Florida

I just got home Monday night from my only vacation this summer- a mini 3 night getaway to Clearwater, Florida to see my 2nd cousin get married. It was a great, relaxing trip and I had so much fun with Corey and my extended family. We went to the beach every day we were there (4 days), and I only got a little sunburn on my right forearm and my butt. Interesting places that I am sure everyone wanted to know about. I think I got a tiny bit of a "tan" too-as much as a pasty white girl like me can get. Of course my boyfriend now looks like he was born in the Congo, but whatever. We had yummy ice cream, caramelized fried sweet potatoes, buffalo chicken sandwiches, and amazing fried green tomatoes. I may have gained 5 pounds.

Now I need to try and be happy that I was able to go instead of having post-event depression, where I dwell on the fact that I am stuck in PA the rest of the summer and my family is going away Friday and I am dogsitting.

Pics of Florida are up on Facebook. Holla if you have any cool ideas for plans for the rest of the summer that could include me. :)

Happy Fathers Day, Dad!

I just wanted to give a "shout out" to my dad on Father's Day. Here is dad at Corey's graduation from Fordham and a pic of dad in the rainy downpour volunteering for the Cancer Society's Relay for Life. I wanted to upload more pictures, but my computer is being grouchy...probably because it is late and she wants to sleep. Anyway, some awesome memories I have:

-Monday Night Football-from the time I was in 1st grade in my Winnie the Pooh boys football PJs staying up til 1 AM all the way until now...MNF with dad=awesome
-Going to Eagles games together
-Riding with dad to North Carolina when I was really young and taking his phone messages. He even bought me a pink flamingo stuffed animal.
-Whenever he came back from business trips and he flew, he would bring me home Reeses's PB cups-yeah, I got chubby
-In 8th grade he set up a football camp for my girlfriends and me to teach us football for gym class
-Taking us on TWO amazing cruises!
-Driving me to NYC to visit Corey at Fordham multiple times and then coming back 2 days later to pick me up- what a dad!
-Johnson's Popcorn on the boardwalk at OCNJ and daddy/daughter mini golf dates
-Driving to Indianapolis to go to the Indy 500 for Corey and me
-Going to work with dad and falling asleep in his office and having his coworkers come in to find me drooling (several occasions)
-The "leg dance"

I love the way he:
- loves the Lord
- loves Corey and is such a good "dad" to him
- gives me cash (ok that was more like HS/college)
- loves my mom
- eats anything I make for him
- gets so angry when the Birds lose a game :)
- drives me everywhere
- snores as loud as a monster truck
- is so incredibly patient, never raises his voice, and puts up with 4 women in the house!

I love you dad!!!! YOU ARE THE BEST DAD IN THE WORLD!

Facebook Quizzes: Are they necessary?

I have been really struggling with these stupid Facebook quizzes. I know this sounds so ridiculous, but I am upset that the quizzes fill my home page news feed. Some quiz titles really catch my eye, such as: "How well do you know ___ (insert some old crush of yours or mean girl that you follow)?" and "When will you get married?" (isn't that intriguing?) BUT the ones that make me cringe are the ones that say "What bra size are you?" This is so gross and so unnecessary to post on Facebook. People don't care what bra size you are when they check Facebook. Ok a thought just popped into my head- maybe if you were a creeper and you wanted to date a girl but never saw her before then you would be like "Oh cool, she is a C cup (or whatever your preference is.) Other than that, people know what you look like and your average chest size. Also, isn't it stupid that you would have to take a Facebook quiz to find out? Just look at your tag inside your bra. Or, go get measured. Facebook won't tell you your measurements. Ok, now that I just blogged about bras....moving on.

It just makes me question whether or not Facebook quizzes are necessary. If you have any quiz titles that intrigue you, post them in the comments section! They are funny to read sometimes. And I apologize to you if you are reader that lives for Facebook quizzes.

LAST WEEK! reflections...

This begins the last week of school for the 08-09 school year. I can't believe that I have just about completed my first year teaching. What will I blog about now!!? Ha, just kidding. I would say that this year was better than I could have imagined overall, as far as my students go. I was so blessed and inspired by my students. I really couldn't have hand picked a better group of kids, and I get to have the same kids next year plus some new 7th graders and whoever else moves here this summer. No one is graduating yet. I could write a pretty entertaining book with all the quotes and situations from this year. During this school year I only had to give out 1 lunch detention. I saw great progress with English and wonderful friendships being made in ESL class. If I had to pick a negative aspect of the job so far, it would have to be the lack of support for the program as a whole. We still have a lot of ironing out to do to get this program where it should be for the district.

Things to Look Forward to This Week:
-Early Dismissals for the kids
-Hershey Park field trip for 8th grade on Wed.
-Last week activities and games
-Grading and submitting final grades and exams (ok, maybe not so much)
-FRIDAY! Going home to cater my sister's graduation party!!!! I am really happy to go home and be able to jump into doing what I love- cooking and baking for 60-100 people! :)

Last night was the LAST time that I will have to say "goodbye" to Corey for the summer-minus short weekend trips and such. Here's to a GREAT summer with my best friend! As a little celebration (since I had ZERO vacations lined up this summer) I decided to purchase tickets to Florida for a 3 night mini vaca. My cousin, Josh, is getting married on Clearwater Beach and it is a VERY small wedding, but they invited me to come down if I wanted to. I didn't want to go alone, and Corey's intern supervisor is letting him take 2 days to go down, so I got a ticket for him to. I think he deserves a vaca too for how hard he has worked this past year in school. So less than 3 weeks and we will be going to sunny FL! Now, THAT, is something to look forward to!

Centipede

Nothing grosses me out more than centipedes. Actually, maybe spiders do, too, because they make me scream. But anyway, I just wanted to note that in the workroom/copy room next to my classroom at the Middle School there is a sink where I fill a bucket to wash the boards. I went in the room to empty the bucket and there was a 3 1/2 inch centipede in there. Grossest thing ever. Meanwhile, the bell rings and I have a class full of kids waiting for me and there I am trying to "drown" the bug by filling up the bucket and dumping water on it. Apparently these things like water as much as Michael Phelps, so I called in one of the boys, Roman, to kill the thing. Roman tries to push it down the drain with the drain stop. It goes away.
10 minutes later I go in there to make a copy and IT IS BACK! So I call Joe in. This is where the story gets good. I tell Joe he must kill the bug with his shoe. He takes off his new white sneaker and puts it in the sink and "cuts"/smooshes the bug into 4 parts. Dead.

Um...now Joe's shoe is soaking wet-and it is only 2nd period. Poor Joe. He had to ask me for a tissue to dry it. I wanted to tell him that the tissue wouldn't dry his sneaker, and that unfortunately he will have a wet shoe at least until lunch time.

Exhaustion

I feel like I am running on empty. I am so ready for summer. My lessons are becoming uncreative and I even get bored listening to me lecture now. Which is weird because parts of speech usually thrill me.

Probably one reason why I feel so run down is that the only time I get to relax (the weekend) I am busy non-stop. It is totally one thing after the other since about 6 weeks ago and for at least the next 4 weeks.

Here is my weekend run down from April 12-June 14 because that is all I can remember. I will be brief for each weekend.
April 12 - Easter weekend
April 18- ESL family day (took 47% of my energy since Feb)
April 25-5k, birthday party, another birthday party, concert
May 1- Mini Relay for Life, bridal shower
May 10- Mothers Day weekend and Philly trip
May 16- Relay for Life- about 10 hours sleep over 3 nights (where I am now)
May 23- Virginia for 3 days, wedding
May 30- Massachusetts, throwing a bridal shower/catering
June 5- Hershey Park/in charge of ESL picnic at the park (more planning)
June 14- Courtney's grad party/catering

Not that anyone cares about any of this. But I had to make this run down for my sanity. So if I have been antisocial lately, it is because of the lack of sleep/time. M-F =school, grading, menu planning, and gym. Sat + Sun= totally chaotic always. Don't get me wrong, all of these -well most-are really exciting events. I am very excited for this upcoming weekend. I finally FINALLY get to spend THREE days with my boyfriend. Also get to see one of my best friends, Matt, get married to the sweetest girl. :)

So, I am thankful that God has blessed me with the opportunity to participate in/plan so many events; however, I may go to bed at 9 tonight.

Germapalooza!

Sometimes I wonder why I chose to work around a bunch of germy kids. I don't think my students were ever taught to cover their mouth when they cough, or to not sneeze in someone's face. This sounds drastic, but my students are hacking all over everyone. I may get swine flu. Today I spent an extra 15 minutes at work sanitizing! Yay for Chlorox wipes and Lysol spray!
At the middle school, my room is the size of some people's bedroom closets. I have no window, curtains for walls, and one table. There are 9 of us in there at one time daily. This makes me freak out about illnesses. With this swine flu "scare," I took the time to teach my kids how to stay healthy-wash hands, don't touch your face, etc. Then I asked what we could do as a class to stay healthy. My adorable little girl from Thailand raised her hand and said, "Keel all da peegs." That was my written version of her cute accent. I told her that I wasn't planning on killing any pigs. Today 2 boys blew their noses and left the dirty tissues on the table that we all sit at. I think this means they didn't get it.