My hair MUST look really good...

All day today, two junior boys have been following me around between class periods serenading me with voice and guitar.

The funny thing is, when I taught them last year one of them barely said two words to me from August through June. Huh.

(This is the same boy I made the mistake of asking "Why in the world do you sag your skinny jeans?" I won't give the answer here, because--trust me-- you really don't want to know.)


I have never been so appealing to the male gender.

Too bad they're 17 and I'm not a sicko.

The Return of the Back Handed Compliment

Today in 6th period, one of my students stopped me and said,

"Miss, me and Tyrell think your hair looks really pretty today."

Ahh. That's nice, right?

The problem isn't in what was said. The problem is in the way that it was said. I'm going to write that sentence again with emphasis added:

"Miss, me and Tyrell think your hair looks really pretty TODAY."

You see, it's the TODAY that I have a problem with. While I'm happy that my hair, does in fact, look pretty TODAY, I'd like to think that it looks pretty on a regular basis.

I've got to get up early more often. Seriously.

I can't catch a break...

Every day at the end of third period, we have announcements. If my school could ever get their act together, these announcements will be live video, but for now, they are just a student reading them over the intercom. It's not interesting, so I can kind of understand my students not listening too closely. Today, however, my third period class was so incredibly loud that it was impossible to hear the announcements AT ALL.

I don't know if it was because it's the last week of school before winter break, or because I don't feel good today, but either way I just couldn't take it.

I stood up and yelled at them: "You guys! You need to be quiet so that people CAN hear the announcements! You are being incredibly rude!!"

Silence decended. The announcements ended. And, through the wall, from the Spanish classroom next door, came the faint sounds of

Labamba by Los Lobos.

Kinda undercut my tirade.

I laughed until I cried. . . Oh wait, the crying came first...

Twilight Years from Tom on Vimeo.

Thanks Jill

What Not To Wear (While Taking out the Trash...)

In a couple of weeks my sister Christy is going to inaugurate my guest room. I'm really excited about someone other than me enjoying my carefully decorated little hobbit hole.

However....the fact that she's coming means that I need to muck out my "guest room" which has been my "cram all of that crap I don't know what to do with room" since I moved in this summer. I've spent the last two afternoons/evenings working on the mucking out process. I've hung new wire shelves to augment the closet organizer (when I told my sister Jamie what I was doing, she responded "Shelves in the closet? Happy thought, indeed!" which is pretty much the best thing anyone has ever said to me.); shredded old unused checks; reorganized my wrapping paper, ribbons, scrapbooking materials, paper and cardstock, sewing materials, yarn, etc.; and taken many many many bags of trash out to the dumpster.

While I've been doing all of this mucking out, shelf hanging, and organizing, I've been watching TiVo'd episodes of What Not to Wear. (It's one of my favorite shows that I don't really watch so much as have on in the background while I do other things.) Repeatedly Clinton Kelly (my third favorite gay man in the whole wide world, behind NPH and John Barrowman) has told the women on the show "The clothes you wear tell other people how to treat you." or "When you dress better, you'll attract a much better quality of man."




Clinton Kelly, you were right.

Apparently wearing a bleach stained BYU t-shirt and stretched out jeans screams, "Yooooooo Hooooooo 20 year old drug dealer who lives three doors down!! Come on over and hit on me in front of this stinky dumpster!! Oh, and could you bring your buddy carrying a 40 and your huge pit bull that's not on a leash?"

Maybe I'm being overly judgemental. Maybe this guy isn't a drug dealer at all. It's possible that all of those people who drive in to our parking lot, text him, and give him money without getting out of the car are all his friends who're repaying a loan. Maybe he has to talk to them out in the parking lot 'cause he hasn't had time to straighten up his place. I mean, most 20 year old thuggy guys are friends with middle aged twitchy eyed women....right?

Maybe this is the answer to the man plan. I could do worse, right? He's a self employed go getter and he loves animals. What more could I ask for?

Just follow the yellow brick road officers!!

Can't for the life of me figure out why they haven't caught this guy yet...

That'll do it.

First of all I need to explain my school. No, too long. Let me sum up....

I work at a magnet high school, which means it's a public school, but the students have to apply to get in and meet minimum requirements for acceptance. On top of that, they must maintain acceptable academic and behavioral levels in order to remain enrolled. In other words: students can be kicked out of the school for grades and/or behavioral issues.

While most of the students at our school chose to be there and are proud to attend, we do have a group of students who 1. were forced to attend by their parents or 2. chose to come, but after attending for a while realized (usually because of the level of instruction and student expectations) that the school is not for them.

Sometimes students from these two groups choose to get themselves kicked out of the school, generally through bad grades or behavior.

During lunch today a sophomore (but NOT one of my students) decided that failing all of his classes might take too darn long and took matters into his own hands.

He went into the bathroom, smoked a joint, stripped down to his underwear, and streaked through the lunch room full of students brandishing another joint in his upraised hand.

Mission. Accomplished.

* Update: apparently, the joint in his hand was just a cigarette. I know. It's dissapointing, but does the fact that his boxers had "Italian Stallion" across the buttocks help soften the blow?