Girls Night Out

I probably have more "Girls Nights Out" than I should, but with Todd working at night and the fact that we don't have kids yet makes me not care! I had a great time tonight with my friend Kodi and her friend, Holly, from school. We met up at Maria's for dinner (Kodi turned me on to a great cheap meal--Fried Tacos! Yum!), then we walked over to the Moxie to see "Chalk", an independent film about teachers during one school year. I have to say that I loved it! I don't really know if Kodi or Holly enjoyed it as much as I did, but I thought it was pretty much right on! Since I teach high schoolers, I identified with the teachers while they battled some of their situations (cell phone abuse, sarcasm, administration...you get the point). The theatre was nothing like I imagined it to be, but it was cozy and I could tell the employees took pride in their theatre. I will definitely go back again! If you are a teacher, you need to go see "Chalk". You can see the trailer at http://www.chalkthefilm.com/. I highly recommend it!

Back from Florida, Trip 1

Lisa and I made it back to Springfield with no problems--a little more sun, a little more knowledgeable about reading and its place in our current education system, and a LOT more tired! I will post some of our better pictures to show that we did have some fun while we were supposed to be "working".

We arrived in Orlando around 9 pm on Saturday and boarded the bus to our hotel. Since we were staying at the Coronado Springs Resort, we did not have to pick up our luggage. The Magical Express service did that for us! Once we checked in and found our room (after wandering aimlessly for a few minutes), we decided to get settled in. Our luggage arrived right around midnight, and I was grateful for my PJs.

The Lexile conference began on Sunday with a Pre-conference workshop on the background information about the Lexile system. That was pretty good info because while I knew what it was, I had no idea about the complexity of the whole program. For those of you who don't know, a Lexile is a number assigned to both a reader and a text. For example, the book To Kill a Mockingbird is 870Lexile. A reader would also need to be within 770-920 Lexile range in order to understand the content of this book. The nice thing about Lexiles is that it takes a grade level completely out of the equation. For our high school kids who aren't as skilled at reading as their peers, a Lexile is not nearly as degrading as saying "you read at a 3rd grade level".

The pre-conference workshop was over by 3:30 pm, so Lisa and I decided to use this night as the chance to go to the Magic Kingdom. Lisa had never been to Disneyworld before, and as this was my 6th trip, I couldn't wait to show her around my home away from home. She was completely won over by all of the magical atmosphere of the Magic Kingdom. We had a blast that night! We watched the new Mickey's Dreams stage show, rode some of the rides (Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World, Space Orbiter), took in Mickey's Philharmagic 3D show, watched the Spectromagic parade and Wishes fireworks show. The park was open until 2 am for resort guests, so we were there until they closed the park down! In fact, we were the last people they let in the ice cream shop on Main street before they closed the doors. We had to get a little snack before leaving!

Needless to say, we were dead tired for the next morning. We did not go to bed until 3:45 am and had to be up by 7 am for the conference the next day. Somehow we made it through the day, and we both learned A LOT from the presenters. We both agreed that an administrator should have also been at this conference to take back what was learned and could be put in place for next year. As it is, we will present our findings, then see if anyone takes us seriously.

Tuesday and Wednesday brought more of the same--conference during the day, playtime at night! We went to Downtown Disney both of these nights for dinner (Planet Hollywood and House of Blues) and shopping. We bought most of our souvenirs from here, and it seems most of the stuff I bought was for school. I guess when Todd and I go back I'll spend my money of more fun stuff! We flew back on Thursday, and Lisa and I were both sad to leave our hotel and the Orlando area. As we were boarding the plane, I turned around and said, "Goodbye Orlando. Goodbye Mickey. See you in a month!" I thought the lady in front of me was going to punch me!

We made it back to town, and Todd and Soze were both really glad to see me. Now I get to have fun planning our July trip!

Florida--here I come!

A teacher friend, Lisa, and I are leaving on Saturday to go to Walt Disney World for a Scholastic Lexile Reading conference. I hope I learn a lot because I am going to need it for next year. Of course, I am excited to go to the conference, but the fact that this conference is IN WDW just thrills me to my toes! I actually get to stay ON site (pictured to the left) at Coronado Springs, which Todd and I have never done, and the cool thing is I don't have to pay for any of it! Yea me! Todd is a green-eyed monster right now, but he'll get over it. After all, we are going back in July for our family vacation, so he can't be too bitter.

I did find out yesterday that I may be in for several surprises next school year. We are implementing a Freshmen Academy program for those incoming 9th graders who definitely need some help. These are students who have already been identified as being dropout candidates. Most of them failed nearly all of their classes last year as an 8th grader, and they are just biding their time until they turn 16 and can legally drop out of school. Well, I will have this lovely bunch of 24 students (15 boys, 9 girls) for 1st hour Reading, 2nd hour Integrated Science (as a reading resource), and then again 1st hour for English in the spring. WOW! Let's hope we all learn to love each other b/c we will be together the entire year! Our school social worker is going to try to get this group together before school starts in August to go through the Army ropes course. I have never done this, and to be honest, it scares me a little, but I really, really want to be a part of this training so I can bond with my kiddos. I envision "Dangerous Minds" and "Freedom Writers" when I think about this particular group. I know that we will be celebrating the little successes throughout the course of the year. "You came to school all 5 days this week! Awesome! Let's party!" Who knows how this year will turn out and I often think I am in wayyyyy over my head, but I have faith that I can help at least one of these guys. When August rolls around, I may be asking you all to pray for me! I may be begging for help!

Since I am leaving on Saturday, this will probably be my last post until I come back. I will have lots of news (hopefully) from WDW! I will tell Mickey that you all said hello!

A $60 pedicure is so not worth it

After working at the computer all morning at school, I decided it was time to use my gift certificate for a pedicure. Todd had given me one for my birthday back in April, and I wanted to wait until school was out to "treat" myself. Well, I thought the pedicure was nice, but I definitely won't pay $60 to have another done any time soon. The girl who did my pedicure was great--she talked to me about my summer, work, tattoos, etc. When she started filing my toenails, I thought I was going to come out of my seat. I felt like Shrek did when his toenails were filed! I usually just clip and go, but no....she had to clip, file, then rub my cuticles away. I truly didn't think I was going to make it that far! Once the painful part was over, the rest was a breeze. I got a foot scrub complete with razoring off my calluses (cute image, I know), hot water massage, parafin dip (again, painful and HOT), then I took about a 20 minute nap while my feet were wrapped in plastic and allowed to soak up the wax. I didn't think I would have fallen asleep, but the girl woke me up when she came back in the room. She took the plastic off my feet, peeled the wax away, then gave me a foot massage. This was by far the best part! Once the massage was finished, she colored my toes and sent me on my way. All in all, the pedicure lasted about an hour, and I gave her a generous tip, but I think I will wait a while before doing that to my poor toenails again! I am, however, making a massage appointment for when I come back from Florida. I leave on Saturday!!! YIPPEE!!

School is out for summer!

Hallelujah! We are officially out of school. This year felt as if it both crawled and flew by, all in the same way. It seems like it was just a few months ago that I was packing up my old room downstairs to move up to Room 217 to teach regular English. It also feels like forever ago that I had my 4th block class from you-know-where! Now I have learned that I will no longer be sharing a room next year. While I am super thrilled to have my own space (a full size classroom!), I am moving downstairs to Room 101, which is *technically* a home ec room. Now it will be mine for the new Reading program. I will have to give up the room during my conference period so another teacher can teach in it, but other than that, it is all mine! I don't have to travel anywhere to teach from a cart!!! That is the real thrill! So, needless to say, I have been spending my time once again packing to move. I will miss Hayley, my roommate this year, but I will see my English buddies all the time. The pic posted is my English I kiddos. They loved making their "Romeo and Juliet" masks and acting out a scene from the play. I truly enjoyed *most* of my students, and they taught me so much. Bless them!

Back from Kansas City

Todd and I made it back from KC all in one piece last night. I was exhausted (and still am!). Since school still isn't out for another 4 days, we had to come back late last night after the Drag Races were finished. That was the whole reason we went to KC in the first place--Todd has started a new tradition of seeing the NHRA Drag Races in Topeka with his dad. He has not totally won me over yet, but the more I watch the races on TV, the more I'd like to see them in person. I will make Todd a "complete" wife if/when I ever go with him to the races!

Todd met Ron Capps, one of his favorite drivers.

Todd also saw plenty of action from John Force, an NHRA legend.

Robert Hight, part of John Force's team, had a very bad wreck when his car caught on fire and was engulfed in flames in less than a second.

While Todd and his dad enjoyed some father/son time, Todd's mom and I made a girl's weekend out of it. We went shopping on Saturday--I found another awesome scrapbook store called "Archiver's Scrapbooking"! While I love the stores here, the last two I've visited (in KC and Memphis) just blew me away. They had soooo much more stuff than our stores here. It was a little overwhelming! I could totally see how someone new to scrapbooking wouldn't have a clue where to begin in those stores. After shopping for some new scrapbooking papers and the Creating Keepsakes "Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking" magazine, Todd's mom and I went to Border's to look for books for my Reading class next year. I am teaching a semi-new class next year, and there is ZERO curriculum for the class. I will basically be starting from scratch. I did find some interesting young adult novels at Borders that I thought might grab the kids' attention.

On Sunday, after Connie and I got back from church, we decided to try out the KC Zoo. That was very tiring! I will say this--this zoo tries to keep their animals in as much a natural habitat as possible. Because the animals are so spread out, our feet and legs felt like we had walked for miles and miles and miles. I hadn't looked forward to sitting down in an air-conditioned car in a long time, but I was ready for the car when we returned!

Well, since I do have three more school days left, I better be going to bed! Good night!