Leaaaaaving on a...school bus

Tomorrow, the 5th grade team and our wonderful assistant principal are leaving for a 3 day "vacation" to Sky Ranch with our students. I'm excited to get to experience the 5th grade trip for the first time. C'mon, who WOULDN'T want to go to a camp for 3 days with 112 ten and eleven-year-olds? :) Luckily, we have parents who come along and supervise the kids while the camp counselors teach them their classes. The parents also stay in the cabins with them. SO, all we (the teachers) have to do is walk around and check on the groups and deal with any friends who decide to misbehave. It's going to be so nice to have 3 days of just stress-free work and getting to hang outside and enjoy some fun with the kids. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly. I'm sure we'll have lots of stories to tell when we return.

Toot toot, beep beep

So tomorrow starts a new week (8 weeks until summer vacation, woohoo!) and some new adventures. One, starting an adult hip hop class. Or at least testing it out. If it turns out that we are the worst ones in the class, we are totally not going back. Can't be embarrassed on a weekly basis. But, definitely should be entertaining!

Last week blew by and I feel like it was a blur. Probably a good thing since it was one of the most stressful weeks of the year. Now it's just a waiting game for the kids' scores to come back and fingers crossed, all of them passed on the first go-round. I think I will cry if I have to continue to tutor morning, noon, and night every day.

This was such a great weekend. The weather here was AMAZING and it's such a shame that Dallas weather doesn't stay like this year round. It would be perfect. But, I am so happy to say goodbye to winter and welcome summer with open arms. It's amazing the effects weather can have on your mood. Hoping for some sunshine this week so I can enjoy some more time outside...and maybe some extra recess for the kids :)

5 AM will come too soon tomorrow. So, it's time to be a dork and explore Google Docs (thanks, Marly!) to see how to do online documents to use at school. Love, love, love it.

Closing out the Long Weekend

Is there anything greater than a long weekend? I think not. Why is it that when you have a day off, that day just feels so much different, so much better than just your regular day off? There is nothing better than the feeling of "I should be at work, but I'm not." If every work week were 4 days instead of 5, I think my productivity would increase exponentially. Jump on the bandwagon, America.

I think I spent more time this weekend indulging in little things like happy hour than ever before. Bad, yes. But I think it has helped to calm some of my nerves about next week. Not completely of course. Because now that TAKS is a mere 36 hours away, I'm about to have a colossal meltdown thinking about all of the ways that it could go down. I'm going to pretend that options A through Y can't happen and that the Utopian "Z" option will come out on top. Fingers crossed. Someone make it happen...for the sake of my sanity and everyone's.

Obviously my anxiety and "what-ifs" always get the best of me. Lately we've had some bizarre crime going on in the neighborhood and in our apartment building. What is up with this? Me, being the neurotic worrier that I am, is constantly on the look-out whenever I leave/enter/walk through the building. I've got my keys strategically placed in my hands ready to punch anyone who tries to mess with me...ha. Keeping that mental picture in your mind, you can imagine my instant panic and steep blood pressure increase when I am awoken from my sleep at 5 this morning to thundering pounds on my apartment door. All of the usual thoughts are rushing through my head..."Did I lock Emily out on accident? Are my keys still in the door? Wait, did I even look the door last night? (Severe panic sets in)." I lie in bed for a minute contemplating what to do. Of course I only want to call the police as I hideout in the closet because I'm too scared to walk near the door. The pounding on the door continues for a good 10 minutes. Each knock scares me out of my wits a little bit more and horror-movie-type scenarios are playing out in my mind. I get up the courage to walk to the door to 1. make sure it's locked and 2. look through the peep-hole to see who it is. (I've ruled out Emily at this point because let's be honest...she wouldn't be coming home at 5AM and would have called my phone if she couldn't get in.)

I get up to the peep-hole, confirm the door is locked, and look through to notice that nobody is there. But, I can hear stomping footsteps going down the hall. I continue to freak out, thinking that someone is mad I didn't answer the door and they are probably coming back with an ax or something to break down my door (ridiculous). I'm so traumatized by my worrying that I can't fall back asleep. I send my neighbor a message hoping that maybe it was him sleep-walking and needing something crazy.

I get a phone call from him later today explaining that his friend had passed out in his car outside of our apt. building last night only to be woken up by the Addison police. The police want to know what in the world he is doing sleeping in his car and he tells them he was coming upstairs to stay with a friend. However, the friend, in his stupor, walks to the left instead of to the right and comes upon our apt. door instead of his friends. The cop is banging on the door trying to get the friend to open the door and take care of his friend who is not publicly acceptable. But, the cop thinks this guy is lying since his friend never comes to the door, and carts him off to jail.

Oops. Of course I feel guilty for assuming that someone is out to get me and also for not opening the door and setting the situation straight, preventing this guy from going to jail. But, I'm just a paranoid girl and at 5 in the morning, who wouldn't be? Moral of the story: if you come pounding on my door at 5AM, you're definitely more likely to get picked up by the cops than have me answer-I'll be too busy hyperventilating in my closet hideout :)