2002-01-11
TGIF - dreams, weekend plans, damn 7th period, posted at 7:09 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Thank God it's Friday.It's been a long week, probably because last week was so short. Plus, it hasn't been exactly a stellar week, with my car dying and my kids restless. Yesterday was heinous. I was so exhausted when I got home that I napped from 5:30 until 7:00.
It was a wonderful nap, and I had two weird dreams:
Dream #1) I was teaching my 7th period, and looked at the clock. It was 3pm. I started to get sleepy, then I noticed all these people coming into the room. I paid it no mind. But, suddenly, I looked out there and the room was full of like 70 people - all the students and their parents. Watching me. The kids were unruly, and the parents were cheering them on. It was terrible.
Dream #2) I got a pass for a student from a counselor. Except the pass was weird. It said, "I'm trying to locate a student who this other kid has a crush on. She's a red head, but I don't know her name. But the kid really likes her, and we need to figure it out and tell her." For some reason, I made it my quest to find this girl. I was running all around my classroom, and then my school, looking for her. Suddenly, my school turned into my own high school I went to, then seemed to pick up some elements of MSU, too. It got incredibly crowded and I couldn't pass through the halls. I accidentally dropped the pass and everyone trampled over it. I couldn't get it back. Then, for some reason, I was at a Melissa Ferrick concert and I saw Ellen DeGeneres in a hooded sweatshirt trying to go unnoticed.
Weird.
I love when I remember my dreams. I'm not someone who thinks they mean a whole lot, but they're fun. The weirdest dream I ever had - one that made me go out and get a dream encyclopedia - involved a giraffe that I helped give birth to in front of the meat processor's place I used to work for. She gave birth to a giant frozen steak. It bounced on the concrete, but the giraffe licked it and tried to revive it.
My freshmen practiced an ECR (extended constructive response) this week, and the results have been mediocre. Not good, since they're taking the state tests next week. I still can't get the kids to stop starting their papers with phrases like, "Well I'm writing to tell you a time when..." or "I am writing about my best friend..." They're also having a problem with being too conversational and slang-y, writing things like, "We started fussing with each other" or "she was tripping" or "I didn't pay it no mind".
"We write like we talk," one of them tried to tell me.
Yup, and that's the problem.
My freshmen were terrible yesterday. We went over answers to a practice state test we took, and, yes, it was boring, but their behavior was still abnormally bad. At one point, I told them that they were all "on alert" and that I would hand out detention to those who talked. They all laughed and that was the phrase of the day in the class. It was sort of funny, I admit, but I was sufficiently annoyed by the end of class. I'm going to do two things that work well in keeping them under control today - an exercise from the grammar book, and some oral reading. Neither are incredibly exciting, but Friday afternoon 7th period is going to be hell if I let them do what I had planned (read a short story by Stephen King, discuss, practice BCRs), I can just feel it. I'll postpone it until next week.
I have no concrete plans for the weekend yet. I got invited to a euchre tournament on Saturday night with the same group I joined last month, but I think I'm going to skip out. It's in D.C., I don't have a car, and the crowd is quite a bit older than I am. Jason doesn't want to go, so I'll be feeling like more of an outsider than last time even. I'll go next month, when it's here in town. Besides, Josh (my temporary 3rd roommate) is in town and I think we'll cook something up fun. I'd be happy going to the movies both nights, or movie one night and bar the other.