Signs That The End Is Near

While I was making what I hope to be my final copies of the year, I noticed this sign posted on the bulletin board in the copy room:

First I read it as if I was my 2 year old niece. "Papoh ah gon. It ah gon." This is reminiscent of the time we were sitting in church and my 3 (almost 4) year old niece wanted some crackers. My 2 year old niece, who was holding a HUGE bag of crackers, clutched the bag to herself and said "It ah gon, Pay. (That's how she says her sister's name.) It ah gon."

Perhaps they could have put a few conjuctions in the phrase. THE paper IS all gone.

Then I read it as if it came from one of my student's writing stories. "Paper ran go away."

Let me explain...

At the beginning of the year my principal informed me that I was going to have a unique student. He was Japanese. He and his family had just moved from Japan two months ago. Only the dad spoke english. He chose for me to be this boy's teacher because I had been to Japan the year before....for 10 days....so I was highly qualified.

For the first two months or so, my little Japanese student sat, stared and listened to all that was going on in class. He would watch what the others were doing and follow along. He would make hand gestures to the other boys when they played. We learned some Japanese phrases which made him smile when we'd try to pronounce them. I learned how to say a few things in Japanese to "get the point across" on the assignments. I had my trusty "English to Japanese" phrase book with me. We all learned how to write a few characters in Kangi.

He knew how to say "Teacha, can I go za bataroom?" and "Watah, please, teacha, watah?" (Bathroom and drinks are VERY important.)

Due to what I attribute to very diligent, hard-working, caring parents, he began to thrive in school. There were a few incidents when he would get frustrated and cry because of communication issues at recess. I'd send home notes to his dad who would try and figure out what happened. And then he'd send me notes back. We have a journal full of conversations.

The first story my Japanese student wrote in class made me very happy. It was humorous (for a first grader this can be rare). It followed a pattern. It was all in english, a language he only started learning 4 months ago. This kid is SMART.

Here it is in his words:

"Man is eat a cheese but cheese ran go away.

Boy is eat a steak but steak ran go away.

Woman is eat cake but cake ran go away.

Man is cry boy is cry and woman is cry.

Everyone is cry."

I did help him re-write it with correct grammar so the final product sounded something like "A man wanted to eat some cheese, but the cheese ran away." I like the original version best, though.

The class thought it was funny. Now that he's more comfortable in class, can converse more and knows how things work, he is a very outgoing boy. Everyone loves him. He makes jokes even III laugh at sometimes.

He is now one of the top readers in my class. He has always been the top math student in the class.

And he has changed the way I think. Now I read signs like the one above: Paper ran go away.

I like it.

They Say It's Your Birthday!! It's My Birthday, Too, Yeah!!

Today is your birthday. We didn't get to tell you Happy Birthday, but we did the next best thing and tried to be as close to you as we could. Were you waving at us? Please, don't ever get tired of waving at us.

I think about you a lot. Lately I've been trying to remember stories, things we used to do, things we used to say. I'm glad I wrote a lot of them down, otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't have remembered them.

Still, I don't remember a lot.

I've been wondering why I can't remember all the things we used to say and do. I've come up with a reason, at least something that eases my mind on the matter. The fact is, we used to spend a lot of time together just doing day-to-day stuff. And no one remembers all the day-to-day stuff they used to do. We usually remember the big things, the exciting things, the things that didn't happen all the time things. And you and I, we just did...things....all the time. But that's not bad. It just means my memories will come as I live life.

They'll come when I'm up at the cabin with our families and I'll remember we used to make scavenger hunts for the younger cousins and siblings.

They'll come when I see a no-bake cheesecake and I'll remember when we made one when we were left alone by ourselves because our parents went to Disneyland with our younger brothers and didn't take us. But we didn't care. And I got kind of sick from eating so much of that cake.

They'll come when I see a pair of ripped jeans I'll remember what you did when your jeans got too old...

They'll come when I sit at a cubicle with a computer and I'll remember when I was your "trainer" when we all worked at the hotel reservations place. And you told me you were scared. Because you knew you were in love. And that meant you had to get married. And that meant you were going to be a dad. And I was happy and excited for you, but also a little sad because I knew things were going to change forever.

They came last night when I was cleaning the kitchen floor and I put on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and listened to the entire CD as loud as I could. (Thanks for not minding, Zack :) ) And I remembered when you got that CD and we sat in your room and listened to every song. We read the words, we sang along and we looked at the cover and read all the names of the people there. We didn't recognize most of them. And we laughed at how weird the Beatles looked in those outfits. And why did John Lennon have his hands in his pants on every page? We learned all the lyrics to every song. We really liked all the music. (Well, almost all the music. "Within You Without You" was a little too weird for our taste, but we still enjoyed listening to it and making fun of it.) Every song makes me think of what we said and how we felt about the music. We used to laugh at the line "And of course, Henry the horse dances the waltz". Oh, of COURSE he does. And we'd always try and catch the extra "RITA!" and "Hoo!" that Paul sings in "Lovely Rita" and "When I'm 64". I tried to write the clarinet part for that song and play it, because you said I should. You said it would be cool. And it was. Everything you said would be cool WAS cool. To me. :) We brought in Tippy, our dog, for the last song to see if he could really hear that 15 seconds of kilocycle at the very end. We weren't impressed with his reaction.
I know all the songs on that album still. I listend to that album a lot. Funny though, I don't remember ever listening to it in my room or by myself. Thanks for letting me hang out in your room. Thanks for being a great big brother.

Happy Birthday. Say hi to the fam. :) ("It's....the fam!") I hope they sang "Happy Birthday" to you in the traditional family way: as loud and as off key and you can possibly get.

Dino Fun

Today we took the first grade on a field trip to the Dinosaur Park. It was fun, exhausting, and nothing went too terribly wrong.

The day started out a little off when one of my students (whose mom had signed the note indicating that she would be a volunteer that day) came to school and said "My mom isn't coming. She had to go to work this morning." I counted my blessings considering the teacher next door had a mom cancel her commitment to go because she was put in jail.

I still had 2 volunteers and so I was able to put my class into 3 groups: one group of 5 and two groups of 6. I have 17 kids in my class. I know. You're all jealous. And I can do math, too. Soooo jealous.

I gave myself the group of 5. Not because I wanted an easier group, but because I gave myself the infamous "Sam." I'd like to say, first off, that I didn't lose Sam at the park. I'll leave it at that for the moment.

After the business of getting ready (getting the kids to eat their breakfast quickly, making sure they brought their hats, finding out who brought a home lunch, getting the lunch count to the lunch ladies, loading the lunches on the bus, getting a final head count of adults, getting a check from the office for our admission, giving instructions to the volunteers, loading the kids on the bus, going over the rules for the bus "NO part of your body should hang out the window..." and making sure they were all settled in) we drove to the park.

When you're a kid and you're outside of school, in a bus, with your class, everything is cool.

"Look, teacher! An American flag!"

"Coool! McDonald's!"

"Look out the window, teacher! Dirt!"

And when you turn street corners on a bus, you must yell. You MUST.

Once at the park, I took my group of 5 boys and we started looking at everything. There was SO. MUCH. TO. SEE!!!! The boys didn't spend more than 2 seconds in one spot. They didn't stop talking about what they were looking at. They were running most of the time. It was a blast.

Here's a rare shot of them standing still.

Here's what they looked like most of the time.

Here's what caught their attention for a full 15 minutes. They stayed in the same spot!

After lunch in the "Dino Den", I let them play on the playground for awhile. It's a pretty cool playground. It has a gigantic tree they can climb in and then slide out of. It has a lot of dinosaurs that the kids can climb on. And there's a brachiasaurus you walk under to get to the playground. After about 10 minutes I had to round them up for our "educational presentation" in the Education Building. I counted 4 kids. Where was Sam? I had told him not to leave the playground area. He had nodded that he understood and said "okay". Yet, he wasn't there. I finally found him about 10 minutes later. He was not in the playground area.

"Sam, I asked you to stay in the playground area."
"I know."
"Then why did you leave?"
"I wanted to see the ducks."
I could not reason with him past that fact.
Aaaand that's why I had Sam in my group.

After we got back to school and after we ran through a dress rehearsal for our opera (a whole nother story), I put on "The Land Before Time" and enjoyed an hour of peace and rest.

Except when Sam got hungry.
"Teacher, I'm hungry."
"Really? When you get home be sure and have a snack."
"I'm really hungry right now."
"I see. Well, we don't have any food right here. You'll have to eat when you get home."
"I was really wishing we had two lunches today."
"That's too bad. We only had one today."
"And I'm really hungry."
"Sam. I don't have any food."

He finally turned around and went back to the movie.
I'm going to miss him over the summer.

What Happened to my Time?

About a month ago, due to what I believe to be heavenly promptings, we decided to take our T.V. to the D.I. (D.I.= Mormon Thrift Store) We still have a T.V. in our room, a T.V. downstairs in the "exercise room" and our beloved HD T.V.. We use that one for special occasions such as Jazz Playoff Games (when they're NOT on cable), and movies (NeverEnding Stoooorryyyyy..... Atraaaaayooooooo!) We basically got rid of the main T.V. The one we always turn on when we're bored. The one I turn on when I'm home alone and need some background noise. The one I watch when I get home from work. The one we'd turn on at 9:00 at night to watch King of Queens and Scrubs. Well, we got rid of it. And I think it has been one of the best decisions we've ever made.
I don't miss T.V. .
The less I watch it the less I am in touch with the "Hollywood Wacko World". The less I have to hear about people I don't care about doing things I'd really rather not know. The less I have to watch scantilly clad girls flashed on the screen for a commercial for soap, or books, or lotion, or whatever.

You'd think that I'd have a lot more spare time now that I've cut an hour or 2 of T.V. watching out of my day. Not so. In fact, I think my time has shrunk. How in the world did I manage to watch T.V. and get ANYTHING done? I go to bed after 11:00 almost every night and I still didn't get it all done.

Here's what "it all" is that I want to get done every day:
Exercise
Read my scriptures
Work in the yard (20 minutes of weed control)
Work in the house (20 minutes of clutter and dirt control)
Read scriptures with Zack

That's it. Even eating is optional. Doing all that, plus teaching school, takes up my entire day. I do have to admit that once I'm outside working in the yard 20 minutes sometimes doubles...or triples.... but STILL.

How do you Domestic Heros do it?

Night Light

Tonight the power went out.

It's amazing how electricity, or lack of it, changes everything.

Zack came home from a business trip today. Instead of coming home and going to sleep, like he should have done, he came to school and helped me get ready for end of level tests next week. He took things off my walls, watered the class plants, sharpened the pencils, and created an Olympic chart that all the other teachers were jealous of. They even took a picture of it! If another teacher takes a picture of something you've done, you KNOW it's good.

What makes all of the things he did even more amazing than they sound was that he should have been sleeping. He had just finished training a night shift in Mexico, drove across the border, and caught a flight back home. He'd been awake for over 24 hours when he got to my school.

My plans for him when we got home were to feed him dinner, put on a movie, and then coax him to sleep as soon as I could. ("I'm not tired!") With the power going out, those plans changed. We didn't watch a movie, instead we just talked. :) When I finally coaxed him to sleep around 8:00, I went in the kitchen, found all the candles I could find, lit them, and put them on the table. Then I read. I read for two hours by candlelight.

At 10:00 the power came back on. I was glad...kind of. I turned on a light. I put the dishes in the dishwasher (I pre-washed them first. I know! I think I'm addicted or something) and started it up. Then I turned off the light, sat down amongst my candles and read some more.

Happiness

Happiness is having your family over to your house for family night.
Happiness is watching your nieces squeal everytime your dog chases his ball.
Happiness is watching your husband and brothers teach their nephew how to play basketball.
Happiness is watching that nephew make almost every basket he attempts.
Happiness is watching how proud that nephew is of himself and knowing how much he needs that right now.
Happiness is sitting around sharing testimony with your mom and sisters-in-law.
Happiness is being outside late at night with a full moon.
Happiness is your mom singing to "The Lovin' Spoonful", standing up through the sun roof in her car, and dancing to the music.
Happiness is watching your nieces copy her.
Happiness is playing Hide and Seek outside on a warm summer's night.
Happiness is hiding with your 2 year-old niece and having her silently turn to you, put her finger over her mouth, stare at you with her big eyes, and go "shhhhhhhhh".
Happiness is watching your nephew dance around just like his dad used to do.
Happiness is knowing his dad is there, watching, and loving that we're all together and we're dancing with his kids.
Happiness is knowing we're going to be okay.
Happiness is being with your family forever.