Ways to upset me in one sentence:

Tell me your child is anxious to come to school every day.
Tell me that I made you call your kid a liar.
Tell me that your child thinks I don't like him.

Sentence #3 is surely the worst thing you could possibly say to me. For one, it's not true. Some of the kids are hard to deal with at times, but I honestly like all of them. Secondly, that I could even project such an attitude is incredibly distressing.

I can't talk about this right now. Suffice it to say that, for the first day in our short school career, I have absolutely zero desire to go to school tomorrow.

Allemand right and swing your partner

'What do you do on the weekends?' you might ask? Well, let me share my exciting and incredibly trendy night-life experience: Last night, I went contradancing! One of the parents at school invited an intern (also 24) and me to this random folk dancing place...and none of us had any idea what to expect. It really could have been anything from Native American ritual dance to bellydancing; I had no idea. Luckily, contradance is neither; it's based in New England and is rather like square dancing. Which makes it semi-close to ceilis in Irish dancing. Which made it easier for me to learn.

Oddly enough, it was so much fun! I think I danced every dance, except for the waltz (I don't waltz well) and was grinning like mad the whole time. The experienced people there seemed amused. I probably enjoyed myself the most out of the group I came with; they were all ready to leave by 10, and I could have stayed longer. So fun! The only downside was a few people there...some kind of creepy guys. (as in, er, you don't have to hold me that close; back off.) So I would probably be better off finding a partner to go with if I went again...but how do you find a guy who's willing to contradance?

Moral: Those phys.ed. square dance lessons in elementary school really do come in handy.

Swedish-speaking genius warrior from Bolivia who played bass for The Barnyard Ladies

You Should Learn Swedish

Fantastisk! You're laid back about learning a language - and about life in general.Peaceful, beautiful Sweden is ideal for you... And you won't even have to speak perfect Swedish to get around!

What Language Should You Learn?

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Genius Warrior. Where You Lived: Boliva. How You Died: Natural causes.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

Your Band Name is:

The Barnyard Ladies

Band Name Generator

Apparently this website knows more about me than I know about me. Either that or my subconscious is screaming to get out.

Who uses the word 'cockles' in a sentence?

Only Moose. Good to hear from you, o my brother. How's that Cockney coming?

Speaking of dialects: Arr, I missed Talk Like A Pirate Day! Every time I think of that (admittedly not often), I think of the time we went out for coffee in Berlin and discussed how one would talk like a German pirate. Matt has an impeccable German-pirate accent, just for the record.

So this week has been an interesting one... My coteacher has been out sick for the past four days; teaching by yourself when you're used to sharing the responsibility is quite the Umstellung. (sorry non-German speakers; can't think of the word right now) Tuesday was hell on a stick, rather like a corn dog. (name that inside joke!) I managed to break down twice, once almost in front of the afternoon kids. Thank goodness my director had arranged for me to observe a kindergarten class at her daughter's school on Wednesday, which subscribes to the same classroom management theory as our school. It was nice to actually see theory in practice; it does, in fact, work. However, it made me realize how much easier things are in English: The kids all listen when they're supposed to! And they follow directions on the first (or second) try! And you can talk with them about things like choices and how they are distracting other kids and they'll understand! Whereas it's all I can do to teach my kids 'please' and 'thank you'. Though they do have Toilette pretty much down.

Anyway. Thursday was great; Problem Child (Who Shall Remain Nameless) was not there and it was amazing how well the class worked. Unfortunately, he was back today and class involved a wrestling session on the floor and people being sent to the office. The kid has a real problem with authority and he honestly does not care a bit about other people, including how his behavior affects them. It's a bit scary, actually; I hope he's not the next psychopath.

But let's end with a cute kid story. When I returned to class on Thursday, the afternoon group seemed to be very glad I was back, and one of them was semi-attached to me for the rest of the day. Aww, my kids love me.

Reason #2471 why I am psychologically screwed up

Said by my dad to me just now on the phone: 'So are these first-graders you're teaching?'

Two weeks of school = total exhaustion

You know it's a bad week when you have to refrain from bursting into tears in front of your (school's) director. We had a staff meeting on Thursday which was supposed to be a half-hour long but turned into about two hours. And by the end of it, I was literally falling asleep in my chair. When we finally finished, I had a new list of stuff to do and stuff to work on, and I still had to plan for the next day. Thank goodness my coteacher took pity on me and walked me (quickly) through everything. It was a very bad day... when I finally got home, I was so tired that all I did was have a bowl of cereal, watch a half-hour of 'Scrubs' and go to bed.

I've been criticized so much this week that it's depressing. Of course, it's all been in the 'constructive criticism' sense, and clearly I need some work as a teacher (hello, it has only been two weeks), but it's starting to get a bit much. Apparently I need to work on my stage presence, posture, and facial expressions. Also, I can't forget to send more info home to the parents, do two evaluations on my kids, keep anecdotals on the students (which I haven't started yet), split them up into small groups more often, plan more rigorous lessons, move through the curriculum faster, do some more assessments, and choose things from a catalogue to order for the classroom.

Oh yeah, and one kid punched another in the face yesterday. I mean, he purposefully drew his fist back and smacked this other kid in the cheekbone. For no good reason.

Is it too late for a career change?

Newspaper article

Just noticed that my school has a fairly decent website on which you can find that newspaper article that I mentioned a while back. See if you can find the part about the 'kindergarten teacher' who 'lacks experience!'

Monday night randomness

Today we sat down and did The Rules in English. And let me just say that speaking through a puppet is harder than you might think. My coteacher had the brilliant idea that would let us get around the 'no English' rule: bring in Offizier Regel, Hand Puppet Extraordinaire Who Also Happens To Speak English. With both groups, we went through how to behave in school, what it looks like to be respectful and a good listener, and how to use the 'Denkpausestuhl.' The afternoon group seemed to understand better than the morning kids, surprisingly enough, especially since the afternoon kids drive me crazy. Must be something about not getting their afternoon naps.

Annoying Parent Anecdote: The mom of our youngest student (4 years old) asked me today if there is anything I can do to especially challenge her child. The little girl is incredibly cute and apparently really wanted to start school, and she also speaks three languages. So she's a bright one, but she's only four. Mom was saying today that she was thinking about entering her daughter into the first grade...where one of the students is nearly eight. Not a great idea. I told her I'd see what I could do to find some extra activities or something but thought, let this girl just be a kid, why don't you? School is not just about learning how to decode texts. She obviously has a pretty good time in class, now that she's loosened up, and besides, it's kindergarten. At this point, we're lucky if we get everyone lined up and ready to go in less than 10 minutes. Phonics is a little bit farther down the road, right after learning how to flush the toilet.

Besides, I learned how to read when I was three and didn't jump any grades. And look how I turned out. (ha.)

I found out today that there is a flu going around; two first-graders went home with fevers and a preschooler threw up. We proceeded to wash down every visible surface with bleach. Ah, the joys of teaching elementary school.

Side note: I just completed the New York Times crossword puzzle. In ink. Ka-ching!

You know you're a huge dork when...

... you actually tell people, 'Yeah, I posted about [current discussion topic] on my blog the other day and my friends said...'
... you covertly steal the WiFi connection from the seminary across the street
... you actually use the word 'WiFi' in a sentence
... you get very excited when your new cell phone arrives and the first thing you do is play around with the ringtones and read the owner's manual

Regarding that last point: Yay for cell phones! Or at least having a phone number of my own! Guess I just need to work on memorizing the number now.

Also, thank goodness the week is over. During the past four days, I've spent about 43 hours in school. Why yes, that does average to nearly 11 hours a day. With a supposedly 'duty-free' half-hour lunch during which I have to vacuum the mess left by the morning kids, wipe down the tables, set up for the afternoon, and decide with my coteacher how we should adapt our morning activities for the timing/antics of the afternoon session. Actually eating lunch is not part of the program.

The whole immersion thing is not quite working out as well as we had thought, either. In theory, it's a great idea; there are all sorts of studies that prove it. But for kindergarten, where the kids don't even know what school is all about or how to behave in a large group, giving all directions and setting rules in a foreign language is not terribly effective. How can you expect them to behave well when they don't even know what the rules are? I think I'm going to have to break into English for a bit next week, so at least I know that the kids know what is expected of them. (Don't tell my principal.)

Anyway, let's end on a good note, shall we? Cute kid anecdote of the week: A non-German-speaking five-year-old said to me, on Friday: 'Englisch sprechen?' Of course I said no, in German, but this made me laugh and shows that maybe the kids are learning something.

First day of school

My knees are red and sore from kneeling all day, my feet are killing me, I can't speak either English or German right now, and I was in school today for 11 hours without a lunch...but we all made it through the first day! No one cried, was homesick, had a bathroom accident or was wounded; I'd call that a pretty successful day. It didn't go nearly as smoothly as I had hoped, though...we really only got through one or two lessons today. Apparently getting school pictures taken and learning how to walk in a line (which they'll all have forgotten by tomorrow) and quieting down take a really long time to learn, so we didn't get to other fun things like reading stories or touring the entire school. But at least that's one less thing to plan for tomorrow.

Also: it was all I could do not to reprimand the kids in English by the end of the day. They were little space cadets, not paying attention at all, and once I had the attention of three kids, I had to catch a few more, and by the time the second group was listening, the first had already wandered off. And the afternoon group, in particular, seemed to have the opinion: 'If I don't understand what the teacher is saying, well, I just don't need to pay attention anymore and I definitely don't need to watch what she's doing so that I could figure out the instructions by myself.' Quite the loooooong day.

I think everything for tomorrow is planned, so I'm off to watch 'Queer Eye' (thank god for cable!) and to bed early. Sounds like a good precedent for the rest of the year, or at least the post-school-day part.

Getting my act somewhat together

My life revolves around school. I don't think they pay me enough for this. (come to think of it, when do I get paid? one of those questions I really should ask...) I was at school for another 8 hours today and managed to get the first and second days of school planned. On one hand, yay for having written plans! On the other hand, if it takes me four hours to plan each of the rest of the school days, I will shoot myself in the face. It's great working with a co-teacher, since she has a lot of ideas and it's nice to be able to talk to someone about this sort of thing, but it takes us an eternity to get anything down in writing. She and I also seem to be fairly different personality types (she: chatty, friendly, experienced teacher, outgoing, prone to brainstorming and tangents... I: want to get stuff done, not so talkative or experienced, logical and sequential). It's hard to say whether it would be faster if I worked by myself, but I suppose I'll be doing it all on my own soon enough.

Also, our school made the paper! I was going to link to it but apparently need to be a subscriber to the online newspaper. I hate to sign up for tons and tons of online things, not to mention the fact that I don't have an address yet. But perhaps when I get a chance, I'll copy down the section of the article that refers to me and post it here. (Hint: It doesn't mention my name and is not particularly flattering.)

Hey, today's post is rather self-centered. Enough about me, let's talk about me! Go ahead and write some comments about me! Seriously, though, once I get the classroom up and running, I'll hopefully have the chance to think a little bit about the outside world; I feel that school is sucking the life out of me right now.

Some rainy Saturday

It is so nice not to be in the school building. I was originally thinking about going in today but then decided I needed a break from the cinderblocks for a while. So the classroom can stay a disaster for a little while longer...I'll be in tomorrow and Monday anyway. (Nothing says 'Labor Day' like some labor!) On the agenda: cleanup, organizing everything, making labels and nametags and bulletin boards. Woo hoo.

Instead, I've spent the day so far driving around town with the family with whom I'm staying (make sense?), searching for apartments. Actually, getting the grand tour, opening a bank account and searching for apartments. Rather takes my mind off the fact that lesson plans for the first day aren't quite together yet. In the meantime, I am very tempted to fall asleep for a bit before going to a colleague's birthday party later. Probably not the best idea, but it's gray and raining outside and this couch is really comfortable and I'm so tired...

Now officially under contract

Well, I made it. Two entire days at school are now under my belt, as it were (ha!)...and when I say 'entire days', I mean '12 hours yesterday and 8 hours today.' Needless to say, this post will be rather short, since my brain is done for the moment. So, in summary:

• Tuesday: Arrived in the afternoon, went over to school, gave parents the grand tour, went over to the family's house where I will be staying until I find a place, returned to hotel.
• Wednesday: Got dropped off by parents, rearranged and cleaned up classroom*, had 2 hours of blood-borne pathogen and medication training, continued arrangement and cleaning of classroom, ran home to change, met parents and kids at open house, discussed curriculum/general stuff with co-teacher and school director, finally got back at 10.
• Today: training, discussion of rules and regulations, generally discussing everything to death...all in German.

* Apparently some parents had come in to paint the room. It looks much nicer now, prison gray having been replaced by standard institutional white, but they moved all the furniture to the center of the room and neglected to put a tarp over it or the carpet. So I had to vacuum, scrub at the carpet to get out all the remnants of paint dust, and then vacuum the paint dust. And dust the furniture and all the stuff. Good times.

On a non-school-related note, send Heather some happy thoughts! She will be returning to the US on Sunday (?) after having spent over a year in Germany. Welcome back, Heidi!

Somewhere in Illinois

Jesus H. Christ, I am never moving again. I mean it. If I need to spend the rest of my life in a small broom closet somewhere, I do not care. Never again am I packing up (not even all of) my worldly possessions and hauling them halfway across the country. Pamela, how did you do it??

Allow me to clarify:

Packing obviously sucked. I have already waxed poetic on that subject, so let's just say that I stayed up till midnight, have entirely too much stuff, and still managed to forget things (damn phone cord!).

Time in the car today: 13 hours. Thirteen. And at least six more to go tomorrow.

And for those of you wondering why my personality is the way it is, my parents and I spent the majority of those 13 hours in silence. Not because we were in bad moods, though this admittedly changed throughout the course of the trip. We just don't talk. Yay, family togetherness time. And right now, Dad's watching CNN, Mom's reading, and I'm on the computer...god, are we dysfunctional.

Midwest drivers (no offense, midwesterners) are craaaaaaaazy. We were doing 80 but being cut off and passed like we were grannies in a Cadillac. Not to mention the two hours we spent in stop-and-go (but mostly stop) traffic outside of Chicago. During rush hour. Under construction.

Good God, do we really have to do this again tomorrow? At least I don't have to make the two-day trip back, I suppose. Because I am staying in Minnesota FOREVER.

sidenote: Sorry about the bitchiness. But I really needed to gripe to someone, and the Internet community was the most easily accessible. Thank goodness for WiFi at the hotel.

Meet Willis, the telephone**

It's times like these when I realize exactly how much I despise moving. I've done it every year for the past six years, so you'd think it would get easier by Year #7... sadly, this is not the case. I hate looking at every single item I own, thinking, 'Will I need this at any point this year or sometime in the future?' and then placing it in the appropriate box/storage tote/area of floor. Making it even better is the fact that I don't know how long I'll be in MN...it could be a year, it could be a while longer. At least at college, you know what people's expectations are; I feel like I'm making this up as I go along.

Grr. Packing sucks.

On the plus side, Amvets is getting tons of stuff from me! Hope those bags of clothes come in handy, guys!

On another plus side, I've got a new toy! The new printer/copier/scanner* I got yesterday is now my new best friend. (And named Punky Brewster, according to Moose. His new kick is naming appliances after 80s sitcom characters. I guess so they get along better with Fred the cello and Woodrow the violin.) Yay for technology and ways to keep me amused. Now I can finally print out some of those pictures I've been taking for the past two years.

Enough procrastination for now. Hopefully I'll update before I leave, unless I throw myself despairingly into a suitcase first.

*sounds like I'm trying to be a technology snob, but the thing is really not that top-of-the-line. Nonetheless, it's quite cool.

**Edit: Apparently I misunderstood Moose the other day on the phone: see his comment for details. Of course, this means my violin is now nameless; I thought I had dibs on 'Woodrow' (everyone needs a favorite president) but I guess not. So, new contest: Name Bridget's Violin! Winner will be duly rewarded with cookies.

Quiz!

Good sign for my future students, eh?


Lupin - Defense Against the Dark Arts

Harry Potter: Which Hogwarts professor would you be?
brought to you by Quizilla

Red tape

All right, so now the euphoria of New Job-ness has worn off and I'm just now starting to realize that I have scads of work to do before leaving... on Monday! Just got an application for temporary licensure from the school, which might not have been too bad except for the fact that it requires a copy of my Praxis scores, which are in existence somewhere, just no place where I can easily find them. And I need to get fingerprinted and pay for that. Again. And I need to get in contact with Witt and see if they can fill out a section of this for me, since it needs to be certified and clearly the teacher certification requirements in Ohio are nowhere near as intensive as those in the great state of Minnesota and thus need to be checked over.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I also have to pay over $80 in fees? I'm tempted to tell them, you want me at the school that badly, you help me out with these fees. There has got to be grant money somewhere. I'd also settle for petty cash.

It's a good thing I didn't go with everyone to drop Moose off at school yesterday; gives me about 3 days at home with no one around (i.e., no distractions). However, no people around also means that no one's here to nag me to get stuff done. Quite the dilemma. Hence me sitting here at the moment posting to this blog.

How is everyone today?

Guess who's now employed!!

I have a job!! Let's all do the happy dance! *happy dance ensues* Amazing, eh? I come back from Germany jobless and directionless, and 5 weeks later, I've signed a contract. It may or may not be what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I guess I won't know until I try it.

So clearly, the weekend in MN was successful. I'm not going to give you the entire rundown here, because it involved a lot of touring around and schmoozing and got rather repetitive. Of note:

• Met with school staff (all 4 of them), and they're all so excited to get this school up and running. One is an ex-Fulbrighter, and we compared stories of the East. Also went out with him and two friends on Saturday and had a great time. Too bad all the 'Anchorman' references were lost on me; I have got to see that movie.
• Met with a few parents at Open House, and the guy that donated the frequent flyer miles took me out to dinner with his family. I guess I made a decent impression on them, because the school hired me despite the interview...
• Had the interview from hell. I was so nervous and apparently had prepared for the wrong questions. Plus, I freeze up in a group of adults larger than 2. Long, awkward pauses and sounds like "uh" abounded. But...
• Demo lesson went pretty well. One of the kids was determined not to cooperate, so I just started in with the other one (yes, there were only two). And since I had brought materials of my own to show them, this was obviously fascinating and Kid #1 found himself sucked in. Ha, my evil scheme worked!

So it was actually a nice weekend (job offer being a bonus!), though I must say that I don't want to have to try to impress so many people anytime soon. (whoa, too many infinitives there. does that make sense?) It's really exhausting. Some people are cut out for this whole meeting-and-greeting thing, but I'd much rather just say hi as needed and then hang out along the side and watch everyone. Or maybe if there were a limit on the number of people I could possibly meet in a day. ('Sorry, sir, but I've already met five other people. I'll put you on my list for tomorrow, though, okay?')

Anyway, though, I don't want to overshadow the fact that I have a job!! That pays! More than below the poverty line! Who's coming out to visit me?

Who's in the what now?

(Shameless plug: Today's subject brought to you by Solas. Excellent music.)

I'm flying to MN tomorrow...let's make a checklist, shall we?

1) Packing: not even started.
2) Lesson: planned, but not written down and materials not gathered. Basically what I'm doing is having the kids draw themselves and a few things they like to do, and that's it. I couldn't come up with any other activities that we could do in 15 minutes and that don't involve any sort of background knowledge or follow-up activity. I mean, you've got to get to know the kids before you just do any sort of lesson with them, right? Does that make sense or does it sound like an excuse? Because right now, I feel it could go either way...
3) Research: semi-done. Do you know how hard it is to find basic info on a random city? And Internet sites comparing the costs of living in various cities aren't particularly helpful if you aren't earning a salary in the first place and thus have no point for comparison.
4) List of possible questions to ask: uh, brainstormed a bit but not really
5) Thoughts about questions they could ask me: none.

Obviously, I'm in good shape here. I'm rather nervous, but not as nervous as I feel I should be...which, of course, makes me even more nervous, only for the wrong reason. At this point, I'm just trying not to think about it too much, cross my fingers and just be myself. I mean, they liked my application so they'll like me, right?

Right?

Bet they don't teach you that strategy at the career center.

Today's gold star goes to...

...Heather! Good guess on the (Inter)National Chain Store of Hell; you got it on the first try! I'll think of an appropriate award and send it to you. (perhaps a...certificate? Ha ha ha...I crack myself up.)

And to Pamela: Is Hy-Vee pronounced like 'ivy' except with an H at the beginning? Because I don't see how else you could say it.

Not much else to report today, except: The long-lost GBS CD has been found!! I don't shriek much (if, in fact, ever) but I actually made a similar noise for joy when I found it in my desk the other day. Quite possibly my favorite CD, and back after a two-year hiatus. Maybe I should clean a bit more often.

Off now to research MN and plan a lesson.