We Need Your Phone

I love my junior high kids.  They're so much fun.  Three boys stay after school frequently - we'll call them Nate, Gus, and Walter.  Nate and Gus are the principal's sons, so that's why they're here, and Walter is their best friend who lives right next to the school.  The three of them have such a blast after school, and sometimes if I need a break from my work I'll go join them in a volleyball game or a ping pong tournament.

A few weeks ago, the three boys went into the kindergarten room and played the piano.  They sang along with it at the top of their lungs.  My room is at the opposite end of the hall, and I could hear them yelling.  I went into my friend Trish's room and said, "WHAT are those three doing?"  She didn't know, but we decided to go find out.  We went into the kindergarten room and found the boys rollicking in their kindergarten sing along.  I did what any good teacher would do in this situation:

I got it on video.

Yesterday after school, the boys were making fun of Trish and I for our volleyball skills (which really is quite unfair since I was playing in a skirt and heels).  I told them that it didn't really matter, because I would have the last laugh when I played the video of them singing kindergarten songs at their graduation in May.

They demanded to see the video, not believing that I actually had it.  Of course I did have it, so I showed it to them.  They freaked out and said they needed my phone so they could delete it.  There's no chance that I was going to give it to them, but they persisted about needing to "borrow my phone" for the rest of the day until I left.  I left school and went home, thinking the issue was over.

That night I got e-mails from both Nate and Gus saying "We need your phone!"  I chuckled and deleted their e-mails.   By the next morning, I had forgotten about the entire thing.  I  got to school, though, and I suddenly remembered because my door was covered in papers that said "WE NEED YOUR PHONE!"

Then I walked in, and this was right inside the door:

 The chairs were blocking my entrance to the room, and the papers on them said "WE NEED YOUR PHONE!"

They had written "WE NEED YOUR PHONE" on a bunch of papers and put one on each desk:

And this was on my whiteboard:

"SC" stands for student council, which periodically provides pizza lunches for the school.  All three of the boys are on student council.  I guess I'm not getting any more pizza.

Last but not least, this was on my desk (each paper said "We need your phone!"  and the papers were shaped into the word "NOW":

What goofy guys.  It was a really funny way to start my morning, though, and I laughed a lot.  Then I sat down and typed up a "bill" for all of the paper, tape, and markers that they used up.  I even threw in an extra $100 charge for the labor to take it down and $1000 for the emotional trauma caused by the entire experience.  I gave it to them during class.  

Phewf - tomorrow's Friday.  Thank goodness!

Day 3 of My Confinement

I have not left my house - not even stepped foot outside - for the past 65 hours.  There's a good chance I won't get out until tomorrow morning, which would bring the total to 86 hours in my house.

I know that might not seem like a lot at first glance, but think about it for a second.  SIXTY-FIVE HOURS.  If you stay home for a full day and do nothing, maybe you spend twelve hours sitting around?  And, if you're anything like me, by the end of that you're going stir crazy because you're bad at sitting around and you want to do something.

Well, I've been doing that for SIXTY-FIVE hours.

Kalamazoo is experiencing a record-shattering blizzard, so we've had school called off for the past few days.  Church was cancelled on Sunday.  I haven't been able to leave.  The wind-chill outside has been in the -30's.  It's not that I don't like my house...I do...but I'm getting a bit sick of it.  I've reorgazined cupboards that don't need reorganizing.  I've cooked more food than Rex and I can eat.  I've sat in our rocking chair reading random children's books while slowly rocking my sanity away.

I never thought I would say this, but I really hope we don't have another snow day tomorrow.  This storm has got to stop.  I've got to get out of here.  I have no clue how Anne Frank did this for two years.  I mean, not to minimize her situation - I've spent three days cooped up because of a blizzard and she spent two years hiding from murderous Nazis, but still.  She stayed in their little three-room apartment for two years and never left?!  How did she not go insane??  I guess by writing that fabulous diary of hers.  Maybe I should start a diary.  I've started to think of my confinement in terms of a prison sentence: "When I finally get out of here..."  Actually, that complete thought was, "When I finally get out of here...I am so going to get some pie."  I don't really know why that was my first thought...it just sounds yummy.  A new Grand Traverse Pie company just opened up down the road, and I think that would be a good way to celebrate my freedom.  What will really end up happening, though, is that my first act of freedom will probably be to go to work tomorrow morning.  I don't think I will have ever been so happy to get to work, though.  I'll probably have horrific flashbacks of snowdrifts trapping me inside my house.

Welllllp...  it's 10:48 AM, and I've already blogged twice.  What did Anne do when she wasn't writing in her diary?  I guess she crushed on that Peter guy and fought with her mom.  I can't do that because I'm alone.  Hmmm...  I'll have to think of something else.  Perhaps I'll write a post-mortem sympathy letter to Anne.  That must have been really horrible.  I guess maybe I don't have it so bad after all.

The Snow Day Game

I forgot this wonderful part of living in Michigan - The Snow Day Game.

What, you don't know The Snow Day Game?  Yes you do.  It goes like this:

"It's supposed to snow tonight?  How much?"

*In a panic, go online to check the weather.  Check really quickly because maybe the forecast will change if you don't check it fast enough.*

"Whoo hoo!  You're right!  It is supposed to snow!  Wait...when are we going to get the most of it?"

*Go back to your online search.  If the snow is supposed to hit between 10 PM and midnight, you're screwed.  Get your lesson plans ready, cuz you're going to work tomorrow.  If it hits between 12 midnight and 3AM, you've got a shot.  If the bulk hits between 3 and 6AM, you've got a good chance.  If the worst isn't supposed to hit until after 6, then you're back to lesson planning.*

"We're supposed to get five inches between 3 and 5AM?  SWEET!  I'm gonna skip lesson planning and watch a movie!"

Then you keep your fingers crossed that you do actually have a snow day, because you never really know.  You do the bare minimum of work that you'll need for the next day, and you go to sleep praying for as much snow as the clouds can drop.  You wake up, run to the window, and think "YES - THIS HAS TO BE A SNOW DAY," but you don't really know until you see the glorious name of your school scrolling across the closings list.  And then, when you finally do see your school's name, then you react like you just won the lottery and Miss America at the same time:

"SNOW DAY!!!  I HAVE A SNOW DAY!  THIS IS THE BEST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF EVER!!  I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!  THIS IS SUCH A SHOCK!!!  OH MY, A SNOW DAY?!?!?!  THIS IS SO GREAT!!!"  and you hop around for about five more minutes to celebrate your victory, and then you promptly go back to bed for three more hours.

I've been living in Nevada for the past two years, so I haven't been able to play this game.  In Nevada, you never get a surprise day off.  They're always planned.  Only in their wildest dreams to Nevada students get to hear, "Go back to bed. You don't have school today."  For Michigan students, this is practically an annual certainty.  Still, for some reason it never gets less exciting.  Even when we don't end up with a snow day, the excitement of maybe getting a paid day off for no reason is still really fun.

I love snow days.  Right as I type this I'm playing The Snow Day Game.  West Michigan's having a blizzard to end all blizzards, and we're supposed to get more snow tonight.  There's a good chance of a snow day tomorrow, so I'm blogging and catching up on some magazine reading instead of doing lesson plans.  I really should do lesson plans since we could potentially have school tomorrow....  but I'm really hoping for a snow day.  It would be a great way to start the new semester.

Here's to winning The Snow Day Game!

2014 To Do List

I love to-do lists.  I'm not sure why...  I guess they keep me organized.  Maybe it's the sense of accomplishment I get when I cross something off of the list.  I've become sort of addicted to that feeling.  Back in August when I was prepping for the beginning of the school year, I actually had to make a list of all of my lists so that I would be able to keep track of them.  No lie.  A few days ago Rex asked if we should stop by Meijer, and I went into panic mode.  "We CAN'T!"  I exclaimed.  "I haven't even made a grocery list yet!"  It would perhaps be funny if I was joking, except I wasn't.  Going to the grocery store without a list is like going into battle with no weapons.  It's complete lunacy.

So anyway, I like lists.  Therefore, instead of making New Year's Resolutions, I'm just going to make a New Year's to-do list.  Then I can come back next year and see how many of the items I checked off (hopefully all of them...  Unchecked items taunt me).  I guess any items that don't get checked off can be rolled over to my 2015 list.  Okay.  Here we go.

THINGS TO DO IN 2014
(not in order of importance)

1. Join a volunteer organization
2. Go on a snowmobiling trip
3. Celebrate my 25th birthday by doing something cool
4. Watch Rex graduate in Vegas
5. See some of my old Vegas students
6. Start seriously looking at houses to buy
7. Read the entire Bible
8. Get my librarian book published
9. Write at least four more magazine articles
10. Go on a girls' weekend to somewhere cool
11. Learn at least two new recipes per month
12. Pay off all of my student loans
13. Start paying off Rex's student loans
14. Start writing my new book (but I don't know what it's about yet)
15. Run a 5k
16. Go to Lake Michigan at least twice
17. Go visit Cara at college
18. Grow a plant from a seed (it has to actually flower to count)
19. Do an anonymous random nice thing
20. Make cookies (I had to put at least one thing on the list that I already did this year - that's how you make a good list.  Put at least one thing on that you can already cross off so that you feel like you have a good start).

Well, if I do all of those things it will officially be a successful year.  I wish I could fast forward and see how many get finished!