First of all, I went to the mailbox today, took out the mail, and proceeded to have an orgasm right there, looking at my mail. I unrolled my copy of Entertainment Weekly, and there was my boyfriend, Patrick Dempsey, staring up at me. Personally, it's one of the best pictures I've ever seen of him. I then proceeded to look through the magazine (only his pics), and they just got better and better. A few hours later, I finished looking through the magazine, and the very last pic in the entire magazine was him, shirtless, laying on a bed. What are these people trying to do to me?!?!

The real reason I started writing this entry was because of Colbie Caillat.  She's basically my favorite artist right now.  The thing about her is, she became pretty popular through MySpace, and then her music SLOWLY started being played on the radio.  I'd say I heard her song played on the radio very sporadically at the beginning of her career.  As she started becoming more popular, I heard she was touring with the Goo Goo Dolls (another one of my all time fave bands) over the summer.  Well, no one would go to the concert here in the cities with me, so I was pretty bummed out.  I went home to Milwaukee for a couple days over the summer, and my mom and I ended up going to Summerfest.  Low and behold, the Goo Goo Dolls and Colbie Caillat were playing for free at the Miller Oasis Stage.  I was one happy camper.  After the summer, I heard her music being played more and more on the radio.  Now I hear it on the stations that I never even thought would play it!  This weekend that station is giving away tickets to a concert she will be doing in November.  I didn't get to win any today beacuse I was busy, but while I'm doing homework tomorrow, it is going to be my mission to win those!!!!  If you haven't heard of Colbie, check her out.  She's awesome!!!!!

These videos are from Summerfest.  The first two are Colbie singing Bubbly.  I had some other ones, but I accidentally deleted them off my camera.  BIG bummer for me!  The others are the Goos singing some of my faves: Broadway, Iris, Name, and Slide!!!!

For one of my grad school classes, part of our homework was to write a, "Where I'm From" poem and post it to our class website. We had to talk about items at home, family, memories, etc. Here is my poem. I haven't written poetry in a LONG time, but I'm pretty please with the way it turned out:

Where I’m From

I am from shoes left at the front door
From a house filled with cleanliness
I am from walls decorated with photos
Time worn, just taken, and not yet printed
Kitchen tables, beds, and couches
Happy, lonely, sad, joyous

I see the huge rock out front
Friends jumping
Don’t get hurt
I’m from the basketball dribbling
Using the garage roof as a hoop
From dead branches flying in the air

I am from the playground across the street
Swinging high in the air
From the cul-de-sac with my bike
Learning, bruises, scraped knees
I remember my friends
Mom not letting me run 4 blocks to their house

I am my grandfather’s granddaughter
Always helping me, never letting me give up
My hero, my friend, my angel
You can do it, kiddo
That’s my queenie
I love you

I am from Christmas trees, stockings, and ham
From menorahs, dreidels, and matzo
I am from embracing two religions
And every different holiday
I remember every different family member
Then, now, and in the future

I am over thirty journals
Who first said hello in October, 1992
I am photo frames, photo albums
And vivid pictures only I can see
I have memories, thoughts, hopes, and dreams
Kept inside, holding on

A few weeks after the bridge collapsed Brena and I went to see it. They still had the bridge next to it closed, so our pics weren't that great. When my parents were here for my birthday, we went back. Here are some of the pics I took:




















It was surreal to see it in person. Now that I went back to the U, I drive past it every Thursday, and there are always at least 30 people on the bridge next to it taking pictures. So sad...

Ok, so I have to tell someone this story, and right now it's you. I'm still laughing about it. In my 3rd grade class we are studying geography. Yesterday we talked about maps and globes, and what kind of information those things give us. Today we were looking at this website where kids could click on continents, countries, states, etc. Since we live in Minnesota, we clicked on it, and were taken to a detailed map of the state. Next to St. Paul, was a big red star. Next to the whole map was a legend that said what that star meant. Here is a conversation that took place in my class:

Me: What does the red star next to St. Paul mean?

Student 1: Ummm...it's where Santa Claus is, and where Santa lives.

(an administrator happened to be in my classroom, so I look at him, and just about lose it in front of the whole class)

Student 2: Santa doesn't live in St. Paul! He lives in the North Pole!!!

Student 3 (who happened to be sitting right next to me): Santa doesn't even exist!

Me (whispering): Shhh!!! Some kids don't know that!

Student 3: WHAT?!?!?! SANTA REALLY DOESN'T EXIST?!?!?!

Oh man, so many funny things! I guess I can see how a student confuses St. Paul with the North Pole, but come on! You really think Santa lives in St. Paul?!?! Then, I'm pretty sure I ruined this kids life by confirming that Santa doesn't exist. What made that part so funny was that he was trying to get other kids to believe Santa didn't exist, and then when I told him to be quiet about it, it turned out he still believes in Santa! Thank goodness someone else was in my room to witness the hilarity!

I'm sick of being known as the person who will do everything...

I don't know what my LJ deal has been.  I do know it hasn't been posting, in about 3 months...

In those past three months, I have signed an official contract for my job.  I am no longer on a one year contract.  I can't believe I'll be going into my 3rd year of teaching!  That's completely insane!!  Our class sizes for next year were getting to be so large, that we're adding another section of 3rd grade.  I'm going to be that person's "curriculum mentor" aka buddy, person who teaches them things, answers questions, helps them out.  I find that to be quite funny because I've only been in 3rd grade 1 year, compared to two other people on my team who have a significant larger amount of experience.  That just goes to show who does all the work on my team! ;)  I sat in on some interviews today, and one candidate was phenomenal.  It would be her first year, so maybe I'm rooting for her because I know she needs to start somewhere.

I am officially signed up for the rest of my grad school classes.  The undergrad/grad program I was in before I started teaching led me to almost have my masters degree.  The only thing I have left is a 2 credit class where we do a project, and a 2 credit elective class.  I'm taking a Literacy for ESL students class, since our ESL population is so high.  Plus I found out the professor of that class is one of the co-authors and researchers of the spelling program my school will be starting in the fall.  I'm so excited to be done in December!!!

Brena bought a townhome, and is graciously letting me live with her again.  She really just wants me to help her pay her mortgage! ;)  I'll be moving into the basement.  We'll start the whole moving process in the middle/end of July.  If anyone is free the weekend of August 3rd, let me know and I'll count you in for some big moving!!!!  Hey, I'd probably even buy you dinner!!!  It's a really nice place.  I'm excited to move out of an apartment building.  I'll even get to have a garage spot, which made me so excited I almost pissed my pants.  I've NEVER EVER lived in a house.  While I was growing up I lived on the top floor of a duplex, then I lived in the dorms, and after that I've only lived in an apartment.  Even though this isn't my house, it's somewhat a rite of passage for me.  Like I'm finally an adult.  It actually truly means a lot to me that Brena is letting me live with her.  That's what best friends are for, right?

This summer I'm nannying and working at Lakeshore once again.  I'm seriously sick of working.  I just don't want to do it anymore.  Other than that I'm looking to get a lot of school stuff done, make appointments, and get all kinds of other stuff squared away.

I hope my LJ family is doing well!!!!  Missed ya!!!!

I could not love my job more right now.  I am so happy with things that are going on right now.

First, on Friday we had a lock-in for one class that won a reading contest.  One of my very good friends won, so she went with her class (5th grade).  Then one of my other very good friends and I are the student council leaders for the school (student council was putting on the lock-in) so the two of us went also, along with the student council kids in grades 3-5 that were not in the winning class.  Our dean of students, principal, and one other person from my team also came.  It was so much fun!  I wasn't sure how much fun I'd have since I'd have to be at school for 16 hours, but it was awesome!  Being with all those 5th graders really made me miss teaching 5th.  I miss being able to joke around with kids and actually have them understand it.  It was also really fun just to get to know students that I don't normally see during the day.  The best part of the night though, came when we began our talent show.  One of the other teachers and I decided to write a rap:
We're the best teachers in the school
We're here to show you just how cool
We teach you reading, we teach you math
We're here to get you on the right path
Cheesy, I know, but when we performed it, I almost wet my pants.  We had on hooded sweatshirts, so we both put our hoods up to give us some "street cred".  Hahaha!  As we started, she was beatboxing, and I was doing some Beastie Boys type dance.  Hilarity ensued!  At the end, some of the girls in the audience started going, "Heeeyyyy, hooooo, heeeeeyyyy, hoooooo".  Thankfully, no one took pictures or videos!  It was so out of character for me!  I never usually do stuff like that in front of people!  It was awesome!

Last week we went to our Kinderbuddies, and instead of reading with them like we normally do, we brought along some math materials to do centers.  We had one center where the students could write on wipeboards.  My students would write simple addition problems, and the kindergartners would write their answer on the wipeboard.  I heard one of my students turn teacher on her buddy and say, "You don't even need a wipeboard right now, you're going to listen to me!"  I told her not to be bossy, but on the inside I was laughing hysterically.  Buddies are a great time for my lower kids to feel more confident about themselves.  I love the role my kids take on when they're the older kids!

Today another amazing thing happened.  After the kids were gone, I was talking to some other teachers, and our dean of students came into my room.  He says, "Michelle, you are never going to believe what just happened!".  He goes on to tell me this story about how one of my students had started to walk home and found something in the snow (while she was still on school property).  She picked it up, and walked back into the school.  She immediately went to the dean's office and said, "I found this in the snow, and I don't know what to do with it.  I know I can't keep it."  She found a $100 BILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I couldn't believe it!  I mean, I'm not 100% sure that it was real, I didn't have one of those pens to mark on it to see if it would change colors or not, but it sure as hell looked real!  I was so proud to know that she gave it back.  I don't know what's going to happen with the $100 now, but I definitely think my student should be recognized in some way.  A lot of our students wouldn't turn the money back in, so I was thrilled that she as so honest!

Let me tell you, Grey's and The Office are back!!!!!  I was worried about both shows for the past couple weeks (before they came back from hiatus), but now they are back with a force!  Between last week and this week, they were AWESOME!!!!!!!!!


Well, I'm off to NOT sleep, since that's what I do nowadays.  I'm pretty much an insomniac...it sucks.

Part of the curriculum in my school is a character education program.  Each week, we have a "word of the week".  This week, our word is "promptness".  The kids have a workbook, and we always do part of the workbook and have a discussion.  There are always quotes said by famous people in the workbook, relating to whatever the word of the week is.  This week, the quotes were all about time.  All of a sudden one of my students says,
"We should add a quote that says, 'Time waits for no man' by Ms. F's class"
I just laughed, and said that would be good.  In my head though, all I could think about was Grey's Anatomy, and this moment:

Meredith (voiceover): Time flies. Time waits for no man. Time heals all wounds. All any of us wants is more time. Time to stand up. Time to grow up. Time to let go. Time.

And in my head I heard Mat Kearney's All I Want, and pictured Derek telling Meredith he loved her, and Mer helping Izzie take her prom dress off.  Then I had to snap myself back into reality so I could go on with my day...

Is it the 11th yet, cause I'm going through some withdrawal?

I only have one thing to say about this movie: AMAZING!  I knew I wanted to see this movie because of all the hype surrounding it.  I especially wanted to see it before the Golden Globes, too.  I'm always very leery about movies that have a lot of build-up and talk surrounding them.  I'm usually disappointed when they're supposed to be these great movies.  However, with Dreamgirls, I was more impressed than I ever thought I'd be.  I loved everything about it.  I watched American Idol when Jennifer Hudson was on it.  I don't remember my thoughts or feelings on it, but after watching this movie, I have no idea how stupid Fantasia Barrino won over her!  Every single song she sang was wonderful!  I thought she was even better than Beyonce!  Not that Beyonce was bad, but Jennifer had some jaw dropping performances!  I'm not really sure what else to say, except, GO SEE IT!!!!

I'm so frustrated right now!  After school, I got an angry  voicemail from a parent.  She said, "I'd just like to know who has been cutting my daughter's hair in class.  This is the 2nd time it's happened, and the first time I ignored it, but now I'm a LITTLE frustrated."

Ok, at conferences, this family told me their daughter has cut her own hair at home.  She came to school today with bangs that looked pretty messed up.  She's a total tattletale, so if someone cut her hair against her will, I would've heard about it immediately.  I called the parents back, but they weren't home, so I had to leave a message with an older sister.  I don't know what to do, because I know when I get them on the phone they are going to be PISSED!  They're going to ask why I wasn't watching her, and I don't know what to say except, that I have 20 other kids to watch!  Personally, I don't think the girl even did it at school!  I'm so mad that I'm afraid I'm going to say something mean on the phone!  Of course I'll hold myself back, but I hate when parents yell at me, and I can't yell back.  This is going to be interesting...

So, some of my friends at school and I are always talking about The Office.  We think the show is hilarious, and we always want to pull pranks on other people in school.  Well, one of my friends who watches it, had kind of a rough week.  I wanted to do something to cheer her up, so instead of us pulling a prank on someone else, I pulled one on her.  I had her cover my classroom while I "went to the bathroom".  What I really did was go to her room and steal her stapler.  That night, I took it home, and put it in some jello.  The next day I had one of our paras take it to her in the middle of the day.  She came down, laughing hysterically.  It was awesome.  Here is what it looked like:

This weekend went by way too fast, as usual.  I had so much schoolwork to do it wasn't even funny.  That could be because I gave about four tests last Friday.  We're coming up fast on report cards, so I wanted to get all of my end of the unit tests in so I can have them graded and ready to be evaluated!

Saturday I worked at Lakeshore from 8-4.  My store manager called while I was there, and she says to me, "I just wanted to tell you you won another contest."  I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, because we don't even have any contests going on at the store.  She goes on to tell me that each store in our district had to nominate someone for "sales associate of the year", or something like that.  I'm not sure if that was the exact title of the nomination, but it was something along those lines.  Basically it's for people who've done a lot for their store and customers.  So, my manager tells me she nominated me, and of all the stores in our district, I won!  I'm not sure how big of a deal it truly is, but I feel honored!  So it was a pretty good day for me.

Today I went to the library to get some books for myself, and some that I need for school since we don't have them at our library.  I also went to Target and got my car washed.  It was near 50 degrees here today!  It was a heat wave!  If only this is how our whole winter would be!  A girl can hope for a miracle, right?!?!  I miss having Grey's on Sundays.  In fact, I'm missing Grey's on Thursdays now too.  I can't take a hiatus until January.  The people at ABC are trying to kill me!

Ok, I didn't go to bed until about 3am last night, so I need to catch up on my sleep tonight!

I love long weekends!  Since we had conferences last week, we had half of Thursday, and all of Friday off.  On Friday I had a doctors appointment, and nothing else planned!  My apartment needed some serious cleaning, so I made a list of all this stuff I had to get done (cleaning, among other things).  My list ended up being about 21 chores long, but since it's a long weekend, I wasn't too worried about getting them done.  It's only Saturday, and the only thing I have left on my list is to write my lesson plans for next week!  I feel so accomplished!  I seriously get a high out of getting a list of things done.  I love that my apartment is clean and organized.  I love that tomorrow the only thing I'll have to do is iron my clothes and make some food for the week!  Ya, that's right, I'm planning on getting my lesson planning done tonight.  I'm the biggest geek in the world.  I love cleaning, organizing, and lesson planning on a Saturday!

By the way, I have a new school website, check it out!

Grey's is back in action, baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

School has been good lately.  My team is getting along, I like my kids, the staff as a whole is having fun.  We're all good.  My parents came to visit me a week ago, and they came to my class for our "fall party" (yes, FALL, not Halloween!).  One of my kids was in top form, so they had fun watching him act like a crazy lunatic.  Overall they loved being there.  One of my teammates even brought cupcakes in honor of my dad's birthday.  It was really nice.  This was the first time my parents got to meet any of my students.  My kids just ate it up that they got to meet my mom and dad.  Ok, I'm tired so I better be heading to bed.  We have three days of conferences this week, but a long weekend!  Woohoo!