Detentions and Eraser Wars

For some odd reason, my students just can't seem to get back into the swing of things since the Christmas break--over 2 1/2 weeks ago! It was one of those downer weeks where I turned into 'angry teacher,' which I assure you, I am not. Ask the students. One of my pervading beliefs as an educator is that it's important to respect the students (too many teachers do not). I have a good relationship with most of my students, but for some odd reason they just didn't listen as a collective group this week. It was annoying. I wrote up about 15 of them. When I worked our 2 hour Thursday School (detention) last night I had two boys that got into an eraser war, for which I had to write them another Thursday School. Ugh. I'm looking forward to resting this weekend and enjoying my space from the students that I normally enjoy very much.
suz

The Wisest Magi

The oft' forgotten, yet no less important, fourth Magi 'Gnomi' (Fontannini got it wrong... who says there were only three wise men!!!) was captured on film this Christmas at the McKay's. The rare photograph displays Gnomi's keen ability to calm the baby Jesus with mad free-style skills and offerings of fresh cut daisies.

Yes, our children will grow up each Christmas saying 'They forgot Gnomi daddy, they forgot Gnomi!' Each year on bent knee, I'll faithfully remind their sad little eyes of one unshakable truth... 'Little Gnomi is in your heart! No one can ever take that away from you... remember that! Gnomi is in your heart...'

Home again, home again

We arrived back safely from our CA romp on Friday night. For those of you who didn't know, we took a 3-day, cross-country road trip and drove Aron's truck back to Dallas. We took I-10 and stayed the first night in Tucson, AZ. We slept in, got up the next morning and were on our way after we getting our Starbucks fix and Del Taco breakfast burritos to boot. Day 2 was the longest day, by far, as we traveled through Las Cruces, NM (where I learned that my grandpa's mom's family was from), into El Paso, and finally ending up in Midland, TX for the night. We rolled in about 1:30 AM and crashed. After sleeping in again, we were off after picking up Starbucks (of course). The drive was really quite beautiful and although I grew up touring alot of the United States by car on childhood family vacations, it is just now I am realizing that a significant amount of the US is empty. What wide-open spaces we have! A highlight of our road trip was me reading the book A Million Little Pieces by James Frey to Aron. This helped keep him awake (as he refused to let me drive even once, telling me this was my vacation--what a sweetheart!) and gave us new depth and insight into the life of those people who struggle with addictions. If you can get past the heavy language and often times, heavy imagery, in the book, we highly recommend this read--you'll never look at an addict the same way again.

Happy 2006!