A True Story

This is a true story that my mom sent me the other day and I said that I would post it.


THIS IS A TRUE STORY:
A kindergarten teacher explains to her class that she is an Arizona State Sun Devil. She asks her students to raise their hands if they are Sun Devils too. No one really knows what being a Sun Devil is, but wanting to be like their teacher their hands explode into the air like fleshy fireworks.
There is, however, one exception. A girl named Kristen has not gone along with the crowd. The teacher asks her why she has decided to be different.
"Because I'm not a Sun Devil."
"Then," asks the teacher, "what are you?"
"Why, I'm a proud Arizona Wildcat ," boasts the little girl.
The teacher is a little perturbed now, her face slightly red. She asks Kristen why she is a Wildcat.
"Well, my mom and dad are Wildcats, so I'm a Wildcat too."
The teacher is now angry. "That's no reason," she says loudly. "What if your mom was a moron, and your dad was a moron. What would you be then?"
"Then," says Kristen, "I'd be a Sun Devil."

People should now know that my parents aren't morons and honestly any two teams that are huge rivals could be put in here. And sorry to some of my relatives, you chose the school!!

In other news.

I took my first church directory picture by myself. I also realized that I am not a "posed-for" picture taker. I am more of the semi-spontaneous/ spontaneous picture taker. Several times the lady said to me, "I can tell that you are about to blink." And in my head I said yeah, so take the picture.

It is the end of the semester. For schools who start after Labor Day, the first semester doesn't end until the end of January. So for me, I should be getting ready for Winter Break, but no. I am looking at a month with two days off for semi-random reasons and then six weeks with nothing. People keep saying how early Spring Break is this year and I keep telling them, it is way late for me and they just don't understand! Our Easter Break is smashed in their with Spring Break!

I just finished reading my 19th book while here in California. High School Confidential, by Jeremy Iversen is the modern day Fast Times at Ridgemont High by Cameron Crowe. If you want to know what exactly happens at a "regular" high school read this book. I found it very interesting and actually sort of apalling at what is acceptable for students and teachers these days!

That is all for now.
grace and peace

My First Gift

Really short post:
I received my first gift as a teacher yesterday. Some people might think, wow that took a long time, but really it is not. Anyway, I was about to start the last lesson about Least Common Multiples when one of my students walked in to class. She handed me her pass and then a wadded up paper towel. I asked her what it was and she said just open it. Working here you learn to be careful when a girl gives you something. I asked her if she was turning in her lip/ chin piercing and she told me to just open it. I opened it and there was a wriggling earth worm. It turns out that the science class was digging in one of the flower beds to find worms and grubs. She told me that she was going to get me one of those white ones (grubs) or a spider. Another girl in the class was sort of offended because the worm was going to die since it was not in the dirt. So we decided to take the worm back to the dirt. The gift giver was sad, but I said I would always remember the worm.

Just another day in the life of a teacher at Joan Macy.

grace and peace

Cool Book and other random things

For Christmas I received the Intellectual Devotional. "[D]aily readings that will refresh the spirit, stimulate the mind, and help complete your education." It is a very interesting read each night before I go to bed. Each day of the week is assigned a topic...history, literature, visual arts, science, music, philosophy and religion. I suggest it for anyone who wants to get in the habit of reading something daily.

Onto the weather. So this week has been freak weather for Southern California. Yesterday there was snow in Malibu. And many of the people had to hose off their cars before driving to work because of the ice. I do have to admit that it has been nice since I am used to at least semi winter weather. But I was jealous of all the people at Southwestern because they had snow and probably more than we had when I was there. I really wasn't jealous of not having school because we don't have to make up weather days. That was always the worst.

This week I found out that I will no longer be teaching math starting at the semester. As I said in my I'm back post, I will be teaching parenting/ relationships. I sort of have a problem with this because I will only be teaching 2 periods a day and then probably doing secretarial work the rest of the day. I sort of feel that this is a waste. No offense to all the secretaries out there, it is hard work. But secretarial work really isn't the reason I am out here.

Another piece of big news is that I got a couch! There had been a couch in the hallway for awhile that the store was trying to sell. It looks like it is from the 70s or 80s. But I got news that my MIRYAP will be coming to California in February so I decided to get the couch. It is great for several reasons. *I have a place to sit now other than my bed which I realized was becoming a bad habit. *I can now maybe have visitors. *I got rid of my table, as it was really just a junk and dust collector. And while I did sit there to eat, I faced the TV because the table faced the wall. *The couch has a pull out bed. *I went and bought some of those jersey sheets so I can have sheets for the bed and put one of them over it so the couch will look presentable and it reminds me of my own couch that now resides in Corpus. *The best thing is that the couch was FREE!!!

I must say in reference to my last post about basketball, I am very glad that I don't have FSN because Arizona has been playing dismally and on Saturday UA plays #2 UCLA. The good thing is that ASU almost beat them, so maybe we have a chance, but to me it seems that we peaked to early in the season. Hopefully we can have another peak before March.

grace and peace

Basketball Season

I know two posts in that many days...wow. This is a totally random post, but I just felt that I must say something about it. I know that I am not a basketball afficionado, but I do like to think that when College Basketball season comes around, I at least know as much as the next guy.

This morning I was watching the Tennessee/ Ohio State game -- 1. because it is ncaa basketball and 2. because on saturday mornings there is absolutely nothing to watch since I only have the most basic channels (and I woke up too late to watch Dragon, a cute claymation show that I watch in Spanish). Anyway back to the game. I was half watching and half reading through the whole game, which if you didn't see it, it was a nail biter if you root for any of those teams. There were about 50 lead changes (probably a slight exageration) and the teams were pretty much 2 or 3 goals away from each other. So it really just boils down to this. With 30 seconds left Tennessee was in possession of the ball and in the lead by one point. Well they decide to try and score so, as far as I can see it, get farther ahead. Well it didn't work. They missed the shot Ohio State rebounded the ball made a 3 pointer, which put them 2 points ahead. Tennessee got the ball back, missed another shot, and Ohio State rebounded again, but stepped out of bounds. Unfortunately, the referees did not see it so Ohio State won by two points. The burning question in my mind is why did Tennessee either keep control of the ball since the shot clock had more time on it than the game clock did, or at least stall so if they didn't make the shot, Ohio State would have less time to get ahead. That is my rant for the day.

In other basketball news 5 ranked teams lost, including UNC who is #1 and Clemson, who was the only remaining undefeated team. Several other ranked teams only won by a goal or two. In Pac 10 news both Washington teams lost to unranked teams from California. I was especially happy about Washington State's loss, since UA lost to them last week, a bit silly, but at least we lost to a ranked team. Tomorrow UA plays the Oregon Ducks #17.

I am a bit sad because Thursday and Saturday UA will be here in LA but because tickets are so expensive I will not be able to see my team in person. Maybe I can get into the school gym and see if they have FSN because these games should be good. Especially because UCLA is number 3 and they barely won against USC.

Pac-10 basketball is getting exciting because there are several teams tied for first place and it is only about a quarter of the way through conference play!

For those of you who don't know, I LOVE college basketball. And just so everyone knows, there will probably be more posts like this up until the end of March!

grace and peace

I'm Back

So I realize, just like several other people, that many of my past posts begin with "sorry it has been so long since I have posted," but I really am. Since my last post I have been to Texas and back.

It was great to go home for two weeks and be able to see my family and all of the wonderful people that are my friends. At work people have been asking what I did over the break, like I had some really cool things planned. My most standard answer is "nothing, I laid on the couch and read and watched tv." And that is the truth. The break started off on a good note because usually I fly out of Ontario and have to catch another plane in Phoenix, but for some reason we chose a flight that flew to Las Vegas. That ended up being a huge blessing because there were no flights arriving or leaving Phoenix due to fog (who has ever heard of that bad of fog in Phoenix??). The flights though were rough because it seemed to be we were in a storm the whole way. The first thing we did once we were out of San Antonio was stop at Bill Miller's so I could get some Sweet Tea (I really miss that stuff) and take a good deep breath of smog-free air. Church the next day was fun because I got to see so many people that I have known for so long. I also got to meet our Associate Pastor's foster son!! He is the most adorable baby EVER!! I saw some of my friends that day too, it was good to catch up after 4 1/2 months.

After Christmas Eve, there were not many exciting things that happened. I got sick and had some sleep deprived nights. I ran a lot of errands and watched A LOT of Charmed on TNT (since I don't have that channel in La Verne). New Year's Eve was a blast, we played a new game called Last Word (cool game!). That next week was pretty much the same as the week before lots of laying around. I felt like an adult one time because I bought my own new cell phone and a new pair of shoes (granted the money was a gift -- thanks Baba!!, but nonetheless, it felt good).

Now I am back in California and it is practically how I left it. This past week has flown by, which I am glad for because we have Monday off!! It is always hard coming back from a break. I found out that my teaching assistant quit over the break, and it is really amazing how spoiled you get to having two people in the classroom. But at least now I don't have someone critiquing my every teaching move. The principal and I also decided that I will just go back to teaching one math class at the beginning of the next semester, stop teaching music, but I will pick up probably 2 periods of a parenting/relationships class. I never to Home Ec. in high school, so I never got to use one of those real/fake babies, but I found out that Joan Macy has some, so I will get to have the girls use them. We thought that this class will be really good for the girls because some of them already have children and most of them have not been in many healthy relationships. So at least that is something I can give them good advice about!

I have a few prayer concerns -- Christina, one of my classmates, asked us to pray for the pastor of the church she attends in Dallas. She was diagnosed with a very severe form of cancer. Also, I found out today that one of my classmates has decided not to continue with the US 2 program. Please keep both of these individuals in your prayers/thoughts.

My next post will be much sooner...I promise!

Grace and Peace.