Our classes are always being asked to create displays for special events in the school.  They are usually a part of some competition.  Not to sound conceited, but my class generally wins.  Well… we win when we TRY to win.

Yes, that’s right… I don’t always try to win.  Why?  I have a competitive spirit, but also some common sense.  If the prize for winning a contest is a field trip to an undisclosed location planned by the most disorganized person in the school… then I’m pretty much going to do the minimum to avoid winning.  If there is a pizza party or something fun involved (and impossible for someone to screw up)… then we’re going all out!

There are other highly competitive teachers, too… but they always do their best.  They’re always nervous, too.  I purposely wait and make mine the last one up just to generate a little fear.  Like this week, for example…  we were asked to create a display about our assigned country for Hispanic Heritage Month.  I waited until the last minute to do mine (traditional Snarky style).  In the meantime, one teacher in particular was very nervous about this.  I took advantage of the situation and had a co-worker plant some information at lunch time.  “I can’t figure out what Snarky is up to… she’s been very secretive about her project!”  Mission accomplished… everyone was all worked up by the afternoon.

Then my plan backfired.  I started to feel like the display should have a little something extra just to warrant all the hype.  Not enough to win, but enough to keep my reputation in tact.  So I decided to add a LITTLE flair to our display.  Apparently it was too much flair… everyone was buzzing about how cute it turned out.  (Obviously, I have no idea how powerful my flair truly is.  LOL)  Now I’m the one who is super nervous… we just might win this thing.  And even worse… the prize hasn’t been announced… the great unknown!  Serves me right for stirring up trouble.

The war between Snarky and her Mac has escalated to physical violence… on the part of the Mac.  OK… so maybe I started the fight last year when I would bang the laptop on the desk to get it to power up.  But this is an entirely new laptop… it doesn’t know about my past war crimes.

Anyway… from the very beginning, the Mac has been trying to hurt me.  The edges on this thing are unbelievably sharp, cutting into my wrists all day long.  My friends laughed at me and called me a wimp… they couldn’t possibly imagine that a company would make a computer with razor sharp edges.  Hmmmm… just mine, I suppose.  But I googled it and discovered that many were experiencing the same issue.  In fact, there are even cushion-type products on the market for just this issue.  There wasn’t much I could do, so I covered the edges with sticky notes (classy!) and learned how to type with my wrists in the air a little more.

Today, however, the Mac lashed out at me and actually drew blood!  I was shutting it down and shoving it in my file cabinet for the night, when it actually sliced my finger open.  That bitch!  This wasn’t even caused by the sharp edges… it was something lethal on the outside of the laptop.  Who manufactures these things?  Ginsu?

So I just want you all to know… if my lifeless body is found at work near my desk… it wasn’t suicide… it was the Mac.

A small group of my struggling students were reading a book about a birthday party with me today.  The last page had this picture on it:

We talked about what was going on in the picture, and I asked the students what the girl got as one of her presents.  One student said, “It looks like a teddy bear.”  But then another student interrupted, in all seriousness,  and said, “No!  It’s chicken!”  “CHICKEN?”  We all leaned in to look closely at the picture in our books… trying to figure out why she sees a chicken instead of a teddy bear.  Then it dawned on me… the brown lumpy fur kind of looks like KFC Original Recipe!

Still giggling…

I feel absolutely awful!  My last frog died today.  After wishing her demise yesterday, I feel REALLY guilty now.

I love animals… I have more compassion for them than I do for people many times.  I feel very cold-hearted for being happy to see these pets go.  In my defense, I even get upset when a harmless pixel animal gets killed in WoW… I have actually uttered the phrase, “Oh no, I killed a frog!”  Oh, the irony!

I’m sure there’s some sort of karmic retribution waiting for me, as a result of my evil thoughts…

I took a nature walk with my students yesterday to collect leaves and seeds for science.  We did all kinds of sorting and investigating with our finds.  During recess today some students were looking at our leaves and stuff again.  I overheard one student say (in reference to some berries), “Don’t touch those!  They poison!”  Another student responded (in a very “duh, you’re an idiot” tone), “Ms. Kitten wouldn’t pick them if they poison!”  I had to laugh… it was too cute!

It was also an interesting situation, though.  One student was so rooted in common sense and the other relied completely on trust.  Which one would win out?  Well, the kids all looked at each other… shrugged… and touched the berries.  LOL

Trust is everything… any relationship without it is poison.

We recently had Open House night at my school… you know, where the kids bring their parents in and drag them around the school to meet their teachers.

As a project for Open House, I recorded my students acting out scenes of a story we had been working on.  Then I used iMovie to put it all together into one little movie.  It was really a hassle, but turned out quite cute.  Anyway… my plans were to show the movie that night right from my laptop with a projector.  Ha… the mac had other ideas, of course.

I checked out the projector from the library, and when I tried to set up the system, I discovered that the cable did not plug into the new laptop.  Grrrrrr.  Of course nobody was around after school to help…
so I came in an hour early for Open House that night and managed to track down our helpful media specialist.  She found the updated adapter for me.  (Apple is really good about making you buy 100 new accessories when you upgrade your computer.)  I set everything up with the new adapter… turned everything on… nothing.  NOTHING!

The media  specialist came down to help me, but couldn’t get the thing to work either.  We WANTED to call the technology dude for help, but he’s one of those people who make you feel like an idiot when something doesn’t work… and then proceeds to tell everyone else what an idiot you are… for years.  And more times than not, he can’t fix it either and then proceeds to blame the problem on something YOU did… not his lack of skill.  Neither one of us really wanted to deal with him, so we continued to tinker on our own.  No luck.  We finally decided to move my movie to an old laptop and try hooking that up.  It worked!  Whew.

The movie was a big hit at Open House.  I even had parents recording it on their cell phones so they could share it with other family members.  One father saw the mess of computers and cords on my desk and said, “Oh, is this your new computer?”  I explained that it was actually an old one and pointed out the new one… then detailed all the trouble we had.  He responded, “Well, I can tell you what your first problem is.”  “Oh?” I asked hopefully.  He laughed, “Yeah, that apple icon on top there.”  Exactly.

My students have been researching an animal of their choice and using the information to plan and write an expository piece.  I have some really great writers who have done a great job with the project.  They’re writing paragraphs and paragraphs for me.  They’ve loved the quest for info and the independence of it all… they feel very “grown up”.  One of my more needy students was very proud of himself when he showed me his first draft today.  And really, he should be… he’s made a lot of progress this year.  (Still a long way to go..)

Anyway… he wrote the following piece entitled “beers”:

beers live in the forest.  beers are brown and white.  beers eat plants.  beers make babies.  i like beers.

Of course, I giggled to myself right at the title.  Clearly this child knows his audience… his teacher really likes beers.  LOL  Anyway… he was actually writing about deer.  He gets his d’s turned around a lot.  So the whole notion of beers living in the forest etc. really cracked me up.  (And LOL @ “i like beers.”)

But the part that has had me laughing allllllllll day is, “beers make babies.”  ROFL  Ain’t that the truth!  A wise warning from an unexpected source!

I took my class on a field trip last week.  One of my all time favorite trips to go on… and the kids always love it too.  Of course, I always allow a few parents to come along.  This is more for the parent/child bonding experience than for help for the teacher.  I think you’ll see why after you hear some of my chaperone stories…

Last week, when we got to the nature center portion of our trip, the guide brought out a bunch of animals that are native to the area.  As soon as the guide mentioned the word snake, I had one mom squealing at the top of her lungs and rushing over to me.  I was sitting on a bench and she came over and cuddled up to me and whimpered constantly throughout the whole snake presentation.  When the guide mentioned bringing the snake around for the kids to touch it, this mom went into absolute hysterics… worked her way BEHIND me and was practically in tears.

I once had a father “screen talk” all the way through a STAGE production to the point where I got in trouble with the ushers.   Then there was a mom who left her group of kids to explore on their own while she took a smoke break at the pumpkin patch.  My favorite was the mom who showed up drunk at 9 in the morning to chaperone.  I had to bring the art teacher with us to chaperone HER.

I could go on and on with scary tales of field trip chaperones.  I’ve had some really great chaperones as well… you just never know what you will get, so I prefer to play it safe.  Needless to say, NOW we only go on trips that keep us together as a class so I can keep an eye on everyone. *winks*

Conversation between my students and I during Social Studies today (we were discussing the job of president… what does the president do, where does the president live, etc.):

Me: Who knows the name of our current president?
Student A: Abraham Lincoln
Me: Good guess! Abraham Lincoln was one of our presidents a long time ago!
Student B: George Washington
Me: Another good guess! He was our very first president, but that was a long time ago, too! Our president’s first name IS George, though. Anyone else have a guess?
Student C: George Clooney
Me: (trying so hard not to giggle) George Clooney! He’s a famous movie star, but not our president.
Student D: I know! I know!
Me: What do you think?
Student D: George Bush!
Me: Good job! Our president’s name is George W. Bush. (writes it on the board) Hmmm… do you know the name of the first lady?
Student E: Martha Washington
Me: She was our FIRST first lady. She was George Washington’s wife.
Student F: Martha Bush?
Me: Her last name is Bush… you’re close!
Student G: Mrs. Bush!

ROFL Kids are hilarious.