Christmas in October

Earth science. It's a tricky day. The class is populated by 9th graders who failed 8th grade science. My primary job is to clamp down on any crazy behavior.

For the most part last Monday, the classes were okay. They were loud, but I didn't observe much crazy. Until 5th period.

One student took something like five tissues and headed for the door. This is such an everyday occurrence that it normally deserves no remark. What elevates it to blog-worthy came next.

The student stood in the doorway and playacted blowing his nose. He put the tissue on the tip of his nose, blew so the tissue fluttered out in front of him, and then crumpled the clean tissue, finally disposing of it in the trash. He did this five times.

(He stood so that he was facing outside. I tried to get close enough to see who he was playacting for, but I never did get to see which girl he was trying to impress.)

When I questioned him, he went to the corner of the room, sat on the floor, and declared that he was in a "time out". Like he was a kindergartner or something. (His fellow students thought this hilarious. Somehow I managed to get him to sit in a real chair like a high schooler.)

After that, the class settled to restaurant on Saturday night noise levels, but the key word here is "settled". They sat and sort of worked.

Then from another corner of the room, I heard singing. "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".

Um, it's October. We haven't even had Halloween yet.

Then a student in the opposite corner of the room broke into "Frosty the Snowman".

Apparently, I wandered into cartoon land without even realizing it.

(I ran into their teacher the next day. He was not amused by any of this.)

When is the strangest time you've encountered someone breaking into Christmas songs?

Impeding Traffic

As a newbie sub, I learned not to ask other students for their classmates' names. Even the most "reliable" of the good students "doesn't know" the names of the misbehaving students (even though they've all been in school together since kindergarten).

It's a snitch thing. No student wants to "snitch" on his/her peers.

Last Thursday I covered middle school pre-algebra. They had worksheets. They did them. The bell rang, and the students filed out to go to lunch.

I made sure I was set up for the next group. But the room wasn't clearing out as quickly as it normally does. The students were stuck. Um, what...?

One seated girl had her leg propped on a nearby desk, blocking the only path through the room to the door.

Um, no.

Because of the traffic jam, I could not get to the girl. I called out, but she couldn't hear me. Then whatever was going on settled, for the girl stood, and everyone could pass. I tried to get to the girl (I wanted to have a little discussion about blocking pathways in small classrooms), but she left, apparently not hearing me calling out to her.

Quietly, I asked the girl nearest to me who that had been. And the girl told me!

I did not expect an answer. I expected a hemming and hawing. No snitching to the sub. But I guess preventing everyone from leaving class loses a girl certain privileges.

I understand, though. She was keeping them all from lunch!

Not So Crocodile

It's finally finished. What do you think?

According to Ravelry, I started this back on May 7th. I haven't been working on it nonstop. Once the heat of summer really hit, I set it aside. I just picked it up again about three weeks ago, when sitting under the fabric stopped being crazy uncomfortable.

Now it's finished, just in time for the weather to warm up again. Sigh.

Once I bound the thing off, I tried it on and got a good look at myself in the mirror. And found that this thing looks like a British barrister's wig. Double sigh.

Ah well. I learned a lot from making it. I was going to post how I did it, but I don't think anyone is going to much care. (Although, if you would like me to post the pattern, I will. Just let me know in the comments.)

Catching the Answers

7th grade science. They were to watch a video on light and answer 10 questions that were provided to them on a handout.

By 4th period, I was pretty familiar with the video. Familiar enough to explain to that class that each answer would appear three separate times. And I let them know that I would point out when each answer was stated.

This is not enough for 7th graders. They worry.

"But what if we still don't get the answers?"

Stated three times in the video? With me calling out: "Here's number 2"? Not likely.

The girl persisted. But what if she missed an answer?

"What if an asteroid hits the Earth in the next five minutes?" I asked her.

I could only assure her so much. I had to get the video started. I had to make sure that we could go over the answers after as well.

Dystopian Past?

Have you ever noticed how much "end of days" hype surrounds us? There's the Mayan calendar thing. It seems like every couple years there's some crackpot who claims the end is about to befall us. There's the stuff surrounding the beliefs about the Rapture (and those that are making money off of it). And of course there's all the dystopian fiction that seems to be popular.

It's Thursday, so I am going somewhere with this.

The other part of my pondering has to do with what is known as genetic memory. Basically, it's the idea that we retain a sense of what our ancestors went through, but not consciously. It's like we remember it in our bones.

What if all these feelings of an impending apocalypse are us accessing genetic memories of the past rather than predicting future events? 

Just a thought.

Better Late Than Never

I've been a bad blogger lately. I've been scheduling my blogs way in advance, and then I get so slammed during the week that I haven't had much of a chance to do much except scroll through all your blogs and make the occasional comment. Because of this, I've missed out on some announcements.

Better late than never, right?

First up, Sharon Bayless has started up The Blog Tour Exchange. It's a place where you can sign up your blog to host future blog tours and where you can set up your future blog tours. Check it out. She has a contest going, and you can enter as long as you sign up by November 1st.

And of course I missed Charity Bradford's cover reveal on October 1st. (I'm 21 days late. Eeek!)

By the time you see this, I'm sure I'll have missed some other major events in the blogosphere. School gets into full swing and I get swamped. This is normal for me.

Oh, and I won a copy of PT Dilloway's new book Tales of the Scarlet Knight: A Hero's Journey. So, when I have a spare moment, I'll be reading.

Not Listening

"What's your name?"

I get the question all the time. It's why I carry a name magnet and put it up every day.

At the beginning of every period I introduce myself. I wait until the class has settled (read: is silent). I pronounce my name (sometimes I do this a couple times) and tell the class that they may call me Ms. A. Then I move on to their assignment for the day.

Last Thursday I had a 7th grade science class. It was 3rd period. I did my usual introduction, and we were just about to go over the answers to their study guide when a boy raised his hand and asked me that question. Yep, he asked me my name after I had just spent two minutes introducing myself.

I shook my head at that. There's only so much I can do. After that, I let them remain ignorant.