Epiphany!

I just bought the soundtrack for "Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins" from iTunes. While I sit here listening to "Stay Awake" and "I Have Confidence" it occurs to me that Julie Andrews might be singlehandedly responsible for my desire to be a teacher! Now, if only I could find 2 - 7 musically inclined children, I could really live the dream!

Fun Times!

Well, we've had quite a busy weekend around here. I took a half-day on Friday to meet Chud at his school and go out with some of his teacher friends that I haven't met all year. I know that sounds selfish, but I think I deserved a half-day. I have emergency days that don't transfer to next year so I have to use them or lose them, right? We went to the high school baseball game and let me tell you, it was a nail biter! Then we saw a really stupid movie that isn't worth mentioning.

On Saturday, we got up early and drove around Germantown and Old Louisville looking for apartments. What a day! We saw five places and the one we really liked was the first one we saw, so we didn't feel comfortable signing a lease after seeing only one apartment. By the time I called the owner at the end of the day, it had already been rented to someone else. :( We're having a hard time finding the perfect place. The other ones we saw were either too big and too expensive, too small and too expensive or total dumps. However, I left a million messages with a million landlords and today I got some good leads on a couple of different places.

We're going Tuesday night to look at an apartment on Castlevale Drive. It's in a four-plex, 2 bedroom with hardwood floors and a one car garage! It's in our price range and the man on the phone sounded SO nice. I'm really hoping that place works out. We also have an appointment Wednesday night to see an English Tudor-style Manor apartment building in Cherokee Park. It's only a 1 bedroom and it's a little higher than our price range, but it looks amazing from the outside. Hopefully between these two, we'll find one that works, because I'm pretty tired of looking already. I'm ready to start packing up and heading out!

It's pretty scary to know that I'll be moving in four weeks to a brand new town in which I have NO JOB! It's okay, though. I'm beyond nervous about it. I'm in the Zen state of mind where I know that no matter what happens, it'll all work out in the end. Cross your fingers and say your prayers that we get that apartment on Castlevale!

Oops!

Today during a science lesson on weather, I was trying to say "warm air mass," but instead I said.....WARM ASS!! Afterward I exclaimed, "Oh my! Excuse me!" We all had a nice long laugh over that one.

Workin' hard or hardly workin?

I've been dreading this weekend for a while. I have two night classes this semester and I have to say, they're not so bad. When big assignments fall on the same week, it gets a little hectic, but so far I've been able to plan ahead and get all of my Monday night classwork done early enough to pencil in some Tuesday night classwork time. Until this week.

I missed my Monday class two weeks ago because we were on our 4H field trip - totally worth it, except as make up work I had to summarize all of the articles presented by other students and write up a book review to make up for my teacher's lecture. Not hard, just time-consuming. I finished most of that last weekend, on top of the four articles I had to present last Monday. No big deal. But THIS week is a doozy. I had a ten page paper to write for each class, one was just a position paper and all I had to do was read a bunch of articles on-line and decide who I agree with (if you saw my post about the weather lady from Washington, you can probably figure out how I feel about this Math Wars issue). But my Tuesday night Social Studies class was a bit more involved. I had to conduct a small-scale research project based on all the research I've read this semester, write up my results and interpret them in light of the three textbooks we've been reading, then make a ten minute power point presentation to present to my class this week. So, like an idiot, I waited until this past week to do my research project.

What's so bad about last week, you might ask? Well, my 21 students had portfolios due on Friday, which meant I had 21 portfolios due on Friday, AND I scheduled parent conferences this week. I was the worst teacher in the world this week! I gave my kids packets of busy work EVERY DAY so I could spend all day conferencing on portfolios, then I rescheduled any conferences I had from 3:30 - 4:30 so I could steal some kids from the after school program to do my research, then I had conferences at 4:30, 5:00, 5:30 and 6:00 Wed - Fri, then I had to go home and get ready to write these stinking papers. In summary, at 7:00PM on Friday night, I was looking at 2 ten page papers, a book summary, and a power point presentation. I wanted to kill myself.

Well, folks, it's Sunday night, and I am SO proud to say, I did it all!! Not only did I DO it, but I finished at 2:00 AM this morning, so I still had time to go to Keeneland with my family. And can I tell you a secret? While I was sitting at my kitchen table, tip tap typing away on my laptop, surrounded in books and articles and papers and highlighters, I looked up at the clock and it said 12:30 (AM). I smiled to myself because I actually enjoyed what I was doing. No lie. What I wrote was GOOD. My research is GOOD! For a brief moment I thought to myself, "I could do this for a living." At this point in the school year, I am so sick of grading papers, and calling parents, and making lesson plans. At this point in the school year, a PhD in education doesn't sound all that crazy. I could totally do it. And I'd be GOOD at it.

Fishing with Fourth Graders

We had such a great trip to 4H camp, and I promise to blog more about all the wonderful details later, but there was one "quote of the day" I just had to share before bed. I'm WAY to tired to write about it twice, so here's the email I just sent to my Dad. Enjoy!

Hey Dad! I wanted to email you a funny story about our overnight field trip to the 4H environmental camp. I don't know if Sally told you, but we took the fourth graders to Carlisle, KY Monday and Tuesday for some good old fashioned outdoor fun. [Chud] is on spring break so he came along as a chaperone and I'm SO glad he did. He kept a good eye on my boys for me while they were in the boy's cabins.

Anyway, since I had lots of chaperones on the trip, the 4H people asked me if I would facilitate the fishing activity all day yesterday. They had four groups going on four activities in hour-long rotations, and since I haven't fished in a long while, I said sure! I got all the poles ready for each group, gave a little tutorial on how to hold a pole, walk with a pole, put a worm on a hook, cast a line, and most importantly, how to take a fish off a hook. You'd be amazed at how many of our kids have never held a fishing pole before! Anyway, after my little talk, they all grabbed a pole, spread out along the bank and started trying their best! We caught lots of fish, mostly bluegill, but I think we might have had some small mouth bass in there too - there was definately another kind that did NOT look like blue gill. Anyway, I was walking behind all of my hard working little fishermen (and women), thinking about how lucky I was to have a Dad who took me fishing when I was in fourth grade. Some of them were really picking it up quickly and I was so proud! Then, while, I was basking in all of my fishing wisdom and glory, a little boy walks right up to me and says, "Mrs. Fasciotto? Can I have another worm on my hook? This one's dirty!"

Oh lord, what ARE they teaching in schools these days??