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26 settembre Who Knew?This last weekend, the cross country team traveled to Pepperdine University for a meet. At this tournament, I learned several things:
1. There are 3-4 different "Pepperdine Universities"! We were making great time, and turns out we made it to the university OFFICES, not the actual campus! So after many phone calls and getting lost, HM finally had to mapquest my actual location in Culver City and talk through to the 405 so we could actual use the directions I got from Chelsea!
2. Larsen is a weinie :) He whined the whole time about how he didn't know where Pepperdine was, how he didn't know how to get there, and finally when I gave him Mapquest directions that morning, he said he had no idea who to read them and he would just follow me. When we got lost, he was furious and useless and finally when we got separeted, he told me I had to come back and find HIM and I was like, right, I don't even know where I am, or where you are or how to get to you, figure it out! This is the freeway you need to find, so stop and ask directions!!! What do you think we are doing???
3. There are down sides to running in a meet on the coast. It RAINS there. And when you have 1000 runners, and it rains and pours all morning, and then you run on the wet ground, you create a mass of mud that is the same thing as trying to run through sand. It rained most of the way there in the van, and by the time we got there (after being lost) it had stopped but everything was still wet.
This is the lawn just GETTING to where we had to check in:
And then where all the teams where:
When the kids ran their race, they would be COVERED in mud up to their waists most of the time. This is a picture of my girls at the end of their race. The dark spots on their legs are not shadows, that is mud
And honestly, my girls got off pretty good. I took this picture of just some random runner just so I could show people. Again, these aren't shadows on their legs:
I mean you could tell the runners who had run and who hadn't just by how dirty they were.
4. Who knew that Cross Country was such an intense sport??? I didn't. Since I have been coachig this, I have seen stuff that has shocked me. As we were leaving, we were watching the races that followed ours as we left. At this one part, there is this VERY steep hill and at the top was this mashed up patch of pure mud. See the girl here with her arms in the air? Well she's not cheering, she's falling. That girl, did a full body slam on the ground and slid down the hill in the mud right after I took this picture.
Her wonderful coaches, or at least somebody, came over and looked her over, and she's SOBBING and covered in mud and as I watched I thought, I wonder what they are going to do? If I was her coach, I don't think I would make her finish the race... she looks like she's hurt and she banged hard enough she could be really injured... NOPE! They patted her on the behind and shoved her back in the race and off she went! I stood there staring and thinking, what kind of sport is this??? 25 settembre The Temperature I know that perhaps this is only fascinating to me, but it's funny how people around here think of it being "HOT" or "COLD"
At least 5 times today, I told kids: YOu're hot huh? Well take off the SWEATSHIRT!!!
Guess how hot it was today? 100 degrees! And everyone is still wearing sweatshirts around like they will freeze to death!
Last week it dipped down to the 80s for real and it was so nice.
Ya, everyone got out the long sleeves and sweatshirts like it was the middle of winter... 18 settembre Horrible TeethPoor HM has such bad teeth
He had double bad luck I guess because he has bad teeth anyway--his dad had dentures at 19 and his mom's teeth are just as bad
And besides that, well, let's just say his life choices in the past have not contributed much to his dental health
 So today he had another tooth pulled
One of his back molars that has been hurting him for months
He said is was the most painful one yet
He usually is fine at first
And a few hours he will start to really feel it and he'll be miserable...
Poor baby...
While he was there, he asked them for a quote on how much it would cost to get his teeth fixed
They quoted him $2500 for everything which includes a wide variety of things... caps, fillings, cleanings, etc...
So he actually made an appointment for a month from now--that's amazing--and hopefully by then, he will be on my insurance so he won't cost quite as much.
That is basically my wedding present to him  LOLSo today I am home early because we had teacher meetings today so no practice and hence a whole two hours of free time for Lisa... yay... anyway, so I was rereading my blog and looked at the entry with the thermometer and thought,
Hey, it's been so nice and cool lately I should take another picture!
Everyone lately has been commenting how COOL it's been and how wonderful and nice
And to be honest, it was a LITTLE hotter today...
Fall is in the air, and it feels co it's been all summer
But still, kids were wearing sweatshirts to school this week--in the mornings but still--and some were wearing long sleeved shirts, it was a bit chilly in the mornings and one day as I was standing at the door in my skirt and short sleeved shirt, two of my girls walked up and said:
Oh my gosh! Aren't you cold?!?
So I thought I should go take another picture so show you how cool it has been lately and I thought to myself as I walked out to do it,
I wonder how hot it is right now?
I LAUGHED when I got outside,
because look what it said:
Just goes to show you that temperature is all relative :) 16 settembre Deep Sea FishingWow, it's been such a crazy week!!! Let me explain... no, there is too much.. let me sum up: (movie anyone?)
1. My cross country team had its first two competitions and did pretty well
2. My car died and had to have another battery put in and now it's fine
3. Mid term grades came out already
4. Dudey is now 10 for 10 in PATs
5. We went Deep Sea Fishing again!
6. We had a huge fish cooking party where we invited everyone over and cooked the fish 4 different ways: mine was voted the best
 7. School is still crazy but slowly getting better...
Okay, so now in detail, here are some pictures
:We went to in invitational in Morro Bay. The runners went around the tracks a couple times, then through this creepy tree tunnel
It's one of those things where you go: Wow, that's cool! or "Wow, that's really scary!"
Then they got out of that, ran through this really hard part through thick sand (in front)and then right along the beach (in back)
I would cheer them at this part and then I ran straight to the beach and saw them again.
HM came down to the beach during this time and even though in the past, he has not liked the water at all, he played in it and found 19 sand dollars in about an hour.
So later that night, we came back again to look for more and play in the water:
So earlier that night, we walked around the town and did a few things. First we went to the Aquarim and fed the seals. They were hysterical!!! You could throw them little bits of fish and they would do things for you for it. If you clapped, they would clap too and so you would give them a treat. They honked (?) really loud and weird--they sounded like raptors :)
Then we went behind this to a small room with little tanks with a bunch of other weird stuff like this:
A flounder with both eyes on one side of its head
And huge whale eyeballs
Then we found a machine that told you your Sex Appeal for 25 cents
(which is totally accurate of course) haha...That day we had fish and chips at this little resturant on the coast and HM and Dudey, being the way that they are, were joking around and HM sees this piece of gum on the table:
and to mess with Dudey, he picks it up:
"Is this yours?" he asks him
And Dudey, to mess with him back (because it was)
Said: "No, it's not!"
And HM proceeded to put it in his mouth! :)
So we were all rolling, laughing at HM who just put someone else's gum in his mouth (but he really didn't) and I took this picture of Dudey laughin, which made us laugh even harder:
   The following day, we went out on the boat and went fishing.
Now, last time we went, it was very cold and both Dudey and I got seasick for a bit. I was okay, but Dudey never really got over it.
So this time, we gave him a little bit more Dramamine to try and make that not happen again.
Well... it didn't really work.
We ended up just drugging him because the Dramomine does make you drowsy
So Dudey was knocked out, asleep, for most of the trip:
Poor Dudey, he didn't really have a very good time on the boat and finally went inside and slept, but we had a good time! :) As you can tell from this picture:
I caught the biggest fish of us three:
But overall, it was beautiful and nice and I didn't get sick at all.
We also saw a TON of JellyFish in the water this time:
Overall, it was a very good weekend: beautiful, fun and much needed
09 settembre It's been hot babyLast Friday, we looked outside and said, oh look, it's cooled down, let's go out now... This is what the thermometer said was "cool" to us lately:
07 settembre Being Interesting... Today I have a day off from school... kinda by accident really--we were going to go Deep Sea Fishing, well, let's rephrase: I planned on going Deep Sea Fishing today and so asked for the day off, but despite my inquiries, HM and Dudey both could not go today so we are going to try and go tomorrow or Sunday maybe. I have a XC meet in Morro Bay tomorrow morning so we'll see.
Anyway, this was all decided AFTER I asked for the day off, called the sub and did all the paperwork. So I get the day off I guess anyway, even though I'm not doing anything.
So today is my Catch Up Day aka Saturday since I'll be gone all weekend most likely.
ANyway, so I'm sitting here and thought I would wander around and try to find some new blogs. I read this one: http://alecsoth.com/blog/ and thought it was interesting. But it got me thinking: how is it that you get 35 comments on one entry? Do you have some fascinating personality that spits out such interesting thoughts that the whole world is dying to read them? Or is the whole world just bored and you are less so? That's always what I wonder when I find blogs that get like 30,000 visitors in a week... how in the world does that happen? Do these people have a lot of relatives??? Will 30,000 people ever read my blog? Why would they ever want to? So I guess it's the age old question: what do I really have to contribute to society that can be typed and recorded? Just myself. I don't know how interesting that is or what mass appeal that may have? I think everyone wants to find that others find them interesting... but at the same time, that could be very intrusive and for the world of anonymous blogging, it defeats the purpose because eventually, anonymity will escape you... ha ha.... 06 settembre Ode to Jake Okay, my blogger friend Jake is freaking hysterical. He's been MIA for a few months now but recently posted an entry and told this story:
People are funny. Some person at the grocery store looked at me funny with a small basket with nothing but a bottle of Draino (for the downstairs bathtub) and a package of ground beef (complaint: all the Krogers around here have lousy meat sections). I looked at the person and said, "Dog problem in the neighborhood." They appeared quite scandalized/affronted, but I didn't care. Mind your own business, person, and quit looking in my cart...
I laughed so hard and I keep giggling every time I think of it.
For more Jake stories go to his Jake's Random Stuff and read and hopefully he won't disappear again :) okay, vent time...Well, it's been three weeks at my new school and I am fed up with "learning new things"
Every time I turn around, there is some other form that I haven't learned yet.
Whatever.
Today, one of my girls came up to me and asked me to check if she had been absent on this certain day.
She had just been tardy, so I signed a paper she had gotten from the attendance office and she gave that paper to the attendance office telling them that she was cleared.
Later that day, I find the same paper, stapled to a yellow square paper with a chart on it
Asking me to do the exact same thing
only please put all the info in the designated squares.
I was bugged
You couldn't have figured this out without this cute little chart?
So I go to turn it in
They all look at me like they have never seen this chart before in their lives
Finally one lady acts like maybe she might recognize it and comes over
Oh yes, she says, you need to fill this out
Yup, did that I said
and tried to hand it to her again.
She finally took it and actually looked at it, for the first time
And tells me:
Ya, this first paper is for the student
And the teacher fills this one out.
(isn't it obvious from the already filled in form that I now understand that concept?)
And honestly, I should have been nice and smiled like I understood
but what I did was this:
So?
and I just kinda shrugged my shoulders like: I don't care either way.
Is that okay then? I asked and she said yes
and I walked off
DUH.
There comes a time when you have to actually use our head to figure life's problems out and that doesn't mean creating more stupid paperwork for everyone to do.
Because usually what happens is this:
the person who cares the LEAST does the MOST amount of stupid paperwork that doesn't mean anything to them in the first place while the person who cares MOST lectures them on how good it is.
Note here that the person who really cares about the paperwork, never really does the paperwork. They only order it to BE DONE.
It's the end of the week. I'm tired, can you tell??? 05 settembre Who let them out...For the first time in my teaching career, I teach in the same area that I live.
For some people in small towns, this is unavoidable.
For a place like Btown where there are 17 high schools, it's pretty common if not unavoidable in the opposite way.
So I just went to the gas station and the grocery store.
I saw one of my girls coming out of the gas station and one of my boys as I was leaving the store.
The store one was a bit awkward I thought.
I was just starting to walk out when I felt the sensation that there was someone watching me.
I look up towards where the bread is...
and notice about 5-6 people, all staring right at me...
Uh....
So I scanned faces...
scan
and
scan
and
finally found this one kid who I realized was my student...
who probably had seen me first, said,
"hey look there's my teacher"
and the whole group looks...
...just as I look up and ya...
...uncomfortable...
I gave a kinda cheesy smile and waved and no one really waved back.
The kid seemed very embarrassed.
Not really sure why other than, oh my gosh, he saw his teacher in public...
I have found that it's a funny thing to be seen by students at places.
It's like you are BigFoot and they are experiencing a rare siting...
Girls will usually be excited to see you: for example, the girl I just saw at the gas station, saw me, said hi, smiled and said "Man, stop following me!" and laughed (I had already seen her 3 times today!). I laughed in return and we went our ways.
Boys act like you just shot them in the stomach and they would like to now be swallowed into the ground.
Why is that???
The worst is when you see them in public places where you generally don't like to encounter strangers.
For example, before school started, I was at Target with HM and Dudey and while they went to go get underwear, I went to do the same.
So there I am perusing the brazziers when I hear: Oh my gosh! Ms. F!!!!!!
And up bounds (literally) one of my FAVORITE forensics kids...
...As I'm standing in the bra section. lovely.
We chatted and I thought to myself the whole time,
what if her mother(who I also knew well) comes up and finds us here?
Is this considered inappropriate???
I finally convinced her to walk with me to "go find my husband" but really, just to get out of that section of the store...heavens...
She didn't seem at all bothered so that's good.
Anyway, school is crazy. I am teaching extended day so I have no prep and I have XC after school. So every day I feel I have 20 things to do, I get ONE done, and I add 5 more things to my list of things to do... *sigh* I did finally get my 9th grader's grades done and sent them home with a printout to have their parents sign. We'll see how that goes... Otherwise I am good. I like my school but it's still new and I am still figuring things out and so that is always kinda stressful. I have about 180 kids this year and I think right now I know about 1/2 the names... getting there... slowly but surely... 03 settembre We're terrible Our new house is WONDERFUL
And because of that, we often have guests over, for whatever excuse we can find
One excuse we have found is we buy new toys for the pool to play with
So last Saturday, when we were at the store trying to find a kicking net for Dudey, we instead bought a waterpolo set and a water volleyball set.
When we got home, we called CR and L, and HM's parents and invited them over for pizza and chicken wings
(and HM is so funny when he does that because he'll tell people off the top of his head: ya, we'll order pizza and like some chicken wings for dinner" and then he gets off the phone and turns to me and goes: Okay, wehave to find some place that has chicken wings...Do you know anywhere that does???" lol...)
So CR came over, but L didn't because there was some drama going on so he came, ate pizza and left.
But HM's parents came over, and we played Water Polo against them
And oh my gosh... We got our butts kicked!
Seriously!!!
Course it helps to be older and bigger you're guarding a small goal... but still...
Anyway, so we cheated and said that "that next point wins" because they were winning by so much and we won
So afterwards, and this is for whoever goes in our pool, we tell them to go over to this spot.
The suction pipe for the waterfall is right there and if you just lean up against it...
It HURTS :)
When you get a complete cover over it... like with your back or behind...
It kinda pinches
EVERYONE else before this, just jumps or yells like a little girl... and we all laugh
It's our little trick
So we did it to HM's dad
Only he didn't jump
He stayed there and looked very distressed like he might cry
and turned to us and said pleadingly: turn it off! turn it off! I can't get off!
We thought he was joking
but finally we pulled him off of it
and saw what he looked like:
And we laughed until we couldn't stand up and were crying...
But we felt really bad... we really did.
So we sent a picture of him to all his kids
and they also couldn't stop laughing
They had all had it done to them already
So it's the latest joke around here, isn't that terrible?? It was hysterical even though we did feel bad--it had never done that before! Everyone else jumps when it pinches them and so they never get a "pool drain hicky" :) Poor guy...
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