You Know You Teach in Utah When....

- One student gets annoyed at another and snaps, "You have to be reverent in the hallway!"

- During journal-sharing in the morning, one of your students mentions that she will be getting baptized in a few weeks.

- You ask for students to ask their family / friends to send in postcards from cool places around the world and half of the postcards you get are from missionaries.

- A third of your class doesn't turn in their spelling homework every Thursday because "I had to go to scouts last night, so I couldn't do it."

- The Pope is mentioned in the read-aloud book, so you ask if anyone knows who the pope is, just to make sure, and everyone in the class just stares blankly at you.

- Then when you try to explain who the Pope is, someone says, "Oh, like the bishop?"

- While practicing alliteration, one of your students offers "red roadkill" as an example. Wonderful. Thanks for that.

- You ask, "Who has a big family?" and everyone's hands shoot up.

- So you say, "Okay, who has more than 3 brothers or sisters?" and only three people put their hands down.


- When you ask if anyone knows who the president is, the student you call on proudly answers: "President Monson."

- Then when you say, "No....." the student you call on next says, "President Hinckley?"


- And when you finally tell them that, no, you're talking about the president of the United States, and someone knows that the correct answer is President Obama, a good 4/5 of the students look disgusted and make some comment about how "My dad says he's running our country into the ground."

- The demographics in the class are not too surprising.

- When you ask who a responsible member of the community is, one of your students replies: "Jesus."

Utah has its quirks, for sure. But the really important thing is the kids, and I love these kids to death :)

Planes, Trains, and Cassidy Janes

This weekend, I rode in a plane.

Like this one.

Kelly and I took off like celebrities from the Provo airport. See how the people are just walking on from the tarmac? That's what we did. It was exhilarating. We arrived in Denver, Colorado, just in time to sit and enjoy a leisurely breakfast of Panda Express before heading to our shuttle.

This was the train part of our journey.

The train took us to a little neighborhood in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It dropped us off across the street from this little girl:

Kelly and I went right up to her and started taking pictures.

Eventually, this little girl's dad showed up and told me I could take her back to Utah with me! So that was pretty sweet.

After a quick trip to the hospital, where we held a baby who was barely 12 hours old, we set off down the road.

 

Which we stayed on for almost 9 hours. In that 9 hours, I discovered Carbaby's full name: Cassidy Jane Carbaby. She is a doll, you guys. I love her.

In that 9 hours, I also got a lot of planning done, thanks to Kelly writing down everything in my planbook as I came up with it. I tell you what, life just isn't fair, when you think about it. Because some people have a monopoly on all the best sisters :)

Uncle Update

I just have a few things to say about this.

1. Many dads came to Dads and Donuts. The uncle did not.

2. At the end of the day, my student came and told me that his uncle still really wanted to go on a date with me.

3. I found his phone number written on a piece of paper on my desk.

4. Then I got a phone call from my student's mom, assuring me that the uncle (her brother) isn't weird and it would be fun if I went on a date with him.

Hmmmm.....

I think I am going to leave this up to you, dear readers. Should I txt the sexy uncle? Yay or nay? Please vote in my new poll! It is located on the right side of this page, up at the top :)

Kevin James in the Classroom

This Friday is Dads and Donuts in my class. At first I was really excited....what's not to love about free donuts and 30 minutes of my day already planned for me?

But then I realized that actually, there is something not to love about it. And I'm not referring to the donuts.....I'm referring to the dads.

See, here's the thing: school is kind of a mom's domain. Moms like to come in and volunteer and eat lunch with their kiddos and then leave and get on with their grocery shopping / book club / yoga class / whatever else they have planned for the day. I hand them a stapler and some papers, they gesture to a wall, I smile, and our conversation is over. I am confident that I will have a perfect bulletin board by the time they leave.

Dads, on the other hand, tend to feel kind of uncomfortable in an elementary school. Oh sure, there's the occasional dad who comes on field trips, the quintessential "cool dad" who struts in with his hat flipped backwards and his hand all ready to high-five anyone close to him, but these dads are not the norm.

The dad who is the norm looks more like....Kevin James. Picture Kevin James.

That should help.

Now picture him walking timidly up to the door of a classroom. He peeks his head through the window. He looks around anxiously until he spots his child. Feeling a little relieved that this is the right classroom, he slowly opens the door, as if opening the lion cage at the zoo, and takes one baby step in. He leaves the door propped open with his foot, makes eye contact with the teacher and murmurs, "Am I....." The teacher quickly nods and gestures him in. "Should I....do you want me to....." he continues. Suddenly there are 24 heads swiveling around to stare at him. You can imagine what that does to poor Kevin.

The interesting thing is, that in the end, the same work gets done, and it looks just as good as when the moms do it. It's just that I sometimes feel nervous that the dads are this close to getting up and running away.

Regardless, this Friday is a day when all the dads of my students are being invited into my classroom. They will sit in the 2nd-grade chairs with their knees up to the ears. They will eat donuts with sprinkles on them and glance around, wondering how they can possibly act in a way that will allow them to maintain some semblance of manliness while seated in such a position.

I was pretty excited about this, since I kind of love awkwardness. But then we got all lined up to go home today and I had this conversation with one of my students:

J: Miss Connor, my uncle wants to go on a date with you.
Me: ......Uh, what?
J: Yeah! My uncle!
Me: Hmmmm. Who?
J: My uncle [I forget his name] wants to go out on a date with you.
Me: [Nervous laughter....what is the protocol for this?? I don't want to go on a date with your uncle....] Oh....
J: So he might come to Dads and Donuts on Friday.

If their dad can't come, the students are allowed to bring a substitute. I guess it's my fault, because I did suggest that they invite their grandpa or uncle. But um, still.

I'm just a little bit nervous for this Friday now.

Why won't you kiss me?

We are learning about questions in 2nd grade this week. To introduce the topic, I said: "So there's this boy, and my roommate kind of likes him. She thinks he's kind of cute, and she's really excited because he asked her if he could take her to dinner tonight! So they are going out, like on a date, and she's way excited, but she's also kind of nervous that she won't know what to say. So she asked if I could ask you guys for some ideas of some questions she can ask when she's on her date. What are some words we can use to start off a question?"

Someone said "what." I put that on the board and had everyone think of a question. The questions started out pretty good: What is your favorite sport? What is your favorite sports team? What is your favorite movie? What do you like to do when you're not playing sports? etc.

The next question word we talked about was "How?" We had some good ones: How are you doing? How is your day? And then someone raised their hand and said, "How much do you like me?" And all of a sudden, everyone had thought of a million other questions along those lines. "How much do you love me?" "How much do you want to marry me?" "How many girlfriends do you have?"

I thought that moving to the next question word, "When," would be a good idea. Here were some they came up with for "When:" "When will you be here?" (in case he's running late) "When will you leave me alone?" (in case he's bothering her) "When will you hug me?" "When will you kiss me?"

"It's a first date," I reminded them. "I don't think my roommate will be asking "When will you kiss me" tonight. But you're right! That is a question."

We went on to "where." Those questions sounded pretty similar to the "when" questions.... "Where will you hug me?" "Where will you kiss me?" "Where will you marry me?"

We got a little more creative with "Why-" "Why are we going to this restaurant?" "Why did you want to take me to dinner?" "Why do you like me?" "Why have you still not kissed me?"

"Let's try to stay away from questions about kissing," I suggested. The next person I called on said: "Why have you still not smooched me?" So obviously that worked really well.

And finally, we asked some "Who" questions - "Who told you to take me to dinner?" "Who is your mom?" "Who is your daddy?" (Uproarious laughter followed that one) "Who are your friends?" ("...in case he has friends," my students added) "Who is your girlfriend?" ("...and then you say, 'Is it me?' and give him the stare," K said. "What is the stare?" I asked. Don't worry, every one of my second graders was able to demonstrate their own version of the stare for me.)

If any of my roommates do end up using these questions on any dates, I would like to wish them a very hearty good luck. But even more, I would like to wish a hearty good luck to the boys who end up dating the girls in my class one day.

Unfortunately

I am here to tell you an unfortunate story.

It starts out fortunate, with some cute boys coming and sitting by my roommates and me in Sunday school.

My fortune started to wane a little when I couldn't hear anything that anyone else, the teacher or my classmates, was saying, so I started to color in a missionary letter for one of my best friends.

Which started up the "do you have a missionary?" conversation, which led into the "relationship status" conversation.

Which isn't too unfortunate, until it reminded me that I had to send a txt. And in my head, I was like: "Maybe I shouldn't txt during church. I'm supposed to be paying attention, after all." But since I couldn't hear anything anyway, I figured it would be okay.

So I just leaned myself forward in my little seat. My phone was mere inches from my fingertips.

And then, my heel slipped. I lurched forward. My face smacked the chair in front of me, and every boy in the ward turned to look.

I didn't even know what to do. I turned to the boy next to me and said stupidly, "Did you see what just happened to me?"

Of course he had.

But the story isn't even over there! Because a few minutes later, I decided I could try to get my phone again. I planted my feet firmly on the ground. I leaned forward. My fingers closed around my phone. I started to sit up to type out the txt I had to send.

My phone went clattering to the floor.

I felt like God was really bugged that I kept trying to txt during Sunday School, so I stopped trying then. Unfortunately, this happened several hours ago, and this is still kind of what I look like, in my head:

The Trouble with.....

....my iPad is that sometimes I can't figure out where I left the charger, so I just use it until the battery dies and then I resign myself to never using it again.

....productive Saturdays is that I can spend the entire day in my room, and so can my roommate, and we don't help motivate each other to leave. 

....my awesome roommates is that none of us seems to have a filter, so we can't control ourselves when boys come over and we are excited and just say whatever comes to mind and it is a problem and they will probably never come back, which is sad because they were cute. Just saying.

....taking pictures with the roommates is that they don't all turn out perfect. And some of them turn out downright awkward. And they get posted on facebook anyway.

 ....teaching PE is that all the kids are more flexible than I am.

....Utah is that Provo is not as close to South Jordan as it should be, and Logan is not as close to Salt Lake as you thought, and every day turns into a road trip.

....boys is, well, everything.

....colorful jeans is that I love them so  much that sometimes I just wear the same outfit two days in a row, oops.

....finding a good parking spot is that I never want to leave said parking spot, so social activities start to lose their appeal.

....casual Friday is that I am not allowed to participate. Hmmmph.

....the internet is that you can find anything that you don't want to find. You can find a mugshot of a boy you thought you might have a crush on. You can also find horror stories about girls getting groped at haunted houses. 

 ....every one of these complaints is that people are going to read them and shake their heads and mutter, "First-world problems."

Zombie Farm

We are learning about action words and naming parts in second grade this week. I printed out five copies of "Old McDonald" for my class, put them in groups, and told them to come up with a naming part and an action word for a verse of Old McDonald. I encouraged them to come up with something that no one else would think of.

One group did rooster. Another thought of cow. We also had a horse and a chinchilla.

And then, we had the group that came up with this:

"Old McDonald had a farm, EIEIO. And on his farm he had a zombie. EIEIO. With a mmnsmmn mnmnsmn here and a mmnsmmn mnmnsmn there, here a mmnsmmn, there a mnmnsmn, everywhere a mmnsmmn mnmnsmn. Old McDonald had a farm, EIEIO."

Walk of Shame

I am constantly tired these days. Just, always tired.

If I'm watching a movie, I'm falling asleep.

If I'm sitting on my couch, one of my roommates is petting my head and I'm falling asleep.

If I'm eating something, it might as well be Benadryl.

If I'm driving (which I am, 70% of my life), I am alert and dancing ridiculously to "Call Me Maybe," "Everybody Talks," or "Want U Back."

If I am hanging out with my friends, I am trying valiantly to be fun and stay awake, but I sometimes end up accidentally falling asleep in the middle of the conversation. But don't worry, because apparently, my valiant efforts to contribute my two cents to the conversation don't stop when I fall asleep.

Sometimes, I don't even wake up until it is 3 in the morning. And that's when I look around and realize that I was not the only one who just fell asleep where I was, because one of my friends is on the other couch.

When I woke up for real this morning, Kristen was just on her way out.  "You guys are welcome to stay here," she said. "Winnie spent the night, too."

So there we sat, Winnie, Christine and I on Kristen's plush couches, blinking at each other through day-old makeup, trying to remember how we all somehow just fell asleep in the middle of talking the night before.

The walk to Winnie's car was like a walk of shame....."except worse, because we didn't even get any action" (Christine).

Don't worry, we still stopped at the Awful Waffle and had a real cute friends-who-walk-of-shame-together,-graduate-together kinda morning-after breakfast.

 

You can write on the tables there.