advent

I have 90 classes until Christmas vacation. Not as if I'm counting or anything.

Mother's Little Helper

One of my students came to class drunk today. I thought he was going to hug me.

And here I thought that only my students led me to drink. However, the feelings must be reciprocated!

"Please don't step in the blood."

This is how I greeted my 5th hour class today. There had been a fight during my 4th hour class and I was still waiting for someone to come and clean up the blood on the floor. It's so strange. They were fighting over nothing. I'm just glad that it was boys. Girls fighting is so much worse, because they really want to kill the other person.

I thought this was interesting today for various reasons.

1. I had my second formal assessment of the year during 1st hour. I thought it went poorly. But that was until 4th hour, when I learned just how badly a lesson can become.

2. My 2nd hour class complained to me that I am a bad teacher. They said they want someone better, with more experience. Sorry, kids, when I spend more time writing incident reports instead of lesson plans, you're not going to get the highest quality of education.

I'm definitely in a valley of my teaching career. I'm impressed with how many teachers have recently told me to "hang in there." I wonder if I look downtrodden. I'm feeling it, but I thought I was better at hiding it. Perhaps they all just know that November and December are tough times for teachers - new ones especially.

Dan Goldin Day V

I can't believe we're already preparing for Dan Goldin Day V. I would like to make a motion to declare the following song to be the official song of this year's festivities. This suggestion actually comes from my roommate, Jacob. This will be Jacob's first year celebrating DGD, and we're happy to have him shrugging off work with the rest of us. It's nice to see how DGD continues to grow out here in Wisconsin.

Halloween Block Party

Last night was my first Halloween as a homeowner. I had enough trick-or-treaters to go through 3 bags of candy. I would have had more kids stop by, but I turned off my porch light and went to the block party instead. The block watch organized a party so that families could have a safe evening out, despite our verge-of-shady neighborhood. It was great to see so many people out. I don't think we all realized how many families are on the block. It's nice to see a community forming. The party was pretty cool. They had a bonfire in the middle of the street and a DJ playing music. A neighbor put on a show of juggling fire. And several people in good costumes were milling about. The saddest part of the evening was when we overheard the ghostbuster explaining his costume to a group of 8 year olds. They had no idea what a ghostbuster was, but they thought his ray gun was pretty cool.