Someone Thought of Me

A couple of my students brought this to me the other day. If you don't know what this means to me read my April Fools series starting with the old post linked here...http://hokapidia.blogspot.com/2009/04/rotten-tomato.html

Why the Long Sleeves?

I don't know if I can write this to make it interesting, but it is a bit of what I have been going through the last week so I will make an attempt. The final conversation is supposed to be the funny part (or at the very least an excuse to write an update) if you make it through my whole lengthy introductions.

There are two things to keep in mind for this story.

#1 A week ago unbeknownst to me I was exposed to some kind of poisonous plant that began to cause a terrible reaction beginning Friday morning and continuing well into Monday afternoon. It wasn't until Saturday afternoon that I realized it was becoming quite severe and when I woke up Sunday morning with one eye bulging out of my head, until I could shower and get the swelling down, I even considered skipping church. At this point the rash was spreading faster than the pain and I realized it was only my vanity tempting me to skip church so I sucked up the possible humiliation and went anyway. By the time I left church I abandoned all Sabbath day holy attempts and made my way to the nearest Walgreen's Health clinic only to be told it was lunch time and to return in a few hours. Now I had to not only patronize Sabbath breaking stores once but twice and only to be rejected when it came to my insurance. Deciding that Monday was not so far away I decided to fore go the $75-150 out of pocket and wait to see my own doctor the next day. I called in sick to work, which was strange to me because I wasn't really sick rather in severe discomfort on my fore-arms and had a creeping redness from my neck to my face.

Long story only slightly shorter, he put me on a nice high dose of medication which may keep me wired and suggested Benadryl that may make me drowsy...needless to say I have been wired and tired all at once, a state I will not attempt to explain. (You might get a sense of it if you saw the state of my house right now, it is very uncharacteristically messy, and not in a small way). So, I took a day off work and have been back two. I have had my hair in a pony tale been wearing glasses to avoid any discomfort to my neck and eyes and as a courtesy to my students and others around me I have been wearing long sleeves despite the summer heat because the rash is quite disgusting...I will not post pictures but I did take some...they are just too gross. So that is the end of number one point... I know, finally.

#2 I have almost all freshmen this year. Normally this would be a bad thing as I have always preferred sophomores and because I have heard particularly bad things about this class. I have been pleasantly surprised, however, at how nice they are. Or maybe I have just been given the best of the class as an answer to many fervent prayers to do something to keep me in this profession for more than another year...but this is beside the point.

They like to ask questions about their surroundings and about their new teachers. The following conversation is by no means exact words but it does follow the general outline of what was said.

Student 1: "Does Mr. ABC have tattoos?"

Student 2: "Why would you ask that"

Me, the teacher: "That is an interesting question, now that you mention it I have never seen Mr. ABC in anything but long sleeves"

Student 2: "Well I have and he doesn't have any"

Student 1: "You have seen Mr. ABC in short sleeves?"

Teacher: "Well even if he did always wear long sleeves it doesn't mean he has tattoos, it might just be an attempt to cover up some grotesque rash."

Student 3: "EWE!"

Other Excuses

I have been working on some home improvement Here is a teaser picture.

But I was interrupted by a tree down.

I didn't really think to take a picture of the tree after it had fallen but here it is after the clean up and after 7 bags had already been hauled away. Even with work back in full swing I am keeping very busy.

One of the Reasons I Haven't Blogged Lately

In addition to yard work, deep cleaning, traveling and trying to stay cool in an un-air conditioned house (until June 29th) this has been one of my major projects.
Now if I could only figure out how to get all that black glue off I could get on to more exciting things like painting base boards and weeding my patio.

Question of the Day

Sometimes I wonder why I am the Spanish teacher. A few weeks ago we were telling a story and we decided to use a bull as a character in the story. I insisted the part must be played by a boy (I get confused as to who is who if I let them play opposite roles). They couldn't understand why it had to be a boy so I had to explain that all bulls are male...this was huge news to them. What was worse is most of them didn't know that cows are female and were amazed and somewhat unbelieving as I was explaining it to them. One student finally accepted what I was saying as she pondered the fact that all cows have udders.

The wonder doesn't stop there...today a student asked me "how many legs do chickens have?"

Rhyme Time

So today I had a student slow to start his work because he was looking for his pencil. After he finally found it he was excited to get to work, but first asked me an interesting question.

"What is a peninsula? I forgot what it is."

A little exasperated by the postponing of my lesson, as frequently happens because of this student, I responded by asking if he forgot because he believed I taught him or because he knew he had once learned it somewhere else.

He the said it was for two reasons, one because he had once learned it somewhere and forgot and two because he thought it was a cool word that rhymed with pencil.

Gotta Love These Laws

I know that the thought of posting crazy laws isn't very original, Christina did the same thing...click here to see them.

I got these from the book "Eat Your Words" by Charlotte Foltz Jones. Although some of these laws may no longer be on the books, they are somewhat amusing so I thought I would share some.

1. In Joliet, Illinois, it is against the law to put cake in a cookie jar.

2. In California, it is illegal to peel an orange in a hotel room.

3. In Greene, New York, it is illegal to eat peanuts and walk backward on the sidewalk while a concert is playing.

4. Pennsville, New Jersey, has a law prohibiting anyone from selling baskets of fresh cucumbers within the town limits.

5. In Gary, Indiana, it is against the law to ride a bus or attend a theatre within four hours after eating garlic.

6. It is illegal to take a bite out of someone else's hamburger in Oklahoma.

7. In Lexington, Kentucky, it is against the law to carry an ice cream cone in your pocket.

8. It's a crime in Idaho to give your sweetheart a box of candy weighing less than fifty pounds.