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12 November 2002 - 11:00 PM I didn't get to finish all that I wanted to say. I decided that Irolan's boyfriend on Real World was pretty cool after all (a bit of a pushover), but she should still be with Alton because he is FINE. He sort of reminds me of one of my ex boyfriends (my first love), but my ex was not that fine. I mean, who am I kidding. His smile and skin tone, though, are very similiar. I need help. Where do I find mp3s to download? I want to download some songs but I don't know where to do it. Please help. I don't want a place that will give my computer viruses, either. I had a good day today. The inside/outside discussion went reasonably well. The outside group had a hard time being quiet at times, but overall they were pretty good. I think my class is a bit too teacher-centered. I told them they were on their own, but I couldn't resist jumping in a few times to bring up additional things for them to think about. I also found that many of them looked at me when they were talking, even though they were in a circle together. Obviously I need to work on this. I am just feeling good that discussions are actually happening a lot more in my classroom, because I had such a fear of them. I still don't think I'd feel comfortable having a big discussion while someone was observing me, but maybe it will come in time. I finished reading The Nanny Diaries, which was pretty good, and now I am reading Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. So far it is as good as everyone has been telling me it is. I would recommend it. I just started reading it a few days ago and am about one third of the way through it. Even though I like to read a lot, I'm not really a fast reader (except with YA books), so that is a testament to how good it is. I was griping yesterday about lack of respect and all of that. I do have to say that on the opposite side there are SO MANY things that happen every day that I am grateful for. I got a thank you note today from one of my students (I called her Rachel last year) who I gave a graduation gift to (she invited me to her party). Anyway, it was very, very sweet. She's not really one of those sentimental types, either, she's kind of no-nonsense, so it made me feel even more happy. I also just feel immense pleasure sharing my love of reading with my students. I tell them about a new book each week, and it makes me so happy to hear from the librarian that all the kids are asking for a certain book that Ms. Boombastic said was good. I love it when certain kids say excitedly, "Oh we GET to read today!" And I also love it when they start to trust me and don't fight against me on certain assignments that they might think are weird. And my absolute favorite thing is when I say something that wasn't meant to be funny and everyone cracks up. I am always amazed when someone finds me amusing, and even if they are pretty easy to make laugh, it's fun to be considered funny once in a while. Anyway, enough about that. I ended up going to a meeting tonight. It was really boring and not worth the time, but I did get paid for it. Plus we got dinner and there was a drawing. All three of the teachers from my school won and we each got $50.00 of merchandice for our classroom. So we can order a book or whatever that supports Language Arts, from whatever catalog we want, and we get reimbursed for $50.00! So that total of $150.00 for our school was very cool. I'm not sure if we will put it together or separate. I might order some books on teaching, or some poetry books. It was just a fun bonus to get that. I have to read A Separate Peace and I'm not really wanting to. I was hoping to start it this week. I am so bad about planning novels. I get deathly afraid I'm going to screw it up and that everyone will hate it because I didn't present it in an exciting enough way. I don't know. I am kind of not a "performer" type of teacher. I am not like one of those energetic, crazy teachers that entertain. Sometimes I can get kids to like things, but I can't approach things that way. On Friday we were talking about how teenagers and how they are viewed by society. At the end of the discussion one of the kids said, "And another thing, no one wants to hear what we have to say." I said, "I want to hear what you have to say!" and he said, "Yeah, you do, but other teachers don't." I wondered about it. Do they really know that I want to hear what they have to say? Do I really give them enough time to talk about what's important to them? Hmmmm. I'm off to have some tea and read my book and go to bed. :)
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