What In Tarnation?!?!? In the Classroom

1. What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day?
I turn off the alarm. Groan and roll back over. A couple minutes later I get up and head to the shower. Not much happens before the sacred shower. Sometimes I take a little detour to start the dryer to get clothes drying.

2. What are the last things that you do at night before going to bed?
I generally read before I go to bed. What I read can be quite eclectic. Children’s books, pedagogy, Bible, books for fun, magazines. Then I will turn off the reading light and gradually slip into a comatose state.

3. What daily routine have you recently added to your day?
Checking to see what my TiVo, TiVoed for me.

4. What routine do you wish you could get rid of?
Having to get up in the morning, or at least not as early.

5. What’s the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don’t do it some point within your day?
The shower is pivotal to the day. Other than that, my day doesn’t seem quite right without a quiet time. It is a time that I use to really try to center myself for the day.

Class dismissed!

The most Friday Fives have given me a feeling of deja vu. This week’s is no different.

1. What do you do for a living?
I’m a teacher. I teach. Or at least I pretend to. This year I taught third grade, I hope I am teaching third grade next year. That remains to be seen.

2. What do you like most about your job?
It is always changing. It is never the same. And I like getting to know 20 to 30 kids.

3. What do you like least about your job?
Grading papers. Politics. Grading papers. Its highly emotional nature at times. Grading papers. In-service meetings. Grading papers.

4. When you have a bad day at work it’s usually because _____…
A parent has cussed me out when I didn’t deserve it. Or dealing with discipline problems. Or the day before an extended break.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in?
Media. That cover quite a bit.

Tell me about your job in the comments.

Class dismissed!

Flip is feeling a little too comfortable around here. In my Friday Five where I turned the tables on you and asked you to answer a few questions. That, however, was not good enough for Flip and re-asked the questions of me. I suppose that I shall indulge the readers.

1. Why did you start WIT (WIT referring to your blog in this case)?
When I first began teaching, one thing that I heard more than once from veteran teachers was I should start a journal to document the crazy and adorable things that children do. Good idea, however, I HATE journaling. The idea of taking to write something just for the sake of writing just isn’t appealing to me. During my first year of teaching I heard about this thing called a blog. I found the idea interesting and investigated it. Not knowing a thing about installing and running applications on servers I plunged head first into installing MovableType and getting it running. Through the blog, people where able to read my stories and even better, they could comment on what I wrote about. People commenting has become one of the main reasons that I blog. WIT has become an online community where have met all kinds of people I would never have met online. WIT has grown beyond its original purpose of sharing stories but that is the heart of WIT, a place for me to share stories, good and bad.

2. What’s your favourite part of WIT?
The comments. It is the area where WIT takes on a life of its own. I really don’t watch my stats to see how many people are visiting but I do get a little depressed when people don’t comment. It’s not the hits that matter, its the comments.

3. What is the thing you keep thinking you’ll add but never get round to?
A donation link. I have toyed more than once with adding a donation link or an Amazon Wish list. All the money or items on the wish list would be for my classroom but I just don’t feel comfortable with doing it. So I guess it is not a matter of not getting around to it, it is a matter that I probably won’t do it. (I say probably just to leave that door open in the future.)

4. What can I or anyone else do to make your day better? (No money or housework included!)
You can grade papers. I will have to consider if postage will be worth it. Otherwise, leave a comment!

5. Other than WIT, what is your favourite internet site?
You see the list of Required Reading on the front page of the blog? (The blogroll.) I like all those. A blog does not get listed here unless I really like it. I like most of the Edublogs too. The links listed from Homestar Runner and down are the nonblog websites that I frequent regularly.

Class dismissed!

PS There are no forums at WIT. I just wanted to see if anyone could find some. If you guys didn’t find any, I guess I was right, there are no forums.

PSS Got any other questions?

No Friday Five questions this week. (I think that is happening more and more often.) I had considered posting an old set of Friday Five questions and answering the questions to see if the answers have changed. That is until I found this old entry:

Originally posted on November 15, 2002

Friday Five XII: On Vacation

Friday Five is on vacation so I am going to steal Sakamuyo’s idea. (Who has a different blog now. You can choose the skin that you want!)

Please answer the following questions in the comments.

1. How did you find this place? This place being What in Tarnation?!?!?
2. What’s your favorite part of What in Tarnation?!?!?, have you visited any other parts of the site? Have you seen the WIT forums?
3. What would you like to see here? (that isn’t here or isn’t done well enough)
4. How can I help make your day better? (as long as it doesn’t involve money.)
5. Other than What in Tarnation?!?!?, what is your favorite internet site?

Thanks!

It’s alright if you answered these questions two years ago, I have lost those comments anyway. Leave your answer to the Friday Five (On Saturday) in the comments.

Thanks!

Class dismissed!

If you…

1. …owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
I would probably have an a nice Italian place that served stakes as well. Every night I would have a piece of Tiramisu. I guess I would probably just become part of the Pasta House franchise. AND, I would give all my blogging friends a discount. Yeah, you heard me, a discount.

2. …owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
Computers. Macs and Intel/AMD machines. That, or a book store. It would have a coffee bar in it, with large comfy chairs to sit in. Classical music would play in the background (Jazz music would be prohibited). There would be dark green, mauves and cherry maple wood everywhere. Of course there would be a very large DVD and children’s books sections. I guess I would just open a mini Barnes and Noble. AND, I would give all my blogging friends a discount. Yeah, you heard me, a discount.

3. …wrote a book, what genre would it be?
I would invent a new genre: Education Thriller. Hmmm, that has possibilities. The protagonist would have to teach a curriculum to different level students, on a schedule, all the while dodging bullets and trying to figure out who killed the Superintendent of Curriculum. Of course it would be an international thriller so all of the kids would have to have their passports…

4. …ran a school, what would you teach?
I would be too busy running the school to be able to teach. That is two different jobs.

5. …recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
Praise and Worship and hymns.

What would you do? Fill the comments with your ideals.

Class dismissed!

1. What was the last song you heard?
As I type, I am watching Little Shop of Horrors on DVD with Rick Moranis. Right now they are singing Suddenly Seymour. Does in progress count at the last song you heard? Yes, I did sing along.

2. What were the last two movies you saw?
As I said, I am watching the movie version of Little Shop of Horrors. After Parent/Teacher Conferences I went to Blockbuster and rented that, School of Rock (my rating: A-, how funny), and The Runaway Jury (my rating: B, one of my favorite Grisham novels.)

The movie of Little Shop of Horrors Movie has a significantly different ending than the stage show and ruins my analogy that I tried to make a bit. I would suggest the stage show over the movie. The movie’s ending is way to happy and really messes up the edge that the stage show has. Plus the movie leaves out several songs.

3. What were the last three things you purchased?
A 20 oz. Pepsi for the free song, gasoline, a renewal of my Rewards Membership at Blockbuster Video.

4. What four things do you need to do this weekend?
Add some plug-ins to Spare Change, wait around for the UPS man to show up to deliver my repaired laptop, update MT-Blacklist on this server, grade papers.

5. Who are the last five people you talked to?
Big E, Mary Ann, Pressed, my Mom, the UPS guy.

Class dismissed!

What was…

1. …your first grade teacher’s name?
Mrs. Niswonger was my first grade teacher. Some interesting facts: Mrs. Niswonger is retiring this year, I think I subbed for Mrs. Niswonger on one occasion, I have to good fortune of going to the theater once a month (during the season) with Mrs. Niswonger (and others).

2. …your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?
I’m having trouble remembering which ones came on Saturday Morning. I need to do a little research… Ooooo! I loved the Littles!

3. …the name of your very first best friend?
Is this in back in first grade? Since the question is posed in the past tense, I will answer that way. I would say I had two best friends in the first grade. Josh Hoevelmann (of which I am still in contact with) and Scott Young. We were quite a team if I recall.

4. …your favorite breakfast cereal?
I don’t like breakfast cereal. If I am going to waste breakfast on cereal, I would rather not eat. However, my favorite is Rice Krispies. SNAP! CRACKLE! POP!

5. …your favorite thing to do after school?
I didn’t have many options. I would go to my mother’s classroom and begin the waiting process. Sometimes I would go around and harass the other teachers and be a general nuisance others, I would go outside and play on the playground.

I had to make a post today because today is my second blog birthday. WIT is two years old today. Let’s see… that makes me pretty old in blog years, doesn’t it?

Leave your F5 in the comments.

Class dismissed!

1. Are you superstitious?
No, not really. I have bigger fish to fry. However, it can be fun to play with the mind of a person who is superstitious.

2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition?
Wearing the same, unwashed underwear for 10 years. Not really, I can’t really think of any extreme examples. I once saw someone throw some salt over their shoulder.

3. Believer or not, what’s your favorite superstition?
The “step on a crack and break your mother’s back” has provided me endless hours of entertainment with my third/second graders. I am proud to announce that the overwhelming majority of kids are trying to not break their mother’s backs. Moms, sleep well tonight knowing that and your children are doing everything in our power to not step on a crack. Though there is this one section of pavement near the rear entrance of the school that has proven to be a sticky wicket (sp?). I apologize if some of my shorter students cannot jump the great expanse of cracks.

4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual?
No. God is in control.

5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?
Of course. *Rolls eyes.*

Are you a sucker who does believe in such things? Feel free to tell me about it in the comments.
____

Just a quick note. Blogging might be light in the coming days as I go into mourning.

Please observe a moment of silence in memory of Angel.

It is official, The WB is run by idiots, or I am having a patch of bad luck, it is Friday the 13th you know.

Class dismissed!