Summer Time!

Well I've had a busy last week which has kept me from updating!

Last weekend I went to Seattle with my friend Blair. We got there Saturday morning and stayed until Tuesday. We had such a great time! The weather was perfect... not a cloud in sight once! We loved the Pike Place Market and everything about Downtown. On Monday evening we went to go see this big folk festival called Folk Life. We were both looking forward to hearing some good Seattle folk music but it was not what we thought it would be. The main group was screaming instead of singing. There were a lot of local singers on the side and we heard some pretty nasty lyrics. It was great people watching though.
On Tuesday we had our interviews for Japan! Blair had hers early morning and I had mine in the afternoon. I think it went really well. She told Blair that she would contact her in 2 weeks. She told me very soon. So I guess 2 weeks is very soon to her. I'm anxiously waiting to hear back!

When I got back it was a whirl wind of a last week of school. The kids were super hyper but we had a lot of fun activities planned. On Thursday it was field day. One of my students challenged me to the 50 yard dash even though I was wearing flip flops. He beat me... barely :). So I challenged him to a rematch. He beat me again. I also got to play in the baton race, ping pong blow, javelin through, 3 legged race, and water balloon toss. I think the kids thought it was hilarious that I played so many of the games with them.

Friday was our last day of school! It was kind of bittersweet. Excitement for summer but also sad that I won't be teaching there next year most likely. We did get to go to the after school swim party which was awesome and then Kyla and I went out with our coworker Chaz for one last hurrah.

Update on summer: I will now be teaching summer school! I taught last year and it was pretty fun. Other than the fact that I now don't get to sleep in for the next month it is easy and they pay you well plus it's only from 9-12. I will be co-teaching with one of my teacher friends and I'm pretty excited about that. So now I'm just looking for a job after that. If you have any leads let me know!

A Post in Pictures

Today I told my kids I was going to take some pictures of them at recess for their scrapbooks. I specifically asked them not to pose and just to go on playing. Of course most of them didn't listen. Here is what I got:

This is them playing Star Wars. Hunter caught me taking their picture and put bunny ears on Grant. A kid after my own heart.

This is Ryan. He likes to throw out Star Wars poses.

Here's Hunter again. He got stuck. I took a picture of it.

This is Grant. He likes to throw up the peace sign.

This is Will. He really likes to pose and paid no attention to my request of no posing.

See what I mean? So hilarious!

This weekend my parents and I went to Houston for Jenny and Chris' baby shower. We had a great time and Jenny got tons of cute stuff! Here is a picture of me with the future parents at dinner one night.

"The Swine"

I'm sure everybody has been hearing tons about the swine flu. None of the teachers are too worried about it at my school. However, we have had to remind the students to wash their hands often and use hand sanitizer after sneezing or coughing.

A couple of my students this week have been really worried about it. Not only do they think it's called "The Swine"... which only makes it more dramatic... they also are very scared they will get it. To make matters worse I was feeling sick on Thursday and Friday this week. I didn't feel horrible and it definitely didn't keep me from work. I was a little bit less patient though and told the kids it was because I wasn't feeling well. This practically created hysteria in my classroom. The kids would lean away from me if I talked to them and kept asking me if I had The Swine. They were very concerned! I told them no of course not, but I couldn't help but play a few jokes on them.

It started out as a, "Oh I think I should sit down I feel really dizzy. I think I'm going to faint... it must be the swine" Then it turned into, "Quick get the trash can I think I'm going to throw up". They were taking it so seriously and then I would yell gotcha. I even would pretend like I couldn't understand what they were saying and all I could hear was buzzing. So I would make them repeat their questions like 5 times before I "heard" it. This went on till about 2:30 when they started catching on and it wasn't as funny after that. Needless to say, I think they realized they were being a little silly about The Swine.

I love playing jokes on my kids because they think it is so dorky. And the best part is that I can play the same joke on them over and over and they still think it's funny. They also try to play tricks on me and think their really hilarious when they do it. On Thursday they didn't realize that I was walking behind them when they were coming back from recess. They were all hiding behind the door ready to jump out and scare me when I walked in. Instead I jumped in and scared them. They still can't figure out how I knew what they were doing when I wasn't even in the classroom.