Theres no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid people

Ok, well maybe not. I just thought that this saying was extra funny because of the subject matter that I am about to address, so I'll start at the beginning. I received an email from the floral dept asking for art pieces so they could do floral interpretations of them for the floral show. I thought that sounded interesting so I gave them my number and eventually I got a call from some girl. I showed her pictures over the internet and I let her decide which project she wanted to pick. She ended up choosing the "Bridge Under Construction" one.

I really like how she hung the rocks from it! She went really abstract with it and I think that hers was the best one (I'm not biased or anything.) Anyway, the day of the show I called up Heather and we went to the show (McKay was in the testing center). We had just found my sculpture when I got a call from McKay saying that he was out and was coming up. So we waited for him but as we were waiting we eavesdropped on all the people walking past us (this is where the "stupid people" comment ties in). Here is some of the things we heard:

"Is that a cake?"
"ha ha ha ha!"
"What is that?"
"Did she make that?"
"Is that a cake?"
"Interesting"
"Oh, it's a cone thing."
"That is a...."
"Is that a cake?"
"Daddy, is that clay?"
"Some people do some really strange art."
"Oh, man!"
"I don't get it."
"Is that a cake?"
"They are going to use it to make Cheese Wiz."
"That's Jessica's. It says so."
"What the... is that?"
"Is that a cake Daddy?

McKay looks nice and innocent in this beautiful scenery but really he jumped into the picture. Thanks a lot babe.

This cake was seriously the best cake in the whole show! I love it! (above)
This table arrangement of orchids is soooo pretty! When I'm rich I'll have one of these arrangements in my house. (below)

I love this arrangement and I took a picture of it not knowing that Ashley (the girl who did my ceramic project) did this one. After we saw each other in person we both realized that we were in the same ceramic class together.

This was in their Japanese themed room I love the woven snakegrass placemats! Awesome!

Winter...

Sometimes I like to pretend that winter is almost over. Most of the time I try to refrain from this optimistic attitude. Usually I wouldn't be so negative, but Rexburg isn't famous for spring in March, or even April for that fact. Last year it snowed in June. So I have decided that I will keep my mindset that it is still winter so that way I won't get let down. Even if the weather does tease us with warm spring-y temperatures in the 40's, I will not be convinced that we are in spring. My bet is that we will get at least 2 more snowstorms before "real" spring.

A couple of days ago, when I was skipping inservice, whoa... I mean, McKay came and brought me flowers for no reason. Sigh. I love flowers. It makes it feel much more spring-y and happy.

Yeah, you probably caught that... I skipped inservice. Yeah, I don't care. My cooperating teacher said I didn't have to go, because he was going to another meeting in some other city. Hah ha! Let me tell you, it was awesome! I loved not going and I don't regret it. Inservice is stupid. It's pretty much just a waste of time. The last one I went to they were teaching us how to use a search engine... ooooOOOO! Really didn't need to be there for that one. Maybe they should put an age requirement or a technology aptitude test so that way you don't have to go listen to "searching for articles/images/other" for four hours.

So McKay and I did something fun this weekend. We fed ducks. Yeah, we're really wild.

While McKay was feeding the ducks he noticed that if you dangle the bread in front of the geese they will try to jump for it. It was funny watching the them try to jump.

I am not sure why this clip wont play all of the way but if you skip forward you can see more.

I got my new tri kids this week and they are awesome! I will let everyone know how that goes later... this is enough posting for one day.

dead dogs and children

The tri just switched yesterday so I no longer have any of the kids that I used to have. I will get a new batch of kids on Mon. That makes me sad... wait... no, not really. I really liked my 4th hour history class though (pictured below), they were the most fun.

My 2nd hour history class was horrible, there was only eight students in that class. Three of those students showed up once every two weeks, another three hung out with the wrong crowd and was doped up all the time, and that left only two who were relatively normal. It was pretty depressing.

Sometimes these kids say the weirdest things. They are all in the stage where they are trying to be cool but they don't know what they are talking about. Yesterday I heard two of my kids talking about sushi. It went something like this:

1: "Have you ever had sushi?"

2: "No."

1: "You haven't?! *gasp*"

2: "Do you even know what sushi is?"

1: "Yeah.... uhhh..... I know what it is. uhhhh.... uhhhh..... like raw fish? Have you ever had quiche?"

2: "No"

1: "It's exactly like sushi."

sure it is...

___________________________________________________

A couple of days ago Heather ran over to my apt and told me to come with her because there was something I should see. We went back to her apt and there was a dead dog partially wrapped in a garbage bag in her backyard. Very interesting. As we sat in her living room looking out at the bloodied corpse (this photo doesn't show the blood part) we discussed who could have put the dog there and why. We came up with many different scenarios and then we saw her korean neighbors come out and wrap it with more plastic bags. Her neighbors didn't own a dog and we found it very weird that they, all of the sudden, did. After her neighbors were done wrapping it they brought it into their house. We watched but they never left to throw it in the dumpster... dun da duuuuuun!

What happened to it? We will never know.

Oops I did it again...

...got lost in the game.  Oh baby, baby

(Did I mention I love book paper?)

Ahhh.... 8th graders.....

While stuck grading research papers this Friday the 13th, I was unusually surprised when I found out that a number of my student's projects on the Revolutionary War were plagiarized.  Many of these are really good students too.  Anyway, it is definitely a dead-giveaway when a thirteen year-old uses words like "sovereign," "whilst," or "associates." I find it particularly entertaining when they even have the guts to come up to me and act like they are so confused about why I gave them a zero.  Yeah, yeah, yeah... I'm a jerk. 

But enough with all this negative stuff, there was some essays that were original and I found rather funny.  One of the assignments I had these kids do was to write a letter pretending they were a soldier in Valley Forge.  They had to include their living conditions as well as their feelings about being an American soldier.  Most students wrote about being starved, cold, and needing supplies but I found one of the students' letters particularly interesting.  So for your viewing pleasure here is a wonderful sample of the letter.... 

"Der mom

I've been having some trouble with my gun.  Yesterday it backfired and I got a broken head.  I feel discouraged and sad.  I need to know how to mend it and have to fix my gun, so will you help me?

The other day when I was firing at the British, I felt sick because I had exposed some of my head to the snow and had a brain freeze.  I have tried to get a bigger coat, but that didn't work.  But I feel proud to be an American.  I feel that I've worked to hard to die.  Some times before going to sleep I would sing the national anthem to feel comforted, but then I saw a British solder and just shot him through the hole in the tent.  Later in the morning I realized that it was one of our soders dressed up in a British uniform.  He was supposed to be a spy for us  but, someone shot him during the night.  I feel sad for the solder.

Sincerely, Grant*"

*Name has been changed

(Spelling has not been changed from its original format)

nothing

Not much has happened to us lately. Our schedule only consists of eating, sleeping, and doing homework so there is nothing cool to write about.

This is a leaf print on the sidewalk.  I took this picture in Nov. yeah, exciting I know.

 

Well I guess I do have a story to tell, it's another student teaching story.  Since I have already been through middle and high school I have learned all of those dumb middle/high school comebacks and jokes.  These kids are just starting their journey as a teenagers and haven't heard half of those jokes yet.  So one day I overheard a boy teasing a girl telling her that she was weird. I replied by informing him that whenever you point your fingers at someone you actually have three pointing back at you.  Even since then kids have come up to me and told me "Mrs. Willey, you are sooo good at comebacks!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

uhhh.... sure.... 

Student teaching and other things

Student teaching has been great so far.  The 8th graders are really hyper and the 9th graders think they're hot stuff. That's fine though, I am glad to student each in Rexburg where most of them are really good kids... except for that one school bus that chanted "assassinate obama" but that MUST have been the middle schoolers, not MY kids?! haha... ah...

Anyway, this is the classroom that I teach in.  I can't get over the carpet, it looks like it has wrinkles of a hundred year old man.

So the University told us that we were supposed to take over one class per week until we were teaching the whole day.  Well, it's the end of my second week and I have already taken all of my cooperating teacher's classes.  It's difficult because I don't have any lesson plans, powerpoints, tests, quizzes, or worksheets already made so I am doing them all pretty much the day before but that's ok. You gotta start somewhere. 

So sometimes these kids do hilarious things that I probably shouldn't laugh at but I do anyway.  The 8th grade art class had been working on making imaginary cities in either one or two point perspective.  I looked at one girl's drawing and she had drawn a train shaped building and labeled it Jimmy Choo Choo.  The boy next to her asked "What does Jimmy Choo Choo mean?"  and she responded matter-of-factly "Don't you know anything?  Jimmy Choo Choo is the biggest shoe store in the world!"  Uhh.. ok.  I just laughed to myself and decided I wouldn't tell her that it was called Jimmy Choo Ltd.  Jimmy Choo Choo sounds better anyway.... HA HA!

One of the projects I had ninth graders do this week was to marble paper to create the cover of their sketchbooks and then put them together.  They finished making these today and I think they look awesome! 

 

So this doesn't involve student teaching at all but I need to talk about this.  I love rexburg but the doughnut selection is not very good.  I have been searching for cream/jelly filled doughnuts for quite a while and I've come to the conclusion that they don't exist in idaho.  This is what Broulims and Albertsons call their "filled doughnuts."  Last time I checked these are "topped doughnuts."  It's kinda irritating.

They don't have eclairs either, which stinks.  All they have are "chocolate bars" which are just like an eclair but without the filling.  But I am after filled doughnuts because that is what I love.  So why do I refuse to eat "topped" doughnuts?  Well first off the jelly/cream on the "topped" ones get crusty and gross.  Who wants to eat crusty jelly?  Not me.