the winner. My kids surprised me - I only had 3 of them there that day, but one of them knew the books backwards and front-wards. She was on fire! I didn't expect to make it to finals, but we did! We actually had the second highest score out of all the 1st grade teams! We ended up dead last after finals. That's right, last. That one little girl who knew all the answers? She was out sick that day. I had 3 kids again, but it was a different 3 and they didn't know anything about the books. Disappointing, but we had fun reading the books and exploring the pictures (that's where most of the questions come from - tiny details from the pictures), so it was all good. Kindergarten and 2nd grade made it to finals, as well. I don't know how the kindergarten did, but 2nd grade was in 3rd place! (One school cancelled due to weather and they're battling next week).

I'm glad the battles are finally over! I was getting a little sick of hearing "10 Minutes till Bedtime" (by Peggy Rathmann) 5 times a day. My kids are now hooked on Skippyjon Jones, though, so I have a feeling I will continue to hear that one. I'm donating all the books to our school library in the next week or so (after I finish reading the junior high and high school books!) and then I'll be done until April or May when it's time to order next year's books!

The Tale of a Bathroom Cabinet

The bathroom cabinet in our apartment is the bane of my existence. There are three mirror panels on the front. The middle panel doesn't exactly stay in. It falls out if opened, bumped, or looked at funny. Sometimes I think it falls off just out of spite. This morning, a little bit more than that fell.

This is where the cabinet is supposed to be and, in fact, where it was last night:


This is where it is right now:


Yes, folks, that's right. It's on the bathroom floor, minus the middle panel and top shelf.

See, this morning, I was blowing my nose when, all of a sudden, the middle panel of the cabinet fell. Or, at least, that's what I thought it was. In actuality, it was the entire top of the cabinet falling over. The middle panel fell out, as did the top shelf. Half of the contents of the cabinet were also falling. I luckily caught it before it hit me in the head. But then I was in a predicament. Two of the screws at the top had ripped through the back of the cabinet and were still embedded in the wall. The third screw had ripped out of the wall and was still in the back of the cabinet. The three screws at the bottom of the cabinet? Still holding in the wall. The top half of the cabinet was falling of the wall, the bottom was still firmly affixed to the wall, and our tool box was in the kitchen. I couldn't let go of the cabinet for fear it would fall the rest of the way and break something. I couldn't get to the tool box to get a screwdriver to take out the bottom three screws. My roommate was still asleep (this was like 7 in the morning). I don't know how she slept through the racket of everything falling down, but she did. I was stuck.

I ended up taking everything else out of the cabinet, and slowly let go so that it was hanging off the wall at a weird angle. I could hear the wood cracking and knew it was in the process of falling completely apart. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed our tool box (many thanks to my Dad), and ran back to the bathroom before the cabinet could fall. I held up back up against the wall with one hand and took out the remaining screws with the other. I almost dropped it when the last screw came out. That thing is heavy. Doesn't look like it, but it is. So now, all of the contents of the cabinet are on the (small) bathroom counter, the cabinet is on the floor, and I'm not sure what we're going to do next. My roommate is still asleep. Maybe she knows how to mount a cabinet. I doubt it, but here's hoping.


Update: My roommate's boyfriend, Tyler, is a hero. He re-mounted our cabinet for us. It was mounted wrong the first time and that's why it fell.