Kids

It's Aqueducts Time again!

Yup, it's that time of year when I bring out the IVs and saline bags and let my students explore the physics of Roman plumbing. Which means my classroom looked like this:



And I kept thinking "Come on, Principal! Come on, Superintendent! Someone come by for a surprise observation!" To no avail, dang it.



It's a good lesson plan, though. I can tell since 1) two different office aides/former Humanities students came by my room during the period to deliver notes and both exclaimed on entering, "Aqueducts! Awesome! I remember those!" and 2) a current student who also has me for drama declared during that class' check-in, "I'm Bridget and I'm good today and YOU ALL SHOULD TAKE HUMANITIES BECAUSE IT"S AWESOME AND YOU SEE THOSE WET SPOTS ALL OVER THE FLOOR? THAT'S FROM AQUEDUCTS!"



So, yeah, it was a good day. Even at rehearsal, where the leads don't know all their lines and everyone's stumbling over the addition of the live band and the microphones aren't working, even amidst all the stress and frustrations of this part of the run we're still laughing as a group and the mood's surprisingly upbeat. We wrapped up the run with about a half-hour left, so I decided to teach bows today and save us that time tomorrow.

I explained the plan, and the kids cried, "NO! It's not Friday! You can't!"

I was tickled that they had been listening when I told them earlier in the week that practicing bows prior to dress rehearsals is bad luck. "Eh, it'll be fine. I'm not that superstitious."

"NOOO!" They cried, smiling. "Don't curse us!"

"Yeah, well, you know what else? Macbeth."

"Aauugghh!" cried the ones who have taken drama with me. "Go outside! Undo it!"

(I did undo it for them, after we ran the bows.)

The biggest laugh of the day came when, in the middle of a scene, I heard a gaggle of students behind me in the house. I turned to see what was going on, and found a group who were trying (and failing) to hold in their giggles as they said over and over, "It's stuck!"

"What's stuck?" I asked, trying to keep an ear on the scene on stage at the same time.

The group parted to reveal our Pigpen. He sheepishly held out his hand. He had apparently been messing around with the kite bobbins backstage and, well...



(and anyone who has any experience with 9th grade boys will not be at all surprised to see which finger it's stuck on)

"I can't get it off!" he said.

Being the responsible adult in the room, I first took a picture on my cell phone, then I tried twisting and pulling on the tube. It wasn't budging a millimeter; and, judging by the redness of his knuckle, he had been trying to do the same for a while before confessing to me.

"Should I get some scissors?" an eager student asked.

"No," I said. The tube is made of thick cardboard, and besides, it is a prop. We need that tube. Instead, I took Pigpen by the wrist. "Come with me," I said, pulling him up on stage and to the bathroom in the wings. The gaggle followed closely behind.

Sadly, the soap in the school bathrooms is the foamy kind. I tried anyway, greasing up his finger and the tube. No luck.

"Scissors?" the eager student asked again.

"Not yet." I wiped down Pigpen's hand and led him into my office. The gaggle followed closely behind.

"String..." I said, looking around. "I need some string." The gaggle immediately started tearing apart my office. One girl triumphantly held up a piece of yarn.

"Excellent," I said. "Thank you." I then tried a variation of the string trick, but it really doesn't work on a tube that long.

"Awww..." moaned the gaggle in disappointment when the tube didn't budge.

"That's okay," I said. "There's still one more thing we can try."

"Scissors?"

"Nope." I took Pigpen's wrist again and held up his hand. "Sorry about this, Chris, but it works best." And with that, I licked his finger.

"Ewww!" cried the gaggle.

"Yeah, I know," I said, "but saliva's nice and slimy." I swiped my finger in my mouth and coated his finger again. Then, with just a little wiggling, I slid the tube off his finger.

"Yay!" The gaggle cried.

"Shh!" I shushed, smiling. "Quiet backstage."

"Yay!" The gaggle whispered.

"Now go wash your hand," I told the still-stunned Pigpen as I headed back to the front of house to get back to the scene and to rinse out my mouth.

A Few More Hours

The snow was coming down fairly thickly when Jesse and I walked out of rehearsal last night, and I told him how conflicted I felt. On one hand, a snow day would give me the time I needed to grade papers and write midterms. On the other hand, we really couldn't afford to miss a rehearsal at this stage of the game.

The snow just barely covered the ground, so to school I went, running the math of the day over and over in my head, hoping that I would find a hidden couple of hours to get it all done.

Happily, I had booked the computer lab for the Humanities class. Their assignment was to go to this website and make a mosaic, then spend the rest of the period reviewing for their midterm exam tomorrow using the 100+ word list I had given them. I figured I would be fielding a lot of questions as they reviewed, but I hoped for at least five minutes of independent work so I could update the gradebook.

Turns out, I had underestimated their potential for obsession with digital art projects. Most of them spent the entire period working on their mosaics, producing things like this:


They loved it (you should see some of the ones that were variations on the Greek Key!); meanwhile, I graded almost all of the papers I needed to get through. Hurrah!

Then, even better, the cold readings took longer than I thought in Advanced Drama, which means the auditions for their next play are spilling over to tomorrow, which means I didn't have to spend tonight casting the show. Yay!

Instead, I ran to the grocery store (which is a bigger feat than usual, since I'm still camped out in Mountain Town and the nearest grocery store is 30 minutes away) to get treats for the students who might show up to help paint on Saturday. Then Jason and I caught up a little by phone. It had been a while since we've talked, since we're both fielding crazy work/performance schedules, him with his black tie affairs at the Ritz Carlton, me with my turning toilet paper tubes into oversized kite bobbins.... We do live glamorous lives.

The productive element to our conversation was that we finally (FINALLY) made some decisions about our summer trip. As in, we know the dates. The destination is still up in the air, but by golly we know when we won't be where we currently are now. Hurrah encore!

My day ended with a quick bite to eat for dinner and this blog post. I find myself composing blog entries in my head when I get especially busy, sort of narrating the crazy, as it were.

And now, bed, for tomorrow I must write two midterm exams before my first class period.

Steppin' Out With My Baby

Rachel and Ben cashed in on their Christmas present this weekend, which meant I got to spend yesterday hanging out with my beamish boy, Jack:



They went to a matinee of Colorado Ballet's Romeo and Juliet, so I headed over just before his early afternoon nap. Once he woke up from that and had some pureed pasta for lunch, we went to Wal-Mart to get supplies for the musical.

Only five gallons of paint this time, but naturally that was in five different colors so it took a while to get. The paint-mixing man was nice, though, and gave Jack a blank paint sticker tag of his own.



The paint mixing machine was the source of much fascination, too.



We picked out some other odds and ends, then headed home for a bottle and another nap. I ignored the pile of papers I had brought with me to grade in favor of browsing hostels in New Orleans and other southern cities. When the boy woke up again, we watched some videos online and had some Facetime with the grands. Rachel and Ben got home just in time to put a tired boy to bed.

All in all, a fun way to spend my Saturday.

He Wanted to Say

"That has been the thing that I think for me has been the most mind-blowing for me watching this debate... To see people blaming the avarice of teachers. Or the idea that 'Hey, they only work nine months a year.'

God forbid you do the job of a teacher for a year! It will blow your mind at how hard-- My mother was a teacher for years, she worked in the educational field, she's still in the educational field. I couldn't be more impressed by what she did and the work she did in her life. Those people have no idea."

- Jon Stewart

Watch this. Please. It's fantastic. Jon Stewart is fantastic. I couldn't understand how quiet the audience was during the interview section of the show because I wanted to applaud so much of what was said. The first segment is dead on, too.

It just such a relief to hear someone outside of education with respected status and a national platform saying these things. I suddenly felt a great deal of empathy for Seuss' trees.

Thank goodness for the Lorax! Thank goodness for Jon Stewart.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

I shall be fragmented tonight.

- I am worried because I appeared to be late today. I actually was in the theater inventorying our paint supplies in anticipation of set-painting next Saturday. I walked over to the other building a minute or two after the first class started (I have 1st period prep). I went through the back entrance because I was enjoying the sunshine and wanted to walk outside a little longer, but that meant avoiding going through the main office. I've been fretting all day that my principal now thinks I snuck in late.

- We're talking Greek philosophy this week in Humanities. Since I'm covering all of it in about 2.5 days, it's a pretty quick synopsis. Still, many of the kids are very much into it. Yesterday we did a 20-minute Socratic discussion (mostly trying to answer "What is beauty?") and spent quite some time today wrestling with Plato's Theory of Forms. Three of them declared how much fun they were having and asked if there was a class in philosophy they could take. I explained that this was the closest to that at this school, but recommended they get themselves to college asap and in the meantime read Sophie's World.

- One of my students turned several missing assignments on Monday. Her mother emailed me on Tuesday wondering why they weren't in the computer yet. I wrote back (after deleting several not-so-polite-sounding drafts) that the late work will be put in the computer soon. I didn't point out that if the student couldn't be bothered to do it for several weeks, it would only be fair for me to be granted the same amount of time to grade it. The mom responded that I should at least delete the "missing" marks in the gradebook because her daughter's grounded until her grade goes up. I'm still not entirely sure how that's my problem.

- The musical is coming together pretty well. We had a dance review day which meant I got to play with Jack while Rachel tweaked the dance numbers. As she put it, "they're past the embarrassing stage." Less than two weeks left! Whoo!

- The first grade won't come to the matinee show because the teachers don't think they can watch a play that's longer than an hour. Aren't they watching movies by that age?

- The district's abuzz about budget issues. The good news is that my principal announced in faculty meeting today that "we've talked to the people that's going to affect the most" and I haven't heard anything from the admin yet. I assume that means they're keeping me on.

- The superintendent sent out a survey to all district staff and parents. (Notice that they didn't ask the students.) (And yes, my Master's thesis was about the lack of student voice in policy-making.) It proposed several possible budget-reducing options. Interestingly, the one that seemed the most popular among staff (65% in favor) and parents (53% in favor) was going to a four-day week. Happily, the proposal to cut all non-core-academic programs wasn't a popular choice in either group. There was also a lot of bitterness over the idea of moving the 5th grade to the middle school to better use resources.

- The optional-comments-section responses from the survey were sent out to everyone along with the pure numbers results. I found those interesting mostly because I was surprised at how rare proofreading seems to be. A lot of the comments were angry, bitter, and biting.

- Someone apparently forwarded the comments on to the local paper, so that should have some fun consequences in the days to come.

- A few of the comments echoed the "teachers are just glorified baby-sitters" sentiments that are also getting battered about in Wisconsin. Although they are certainly not the majority, I'm still baffled that anyone sincerely believes that.

- One parent also suggested eliminating the prep period for high school teachers.

- I would like that person to know that I've skipped lunch four times in the last two weeks because I needed those 15 minutes to grade papers/cast a show/make copies/respond to various urgent emails/and so on.

- They also reminded us at faculty meeting today that midterms are next week and grades are due on Friday.

- Friday we're doing a double dress rehearsal. I'm not entirely sure how I will get grades done on time.

- But in two weeks and two days I'll be free!

- Free!

- F-R-Double-

- Now, not so fast. I didn't think. The way I am I just cast the spring show for the Beginner Drama class and I'm holding auditions Monday for the Advanced Drama class' other show.

- Still, those other two shows are in-class productions. Which means that in three weeks for the first time since August I won't have after-school activities.

- Plus, I get to go on adventures with Emily and then go visit my folks.

- In the meanwhile, though, I've moved into the condo in MT. It's so nice to have the option to skip the commute.

- I should get to bed now, though. I want to walk into the building extra early tomorrow morning.


(Can you see me? Can't you see me?)


(Too bad about all the prostitution. Funny Thing would be a really fun show to do next year, wouldn't it, Rachel?)

Good News

Hey, check it out! There may not be a need for Making Waves after all! Jon Stewart covered most of the issues in less than 3 minutes:

The Doctor is In

While my sister is being all kinds of productive I'm... not.

The cold from last week is kicking my butt, and after dragging myself through school, costume parade, and rehearsal yesterday, I called in sick today.

And so I've done very little. I am indulging in some of my favorite Doctor Who episodes ("The Girl in the Fireplace" at the moment, which makes me want to watch some Firefly next) and I'm blowing my nose a lot. I did go to school for musical rehearsal. With the show in two weeks, I can't afford to miss.

Still, it's nice to be able to take at least a half-day off. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be less Kleenex-dependent.

You'll See (Reprise)

Wait, let's try that video post again...

You'll See

Want to experience an 8-hour field trip in under 3 minutes?

We're Okay

I survived the week! Hurrah!

Thankfully, I have a relatively free weekend. I say thankfully because I developed a cold Thursday that's now in full swing. Happily, I had the energy to get through the field trips and be the responsible adult and such. Midsummer was a good, solid production. The Wall was actually the funniest I've ever seen. 12 students met me down there, and we all enjoyed the show quite a bit. They even met some of the actors afterwards and fawned over them as high schoolers do.

Rent was interesting to see as a college production. The singing was great, but most of the actors had no idea what to do with their bodies. Mimi's "Out Tonight" was just awkward, as were most of the love duets. Angel, sadly, was stiff and aloof and the costume they picked for her was hideously slutty. That was sad.

The kids loved it, though, and we got all 61 kids and 9 chaperons home safe and sound. At midnight. Once the last one was picked up by his folks, I drove back to the condo in MT, took a large dose of Nyquil and crawled into bed for eleven hours.

Then I woke up, ate the other half of the sandwich I got for dinner in Boulder (by the time I got the kids off the bus and pointed in the right direction, I only had 15 minutes to get dinner myself), then fell asleep again for another three hours.

I'm home now. I left the beast and all of my stuff in MT. I just came home to do laundry and play the piano in church tomorrow. My plan is for an early bedtime tonight, then I'll head back up the mountain after church. Hopefully with enough sleep I can kick this cold and be ready for school again on Monday.

Girl Meets Boy

After a delicious weekend of Waterhouse fun, I flew back to Denver Monday morning. Thanks to my parents, I tried out a charter flight service. You know what they say about luxuries once tasted? Well, it's going to be hard to go back to DIA after that. Flying to Junction through DIA takes between 4-5 hours on average when you factor in the drive there, the parking, the security, the waiting, and the flight. Driving to Junction takes 4.5 hours. This charter-flight-thing took just over 2 hours, including the drive to and from the airport.

Fantastic, I tell you.

Anyway. I get back to Denver on Monday and run to the grocery store, then get home and give affection to the cat, workout, shower, try out my new makeup (I went makeup shopping with Rachel since she wanted to look her age ((in a good way)) for her birthday with grown-up makeup and such. I gave into temptation and got some new cosmetic treats for myself), and headed out the door for a date. As should come as no surprise to those of you who know me, the date was a source for quite a lot of introspection.

The fellow was nice and (unlike the last internet-founded date) a talker. The conversation went fine, but there was no... spark, I guess? I was responsive out of politeness rather than that genuine pull of a great dialogue. Inbetween my responses my inner monologue was running along these lines:

- I think I'm out of this guy's league. In a good way.

- What a crazy thing! I spent the days leading up to the date in a panic that he wouldn't be interested, that he would take one look at me, at my body, and would lose all interest, and now that I'm here, I'm thinking I'm out of his league.

- How horrible of me. Beggars can't be choosers, right?

- But I am. I am choosy. I'm choosy because I can't turn off the direct circut that links dating to marriage.

- I trying to, believe me. I'm trying so hard to figure out how to date just for the sake of dating. I want to figure out how to undo all those years of Young Women's brainwashing.

- I don't mind meeting new people, but sometimes it's exhausting. During those preliminary verbal exchanges I think about all of the things that person should know about me and all of the stuff I should know about them and there's just so much. I want relationships to come out naturally, to meander to and through a friendship. But dating (and internet dating in particular) isn't a pleasant walkabout. It feels more like a marathon of check-points and next-step-goals.

- Does that mean I have to date more to figure out how to do it right?

- I like having a reason to try new makeup and dress up. I like how I stopped being nervous the second I walked into the coffee shop. I like the confidence I discovered I had.

- I don't like dating, though. I like my friends. I like the conversations I have with my friends.

- I also like a certain classiness. For good or for bad, I am elitist and I like being around people who know how to and who do play the rules of the social game.

- So here's this perfectly nice guy sitting in front of me and he's smart and his profile online was very attractive and yet...

I promise I was conversant above these thoughts. Heck, I was even flirty. Not flirty in a Grandma Cook-approved way, granted, but in a brainy-girl way. Which totally still counts as flirty.

I think what I want is to go back to college. That is, I want to go back to the days when I was meeting and working and playing with a lot of new people all of the time. That, for whatever reason, was not exhausting but rather exhilarating. Some of my closest friends came from that time as well as a heck of a lot of people I loved knowing and being around. Those relationship-opportunities have gone from great big lakes to what feels like this.

I saw this TED talk on my blogroll tonight:


Maybe that's the issue. Maybe the fact that I don't even have time to watch a 13-minute TED talk about balancing your work and personal life because I work all the freakin' time is the issue. (Because I haven't actually watched it yet. I've just flagged it for future viewing. Do you know what that is?


That's right, kids.)

I don't know how to make this all better yet. But then there was that other thing I flagged on my blogroll today:



And really, I think that's all I need to know.

Another Openin' Another Show

One down, three to go.

My Advanced Drama class performed their One Acts tonight for their parents and friends. It went just fine.

Tomorrow they perform for other classes during our period.

Then Thursday is the Midsummer field trip and Friday is Rent.

Also, teaching and musical practice.

It was a very good weekend, but it was not long enough.

Bed now, details later. Good night!

Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying

This week is taking FOR. EV. ER.

I'm experiencing a medium-sized case of burn out. I'm tired to going to school every day, of teaching stuff and grading stuff every day, of dealing with teenagers and their constant questions (not good "Hey, there's thinking going on!" questions. I mean the "Are we doing anything today?" insulting-type questions) and their tears (Oh my lands, the tears! Valentine's Day hit the freshmen girls hard this year. The sobbing, the weeping, the "Today's (sniff) not such a great day for me (sniff, sniff)." and the tug-your-hair-over-your-eyes "I'm not doing okay? Because I don't like it? When people lie? To your face?" check-ins this week!) and having to walk to my classroom in the west building. Then to the theater in the east building. Then to the west building. Then back to the east building. Then drive up the mountain and down the mountain and up the mountain and down the mountain and wake up at 5:00 AM when I really, really need to sleep until 6....

Yeah. I'm a little grumpy this week.

The sudden change in weather might be part of it. We went from so-cold-we-cancel-school-because-the-buses-won't-start to the mid-50's-no-jacket-needed in a pretty short time span. Everyone's feeling spring fever and itching to go frolicking, yet it's still just February.

There's also the usual show craziness. The musical's chugging along, but we're hitting the stage where it's not new-stuff-fun and it's not show-time!-fun. It's more chore-like, and it's harder to keep my enthusiasm up high enough to drag along the students.

Plus, the Advanced Drama class is doing their first show next week. I told them at the beginning of the term that I didn't want to do a play the first quarter because of the musical and speech and other craziness. They, of course, begged and pleaded. We compromised with a student-directed one acts festival. And really, it's gone fine considering. There's the usual personality conflicts, of course, when you ask students to direct other students, especially when the director-students don't really know how to do that without bossing everyone around (which produces, what else? More tears!).

They asked me today, "Are you worried about our shows next week?"

"Not really," I said honestly (I'm busy, yes, but not worried).

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not the one who'll be up there on the stage in front of people I know."

"Harsh!"

"Maybe, but it's true. It's your show and how you do has very little bearing on me personally."

"Because you're God?"

"That's right."

Their performances are next week. As are two after-school field trips. Because I've apparently turned into a masochist.

All of which is to say that I get to go home this weekend and play with my family. And I really, really need to do that right now. Which I think is part of why this week is taking so freakin' long.

Two more days. Heaven help me, two more days.

Doin' What Comes Nat'rally

The bell toned an incoming announcement during 2nd period today. Carol's distinctive Texan drawl came over the speaker, saying something that sounded a lot like:

"Teachers, please excuse the interruption. We need you to keep your students in the building. It's not safe for them to go in the parking lot right now. There's a gang in the parking lot. Do not let your students go to their cars."

My students looked at me for clarification, but I was just as baffled as they were. Whatever was going on, the administration was apparently dealing with it, and we had Greek myths to discuss. I continued the lesson.

Bell tone. Carol again, speaking with a lot more precision: "Teachers, please excuse the interruption. It seems my accent is causing some confusion. We don't have a gang in the parking lot. We have game in the parking lot. There's a coyote in the parking lot."

Which, oddly, makes a lot more sense.

Secrets of the House

Last year Rachel and I kept our relationship a secret from the cast. I introduced her as "a choreographer from Denver," and although the kids figured out we were good friends, they never suspected more than that. Since I was new and still proving myself, I figured she'd get a lot more respect from them if they knew her as "the choreographer from Denver" rather than "our teacher's sister." And they did.

This year, though, they started to put the pieces together. One by one kids have figured out that we're actually related, and when they ask I don't lie about it.

Today Rachel came up to choreograph, and she brought Ben and Jack with her. Jesse was practicing with the pit orchestra for the first time, Ben worked on homework, Rachel taught "Suppertime" to the Snoopies and the featured dancers, and I took care of Jack and supervised the rest of the cast while they made Valentines for the Valentine's Day scenes in the show. It's also Parent-Teacher conferences this week, so I would step out of the room periodically to confer with parents (we're all about multi-tasking here). I took Jack with me into the hall since he was a little freaked out by all the big kids fawning over him and singing, and I introduced him to one of the parents as my nephew.

When I got back into the room, some of the kids looked a little confused.

"So... he's your nephew?"

"Yup."

"So... are you related to Mr. Mason?"

"No, Ms. Mason is my sister."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Like, literally?"

"Like, she's my little sister."

"By blood?"

"As in we have the same parents, we grew up together, we shared a bedroom until I was in sixth grade, and we were both in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown when I was a senior in high school and she was a freshman and she was Linus' blanket and it was really kind of creepy having a lady as the blanket in the dance."

(slight pause, then)

"Aww! That's awesome!"

And, in fact, it is.

Chain Gang

I changed my mind - I LOVE my new tire chains. (Thanks, Dad! You rock!) They're this kind, if you're wondering. They're also super-easy to install. I put 'em on in under five minutes this afternoon to get up the hill to the condo.

Of course, that could also be thanks to my pioneer woman awesomeness. Especially since I've now put on chains twice in the last 24 hours without breaking a nail.

Stand back and admire my awesomeness.

Speaking of awesomeness, Rachel came up with a fantastic solution to a pickle today. The weather and roads were indeed crappy (we had a delayed start, but it totally should have been a snow day. The roads were just as snow-packed and icy when I left school as they were when I went in), so we decided it wasn't safe for her to drive up for rehearsal. However, we really needed to keep moving on the dances since we only have a limited number of days when she can teach them.

The solution? Tele-choreography!

Rachel filmed a series of videos in her basement to teach the chorus part of "Suppertime" and emailed them to me. I downloaded them to a jump drive and hooked it up to the projector in the auditorium. So rehearsal went something like this:



With the show's two dance captains counting off and demonstrating moves, the chorus learned their part. I uploaded the videos to the show's Facebook page so the cast could review as needed. And, just in case they are tempted to make fun of Rachel's "gospel choir crazy" moves, I also posted the video I shot of their last run-through. Besides, I wanted Rachel to see what they had done. Because they're cute.

Go, Tech Sisters, Go! (Digital High Five)

Cool Hand Luke

Everyone's holding their breath for a snow day tomorrow. The amount of snow forecasted drops each time I check, but they're still saying 100% at 3-5 inches.

The snow from this weekend made quite the spectacle today. Here, take a look:



Yes, that is my classroom window. I love the view, although you can see why the walk between buildings is not always so fun.

So after a commute like what you see (plus darkness), many teachers were rooting for a snow day tomorrow. I told them at lunch that I contributed my part by moving up here for the week. It seems every time I take precautions like this, we get a snow day. I'm magical!

I did not, however, tell them about the cat in my office.

See, since I moved up here for the week, that means Nash came with me. I left early to swing by the condo and drop her off, but I didn't factor in enough time for the lousy commute. I tried to get to the condo. I made four attempts to get up the hill, but slid back down every time. I thought about calling in late to put on chains or walk up the hill, but decided to just deal with it after school instead.

I drove to school and headed straight for my backstage office. I picked that one since it's the least used - my office in the other building (the one near my classroom) is shared with the janitors. I put Nash inside with a a makeshift litterbox, an open can of cat food, and a cup of water. She meowed a lot, then crawled under the desk.

And that's where I found her after rehearsal. She hadn't moved at all during the day.

I shouldn't be surprised by her stamina in the face of an unfamiliar place. When I first got her and brought her home to my apartment in Salt Lake, she disappeared. I looked everywhere for her, then gave up and went to bed, figuring she'd come out during the night.

Nada.

It was three days later (during which I had concluded that my new cat had somehow escaped and was gone forever) that I finally figured out the one place I hadn't looked. And sure enough, when I reached behind the dishwasher in the kitchen, I felt a furry ball tucked in the farthest corner under the wires and pipes.

It took the combined efforts of Emily, Ben, and me to dismantle the dishwasher and pull her out. I sealed it up afterwards and Natasha and I became fast friends.

Three days. No food, no water. This cat is a pro at Hide 'n' Seek.

So this afternoon I tried the hill twice more but still spun my wheels. I parked at the base and pulled out my chains. They're new ones. I've put on chains before, but they were on my old car. Yay! First time using chains on my new car! Yay for going 13 months without needing chains!

This happened:


(The other looked the same, but I needed it to take the picture.)

But also this:


Yes, they're still on. I didn't want to deal with them in the morning if I do have to wend my way to school through the 6-10 inches of snow (and I do like them, Dad. He sprang for the fancier self-tightening ones for me and they are easier to use, despite what the photo evidence suggests).

Ah! But the adventure didn't end there!

In going through the routine of powering up the condo, I discovered a broken pipe. Seems the temperatures that shut down school last week also defeated my leaving the furnace and water heater and 100 watt light bulbs on.

With a few phone calls to my mom and several phone calls to plumbers (because of course I'm finding this after rehearsal, which means after business hours), the conclusion was that the pipe is part of the water meter and therefore needs to be replaced by the city water people. Who are not so great about returning phone calls.

Happily, the pipe just drips now. I propped a bucket under it and found I could still use the faucets inside. I filled up a few containers and then shut it off again for the night. At least I can shower! Going three days without showering and then conducting parent-teacher conferences is not something I look forward to.

So! All kinds of adventures today! Despite all of that, though, I'm still really glad to be here:

Hymn for a Sunday Evening

Snow Day #3!

Despite the hours I put in this week to get the two hymns that had been selected for me to play in my inaugural accompanist Relief Society class today, I was not at all disappointed to get the call this morning that church was canceled due to the weather.

What I did today instead:

- I made Cinnamon Raisin Bread
- I made Big Soft Ginger Cookies
- I made Hot Apple Cider
∴ I made my house smell delicious
- I worked out for an hour (while watching Psych - Yay Netflix for iPad!)
- I practiced the hymns I'm supposed to play next week in church
- I did laundry
- I trudged a path through the calf-deep snow in the parking lot to check the mail
- I talked to my parents (fingers crossed for the potential new partner!)
- I discussed with Jason the play I saw Friday night which he had seen in DC a few months earlier
- I started reading this book
- I decided I wanted a house with snowy woods and a lamppost and
- I wondered what the chances were of school being canceled again this week (90% chance of snow on Tuesday. Can't they just call it off now so I don't have to decide whether to move up to MT for the week?)

Please excuse me now; I'm off to have a slice of bread with some hot chocolate.

Slide a Little Closer

We did have school today, albeit late. And, oh, it was nice to start at 9:00!

Aside from the obligatory student complaints about having to come for "just one day of school," things went back to normal quickly. Classes, lunch, classes, rehearsal.

The drive home, though, was not so fun. It started snowing during the last class of the day. They had predicted "light flurries," but it was a bit more than that.

I slid quite a bit coming up one of the steeper hills. This was after passing three cars that had completely slid off the road in the muddy slush that was left uncleared by the two snow plows I passed in the opposite lane. I almost followed them off the road but instead got stuck on the shoulder. Every time I tried to go forward, I slid more to the right; that is, more towards the cliff's edge.

Eventually, between the bursts of traffic climbing past the wreck behind me, I managed to reverse myself to a place of traction and merge back onto the main road. The highway past that hill was snow-packed and a bit icy, but not as slippery-slushy as the other.

It took an extra 30 minutes, but I am home again with no damage to me or my car. Hurrah!

And, even better,
Tomorrow = Teacher Inservice Day = No Rehearsal = Carpool = John drives through the snowy roads instead of me.

Hurrah encore!

Call Back in the Morning

6:30 PM - another phone call from my district

"Although we have been trying with heaters and [other instruments], we were unsuccessful in starting the buses today. We will continue to work against the cold to resume school tomorrow, but it will be on a delayed start schedule. The high school will start at 9:00. We will send out another automated message if we are unable to start the buses tomorrow morning."

To summarize my week:
Monday - Normal school day
Tuesday - Snow day
Wednesday - Snow day
Thursday - Delayed by 90 minutes (if not canceled)
Friday - Teacher Inservice Day (no school for students)

P.S. I've read 4 books since yesterday morning. Is there such a thing as book bulimia?

Home Again

Partway through my gloriously lazy day (I spent the morning reading. Reading! I've missed you!) I got a phone call from my district's automated system.

School's canceled tomorrow, too.

Well!

I decided I wanted to spend my second day off at home (elliptical and laundry being at the top of my to-do list tomorrow), so I packed up the condo and the cat and we drove home as the sun set. It's bitterly cold outside, as you may have heard, but the roads weren't bad at all.

And now I'm watching The Daily Show while my cat sleeps in front of the fireplace.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow I get to wake up naturally. When I've had enough sleep. In my own bed.

Sweet.

Cold Feets

Tomorrow's high here in Mountain Town?

-9.

Happily, it was that plus the 4-10 inches of snow in the forecast that led our superintendent to declare tomorrow a snow day shortly after we all skedaddled out of school today.

Hooray!

Boy, do I need it. I've still tired from the speech meets and all. In fact, I had moved up to Mountain Town for the week last night in part because of the forecast and in part because I get to sleep in an extra hour up here.

So Natasha and I are going to spend a delightful day off tomorrow. Plans include enjoying selections from my Netflix queue (like The Secret of Kells), reading The Weird Sisters, working on Making Waves, and doing some serious price-comparison itineraries for trip possibilities for this summer (round trip to New Zealand for $1160! That's less than to Madrid! Oh, the possibilities!).

As you can see, it will be a busy day. So long as the power holds, that is.

By the way, the speech meet went pretty well. We got 25 awards all together. 12 students made it into the finalists rounds (i.e. top 6). One girl won Best of Event for Creative Storytelling, and the rest got mostly 2nd or 4th in various events. Not as good as last year, but certainly not bad either.

People Will Say We're In Love

When I boarded the bus this morning, my students greeted me by raising their fists and shouting, "Hail Waterhouse!"

I've decided I'm okay with that.

And They're Off

Hello from the 2011 State Festival Speech Meet!

I'm in the ballot room at the moment. Today my job is to stuff ballots, i.e. sort the completed judging sheets into the folders for each school.


On one hand, it's a dull job as there's not much to do until the ballots come in. Even then there won't be much to do, since they've got three of us in here.

On the other hand, it puts me in a prime place to see how my kids are doing each round. So that's something.

I have 25 kids here today. Not bad, considering. It was a bit of a rush getting out of school. Ruth had always left after 2nd period and let the kids get lunch down here. I opted this year to wait until after the kids finished lunch at school to come down. Two reasons:
1) The kids who are on free lunch would actualy get to eat withouut worrying about paying for food out and
2) I would only have to get a teacher to cover one class of mine instead of 2.

Still, it was a rush to get down here in time. I'll have to reconsider that plan next year.

In any case, we're here until about 9pm tomorrow night. And while I'm here, I'm going to tell you a little more about Speech.

There are actually several different types of events students can compete in. Each state tends to pick its own, so there is some variation. In Colorado, there's even further division according to school size - we're under 1440 (we're actually at about 450 this year), so that means we compete in the Festival group of schools. Here's a break-down of the Festival Speech Events:

Interpretation of Literature (Drama, Humor, or Poetry)
In this event, students "interpret" a piece of literature orally. They must read from a script (although most have it memorized by now), the piece must come from a published source, it must ber 10 minutes long (most are around 8-9), and they are restricted to "minimal movement."

This year my students are competing with selections from The Green Mile, The Hobbit, Love Bites, Life Among the Savages, The Hunger Games, some creepy murderer book I don't recall the title of, and some kinda-funny book about a girl stalking a boy she met in math class. The poems are from Rives, Taylor Mali, Roald Dahl, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

They've done decently in those categories, but Poetry's the strongest this year. My Rives girl and my Mali girl have been trading 1sts back and forth since the start of the season. Yay slam poetry!

Impromptu Speaking
In this event, students draw three topics; a word, a phrase, and a sentence. One of those must be a current event. For example:

Staplers
No internet in Egypt
You get what you pay for.

And they get 5 minutes to prepare a 3-5 minute speech on that topic. They are allowed 1 3x5 notecard to use for prep and while speaking.

It's a popular event for beginning speechers, since they think that it's less work than an interp round. Impromptu-ers are also the worst about showing up for practice, since they "don't have anything to practice." Au contraire! And it shows - the ones who work with me on how to plan out a speech quickly, how to organize your thoughts and arguments, how to reach the 3-mminute mark, how to deliver your speech, how to move appropriately, how to hook your judge and create a call-too-arms, and so on inevitablly do better at meet. Funny how that is.

Impromptu is very similar to the other "draw" event...

Creative Storytelling
CST attracts the same kind of students as Impromptu. In this one, the students get 15 minutes to prepare and act out a story based on one of three prompts that consist of a character, a setting, and a situation. For example:

Character: A hotdog vendor
Setting: On a street corner in New York City at lunchtime
Situation: At the peak of the lunch rush you discover that your wedding ring has fallen into the vat of hotdogs.

You have 3-5 minutes to tell/act out that story. And it is more about acting than speechifying. Most of the events are, actually.

Original Oratory
OO is probably what you imagine when you think about competing in speech. The students research and write a 7-10 minute speech on a topic of their choice, then deliver it from memory. This year's topics from my team are The Coffee Trade, White Slavery, Ducktales, and Youtube addicts. My Coffee girl had won a lot of awards this year, but then she's been competing in OO all of her high school career and she usually wins. The others are all strong speakers, too, so we've got a good chance in this category.

Solo Acting
... is a 7-10 minute monologue performance. it's a tricky one to find material for, since it's rare in theater to have a character give such a long monologue. One of the rules is that you "must retain the original persona" - in other words, you can't play more than one character. As a result, a lot of competitors pick schitzophrenic pieces so they can be flashier for the judges. I think it's a stupid rule myself. I have two kids in this category who have held their own all year, including some firsts - a girl doing a piece from Wintergirls and a boy doing Paul's monologue from A Chorus Line.

Duet Acting ( Dramatic or Humorous)
These events are scenes, basically. My kids are doing the Alcyoone and Ceyx myth from Zimmerman's Metamorphoses (and they've taken first almost all year with it), a scene from Miller's Playing for Time, a reduced version of the Reduced Shakespeare Company's Complete Hollywood, and a shortened version of Alan Ackburn's The Boy Who Fell Into a Book. These are probably our strongest categories this year, actually.

And, finally, there's debate. At Festival we have two kinds:

Public Forum Debate
...which none of my kids are doing. It's in teams of two and they debate a topic that's released monthly. The idea is that they should debate it without debate jargon - it should be for the "public." That doesn't really happen, though. The other type...

One-on-One Value Debate
... is where two competitors go head-to-head to debate a topic that they are given 1/2 hour before the debate. They don't get any resources to prep with, so the arguments are based on their prior knowledge and are written for them to argue a value rather than a policy. Something like "After-school activities detract from high school students' academic achievements."

I have two students doing it 1:1, both of whom are sorta new at it. One's a sophomore, though, and once he gets some more history classes under his belt, he'll be great.


And there you have it. That's what my students are doing right now and what I've been spending my after-school hours and weekends doing since August. I think we'll do well today, but theree's really no way to tell since the judging is pretty completely subjective anyway.

Still, fingers crossed!

You Boys Are Gonna Get Me In So Much Trouble

As I mentioned previously, I am dutifully persuing my goal to be more outgoing in the hopes of actually going on date-like outings. Naturally, given my work schedule for 10 months of the year and travel schedule for the other two, "outgoing" means "trying to meet people online".

Annie gave me some very good advice when I bemoaned the awkwardness of writing profiles about yourself earlier this week. Rather than trying to "tell us a little more about yourself and what you're looking for in a match," I'm telling a travel story. After all, my tale of fighting a monkey on top of a waterfall does a much better job showing who I am than something along the lines of "So, I'm a high school teacher? Who likes to travel? And reads a lot?"

After cutting my 7000+ characters blog entry down to less than 2000 characters (Whoo!) I finished my Chemistry.com profile last night. I even found a headshot I tolerate (which is an entirely different issue. Turns out, I don't like any pictures of me taken in the last seven years. Or rather, I don't like any pictures of me when looked at with the intention of trying to convince someone to want to know me. If you already know me in person, no problem. You can see me covered with blood, sweat, or Shakespeare. But if you've never met me before, well, I just don't have anything picture-wise that I think makes me look attractive enough to click "yes").

But then I hit the wall of "Oh, yeah, this stuff costs money." A lot. Chemistry.com wants $50 for a one-month membership. So, I'll put that on hold until either 1) I decide that their service is worth it and/or 2) they offer a truly great sale.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about what kind of person I am interested in. One recent conundrum aired by internet "dating" by is how very much the pond shrinks with the Mormons-only restrictions. I don't know how to solve that pickle yet - if the choice is between not marrying at all and marrying someone outside of my faith... well, I just don't know.

What I do know is how much I like nerds. Don't get me wrong, this kind of thing is also very nice:



But what does it say when I like the fact he mentioned the mighty sequoias of the Redwood forest more than his abs?

It means I like nerds, my friends. You want to see hot? Watch this. (Sadly, embedding is verboten.)

Categorizing your home library? HOT.

That's John Green, author of one of my very favorite YA novels, Looking for Alaska. One of my speech kids is doing an Original Oratory at State tomorrow all about the glories of YouTube. At the top of her arguments is the awesomeness of nerdfighters. I have read all of Green's books, but I was not aware of his vlogging goals. Hence my research and subsequent attraction reveries tonight.

So here's the question: Where are the single nerdy LDS boys my age hiding?

And the scarier, bigger question: If they do exist, would they even be interested in me?

Shaw

For my upcoming spring break, I get to go visit Emily and Co. again. After all, it was a pretty great trip last year, so why not?

Happily, Emily is not only okay with my inviting myself up for a visit, she is a fabulous adventure-planner. Shortly after I booked my plane tickets, Emily and I had the following email exchange, which I submit to you now as evidence for why she remains one of my very favorite people:

(Click for easier viewing)

Thinking

1. I'm very tired, so this will be an unthoughtout post.

2. I'm tired because of the speech meet last weekend. It was an overnighter again, this time in Brush. The meet was understaffed for judges, too, so it went long. Essentially, I worked from 7 AM Friday until 10 PM Saturday.

3. The kids did pretty well, though. We took first in the duet humor, duet drama, and poetry categories, plus a bunch of other awards, so yay.

4. I was very good and got up for church on Sunday, too.

5. I got a new calling in church a few weeks ago - they wanted me to teach the 4 and 5 year olds. Not my ideal, but I'm starting to get in the groove of figuring out how to plan for teaching the squirmy little things.

6. (For example - I brought a bagful of scarves and we acted out the story of Moses to learn about the 10 commandments. I especially liked it when the girl playing Moses flung the sparkly red scarf around her neck and announced to the Israelites, "I'm a fancy lady!" as she flounced her way across our pretend desert.)

7. But then they called me in after church Sunday to say they wanted me to switch jobs. Now I'm going to be playing the piano in Relief Society.

8. I'm really, really glad they didn't make me Relief Society president again. I'm rusty on the piano, but that I can handle right now.

9. The state speech meet is this Friday and Saturday. I'm hoping I'll have time for a nap on Sunday.

10. I spent my naptime last Sunday having lengthy perplexing and intriguing discussions by phone with friends.

11. CU Boulder's Theater Department is doing Rent next month. I'm organizing an evening field trip to see it.

12. 52 students have signed up so far.

13. We might have to take two buses. To Boulder. In February. At night.

14. I decided we'd leave for the show an hour early, departing right after rehearsal that day. This is largely because I want to release them onto Pearl Street for dinner. Because Pearl Street is awesome, and they need to figure that out.

15. I am completely dissatisfied with the LDS dating sites. They are ad-ridden and fruitless.

16. Jennifer suggested I try Chemistry.com. I've taken the personality test, but am stumped by the final pages where I'm supposed to
a) Write a headline for myself (2-128 characters) and
b) Write an essay about myself and what type of person I'm looking for (200-2000 characters).

17. Complete writer's block and general annoyance at the perpetuating pick-up-line-iness of the "headline." Really, ew.

18. (And for my wealth of married friends out there who have expressed envy over my summers of travel, I hereby point out that you do not have to write a headline for yourself, write an essay about who you want to date, nor do you have to find a photo of yourself that will not make someone immediately decide against getting to know you better. I call the game severely in your favors.)

19. The musical's going well. No issues with the double casts, from what I can tell. So, yay! They ran through the opening dance today, which Rachel taught them last Thursday. And they remembered it! They needed a lot of polishing, and we practiced being more like Martha Graham, but really not bad for a three-day gap.

20. Three cold sores in the last two weeks. I'm just sayin'.

Wild

We got different kinds of alerts at DPJH and STMS.

Once a Year Day

(from Hyperbole and a Half)

I've decided that the reason I'm not that neat is actually because I'm far too neat.

See, it's not that I'm messy. No, it's that I like things to be totally and completely clean and organized and labeled and awesome. And since I hardly ever have time for that level of cleaning, I choose a disgruntled hardly clean instead.

In any case, I am putting my day off to good use. I was going to go to DC this weekend to see Arabian Nights at the Arena Stage, but I just couldn't bring myself to spend $500 on a short weekend trip (shakes fist Plane fare!!). So, I am getting somewhat organized instead. I have cleaned all of my dishes (which, given that my dishwasher broke 7 months ago, is a big feat) (I should clarify that I do not mean that I haven't done my dishes in 7 months, but rather that it's a far more time-consuming job than simply loading-and-unloading a machine), vacuumed, fixed a broken curtain rod, reorganized part of my bedroom, sorted out a boxful of clothes for Goodwill, and I'm on laundry load #7 (some of that included the towels and sheets from our Christmas in Mountain Town) (Oh! And, Rachel, I found a red-and-black-striped baby legwarmer tangled in the sheets. I'll bring it by next time I'm up your way).

My exciting evening plans include ironing and ... actually, that's pretty much it. There's quite a load to be ironed. But I do plan on watching a movie while ironing. So that's something.

Really, it's nice to have a day when I'm rested and able to do all these sorts of things. I've got speech meets the next two weekends, including the big state competition, so it's nice to have clothes and such already taken care of. I have so many more household projects I'd like to do today - updating and hanging family pictures, organizing my craft room, filing papers, and so on. But the sun's already setting, so they will have to wait for my next non-traveling three-day weekend. Which will be...

...Hm. Well. Maybe this summer this'll be me:

Where Do I Go From Here?

I'm working on summer travel plans. Jason and I are planning on doing a trip together, and we've ruled out the more expensive options (Egypt, Israel, Ireland).

The current idea is Canada. Not the entire country, but maybe Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec? The Montreal Jazz festival is going on during one of our possible chunks of time (in fact, Pink Martini and Madeleine Peyroux are playing at times when we could go), and there's this that also looks enticing.

I'm not as excited about this as I have been about past trips, but I think that's just because a) it's not that adventurous and b) Canada hasn't been at the top of my travel list. Sure, it's on there (but then what place isn't?).

So, I'm wondering. What do you know of Eastern Canada? Any recommendations? Things we simply must do? Any adventures-in-the-making to rival a Turkish bath or a monkey fight? (And I did look into the Hotel de Glace, but alas, it closes at the end of March for the season.)

O, Canada!

Simple Joys

Step 1: Make this bread.

Step 2: While making said bread, marvel at the incredible deliciousness that comes from such simple ingredients - water, flour, yeast, and salt. Feel connected to the mankind through the ages as you knead the bread. Don't knead the bread because you need to, but rather knead the bread because you like to pretend you're a farm girl in rural 12th Century England making bread for your bairns.

Step 3: About 10 minutes before the bread is done, pull it out and slather it with butter. Because, as the sign in my parents' kitchen states, "Du beurre, du beurre, et encore du beurre."

Step 4: Eat bread.

Step 5: Eat more bread. You'll want to, trust me.

Step 6: A day or two later, assuming you pried yourself away from the warm buttery crustiness before it was all gone, slice the bread on the thin side. Put on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Then slice a tomato really thin and lay that on top of the bread. If you wanna, top with a little shredded good cheese.

Step 7: Bake at 325 until it's good.

Step 8: It's really good.

And it's so dang simple.

P.S. I thought about taking a picture but a) I was feeling guilty since I knew it wouldn't be as pretty as the bread is tasty and b) I was hungry.

P.P.S. Natasha's version of Simple Joys: Catnip toy + fireplace. That is all.

Back in the Saddle Again

Hello from Limon, Colorado!

I'm at a hotel there in preparation for a speech meet tomorrow. To be more precise, I'm in a lawn chair in a corner of the swimming pool room at a hotel in Limon. I'm on pool duty, watching a gaggle of girls and one boy splash each other. I've positioned myself so I can see through the window into the exercise room where another 5 of my students are working out. Hopefully, they'll all tire themselves out shortly and move into the breakfast room that the hotel has so kindly opened up for us to practice in.

Since I can't swim nor can I go out on the town ("town," I should say) and since the hotel has wifi, I thought it would be a good time to inaugurate my iPad & keyboard's bloggingness. How''s it looking?

Reallly, I've been almost shamefully attached to my iPad. I love using it to watch tv shows on, especially while working out since it easily rests on my elliptical's "dock" - better than a book and certainly better than a laptop. I went without it all day at school today, and I missed it. Then again, I did watch old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while I was working most of the day yesterday. A fun background to work to, but I had to turn down the volume on occasion lest the passing teachers wonder what those screens and stabbing noises coming from my room were. During a normal school day, sure, but when I'm akone in the room? Strange.

So, today was the first day of classes for this semester. Since our school is on a non-alternating block schedule, that means everybody has all new classes.

I have 1st period consultation. It could be good for getting me to eat breakfast, but it does mean I work straight through the rest of the day without a break.

2nd period is Humanities. A very different vibe this year. There's quite the spread between all the grades (4 freshmen, 3 sophomores, 2 juniors, 5 seniorss), whiich will make it harder what with trhe range of prior knowledge. However, 1) the class will probably grow in size over the next few days and 2) the kids were really great at discussions AND almost all of them have been to at least one art museum before..

After the usual preliminaries, I showed them the Discovery Channel's "The World is Just Awesome" video (boom diada) and "Where the Hell is Matt?" We talked about what those videos meant about the world, then I asked them whether the second video was "Art." That lead to an activity where I showed them a series of 24 other things that may or may not qualify as "Art" and had them write for each one whether they thought it was. Most of the things were from a slideshow I put together last year to introduce 20th century art. It's a hodge-podge of stuff, and I was pleased to hear how many of the item from the Denver Art Museum the kids recognized.

We spent the rest of the period discussing what was art. Ahd they got reallly into it! They tackled questions like
- Is art always beautiful?
- Is art more about the object or the process?
- Does the art or the idea come first?
- Can art change society?
and so on with thoughtfullness, disseention, and with good examples to back up their arguments. A few complained about having to talk about hard things, but even they had good things to contribute.

In short, I think it will be good. One of the freshmen had me later in the day, and she came running into the class to tell me how much she likes Humanities. Well, good!

3rd period is Advanced Drama. For the first time here, I've been strict with the counselors about who gets enrolled in that. As a result, I have a class of 26 kids who have all had drama before. Most were with me, although there are three who took it with Ruth as freshmen.. They were so, SO excited to be there, to know what they were doing, to hear what comes next. Itr'll be an interesting and exhausting group.

Lunch was next. Between cleaning up the last class, setting up the next one, and helping a duop team practice their speech piece, I had about 5 bites of soup while putting the finishing touches on my sub plans for tomorrow. A few of the kids who had be last term pointed out my fondness for missing the first days of class. They couldn't complain too much, though, since most of them were coming with me to the speech meet.

I finish the day with Intro to Drama. A lot of the speech freshmen from the class last term signed up for this class, too. I explained at the beginning how speech was a Venn diagram bubble completely encompassed in the bubble of theater, and that therefore there would be soome repeats of activities. Over and over again they kept asking to do stuff - "Can we play Hunter-Hunted" "Can we do dinosaurs?" "Can we sing the Belly Button Song?" "Can we do the Romeo, Romeo speech?" "Can you do the flying squirrel?" I chastised them, saying I had a plan, alll willl be revealed in its due course, and pointed out that they didn't get to learn all of that the first of class last year. "You weren't here the first day of class last year!" they exclaimed.

It's down to four in the pool noiw, and it's almost 8. I'm going to start herding them towards rehearsing. Bon nuit, and thanks, parents o' mine, for the mobile blogging hookups!

White Christmas

One advantage to holding Christmas a week later than the rest of the world is that it timed out beautifully for a snowstorm. We were all safely tucked in at the Mountain Town condo when it started to snow. Mom, Dad, Ben, and I did venture out to the local hardware store for a ladder in the afternoon and had a little trouble getting back up the hill to the condo. Fortunately, we had snow chains in the back. First use of chains this school year! Whoo!

We had a grand morning of opening presents and enjoying each others' company. We were all well and duly spoiled (new iPhones!) and shared in the awesomeness of handmade gifts (A mini-bomber jacket for Jack! Cigar-box guitars for Ben and Andy! "Blanket Statements" for me and Andy!).

It was cleared up enough to head back down the mountain the next day, but our planned activities were curbed by rotten roads. We did a little shopping, ate some seafood, and enjoyed an ice cream cake in honor of Ben's birthday.

All in all, it was a splendid couple of days with the whole family together. I've also enjoyed having a few days tacked on the end of the vacation - I slept in, got my haircut, ran errands, did some housework, and watched some Ally McBeal and Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my iPad (yay Hulu Plus!). Love it.

School starts again tomorrow with a teacher work day. I've got sub plans to make since we've got a speech meet on Friday. Nothing like missing the second day of new classes, yeah?

My cat is chewing on my arm. I think she wants attention.

W-O-M-A-N

I like to learn new skills. Whether it's practical like knowing how to properly take off surgical gloves or archaic like hand-spinning wool, I tend to tuck each new tidbit of knowledge away with a "there's something else that might come in handy after the apocalypse" thought. Yes, when civilization as we know it comes to an end and the Michaels and JoAnns are picked clean by zombie grannies, you are welcome to come to me for your knitting needs for I will still be able to provide yarn.

Today I pulled on the metaphorical boots of my Viking/Pioneer/Farmer Woman ancestry and learned a new skill.

The toilet at my parents' office overflowed. It was kinda gross. After calling several plumbers, my mom (who provided my aforementioned genetic strappiness) and I went to a hardware store and got a toilet snake.

I wielded the snake. My mom wielded the bucket of ammonia and a mop. In the end?

Toilet: No longer clogged.

Patient-who-flushed-paper-towels-down-the-toilet: Cursed by us all.

Me:

It's Begining To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yes, that's right, beginning.

For my family, Christmas proper will actually be happening Thursday at the Mountain Town condo. Rachel was working and Andy and Jenn spent the holiday with Jenn's parents, so it was just me, Mom, and Dad (and Natasha, of course) in Grand Junction for the official holiday.

We each opened a few presents - Mom's present to Dad wouldn't travel well, Dad had some car-trip stuff for Mom, and they both insisted that I open two gifts right away. I was all in favor of waiting, but saw their insistence that I would want this one now when I opened the package to find a shiny new iPad!

Me:


The second package was my remarkable dad's solution to the pickle I had presented to him a few weeks ago. I had asked him about his iPad experience, since I was looking for a new gadget for traveling. The iPad seemed much better suited to travel in terms of size, portability, and setup, but since I usually blog-on-the-go, I wondered about the ease of typing and whether a smaller, sturdier laptop would be the better (albeit less luscious) option. The solution? My dad found an iPad cover/Bluetooth keyboard combo!

Most awesome indeed.

We hosted the annual game day Christmas afternoon, enjoying lots of tasty food and some new board games with my parents' circle of friends, Brian, and Jenni. A quiet way to spend the holiday, but not too bad considering the lack of siblings.

My dad has been either operating or tucked away in the basement working on some project I am verboten to know about most of the time since I got here. My mom has been doing various projects herself, plus assisting me a bit with my own craftiness. I hope to post some photos of my current project after our Christmas.

Oh! Also, Natasha flew in a plane for the first time! My mom booked me on a charter flight to get down here Thursday. After hearing about the two chemical-filled tanker trucks that overturned at Vail Pass on Tuesday and shut down I-70 for several hours, I called to thank her again for enabling me to skip the drive over this year. Nash flew for free with this company, and it is totally a case of luxuries once tasted. No security, no parking hassles (thanks again, Rachel!), and I didn't have to be there until 20 minutes or so before the flight. It couldn't have been easier. Natasha didn't seem all that frazzled, either.

She did, however, find the Christmas present my mom got her - she dragged the cat toy-stuffed stocking out of the shopping bag on the table onto the floor and was rubbing her face vigorously against it when we found her. We opened it, and she enjoyed a joyously drugged-out afternoon.

Happy Holidays, my friends!

Brush Up Your Shakespeare (Again)

I found the other Macbeth student plot summary that I wanted to share with you guys:

In McBeth there is a king and prince. Also 3 wierd sisters who can tell the past and future. The 3 wierd sisters told McBeth that he would get 2 medals and then become king.. McBeth ended up going home and killing the king in his own house, with the king as a guest... Then the kings son ran away to England witch was very bad because know hes a guest.. McBeth got his 2nd award witch made him mad with power. He hired 2 assins to kill Zack & Tyler, but only killed Zack. Wen he finally because a king he had a dinner and then saw his ghoast. When he say this he went crazy.. Later we find out that McBeths wife has been sleeping walking rubbing he hands trying to get blood that wasn't there clean. Once his wife dies a batttle comes McBeth dies and the kings son who fled is now KING OF IRELAND :)

Granted, she did a better job following the plot than the last one. Still, we don't have a Tyler in the class and she seems to be a little fuzzy on the geography of the British Isles....

I Hope I Get It

The musical's cast and, thanks to Facebook, the cast list is circulating among the students as I type.

We're doing You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, by the way. We double-casted the leads (we had enough guys to do that!). I was always happy with the double-casts at DPJH, but this is high school and it's never been done that was here and so on and so on. I hope it'll work.

I'll give a better report of the week when I get back home (I'm crashing at the condo again).

But it's done, it's out there, and I'm excited to get the rehearsals rolling!

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

I offer my speech and drama classes extra credit to go see plays. Knowing how easy it is to pick up an extra program or ticket stub for a friend to get credit, I have a worksheet for them to fill out for the points. The first question asks them to summarize the plot of the show.

These are often just plain fun for me to read, and I've been sharing the Macbeth evaluations from the Drama 1 kids with the Advanced Drama kids. Here's one of my favorites:

The King wouldn't allow his daughter to be with Mcbeth & she wanted to kill her father and have Mcbeth as King. So mcbeth kills the King and he becomes King but mcbeth gets killed in the end by his own men after he ordered them to kill his wife and servants. In the end Seans character became king because the men rebelled against mcbeth because he kept killing.

Far From the Home I Love

I've been feeling blue the last few days. It's the result of a variety of things, including a dual homesickness.

I'm wanting to be with my family and doing Christmas the way we usually do. I'm excited for auditions this week, and I like two of my classes well enough that I'm glad to have more time with them before they're dissolved at the end of the term. But still, I'm tired, I need a real break, and I miss my family. We're also trying to figure out how to do Christmas together this year properly, and I'm sad that no matter what, we're just not going to be able to do Christmas like we've always done. I knew that it had to end someday, and I figured when Rachel announced her pregnancy last year that Christmas 2009 would be the last of the way we used to do it, but I'm still really bummed that this year's just not going to be the same. Which I think is why I've been feeling, well, lonely this week.

It finally started to feel a little bit like Christmas for me yesterday when I ran some errands. I went to the spice store for some gifts for people, and walking around downtown Littleton buying presents and sipping mulled cider finally gave me a little of that sens du Noel.

December always makes me homesick for Germany, too. Of all the places I've lived in December, Germany is the most Christmasy to me. I think it was the Christkindelsmariks - the yellow glow, the wooden booths, the Santa figurines, the glass ornaments, the smell of wurst and cider and frost, and the sound of people and oompah-bands. All I have to do is take in a lungfull of cold air or see some frost clinging to pine-covered hills and I miss it horribly.

Jason and I were talking potential vacations tonight. I wanted to discuss travel plans, since another reason I'm blue is that I don't have any major trips set right now. All kinds of possibilities, but nothing I can firmly point to and say, "There. There is where I get to go in a few months, so keep on working1"

We know we want to do at least one trip together this summer, but in batting around other ideas we came on the possibility of going to Strasbourg over winter break next year.

It's not impractical - I actually get out of school on Dec. 16th, so we could fly to Europe, revel in the markets in Strasbourg for a week, and fly back to our respective families in time for Christmas (with suitcases full of treats, of course). Jason said his family wouldn't mind him losing a few days with them if he brought back goodies. I told him that if I told my parents I was going to Strasbourg in December, there's a good chance they would tell me they're coming along. (We're both okay with that, by the way, Mom and Dad.)

And so instead of doing the projects I should be doing tonight, I looked at photos like this:



And my heart is just welling up with homesickness.

I Remember It Well

This week, this very week, I have absolutely no after-school activities.

For the first time since early September and until after the musical next spring, I don't have speech practice or play rehearsals or anything to keep me from going home after teaching.

I'm almost giddy with the joy of being able to do laundry and such.

Another perk is that I get to carpool again this week (although it's not so much a perk tomorrow when I have to leave at 5:30 AM because John has an early department chair meeting). Today on the way home, Tiffany told me that they were talking about Russia in her World History class today. Apparently, some students said, "Russia! Ms. Waterhouse lived there!"

Tiffany: "Oh, that's right, she did live there or go there or something. I went there, too. See, here are some pictures I took of Lenin's-"

Students: "Yeah, she, like, lived right next to an insane asylum, too!"

Tiffany: "No, I'm pretty sure it was an orphanage."

Students: "No, it was an insane asylum. She told us all about it."

Lesson learned: Students will recall things I tell them in class over a year later if it involves crazy naked Russian women.

Now I just need to figure out how to work that objective into all my lesson plans.

A Touch of Class

Dear Class o' Mine -

Look what you did.

You did Shakespeare. You did Macbeth! You did it with only 10 people in the class. You made it something that got the whole school talking.

You made it creepy and haunting. You made the special ed teacher spend the rest of the day explaining to her students that you were all okay and you did not need to go to the hospital.

You made everyone "Ooh" and "Aah" over the ridiculously simple staging of the death of Duncan.

You made it through the fight scenes with only a few small injuries.

Also, you broke three swords.

You kept the show going after one of you whacked his head on the stupidly-designed fusebox backstage, raising a significant lump, blurry vision, and ringing in his ears. You were ready to jump into his place on stage and take over his lines, but then you rallied behind him when he insisted on finishing the show, and you insisted on hugging him before his mom took him home.

Then, you wrote him a thank you card because he finished the show.

You wrote a thank you card for another of you who had a hellish emergency at home right before the show. You recognized that he chose you over his family, and you wrote him a card without my even knowing you did to say 'Thank you for being there for us.'

You knew that one of you had such bad stage fright that he didn't show up to the evening performance of Earnest. You forgave him, you encouraged him, and you made him understand that all he had to do to make you happy was show up. And so he did. And you celebrated him when he said all of his lines in just the right places and did just fine for all three shows.

You filled the stage with puddles of blood the last night.

You stopped caring about what you look like or what people will think and just did the costume changes as fast as you needed to and to heck with whoever was backstage with you at the time.

You insisted that I bring in extra students for the fight scenes, then you didn't insist on it being your friends but rather "good actors from the other drama class". And thus you changed the lives of a small group of freshman and one very lucky 4th grader who is so proud of the "McNugget" nickname you gave him that his parents must have had a hard time this weekend getting him to change out of the tights and tunic.

You gave your troops a pep talk in the dressing room before leading them into battle in the opening scene, telling them that they were about to "die heroically."

You had people commenting on your "professionalism," your "focus," and on how "tight" the performance was. And I think you knew how fantastic those particular comments are.

You told each other to breathe deep, to focus, to take care of each other, and to be aware of the space around yourselves. And so you quoted me to each other without knowing that I could hear you.

You argued about what the lines meant, what the words meant, what the story meant, and whose fault the murder was. You argued with ME about it and you argued with each other, and I loved you for it.

You spent the entire intermission of A Christmas Carol, which we went to on a field trip this week, discussing all of the ideas we should steal for our show.

You stayed late at rehearsal practicing the Macbeth death because you so badly wanted him to die in just the right pose so his hand landed just next to dead Lady Macbeth's hand because the symbolism of that was just so cool.

You made people cry when Macduff found out about his family.

You insisted that I come to your party after the last show. You wanted me to be there, and then you didn't need me to be there because you had each other.

You called yourselves "a family" today during check-in. And each of you made sure to give every person individual kudos when we did our post-mortem discussion.

You reinforced each other. And you made me so incredibly proud to be your teacher.


Look what you did.

Blood Brothers

The field trip today was awesome!

My cold is slowly going away!

Macbeth isn't quite there yet, but will be!

The blood looks fantastic!

So does the fog with the lights!

The final fight scene makes all my director's bones tingle in a good way!

We put in a shadow-puppet-kind-of-scene!

The flash paper looks awesome!

No curtains or hair have caught on fire yet!

I just blew out (blowed out?) a dozen eggs!

Now I'm hunting for battle music!

Maybe the soundtrack to Braveheart!

Because of Scotland, you know!

I'm really excited about this play!

My Advanced Drama class rocks!

Joseph's Coat

Just a quick update:

1. Had a grand Thanksgiving in SLC, despite getting horribly sick almost right away. Fortunately, I was in a place where I could curl up and sleep all day while my parents and grandmother attended to me. If you can't be sick at home, being sick at Grandma's house is pretty good.

2. My mom, grandma, and I spent Saturday afternoon/evening sewing Macbeth costumes.

3. I spent tonight dying said costumes. See?



4. Since I'm at the condo for the week and therefore sans washer/dryer, I hung the dyed tunics/skirts/witchy-vests/sashes in the garage. Here's hoping they're not crusty-frozen tomorrow morning.

5. Macbeth is looking great, but sounding weak. The spectacle's working - we choreographed the ending fight scene today, strewing the stage liberally with the corpses of the extras we brought in just for that purpose. Happily, the choreography for the fight between Macbeth and Macduff still works, even with all the bodies around. The students don't know their lines nearly as well as they should, but that's in their hands.

6. Tomorrow we're going to try a run with all the effects - blood, fog, flash cotton, etc.

7. Wednesday we've got a field trip to see A Christmas Carol at the DCTC. It was supposed to be next week, but scheduling issues arose.

8. Saturday is our last speech meet until January.

All of the above make for a hectic week, to say the least. It also makes now not the greatest time to be sick. Still, at least the worst of it fell over the break.

It was also really fun to see all the relatives, especially Andy and Jenn. I was hardly the greatest of company, but I did enjoy seeing them all the same.

By the Sword

I'm up at the condo. They were predicting snow, so I figured why not pack up the cat and head up the mountain for the two days of school I have this week?

When I arrived, there was a chirping sound coming from upstairs. One of the smoke detectors had a low battery. Not a big deal, except the detector was mounted at the peak of the vaulted ceiling upstairs, a good 5-6 feet above my head.

A puzzlement, but I was on the phone with my parents at the time, and my dad reminded me that I had a trunk full of long, semi-pointy objects. I fetched the claymore, climbed on top of a chair, and attacked the enemy.

I managed to unscrew the case using the tip of the sword, but the battery was in the cover and it chirped teasingly at me as it danged from its wires. Now, whacking at an actively electrical object with a 50" metal sword named "MacLeod" might not be the cleverest idea. But still -






Victory is mine!