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This is the most fun ever. If you want to try your face out with diff hairstyles, even makeup, you should go here and upload your photo! So fun!
Wanna see me w a fro??

Isnt’ that AWESOME!!!!

I have moved up from hanging out with the new teachers to hanging out with all the teachers. Yesterday we had Convocation, which is the fancy word for the kick-off-the-year event for all the district people. The speaker was great! Go to www.ronclark.info if you want to be inspired In the afternoon, we had a faculty mtg at the intermediate school. I like our principal who is new to the school but not to the district. I had to leave early, which felt so wierd, to go get Cliff from the hospital from his colonoscopy, which you can read about on his blog. It went well, I guess…as well as that can go. He is feeling better today but still a little groggy. Today was not very exciting… we had training about the TEKS, which, in case you are not an educator, is bascially what tells teachers in the state of Texas what to teach for the TAKS test. Needless to say, it was not very beneficial. But after that I went to my room and got some stuff done from the “to-do” list I made during today’s training. I really like my room and I think I have somehow stopped worrying and started getting more confident and getting excited. I have realized that with me, meeting new people, it takes a while to warm up, but like by the end of lunch today, I was talking to the five lovely ladies I ate with as much as they were. It was really nice. So yay for school and nice co-workers and a nice room! Pictures still to come!

Yay for tax-free shopping day. So I braved the crowds to save a few bucks today. Really there weren’t too many crowds at 10:30ish when I left, they only started coming around 1 and still weren’t that bad. But anyway, I did a little back-to-school shopping today and it was interesting.

#1 I realized how much I wish my shopping buddies still lived in Waco! I mean I had fun and all, but I take it too seriously like a mission when I go shopping by myself. My eyes get all tired because I am loooking around trying to find exactly what I have in mind to buy, instead of just wandering because I am chatting with someone. It is more relaxing when I am with a friend. So to all you shopping buddies out there who might read this, I miss you!!

#2 It is different to go school clothes shopping as a teacher than as a student. I wandered into a few stores that I dont usuallybuy things in, just to check it out, example: Rave, Aeropostale, Vanity. Well I didnt stay in there too long because everything is so small and so cheap and mostly jeans and t-shirts. That is all well and good, but not appropriate for school. I have decided that I need to start buying more classy things. No more solid color t-shirts, no more khaki capris, but nice professional adult looking stuff. And stuff that makes me feel gorgeous, like its nice clothes and all, not comfy hanging out clothes, but stuff that I can feel like a million dollars in. And I found a few of those today And okay…yes I bougt a terry cloth sweatsuit and some sleep shorts and a tank top… but I also bought this hot chocolate-y brown shirt with gathering in the middle and a big diamond of sparkles, and a beautiful light green 3/4 lenght sweater with ruffling around the neck and sleeves.

All in all, after a slow start, I think I got some good stuff. And I finally used the Old Navy gift card I’ve had since Christmas. I have a hard time with things fitting me in that store, so I made one trip to the dressing room with armfuls of clothes only to have NOTHING work, which is exactly how my last few trips to Old Navy have gone. But I didnt’ give up and went back with armfuls of different stuff and ended up buying most of it. I got Cliff some cargo pants and a cool green and blue polo too, which was fun, because I always like it when he says I can buy him something.

On another note, we saw “March of the Penguins”. Now if you know me well, you will know that I love penguins, so I just had to go see this movie. It was good, though slow in parts, because penguins aren’t like really high action animals or anything. But there were some cool pictures and really the whole thing in itself was just kinda cool because you stop and think about someone filiming all of this, and how cold they must have been and how hard it was to get some of these shots. At the end they show pictures of the guys filiming that, and its cool. For someone who likes penguins alot, I dont know much about them really, I wasn’t even sure what sound they made. So the movie taught me some stuff. It did knock down one ideal of them though. I had heard somehwere that penguins are monogamous (only one mate for life) and that is not really true. Morgan Freeman’s exact words in the movie were.. ” Penguins are monogamous…somewhat” See they have a mate for one year, and they do all this work and raise the chick together, taking turns going to get food while the other one protects the egg/chick and when the chick is old enough, they both go back to the sea and eat and live and play until it is time for the next mating season when “all bets are off”. So that was kinda sad, because I thought they went back to their breeding ground and met up with their penguin spouse, and thats not the case. But still, they do commit for the lenght of time to raise the chick and the way they work together and walk like 70 miles back and forth to the sea for food, and withstand blizzards of -80 degrees below zero and even the dad watches the egg, I like all that. And they are so cute! You should go see it.

My classroom is going to be beautiful It is well on its way. I spent all of yesterday afternoon working on it and I am very excited about it. At first, when I started taking things up there, I was so overwhelmed by it, but I arranged the desks, and got the calendar and bulletin boards up and it is just great. And I have met some of the other teachers and they seem really great. And I found out that I get to spend $100 on a “desk order”, which I, as the newbie, had to ask, “Does that mean towards the purchase of a desk, or stuff in the desk?” She was very nice. It is stuff in the desk.So we have to figure out how much paper clips and staples and red pens we need, and order it now basically. But surely I can get at least one fun thing with it I think I am gonna love teaching. Let’s hope anyway! Here are some “before” shots of my classroom:
I will add after ones later.
As a side note, I have been browsing other people’s blogs, and they seem to often start a conversation of some sort. So here goes my daily blog question… do you remember anything specifically wonderful or horrible about any of your classrooms growing up? I remember a bathtub in 1st grade and a couch in 3rd grade and a reading corner in GT that I liked. In contrast, one of the classes I taught in as a TA, was totally blank. Like there was literally nothing on the walls but a clock and a few random school info handouts stapled to a bulletin board. I thought it was awful. No stimulation at all. So share your classroom memories!