A spade IS a spade, right?

Two boys were cheating on today's math quiz. They exchanged hand signals and when one boy finished, he gave his paper to the other boy instead of turning it in. I wrote 0-cheating on the top of each quiz and, after speaking with the boys, marched them down to the office to speak with their parents and an administrator. My administrator told me to take the word "cheating" off the paper, because it can cause quite a parent reaction.

We're not allowed to use the words cheating, lying, stealing or lazy when describing actions or students. She agreed whole-heartedly with me that their actions were cheating. However, I couldn't call it that.

When did a spade stop being a spade?

Top Ranked Schools in Texas

Texas Monthly publishes a magazine about items of interest in our state. For the last four years, they have published the highest ranking schools in Texas. Houston ISD has 28 schools on the list. Plano (where I grew up) has 35 on the list. Whoo-hoo for Houston and Plano!! Barbara Bush Elementary, where I teach, made the list!

Because of this accolade, we get to wear jeans tomorrow!

I'm feeling whiny...

As the title of this post indicates, I'm not really in the best of moods. And since my mother drilled the phrase, "If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all." into my head since I was small, I'm going to be silent today.

Run down

I'm tired. I know I just had three days off work, but they weren't relaxing days. I was busy non-stop.

I knew when the state of Texas changed the rules about when school could start that it would be a long time between breaks. But there is a difference in knowing it and doing it.

We went from Labor Day to Thanksgiving without a single day off. 56 days straight. In the Spring we'll do the same from MLK to Spring Break. 39 days straight. That's not so bad, I guess. Then we go another 45 days until Memorial Day. After Memorial day, we come back for 4 days. How much sense does that make?

All of this serves to make me tired.

Drum Roll Please

Awhile back, I sent out the following in an email to all my female friends.

The topic of stay-at-home-moms has come up a few times in conversation lately. The question being "How many women REALLY want to be a stay at home mom?" I have a guess, but thought I would poll all my friends. So you're receiving this because you're in my contacts list! :)

My question is simply this:
Do you want to be a stay-at-home mom?

Note: The question is not 'Do you stay at home?' or 'Do you think it is best?' but simply 'Do you want to be a stay-at-home mom?'


I made a handy spreadsheet and entered results as I received them. I found them to be quite interesting! Several women had quite a bit to say about the subject.

These are the results:

I sent the email to 101 women. I received 61 replies.

Yes: 49 women
No: 7 women
Conditonally: 2 women
Don't Know: 3 women

One woman plans on her husband staying at home.

Sheee's Baaack

Someone has rejoined the blogging world!

Attractive story

I know I've blogged quite a bit today. Right now I'm blogging because I'm procrastinating packing. (I leave town tomorrow for a few days.) Hey, it's almost a break from work, so I feel like I can put things off a little. :)

A couple of guy friends and I were talking as we were walking down the hall to the church service yesterday. We were chatting about our afternoons. They had spent the afternoon cleaning. Not just picking up clutter, but cleaning. One spoke of vaccuming. The other spent some time on his knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. I told them that was attractive. Meaning men that clean. I was told it didn't happen often and not to fall in love yet. ;)

I don't wanna Lord...I just don't wanna!

There are days I feel like a two year old stamping my feet. Sometimes that is a heart action. My heart is standing at the foot of the Lord's throne and I'm stamping my foot. "I don't wanna!" Other days I say something to my students while mentally stamping my foot. Okay, I have actually done it a time or two. I've never actually said, "I don't wanna," to my students, but it's what I mean all the same. I don't wanna be at work today. I just don't wanna. I'm mad that I have to be at work today and that HISD and the state of Texas took away my entire week off. The reasons I have for my anger are legitmate. The anger, however, is not.

I'm sorry Lord, for being a whiny two year old sometimes. Please help me to grow.

Ugh

A child writes the note "I'm stupid cause I'm ______ and I'm not important." She then draws a picture of fill-in-blank child and crosses out the picture to underscore her thoughts of said child. Another child sees the picture/note and takes it.

I call one parent to explain the written note. I ask her to talk to her child about disrespect and the need to treat everyone respectfully. I use my cell phone for this as I do not have a phone in my classroom. She talks to her daughter and hangs up. She then calls me back asking for the school phone number. She wanted to schedule an appointment with the principal. When asked if it was something she could discuss with me, she insisted on being given the school's phone number. A few moments later, I receive an email from the school secretary asking that I set up a conference with this parent. Urgh.

I call the other parent to discuss stealing...excuse me, in this politically correct world, 'taking something that does not belong to you.' I ask her to talk to her child. Next thing I know, she's knocking on my classroom door! What?!?

So instead of teaching this morning, I was handling parents.

Badum-badum-badum

I had a pounding heart moment. I'm sitting on my bed, checking email before turning off the light. I just heard a faint sound. It sounded vaguely like a drip/click. I glance over at my glass on the nightstand, thinking the condensation had built up. It hadn't. I trepidly cast my eyes upward as my heart starts to beat quickly. I see a small bubbled area above my desk...and I can't remember if I've seen it before.

There is no moisture on my desk, but I climb on my desk chair and hesitantly reach for the ceiling. Whew...it's dry. I look at a couple of other questionable spots, but they're all dry too. My heart is now back to it's normal rhythm. I'm not sure what the original 'click/drip' sound was, and I'm okay with not knowing.

As long as it's not water coming out of my ceiling.

Rollercoaster of Emotions

I received an email from a parent today in which my immediate physical reaction was a stomach tied in knots. I immediately became anxious and fearful. None of these were pleasant reactions, obviously. The email arrived too late in the day for me to confer with my teaching partner or an administrator. I didn't want to respond without discussing the situation with someone else first. (Several people received the email.) I was going to have to wait until tomorrow to have closure. I mentioned it briefly to a friend, but wasn't able to let go. I spoke briefly with my mom about it, but needed to get off the phone quickly to tutor. I was able to speak with Mom later this evening though and now I feel more comfortable.

Why is that? Is it just because we have a relationship built on trust and commitment that has been tested over time? Is it the whole mom thing? Or was it simply because I finally had the opportunity to pour out what I was feeling to an education-minded person and get some feedback I can apply?

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I do know the knots have been untied in my stomach. When I click reply to the email that cries 'attorney,' I will be much more confidant of my response.

Dreams

Very rarely do I remember my dreams. I mean hardly ever! I know we're told that we dream every night, but that is hard for me to believe because I have zero cognition for having done so! The dreams I do remember are usually very vague and 'off.' I don't know how else to describe it except that they very rarely make any sense. Sometimes they'll involve a situation that applies to my life, but the timing is all wrong.

Last night a friend and I were talking about a dream she'd had recently. That led to a conversation about a dream I'd had in college. A fairly embarrasing one, but what can you do? I leave her house, head home and don't think about dreams again. Then I wake up this morning thinking about the dream I had just had! Bizarre, right?

Oddly enough, my dream was about delivering pizza to some of my students. Something I did yesterday as a part of a school fundraiser, though I didn't deliver pizza to any of the students in my dream. It was all amusing to me though since I'd just had a conversation about dreams.

Hmm, maybe our thoughts really do have something to do with what we dream about?

Notary anyone?

This will only be funny to a couple of people. (If you click on the picture, it will pop up clearly in a new window.)

Chat is disabled. What? Oh No!

I sat down at my computer for a brief moment and glanced at my gmail account. I noticed a short message under my status: "Chat is disabled." A longer message below that explained that my network administrator had blocked gmail chat and I would no longer be able to use it when connected to the network. What?! Gmail chat is where I have heartfelt conversations with my wise friend and short "keep me up to date on your life" conversations with several other friends! Chat has been blocked! Nuh-huh! (Yes, I know that's such a mature reaction.) To my utter relief, in just seconds chat was enabled again. My contact with the world is, once again, complete!

Classic Example of "Here's your Sign"

Someone had a going away party for a lady at their office. One of the supervisors called Wal-Mart and ordered the cake.

He told them to write:
"Best Wishes Suzanne" and underneath that write "We will miss you".

As the picture shows, it didn't quite turn out right.

Sad and infuriating

Church members protest at military funerals holding signs that say, "Thank God for DEAD soldiers."