Tagged

So Kauti "tagged" me and now I have to answer these few questions about myself for you all. I hope you find my life interesting...

A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning

B. Each player answers the questions about themselves

C. At the end of the post, the player tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment, letting them know they are tagged.

10 years ago I was: 16 years old. I had just got my driver's license and my first boyfriend. I was a sophomore at Lassiter High School and I ran track. Sometimes at practice we would have to run a few miles around town. I remeber one time when a few of us just happened to run right by Bruster's Ice Cream for a little mid-run snack...probably wasn't the most productive track practice ever!

5 things on my to do list today:

1) Burn a CD for school (I taught my kids "Why Does the Sun Shine?" by They Might Be Giants as part of our solar system unit, and they're performing it for the school this week).
2) Watch Days of Our Lives (Yes, I'm hooked and I still record it everyday!)
3) Take Gob for a walk
4) Start reading "The Kite Runner"
5) Either make dinner or convince Rob that we should go to PF Chang's for the grand opening tonight (I am so excited that it is finally open!)
(Just a little side-note...had I answered this question this morning, the answers would have been completely different with things such as "print report cards, plan math lessons, grade papers, copy worksheets, etc.)

Things I would do if I became a billionaire:

1. Pay off Rob's loans
2. Travel the world!!!!
3. Go to grad school without worrying about the cost
4. Buy one of those old mansion houses in downtown Charleston
5. Buy a cottage house in Carmel By the Sea on the beach
6. Buy a private jet to fly everywhere I want (I'd have to move this up to #2, before Travel the world)
7. Get a maid! I hate cleaning!
8. Spend the rest of my life traveling from place to place
9. Now that I think of it, let's make #1 QUIT TEACHING!!!!!

3 of my bad habits:

1) Biting my nails...I have tried to stop so many times but now I have just accepted that this is the way I am.
2) Not doing the dishes. Sometimes we let them pile up for a week before we wash them all. That's why I like having company over, because it forces me to clean.
3) Getting too comfortable with watching TV all night long. Sometimes that's all I feel like doing when I come home from school. I admit it, I really like watching TV.

5 places I've lived:

1) Utah (Mountain Green)
2) Virginia (DC area)
3) Georgia (Marietta)
4) Utah (Provo)
5) South Carolina (North Augusta)

5 jobs I've had:

1) nanny
2) early morning toilet scrubber
3) receptionist
4) cafeteria chef
5) teacher (1st, 2nd, and 4th grades)

Something most people don't know about me:

I like taking tests! Rob and I took a community astronomy class a few years ago and I was actually disappointed that there wasn't a test at the end. I like a good challenge. And I like to see how much i know.

I tag Lisa, Maria, and Rob

And it even does Macro...

Yes, that's right, my camera takes great little macro shots. How Fun!

Finally, a picture of Rob!

Rob got me my very own camera for Valentine's Day! It's so tiny and cute. Well, there's not much around here to take pictures of the past few days, except Rob and Gob. So that's what I took pictures of. But these are probably some of the first pictures of Rob that we've had in 5 years. Up until now, he's always been the one behind the camera.

So here I am, asleep on the couch at 8:30 on Valentine's. Rob comes in and wakes me up to come look at the Moon. But he doesn't wake me up in the traditional way. No, I wake up to Rob taking a picture of me with a highlighter stuck up my nose! Oh, the romantic things my husband does for me on Valentine's Day. But back to the Moon. I had never seen this before, but there was a huge halo around the moon. After a little bit of research, I found that it is a 22° halo, formed by the refraction of light through ice crystals in the high, thin cirrus clouds. The old legends say that however many stars are inside the halo is how many days you have until it rains. Well, research says that it is sometimes a sign of rain (based on the types of clouds that come in with certain air currents that bring rain) but not a sure sign. Just thought this was interesting and wanted to share the photo.
And by the way, we aren't celebrating Valentine's Day until tomorrow because Rob has a test in the morning, so he is spending the whole night studying. So it wasn't so bad that I was asleep on the couch at 8:30. We really do love each other!

More Frustration

So my new (well, not new, just finally bugged me enough to blog about it) frustration is not just with the future of our country politically speaking (see last post), but along similar lines. As many of you know, teaching school is not my favorite thing to do...by far. And teaching in a low income area has made me like it even less. You see, I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the reality of the values taught to kids these days by their parents. Values that will be ingrained in them as they grow up. And its not that parents aren't teaching their kids values anymore. The values that they pick up from their parents are just not the values I agree with. Here are some examples of the "values" some of my students have demonstrated in school:

1. Everyone owes you everything.

One of the more disruptive kids in my class believes that every time he gets in trouble it is because the teachers are out to get him and pick on him. It has never dawned on him that he is getting in trouble because he is obnoxiously singing at the top of his lungs in the middle of a math lesson (I'm not even joking abou this). And when cofronted with the question of what can we do to solve this problem he answers "You should give me more compliments when I'm being good." Now I know that kids thrive on praise and I have seen first hand how it can change behavior in the classroom (only in the short-term, however). But why should I praise him specifically for doing what everyone else in the class has been doing every day since August? Now he blames me for his bad behavior because I don't compliment him enough when he does the bare minimum of what is expected of him in class. He is completely capable (no ADHD or anything) of sitting through a lesson without bursting into song, but for some reason, I owe him a compliment when he does. You can ask anyone at my school, I am a very positive teacher with my students, so what makes him think he is so extra special that he deserves extra attention for doing what was expected of him in the first place. He has learned in his short 10 years of life that you can blame other people for your lack of discipline/motivation/effort and when given the chance to take part in the solution, you should expect someone else's efforts to solve your problem.

2. "Taxes are good because you always get it back when the tax return comes."

Yes, that is an exact quote from one of my fourth graders last year. This student later went on to tell me about how her mom gave her and her brother each $100 from the tax return to buy whatever they wanted. As I mentioned earlier, I teach in a very low income area. So what lesson is being taught here? When the government gives you money to help you get along (pay the rent, bills, gas, etc), give it to a ten-year-old to buy a video game or two and about $20 worth of junk from the Dollar Store.

3. Teenage pregnancy has great benefits.

Yes, you read that right. One of the parents of one of my students came in for a parent/teacher conference one day. She saw the wedding picture that I have of me and Rob on my desk and asked me how old I was when I got married. Since I got married so young (just a month short of being 21) I am used to the comments about getting married young. I answered her only to be shocked by her response. She went into a whole speech about how glad she is that she got married so young. (She is already on marriage #2, and according to her son, this guy threatens to walk out every other weekend...very sad for the kids). Her exact words were something like this: "I am so glad I had my kids when I was 17 because now, by the time they are old enough to move out, I'll still be young enough to go out and party. I wouldn't change a thing!" After that meeting, I was no longer worried about the mature and expereinced teacher image I try so hard to make the parents see. When I think about it, she's really only a couple years older than me.

One good thing about my job: I always have stories to tell.

Frustration!

Did anyone else stay up late last night with a sick feeling in their stomach after watching the coverage of Super Tuesday? I am truly worried about where this country is headed!If I wanted to live in a socialist country, I'd move to France.

Two of a Kind

With the Step 1 of the boards coming up for Rob, he is actually starting to study more than usual. This means that I have more time to myself at home while he's locked up in the office. As the productive person I am, I have used that extra time to develop 2 of my great hobbies; watching TV even more than I already did, and taking naps in strange places. This photo shows me doing both. While laying on the floor watching TV, I fell asleep with my sweet little puppy. We even shared a pillow! Awwww, aren't we cute? Well, maybe it would be cuter if I didn't have my hoodie hood over my head making me look a little alien-like. You see, we don't like to turn the heater past 65 and we have actually had a few very cold days this month. So the hood was necessary to keep the heat from escaping through my head.

While contemplating my new found "productivity," I am realizing that this is just the beginning of the free time I will have over the next couple years as Rob begins his rotations and working 80-100 hrs a week. I guess I will have some time for a few more hobbies. So, I was at Borders the other day and found yet another coffee table book about the universe that I don't already own. If you don't already know, this is an area of great weakness for me. I love huge books with huge pictures about the universe. Of course it was in the bargain section (they always are?) so I bought my 4th coffee table book on the subject. This one is different, however, in that it might be the biggest book I've ever seen. Noth the thickest, just the biggest. The dimensions of the cover are about 2ft by 1 1/2ft. And this book is very heavy! (Yes, that is it on the floor in the picture above).

With this new book and the fact that I just finished teaching my 4th graders a unit on astronomy, my interest in astronomy was reawakened (although I like it so much that it is never really asleep to begin with). Remember how much more TV watching I have been doing? Well, I have been watching a lot of episodes of the History Channel's series The Universe (I highly recommend these shows. They are fantastic!). On the episode about the Sun, they featured this young, attractive female sun specialist. I was thinking, "Hey, I could do that!" So I got online and started researching astromony programs throughout the US. I found one that I am seriously considering. It is a master's degree in space studies that I can do completely online. I know what you're thinking..."No, Haley, don't "go" to University of Pheonix! It's not a real school!" But I think you will be surprised that this program is through the University of North Dakota...a real accredited university! And since it's in North Dakota, you can see why they offer it online. They know that no one in their right mind is going to want to move to North Dakota. Anyway, after researching it, this is a totally legite program. A lot of people who work for NASA have graduated from their space programs. And one of the great things about this program is that it is not focused on the astrophysics and mathmatics that many astronomy programs are full of. It is geared more towards space policy, space missions to the Moon and Mars, building a space station on the Moon, and the political and economic factor of space travel. I'll keep you updated as I decide if that is what I really want to do. The only problem is that is costs $15,000 per year. Hopefully I can find some nice grants for "women in science" or something like that.