You May Daydream of SugarPlum Fairies

....or, if you're a teacher, you may daydream of the tiniest inkling of a HINT of appreciation from your students. Ever. But especially as you roll into the holidays and Christmas break.

And...my dear sweet friends, I got that on Friday. All of my trials and tribulations from the past five months were validated on Friday at school with my gremlins (and I do hope that at this point you realize I'm using that term most affectionately).

This past week was the last week before a glorious fortnight in which teachers and students alike loll around like slovenly heathens who don't have to work for a living. Or whatever it is you like to do during winter break....

Thus, I had three trying days of instruction/Midterm review on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, followed by a Thursday and Friday consisting of Midterm exam administration. Thursday was for Part 1: Reading, and Friday was reserved for Part 2: Writing.

For me, this week posed two challenges, and they were: First, what do I do for my students for Christmas, if anything? Lord knows teachers are financially challenged, but I didn't want to send them off into the holidays completely empty-handed. Second, if I get them anything, what day do I carve out 30 minutes of time to give them their presents where it would not interfere with Midterm review or actually taking the Midterm?

The easier part was choosing what to give them. I decided to make every student I teach a "paper plate award." Paper plate awards are exactly what they sound like. Paper plates, decorated by yours truly, that celebrate some quirk or talent of each individual student. They take a good little chunk of time to make, because you first have to go through all of your rosters and concoct an individualized, specific "award" for each student......and then you actually have to decorate the paper plates.

I then decided that if I hammer in Midterm review for two and a half days straight, I could reserve the end of my class period on Wednesday for paper plate award dissemination.

Now, I like to get UBER specific with my paper plate awards. None of this generic "Class Clown" or "Most Improved" or "Most Likely to Succeed" bullshit.

No. My paper plate ceremony included such prestigious awards as:

"Most Steptastic (but NO you are not at Step practice you are in ELA!) Award"
"Most Likely to try to use his charm to get out of trouble Award"
"Most Likely to make me forget I'm talking to a 14 year old because you're so mature Award"
"Most Entertaining Explanations for why he is out of his seat at any given time Award"
"Most Random Question-Asker Award"
"Breath of Fresh Air Award" (for those THANK THE LORD students who are literally "breaths of fresh air" among their rowdy classmates)
"Most Reliable Participator Award"


You get the point. I gave a short "build up" speech before I presented each award to create anticipation and let my students kind of guess who it was going to be. I don't know if it was more fun for them or for me.

When Thursday and Friday rolled around, I knew that two days straight of test taking was going to be almost more than they could bear, so I was glad I had given the awards (and given them an academic break) on Wednesday.

This is the message I displayed on my SmartBoard for students about what were acceptable post-exam behaviors and activities:

"THINGS THAT ARE ACCEPTABLE TO DO WHEN YOU FINISH YOUR EXAM:

1. Read a book.
2. Work on a Double Entry Journal.
3. Work on any late or missing assignments you have for my class.
4. NOT TALK.
5. Write an extra-credit Parody or Double Entry Journal.
6. Do a crossword puzzle or word search (on the back table).
7. Study for another exam.
8. NOT wander around the room.
9. NOT TALK.
10. Daydream about sugarplum fairies and candy canes.
11. Write an explanation for why Star Wars is the greatest movie ever made.
12. NOT TALK.
13. Write a story about a far away fantasy land where students never have to take midterms.
14. Write an explanation for why Lord of the Rings is the greatest movie ever made.

15. OH----OR NOT TALK."

As you can see, they had plenty of options for activities to occupy their time when they finished my exam.

You may have inferred that some of these options were placed on the board in a half-joking manner. Therefore, imagine my surprise when one of my fourth block students ACTUALLY WROTE AN EXPLANATION FOR WHY STAR WARS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE, albeit he tweaked it slightly.

This was, hands down, the single greatest piece of student writing I have received in my teaching career to date. It was so awesome that I will now provide a picture and a complete transcription of the written piece.

"Star Wars has got to be the second greatest movie ever made. With that being said, Lord of the Rings has to be the best movie in the history of movie making. Sure, Star Wars is a combination of action, adventure, and science fiction, but Lord of the Rings has all of my favorite genres-- action, adventure, fantasy, and drama. On top of that, Lord of the Rings has a way better story line than Star Wars. I would rather watch a noble quest while battling creatures than space dudes fighting for the galaxy. Also, the Jedi have got to be the biggest hypocrites in space. They are always talking about bringing peace to the galaxy while they are carrying weapons and slicing dudes arms off. The Brotherhood of the Ring at least are honorable enough to die for their land. The Jedi just send out their clones to do their dirty work for them. Just because there are unlimited amounts of them doesn't mean they don't have feelings. With all that being said, Lord of the Rings has got to be the best movie ever made."

Oh. My. God.

You sir, get an A! I don't even care that you called it the "brotherhood" instead of the "fellowship" of the ring. YOU ARE MY NEW FAVORITE STUDENT EVER.

Do I seriously get paid to be in charge of a classroom where students write me EPIC SHIT like this because they know how much I love Lord of the Rings??

And finally....one of the reasons that teaching is the best job on the planet.

As aforementioned, Friday was the last school day before break. I was fully expecting 1 or 2 notes or "Merry Christmas-es" from some of my sweetheart students. However, I was absolutely NOT expecting all of the thoughtful letters, well-wishes, and gifts I received on Friday...

Please note the TWO 2-liters of Diet Coke.....from 2 different students..... They know me too well.

My favorite thing about Friday was not that I received gifts from my students--I definitely didn't need anything tangible from them. It was the tiny bit of confirmation that everything I've been trying to accomplish or the relationships I've been trying to form with them since August have not been completely in vain. Small victories.




Another 4th block student crafted her own "award" for me. The "Dang I need a Diet Coke, Y'all!" Award..........Apparently I say that phrase entirely too often if this student thinks I deserve a personalized award for it.

There were many hugs exchanged in the hallway outside my classroom door after the end-of-day bell rang on Friday, and I daresay I will actually miss those little gremlins until January 2nd.

Do I become frustrated with, complain about, and become baffled by my 14-year-olds on a daily basis? Maybe.

Do I have the best classes in the world? Oh HELL yes.

happy holidays yall :)

Why I Blog

Sometimes people ask me why I like to keep a blog, or how I come up with things to write about. I can think of a whole slew of reasons and answers to those questions, but I thought I'd provide you with a few general examples. Here are some reasons why I blog.



Reason #1: I am a nerd.

And nerds do nerdy things like write regularly and keep blogs about nerdy things they find interesting or entertaining.



Reason #2: I am in grad school.

It's like a bottomless pit of blog topics between my classmates, professors, high school students, rants about classes/term papers, etc. Also, my head would most definitely explode if I didn't engage in some writing (read: venting) outside of academic papers. Barf.

For instance, the picture below depicts what my classmates and I did in a graduate course of ours this past Wednesday night. We constructed "masks" out of tissue paper/masking tape/plastic serial killer-looking-face mask combinations as a way to teach high schoolers "characterization." Right...

Coneheads, anyone?



Reason #3: I come from a family full of nutjobs.

Now before all of you crazy family members get offended....don't. I mean this in the best possible of ways. If you guys weren't all complete weirdos, you'd be super boring. So, thanks for being freaks!

This might be the biggest reason of all. I could spend two whole weeks at my apartment in Columbia and not come up with a single thing to blog about, but after an hour home at my parents' house in Greenville, I'm suddenly inundated with topics. Let me explain...

A couple of weeks ago, I came up to Greenville on a particularly slow weekend in Columbia, hauled my laundry basket into the utility room, and made my way to the kitchen to raid my Mom's cabinets. I also did a quick survey of the kitchen counter to see if there was anything left over from dinner.

However, instead of congealing fettucine alfredo or pot roast remains, I found this......on the KITCHEN COUNTER......:


Why yes, that IS a dead snake placed inside a ziploc bag labeled "Warning! Monster Snake!", just in case you were unsure of the bag's contents.

The author of this bag's label, my Dad, spied me snapping a picture of it from the next room and came bounding in. Apparently, if I was going document this, I was going to document it properly. (Can someone plz fill me on on standard snake-corpse-photography procedures? Kthx.)

He proceeded to pick up the snake-bag, maneuver the python corpse inside until it suited his demented preferences, put it back down on the counter, and demand that I do a re-take.


Much.....better? Thanks, Dad. It appears that Steve committed this reptile execution on one of his many obsessive sweeps down our driveway with Weed-B-Gone.

So, that weekend in a nutshell? Snake carcasses on the kitchen counter. Totally normal.

I came home again this weekend to watch the Doodles because Suz would be out of town. One of the first things I did when I got home this time was go to the refrigerator for a Diet Coke fix. I found a Diet Coke alright, but I also found this.....INSIDE the fridge....:



Why yes, that IS the spare set of keys to the house, stashed inside the box of Michelob Ultra...inside the fridge...

It appears that Suz thought this hiding spot would be most conducive to my actually finding the keys. This tells me that my mother is either very hilarious and sneaky, or she thinks I'm such an alcoholic that the FIRST place I'd think to look (or anyone for that matter) for a hide-a-key is INSIDE a case of beer, INSIDE the garage refrigerator.

Sorry for telling the world about your hiding spot, Suz.

And while we are on the subject of my mother, that brings me to my third reason-du-jour why my family is usually a pretty supple source of blog topics.

My mom has the creepiest, most obsessive relationship with Hallmark ornaments and Christmas decorations I've ever seen. And I've been to a national Hallmark convention.

Almost every single surface in our house already looks like Santa rolled in here and exploded all over everything. So I took a little tour of our house, snapping pictures in any given room of the creepiest decorations I observed on my walk-through....



THIS is the first thing you see when you come through our front door. I left the ladder in the picture for scale. Did I mention that this welcoming fellow is on display BEFORE we even made it to Halloween? Meaning our poor little child neighbors will be subjected to his pedophilic gaze come Saturday night.

Santa really IS always watching you, kids. And Santa is a 7-foot-tall creepy-ass Freud-lookalike.

These next three pictures are in various parts of our house, but all come from the same Christmas decoration "designer." These hideous abominations are called Anna Lee "dolls," but feel free to switch the term "dolls," used very loosely here, for "maniacal demons" or "satanic imps" or something along those lines. What kind of sick person thought that making dolls' faces look like acid trips would create feelings of Christmas joy or holiday nostalgia in any sane person?



(by the way, these 2 are in a random, rarely used upstairs bathroom. Suz leaves no surface un-Christmased.)



And just a few more examples of Suz's decoration-infatuation-blog-topic-inspirations...

Suz has so many ornaments that she can devote entire Christmas trees and entire Christmas wreaths to certain, very specific themes. This one is obviously the Star Wars wreath. In the words of Yoda....Think it's awesome, I do.

Anywhere, literally anywhere you go in our house, you can look around and find some version of the creepy pedophile Santa staring you down. I don't know how any of my siblings or I got through childhood thinking that old Saint Nick was a jolly, good-intentioned soul with these mutant Santas lurking around every other corner.

We certainly wouldn't want anyone to feel devoid of Christmas joy whilst sitting on the porcelain throne!

As if the 7-foot-tall-front-entryhall Santa wasn't disturbing enough on his own, this little sidekick gremlin stands guard at his side. He is apparently "checking Santa's list" for him, a.k.a marking down the names of trick-or-treaters they'd like to molest later.

And finally, a nativity scene. So we can pretend like we are good Catholics when guests come over, and that we don't just go to church on Christmas Eve...... drunk....... (just kidding...)

So thank you, innate dorkiness, grad school shenanigans, and the weirdest (and best) family I could ask for, for providing me ample material to keep this little guy going.

I am, however, always open to suggestions. Happy Halloween!

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