Faked

It was Friday of the second week of school, and the kiddos were working on an assignment called Science About Me. It consisted of questions like "favorite source of energy (favorite food)" and "favorite use of electricity". 

One of the questions was "phase of the moon on the day you were born". I took some time to explain how to search that up online. (I made a joke about wondering how they didn't know this already.) 

As it was an assignment destined to be posted in the classroom (I took last year's versions down my first day in the room), I encouraged them to draw pictures and make it colorful. 

One of the students questioned what color to make his moon. 

Me: The moon is gray. And it smells like gunpowder.

A couple students questioned me on that statement. I explained about the astronauts who went to the moon stating this. 

The student: The moon landings were faked... (Quietly, under his breath.)

Deep sigh. 

I did, of course, push back. But apparently I have my work cut out for me.

Collapsing

It's the first full week of school, and the schedule changes have started...

I know better than to create seating charts in ink or to make a pretty class roster sheet as there will be students moving in and out for a bit. But this is ridiculous. 

On Wednesday, the teacher next door, Ms. W, told me that one of the seventh grade math teachers took a different position. Instead of hiring another teacher, the administration began dismantling those classes, distributing the students to other teachers. I didn't get specifics, only that one teacher took over one of the periods, which meant the students she had that period had to go elsewhere...

It's a logistical nightmare. And not my job.

What is my job, though, is to process the students whose schedules got impacted by all of this. 

First period. I noticed that one student wasn't on my attendance any longer. I figured he hadn't been notified of his schedule change yet. Then I got an email saying that any students that were no longer enrolled in our classes should be sent to the office. So, I gently told the boy he would have to go. 

Not five minutes later a student aide came in to give me the boy's new schedule. Deep sigh.

(The boy was switched into my fifth period class.)

And so, all day I had new students. And students pulled out of class as they were sent elsewhere. 

Fifth period. We were a bit into it when I got a call. Another teacher asked me to send her one of my now former students as she was to be in English then instead of science. How the teacher knew where the student was is a mystery to me, as I would have sent the boy in first period to his proper class if I had known how to figure it out. 

So, I gently explained to the girl that her schedule was also different. 

And remember, these seventh graders are brand new to this school. So, add this confusion on top of it all...

At least I got my seating charts done before all this started. (With post-it notes for each student, so it's easy to move them around.) If I can just keep on top of the changes daily, I should be able to keep things organized. But what a nightmare.

Cup Challenge

It's the first full week of school, so that means that we're doing introductory things. Luckily, in science, that means we're doing some fun team things. 

I am also scrambling, of course. I've been working on getting seating charts made and gradebooks set up and the classroom organized so I can focus on the teaching and not the keeping up with everything else. Luckily, there are two other seventh grade science teachers, and we're all doing the same stuff. And they've been making sure I have what I need to keep the lessons going. 

We started with a cup stacking challenge. I found a video that shows what they were doing rather than trying to explain...

The video shows challenge one. There were ten. Various configurations.

We're still in the "honeymoon" phase of the year, so I wasn't too worried about the kiddos going crazy. They dove in and for the most part tackled the challenges well. 

But, of course, some groups finished more quickly than others.

What do seventh graders do with six cups, a rubber band, and nothing to do? 

Again, it's early in the year, so it didn't go as badly as it could have. 

Throwing cups is better than them throwing the cups at each other. (That was the point when we moved on to the next item on the agenda: going over the syllabus. They were bored, but they didn't fight me on it.) 

So far, I'm accomplishing my assignment. In case you were wondering, I have one main goal: don't let the kiddos go feral. At the moment, they're behaving like a typical seventh grade class. I call it a win.

Were-People

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

Because of recommendations via Bluesky, I leapt in and watched My Lady Jane on Amazon Prime. And, that show is wackadoodle. In a good way. Kind of. 

The show is an alternative history type of thing, where Tudor England has a conflict between two kinds of people: Verities, who are just like us, and Ethians, who can shapeshift into animals. The Ethians are "outlawed", but that leads to issues, because how can you outlaw people? 

While watching, I got to thinking. It's kind of too bad that there are no actual shifters in our real world. (And I have not done too many fantasy-type of questions lately.) So...

What if there were some people in our world who could shift into animals? 

Regarding an Omission

It cooled off a bit on Friday, so when I went out Saturday, I felt energized enough to tackle the eye sweater again. Alas, I left behind one of the skeins I'd need to continue the sleeve. So, I made do with the skeins I had brought. 

I continued with the other sleeve. I sewed up the side seams. And I realized that the neckline needed something, so I did a round of double crochet around it.

It's not a lot of progress, but it's progress. 

Did you make any progress on a project you didn't think you'd get to last week?

Eye sweater previous posts:

• Eyeing a New Project
  
• Seeing Some Progress
• Second Sight
• Envisioning the Next Step
• Glaring and Sniffling
• Surveying the Sweater
• Looking Towards Sleeves
• Watching More Progress

Victor/Victoria

Note: the title of this post references a movie. If you have not seen it, it's a good movie. I recommend it. 

Friday. The second day of school.

In teacher training, I learned that it is not a good idea to let students choose their seats. But, as someone whose last name starts with an A, I really dislike seating students alphabetically. I prefer a randomization method. 

Ms. S had the desks numbered. She also had index cards with the numbers on them. So, I shuffled the cards, and as the students entered the room, I drew a card and assigned them that seat. It was lovely.

A few students did move as they needed to be close to the front. This was to be expected. I'm sure there'll be other moves as the semester wears on. 

But, mostly they sat in the random seats I had randomly generated. 

One of the other starting class things I did was to have them make pull cards. (These are cards with their names on them that I can shuffle to call on them randomly.) 

As I went around to pick them up, I made sure to pronounce their names to make sure I was saying them right. This is when I noticed that two boys who have the same name sit next to each other. Deep sigh.

So, as I was picking up the cards one period, I looked down and noted the boy was named Victor. Nothing odd there. In the very next seat was Victoria. 

Um...

I think there are a few kinks in the randomization system. Sigh. 

(I kinda want to tell the kiddos about the movie, but I'm not sure it's terribly age appropriate. I mean, it's not bad, but there are a few adult themes that they're probably a bit young for. If you've seen the movie, you'll know what I mean.)

Tortilla Slap

The first day of school. And I began a long-term in a seventh grade science class. 

In our district, seventh grade is the beginning of middle school. (I know some districts begin middle school with sixth grade. That's why I'm being specific.) And as such, the seventh graders are brand new to the school.

So, the school decided to make the first day of school a kind of seventh grade orientation. Instead of going to all their classes, the seventh graders stayed with their first period teacher for the full day of icebreaking games, a tour of the school, an overview of how the schedule works, and an assembly to welcome the new students. 

(I was given the schedule ahead of time, so I knew what was coming.) 

For a first day, things went fairly well. The eighth grader who was leading the group did a fantastic job. (Although, her tour guide skills do need improvement.) I didn't have to jump in too much. 

But then we went to the assembly...

I have made my dislike of assemblies abundantly clear on this blog. The problem with this assembly, though, was more technical. The sound system was so awful that I could barely make out what the presenter was saying. 

I got the gist as when various administrators were introduced, I already knew who they were. However, the students, who are new, wouldn't have figured out what they were talking about. So, they were bored.

Things could have gone worse. The kiddos were on first day best behavior. If they had tried this later in the year...

But what was notable about the assembly (and why I'm writing a blog post about it), was the last game they played. The earlier games were the usual things such as musical chairs (with a race component) and dodge ball. They did a tug of war. There was even a finish the lyric.

They finished the assembly with a game called rock-paper-scissors... tortilla.

I had never heard of this before, but apparently it's a thing. Mr. S, the leadership teacher, and Mr. F, a history teacher (who's also been doing some leadership stuff), faced off in rock-paper-scissors. The winner slapped the loser with a tortilla.

I... Uh...

I'm sure the students would have enjoyed it way more if they were more familiar with Mr. S and Mr. F. But they enjoyed it just fine. I, however, was mystified by the whole thing.

Just when I thought I'd seen everything...

That Shaking Feeling

Monday (last week). Thursday was the first day of school. I had asked for a day to get set up, and I had been granted two. So, I had a few errands to run before I got locked down with work.

I was eating breakfast* when the room started swaying. Earthquake. 

Roommate actually felt this one. She called out. I agreed that we were having an earthquake. And that's when it should have been over. Only it wasn't. 

"This is a long one."

But, eventually it stopped. (They always do.) 

I finished eating my breakfast, and then got ready to go out and do the stuff I needed to do.

We've had a few earthquakes of late. This one wouldn't have made the blog either. Only, somehow it made national news. ???

I mean, big ones make national news. Ones with major destruction. But this one? I guess a few people were broadcasting when it happened. Maybe? 

All I know is that I kept hearing about it the next day. And I figured you might have as well. So, that made it notable, if only for it not being that notable. 

(*If you clicked on the link and noticed that the earthquake was at 12:20 PM and also noticed that I said I was eating breakfast... Yeah? It was my last day of summer vacation. I slept in.) 

I saw a post on social media shortly thereafter that really summed up how we seem to react to earthquakes. I thought I'd share:

In case you can't read the image:

Just had an earthquake here on OC.

For those outside of CA, this is how it goes:

Earthquake in seconds in CA:

1-2: is that the dog scratching?
3-4: is there a truck outside?
5-7: I think it's an earthquake.
8-10: Yep, definitely an earthquake.
11-15: Do I need to get up? I don't really want to get up.
16-20: Doesn't seem that bad. I don't think I need to get up.
21-25: I think it's over. Is it over? Yeah, I think it's over.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

Last Friday... Well, I don't want to talk about it. But, it makes for a good "what if?"...

What if you could erase a humiliating memory? (It sounds good, but I'm sure there would be a downside. probably a significant one.)

Christmas in August

Not quite the same ring as "Christmas in July", but it's very Christmassy here with me finally finishing the string lights...

I took the strand outside to give it a different background for the final photos. 

All the "lights" are sewn onto the "cord". I finished it up on Saturday. (This is the pattern if you want to make one of your own.)

I probably should have taken more shots like the one above, where you can see the closeup of the "light". Maybe next week. With school in session, I may not have anything else to blog about next Monday, yarn-wise.

I attempted to do a panoramic shot, but it didn't quite come out as I would have liked. I would have spent more time playing with that, but in choosing what to spend my time on right now, I have to use some of it for work prep. Sigh.

So, finished. Finally. Considering that I started this back in October of last year, I've been working on it for a while. But, not seven and a half years, so not too bad, really.

The string lights crochet saga:

• Scrolling
• Lit Up
• String Lights
• More Lights
• Crochet the Rainbow
• Almost There
• Assembling
• More Assembling

In Isolation

While yesterday was the first day of school, I am actually writing this a week ago, just after I finally tested negative for Covid. (Since that was day six after first testing positive, it wasn't too bad.) And, I've felt a bit isolated. (Of course. I was not out and about while sick.)

This is where today's (final of the summer) random question comes from: 

If you were stuck on your own for a week, what are some things you would do to pass the time? (You can't go out. But anything you have access to in your home is fair game.) 

Anticipatory 13

Today is the first day of school. Normally, I would not know if I was going to be working it, but I am starting the school year in a long term assignment--seventh grade science. (So, this will be my last Thursday 13 of the summer.) 

In anticipation of the new school year, here are thirteen things that I am looking forward to (and dreading). 

1. While it is nice to have time off, I am looking forward to being out of the house daily. 

2. Air conditioning. While the house has a room a/c, it doesn't work terribly well. (We haven't gotten that hot, so it hasn't been necessary.) I will freeze out the kiddos, but I will so enjoy doing it.

3. Lesson plans. This year I'm covering a maternity leave, not a vacant class, so there will be some sort of plan to follow. Yay! I'll be winging it a bit, but I won't have to come up with things on the fly.

4. New kiddos. I don't cover elementary school. So, last year's sixth graders will all be new to me. Blank slate.

5. New kiddos also goes in the dread category. They don't know me. And it'll be my job to train them into the sort of class I want going forward. (With the wrong touch, the class can be a disaster for the entire school year. No pressure.)

6. Random fire alarms. This is the school that has the fire alarm go off periodically for no reason whatsoever. Not sure if this is a looking forward or a dread. I should keep a countdown clock until that first alarm. It won't be long.

7. Cell phone battles. Definitely the dread category. I hope they're young enough that they're not quite addicted (and that many of them haven't gotten their first phone yet). 

8. Teaching. I do enjoy getting up in front of a class and talking about stuff. When the kiddos let me. 

9. Scrambling. While in theory I'm going to have lesson plans and other teachers teaching the same thing (so I'm not starting from scratch), it will take me some time to get everything lined up. And I am not looking forward to that initial figuring out what I need and finding where to get it from.

10. Attitude. Oh, I hope they're calm kiddos, but I know this age. Eighth graders have more of that middle school attitude, but it starts in seventh grade (and sixth grade has a bit of it, too). I am not looking forward to dealing with the drama of this age group.

11. Establishing routines. I know the teacher is going to be out for a while, and that I'll be replaced with another sub before she returns. So, I get to set up the class the way I want. Mostly. I don't usually get to do this, so it'll be new for me.

12. I won't have to scramble for day-to-day gigs for about a month. At the beginning of the school year, that's golden. This is the time of year when most teachers are pretty good about being at work. It'll be nice to have something steady until teacher absences become more regular.

13. Getting paid. Subs don't get paid over the summer (unless we pick up summer school gigs). Enough said.

Way Back Files

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I will have a class of seventh graders for the next month or so, and that got me thinking about me in the seventh grade:

I was not happy with this picture at the time. And eighth grade was worse:

Oh, I adored that shirt. It was fabulous. But my hair... Sigh.

Why did I pull these out? I'm debating whether or not I should share these with the incoming seventh graders. 

I've got a couple days to decide. Funny how they don't look as awful as they seemed to me at the time. 

Anti-Trust

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

What if Amazon got broken up by anti-trust laws?

More Assembling

Since the last time I showed off the string lights, I have sewn a few more on, but about half the strand is still tacked down (waiting for me to finish sewing):

(By the way, the pattern is here as I have been remiss in linking to it.) 

Last week I wasn't in much of a mood to do any yarn-y stuff. It was too hot and I had Covid. This week is the first week of school, so I may not get much done again. Sigh. But now all my pictures are caught up.

I hope you have a lovely week planned.

The string lights thus far:

• Scrolling
• Lit Up
• String Lights
• More Lights
• Crochet the Rainbow
• Almost There
• Assembling

Weirdly Fascinating

I've noticed that "weird" is making the rounds lately. So...

What is something that is weird about you?

I don't know if I can narrow it down to just one thing, so I'll go with the first thing that comes to mind. I have weird tastes in food. Name something that most people enjoy, and I likely hate it. I did a Thursday 13 about this topic last summer, so I feel I've covered the specifics.

Covid update: I tested negative yesterday. Woo-hoo!

Orange County Fair 13

Last week (on my birthday), I went to the Orange County Fair. My review of the day is in the form of a Thursday 13. 

1. Just after we arrived (and after we'd perused the crafty area), I spied a booth selling lemonade. I ordered a frozen strawberry lemonade. And it ended up being more trouble than it was worth. (They had to go to another booth to get the drink? It was unclear.) The drink was tasty, after I did get it. But they were doing the paper straw thing (deep sigh), so the straw disintegrated long before I finished.

Frozen Strawberry Lemonade

2. Pumpkin in the "farm" section of the fair.

3. On the other side of the pathway from the pumpkins.

4. In the floral arrangement building.

5. Also in the floral arrangement building. This is made to look like a Pente board, which, considering I just talked about Pente in last week's Thursday 13, I just had to include. (There was a tableau of floral arrangements made to look like games.)

6. Fair food. No, I did not sample any of these wares. (A funnel cake chicken sandwich? Really?) But I couldn't pass up a shot of what you could order. (Lunch was fish-n-chips.)

7. After lunch, we hit the hobbies area. This was from collections. I had to take a pic of this Barbie collection for Jamie. 

7. (Cont.) The rest of the Barbies.

8. Same building as the collections was the table settings. I don't normally care about table settings, but Twilight Zone?

9. Still in the same building, the quilts. The dresses are made from old handkerchiefs. 

10. And, of course, the reason we were in the building in the first place, the knitting. This is such a great way to use up leftover yarn. I aspire to this level of creativity. As you can see, it won a ribbon.

11. Cosplay is a category one can enter their creations in. And this one caught my eye. (Still the same building.)

12. Very busy image (sorry!), but in the middle is what I was looking at--a crocheted dragon. As you can see, it's huge. 

13. After this, we went into visual arts (photography, painting, and woodworking). I did not take pics of pictures. We left soon after that. And I was wiped out. At the car as I took off my backpack I hit my ear with the strap, and my earring flew off. I managed to find the front, but the back was gone. (We looked for a while. Moved our car. Alas, it probably ended up under the car next to us, and while we poked our heads under as far as we could go, it was not far enough.) 

We were only there about four hours. It was not a terribly hot day. But, I still managed to get sunburned on those bits of skin I missed with the sunscreen. The story of my life.

Does your county hold a fair? Do you go? (Technically, this isn't "my" county fair as I live in Los Angeles County, but I'm so near the border with Orange County. And LA County's fair is so much farther away.) 

Franklin

Covid update: Currently I feel like I have a very mild cold. I still test positive, but I'm confident that when school starts back up next week, I'll be fine (and back at work). 

It's a good thing that school is starting back up soon as I am running out of TV shows to talk about. As I was lamenting that with the Olympics on, I wasn't watching anything new, I realized I had not talked about a show I saw a couple months ago. Franklin. 

Franklin, on Apple Plus, is about Benjamin Franklin in France during the War of Independence doing the diplomacy thing to secure supplies and such to help finance the war. 

There are spies, double crosses, and diplomacy. And half of the show is in French. (This was not a show I could knit to. A character would start in English, switch to French, and then switch back into English in one speech.) The subtitles are in English, though, so I didn't have to rely on my high school French (which was a long time ago). 

If you like history, you will probably enjoy this. I couldn't get over how anyone could dress like that day in and day out. Yikes.

Has anyone seen this show? Has anyone heard of it before? (When I stumbled across it was the first time I had heard of it.) Have you been watching anything other than the Olympics lately? What's your favorite sport to watch?

Compensated

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

What if being a billionaire was illegal? 

(I can sense some questions here. Let me specify that I don't mean billionaires would be hunted. It's more like the mechanisms in place that let a person acquire that amount of money are dismantled.)

Watching More Progress

Now it looks like a sweater:

(So, I got a new computer not quite a month ago, and instead of using the image editing software I've been using for more than a decade, I'm using what was on the new computer. It'll be better, once I get the hang of it.)

As you can see, I'm working both sleeves at the same time, just like I worked the front and the back at the same time. This way, I can't screw up by forgetting what I did for the first by the time I reach the second.

I confirmed with Liv that it's long enough. So, I can sew down those side seams (which I didn't as I wasn't sure if I was going to add length). Now it's just a matter of getting the sleeves to be 18 inches long. 

It's something to do while watching the Olympics.

(I'm regretting the theme I adopted for the titles to these posts. I mean, it was obvious when I started, but I'm running out of seeing-themed words. As I type this, the post is untitled. Whatever will I title this post?)

Late edit: Guess who tested positive for Covid? My posts for this week are already all written and scheduled. I'll be around, but not as quickly as usual. (I feel like I have a cold--another cold this summer. Ugh.)

Eye sweater previous posts:

• Eyeing a New Project
  
• Seeing Some Progress
• Second Sight
• Envisioning the Next Step
• Glaring and Sniffling
• Surveying the Sweater
• Looking Towards Sleeves

Seventh Grade

Something I had not mentioned on the blog (because I was really hoping it would fall through) was that in the spring, a science teacher had reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in covering her class long term for the upcoming school year. (She'll be on maternity leave.) 

Deep sigh. 

But, beginning of the school year, when things are slow. And I do know science...

Now it's official. (The sub caller contacted me, and I gave an official yes. It's on.)

It's seventh grade science. This is mostly life science, but they kind of mixed things a couple years back, so it's not entirely life science stuff. 

But, that's not why I'm writing this post. It is Friday. And my question for you today is about your experience in seventh grade. (For non-U.S. people, the students are 12-years-old.)

What is something you remember from seventh grade? (Positive or negative. Funny or sweet. I'm leaving it open.) And it can just be one thing.

13 Games

I'm running out of Thursday 13 ideas. Last week, while digging in my closet for something, I noticed my board games. I have way more than 13 of those. I can take a sampling...

1. 13 Dead End Drive

Apropos for today. The object: kill all your opponents so you can win the inheritance. It takes loads of time to set up, but the niblings loved it. I'm afraid they're a bit bloodthirsty.

2. Chronology

I love this game. You're given an event, and you have to figure out where to place it in a timeline created by other events in your timeline. Tricky. And fun.

3. Skip Bo

This is my newest, and one I really enjoy. I was introduced to it at the adult transition center in 2021. You want to get rid of all your cards by placing them in order. It's fun.

4. Masterpiece

I love this game, but no one will play it with me. You acquire paintings via auction or by stealing them from opponents. The player with the most accumulated wealth via paintings wins. 

5. Clue

I have several versions of this game: Master Detective, Doctor Who, Clue FX, Anniversary Limited Edition (in a commemorative tin box), and of course, the original (with a deformed envelope, sigh). Definitely a favorite.

6. UNO

This one seems to be a card game everyone knows. The object: get rid of all your cards. 

7. Trivial Pursuit

I've got an original board and supplemental cards: Baby Boomer Edition, RPM Edition, Genus II, All Star Sports Edition, Young Players Edition, and Silver Screen Edition. Plus, I have the 20th anniversary edition. I haven't played this in years.

8. Pente

This one was kind of a play on the classic Go. The object: to get five stones in a row (or capture five pairs of your opponent's stones). It's a two-player game, and can be tricky.

9. Parcheesi

This is another of those classic games that you've probably heard of.

10. Sorry

This is one of my original games--one I've had since I was a kid with a single-digit age. And the board looks it.

11.The Game of Life

You start with a car that you fill with your "family". Not a favorite of mine.

12.Scotland Yard

You're trying to find the villain via London's subway system. I haven't played this in years. It was tricky.

13. Mad Magazine Game

This is another game I've had most of my life. It works kinda backwards to Monopoly. It's been years since I played it, so my memory is fuzzy.