I Am Alive

And doing well, I might add.

And I have plenty I could blog about from the past few weeks, but I will try to keep this as short as I possibly can!

So here's the highlights (and low lights) of the past few weeks:

1.  The move- I've moved, I think 14 times in my life, and this one takes the cake, no question, as the worst move I've ever had.  

I woke up the Friday morning of my move early to get things done in time for my noon move.  As a precautionary measure I decided to check my email to see if there were any specifics I needed to know before the move.  And that's when I realized I never sent them back a confirmation email saying, yes, I did want them to move me that day.  NOOOOOOOO!!!!

(Let me interject here, that is TOTALLY NOT like me to forget something like that.  And I was emailing those guys just before my cruise as I was trying to get everything situated for that.  And to my defense, I could almost swear that I remember typing a confirmation email, so there is some slight feeling in my mind that gmail or my computer messed this one up for me.)

So in a panic I called the guys, they said they could try to fit me in that night, but it might be later.  Apparently we have totally different definitions of "later."  Cause 11pm rolled around and they still weren't there.  So I rescheduled with the guy for the next evening at 7pm. At 10pm they actually showed up and we moved until 12:30am.  And that's when I realized they only took cash (they were college students, not exactly a legal business).  So to the ATM I went in the middle of the night (and shocking to me, there was a line of cars waiting for the ATM in the middle of the night, who knew?).

So not moving until a day and a half after I planned put me completely off schedule to get everything done.  My goal was to have the old place cleaned and the new place all set up by Monday morning so that I could just focus on work and back to school.  

But that didn't happen.

I did eventually get it all sorted out.  I would have been a lot less stressed had things had happened according to the original plan.

2.  Eighth Grade- Even after this first week of school has passed it still is just now sinking in to me that I am teaching 8th grade science.  I think and hope I am getting the hang of it now, but at first, I will be honest, I was not quite prepared!

The first day of school you have your homeroom class for about 3 hours.  And these are students that you may or may not have in your actual classes.  I had prepared more things to do than I usually do with my sixth graders, but it still wasn't enough!  I am used to these little kids that need a tour of the school and help interpreting their schedules and taking forever to do anything.  

Eighth grade, not so much.

And when in doubt (for the second time in my teaching career I whipped this "oldie" out), I play "heads down, thumbs up, let's play seven-up!"  And yes, MOST eighth graders like the game.  And we burned a good 20 minutes with that game.

I also burned some time with sharing what I did this summer and then going around the room and having them share what they did this summer.  I do know about a third of these students already because I had them in sixth grade.  And when it got to one of the students who I know was a big trouble maker when he was in sixth, he asked if he had to share.  And I said yes.  

And then he shared that he spent the summer in lock-up.

And he wasn't kidding.

I, in response said, "and that's enough participation from you, moving on..."

Cause how do you follow that up?

In one of my honors classes that day I had a student that was a trouble maker for me in sixth grade pull the same old stuff with talking out of turn and being a class clown.  But this was all on the FIRST DAY.  And a few of his friends were in the class and followed suit.  ON THE FIRST DAY.  I am used to a good couple of weeks before anything remotely close to that happens.  

But they all did get a threat from me that I WOULD call home on the first day of school and if that wasn't enough, I wasn't afraid to take further action on the first day (or any other day).  And that at least got them quiet for the remainder of that class period.

And after all that I thought, I don't know if I can do this!  Maybe eighth grade isn't for me, maybe I am better off with sixth.  What mistake am I getting into???

But the next day I went really tough on that group of students.  Some already got lunch detentions, seat changes and the ring leader I got the principal and counselor to change his schedule to at least my other honors class (but without his friends, hopefully).

And on this second day I noticed a girl in one of my classes looked "suspiciously" pregnant.  As it turns out, I was right.  But the counselor was VERY surprised I was able to notice it.  I would like to thank the blogging world for that one, I've seen SOOOO many pregnant belly pictures, I've got spotting them DOWN.  But I'd say she's no more than 4 months pregnant.  And I looked at her science grades from last year, and let me just say, man do we both have some work cut out for us in the future (mostly her though, she's got A LOT of work cut out for her, like high school and raising a kid and maybe a little science practice, to be exact).

All my classes seem to be hard workers, they've all done well with the work I gave them this week.  And it amazes me how fast they work!  By the end of the week we are where my sixth graders would have been after about a month of school!

My regular classes seem quite well behaved, which is shocking to me.  And the best behaved is my seventh period, which is historically a bad class across the board, but especially in 8th because anyone that plays a sport is out of the classrooms.  But on Friday we were doing station work, and they are allowed to talk, but they were so quiet I could hear the clock on the wall ticking.  Seriously.  I've never experienced that, even with sixth graders. 

So the moral of the story is that by the end of the week, I am very happy with my eighth graders!  I LOVE the fact that they are laid back and not all wired all the time like the sixth graders.  I have gotten to let some of the things that I "had" to do in sixth go.  I can move so much more quickly through lessons.  And I can say something funny (and I am HUGE on dry humor) and they get it and laugh!

So I am really happy so far, but I still do feel like in the back of my mind that I am not at "home" yet.  I think changing classrooms and apartments was just a little too much to do all at once.  It's going to take some time, but I have a good feeling that it is coming!

Oh, when I started the list, I had more than two items, but after I didn't do so well shortening it, I decided I better hold off on anything else.  And I really don't feel like going back and "un-listing" those things.  So anyways, maybe I'll get to that other stuff later...