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. 

Highlighter Woes

I just spent my Recess time trying to get the lid of a highlighter out of a shoe.

 

The lid had been wedged in between the pink things on the bottom of the shoe. 

How, you may wonder?

I was teaching a lesson on long vowels and short vowels. One of my girls, who is normally pretty chatty (and very happy about it) started to look a little concerned. I wondered what was wrong but didn't worry too much about it until she came up to me, looking like she was about to cry, and said:

"Miss Connor, I just broke a rule and I think you're going to have to - because I wasn't following directions, so I think I'm going to have to pull a card and you're going to have to call my mom and she's not going to be very happy because I got my lid of my highlighter stuck in my shoe because I wasn't following directions....."

"You got your highlighter stuck in your shoe?" I asked.

She nodded miserably. 

I didn't even know what to say. I mean, what would you say? The girl was about to have a panic attack and all I wanted to do was laugh! So I told her I'd help her at recess and sent her back to her desk. 

Three minutes later, I was jamming a dry erase marker in between the pink things, trying to get it under the highlighter lid justtt enough to wiggle it out of the shoe.

Two minutes after that, I was giving up and bringing the shoe to another teacher.

"That's hilarious!" she said. "How did that even happen?" 

"How did this happen, M?" I asked. 

Her golden response? "I just wanted to put my highlighter in my shoe so I could show K, because it was funny, but then it got stuck and I didn't show her because it wasn't even funny like I thought it would be."

The other teacher shook her head. "I don't know how to get it out....maybe bring it to Mike, he probably has some pliers or something. You've got to take a picture of that," she added.

"Take a picture of it and then we can show it to my mom!" my girl said on the way down the hall to find Mike. 

Please remember that this was the girl who, just minutes before, was prepared to burst into tears at the thought of having to tell her mom about the card she might have to pull. 

"I don't think your mom would like that too much," I said. 

The smile disappeared. "Oh yeah, maybe don't take a picture," she said.

Mike was driving around a cart with some complicated electrical something-or-other when we found him in the hallway and asked him to get a highlighter lid out of a shoe. 

The tools that eventually dislodged it, in order of use, include:

1. a pen

2. a pair of scissors

3. the highlighter itself

4. the highlighter AND the pen at the same time

5. a pair of biggish pliers

6. a pair of needle-nose pliers

Lessons learned: 

1. Don't stick your highlighter lid in your shoe.

2. Don't expect to get anything done during Recess.

One Week Down

Seven days ago, I was nervously trying to fill my planner. I was typing up ideas. I was bidding farewell to life as I knew it and making last-minute preparations to dive into a new life, one that involved 24 cute faces and thirsty minds.

Six days ago, I was making Sunday dinner with my roommate and rolling my hair in socks. I thought, "This is probably the last time I will have time to make Sunday dinner for at least 9 weeks." I thought, "This is almost definitely the last time I will have curly hair at school." Six days ago, I was lying awake for a good 2 hours, stressing and wondering and smiling and remembering.

I might have been a little afraid of this happening. 

Five days ago, I was eating muffins made by my wonderful roommate for my first day of school. I was leading those 24 cute faces into my classroom. I was giving a lesson on how to use liquid glue. I was eating lunch in the teacher's lounge. I was jogging around the gym with a whistle in my mouth, surrounded by a herd of children. I was going with my friends to The Chocolate to celebrate a successful first day.

Four days ago, I was sitting in New Teacher Induction. I was being handed papers about testing and retirement and insurance. I was staring blankly at a screen that spewed information at me at an alarming pace. My mind was flitting back and forth between two thoughts: "What does that even mean" and "I wonder how my class is doing?"

Three days ago, I was praising my students for how good they had been while I was gone. I was planning how I wanted to teach literacy for the next 6 weeks. I was getting my Mac-daddy. I was putting a huge band-aid on a bloody gash that seemed to not affect the kid sporting it in the slightest.

Two days ago, I was wearing a bright orange vest over my teacher clothes and patrolling the playground. I was making copies [read: killing trees] like nobody's business. I was taking my class to assembly after assembly. I was answering e-mails from parents. I was saying, "Today, I had three students cry. Is that normal?"And I was told that yes, it is, depending on the day.

Yesterday, I was giving a spelling test. I was discovering that two of my students have met Selena Gomez, one has met Justin Bieber, and one has met Taylor Swift. I was getting a little offended and clarifying that, no, I am not 30 years old, thanks for asking. I was reading a note written with purple gel pen that said: "Dear Miss Conner I hope you like This kus you luky to have me and I'm Luky to have you."

Teaching is like, the best thing. There are downsides - like never being able to go to the bathroom during the day, making half-salary (Class, what's one-half of nothing?), and the commute, but it's the only thing I want to be doing. I love feeling so tired after a long day of teaching, planning, and driving, and going to bed happy because tomorrow I get to wake up and do it all over again. I hope I never lose that feeling.

Smooth Move, Ferguson

Here's the thing about me: I love The Bachelor(ette). I love watching all those guys / girls compete for the love of one woman / man. But I have never had any interest in taking part of such a competition. (Except for that one time when I had a lapse of judgment and almost tried out to be on the show.) So, with that in mind.....

Dear Boy,

Thank you for the invite. I'm sure the other girl was just as excited when you invited her as I was when you invited me. It's kind of cute the way you thought that would be a good idea.

I guess I should apologize for the way I so blatantly refused to play along. I'm sorry that I can count the number of times I spoke to you on one hand. I'm sorry that when I told you I was bringing some friends, I forgot to mention that most of them were boys. I'm sorry that I enjoyed talking to them infinitely more than I enjoyed talking to you. I'm sorry that I didn't look your way whenever you had a supposed-to-be-funny outburst. That must have been frustrating for you, or at least a little annoying.

We all sometimes wish that we were The Bachelor, or The Bachelorette. There's something really exciting about the idea of a bunch of people all vying for your affection. And I'm sorry you didn't get to live that dream like you maybe were hoping. It just doesn't work as well when one of the competitors refuses to compete.

But it was fun.....really. Here's hoping that you have a happy semester, Boy. May your judgment improve dramatically.

Sincerely,
Me.

PS: Lest you think that this was the only mistake you made: Strike one was when you failed to impress my friends. Strike two was when you hated on One Direction. Suchhh a bad choice.

To Teach is To....

....touch a life forever. At least, that's how the saying goes. But one might also finish this statement with any of the following: "To teach is to...."

- go to assemblies. All day, err day.

- make copies upon copies. Sometimes I think all I do is make copies.

- dream about all the things that could go wrong in your classroom. I just had a dream that my headphones at the Listening Center were getting used by student after student, and they just got grosser and waxier and gummier until I awoke with a jolt and a conviction that I needed new headphones.

- observe budding romances.
"Okay, I'm going outside now."
"Okay, um....meet me at....the slide."
"Okay. I'll meet you at the monkey bars."
"Actually, okay. Meet me at that one place for four-square?"
"I'll just be at the swings? Maybe?"
"Well, I'm just coming out now. We can walk together."
"Oh! Okay!"

- observe budding friendships.
"Miss Connor, K is pushing his chair into my desk."
"Miss Connor, M isn't minding her business."
"Miss Connor! I asked him not to and he's still doing it!"
You know these two are going to be BFF one day.

- despair over the rising generation.
"You need to be focusing on your work, I just keep seeing you sharpen your pencil over and over again - "
*flabbergasted* "But Miss Connor, I don't like work! It's not fun, I just don't like it, it's boring!"
"...........I'm sorry, you still need to do it. If I see you sharpening your pencil again, I'm going to take your sharpener away."

- rejoice over the rising generation.
I don't have a quote for this. I just have the world's cutest kids in my class.

- drive. I drive 45 minutes each way. As if this isn't enough, I've also been having dreams that I am driving. Just driving. And getting pulled over. And merging, and accelerating, and braking, and driving.

- file. I never filed before. Now I file anything and everything.

- live my dream. Fo real. In all honesty, I wake up in the morning with a smile on my face. I can't wait to go and see my class. Teaching is everything I ever hoped it would be, and more. So, so much more.

:)

A Jolly Good Fellow

Four days ago, I was settling down for a responsible, early-to-bed kind of weekend, hoping that if I could just master going to bed at a decent hour for two days in a row, I would be all ready for school to start on Monday.

Four days ago, my early-to-bed weekend plans were shot when I received an invitation to attend President Monson's birthday celebration.

Which I accepted.

Ah-hobviously.

It was a very swanky to-do, meaning that it took place at the Conference Center in Salt Lake and you had to be dressed up to attend.

There was an opera singer, some Broadway singers, an ex-TV lady, an ex-football player, and of course, the guest of honor:

He waved at me. You know I'm pumped about that. 

Dear President Monson,

There are many things I love about you.....You have a winning smile. I can picture you teasing your wife, Frances. Your talks never fail to amuse and touch. You wiggle your ears and stick out your tongue. You are kind of like the Princess Diana of us Mormons - pre-divorce of course, or at least pre-car accident. Everyone loves you. 

But you know what I love most about you?

I love that I felt sad when President Hinckley died. He had been my prophet. You were nice too, but I wasn't too sure about you, if I'm being honest. 

Then you came to BYU to give a devotional. I wiggled into the closest seat I could find. You walked in and we all stood. We sat. You gave your devotional. You said, "I invoke His blessings upon you, in this crowded audience," and I've never forgotten it. Someone prayed. 

You stood to walk out. You made it to the tunnel where the basketball team runs in every time there is a game. You waved. You reached up and shook someone's hand, and then another person's. Two little girls leaned over the railing, waving little notes they had written. You reached up and took the notes, shook their hands, and then walked out through the tunnel. 

I love that the cameras didn't catch it, but I did. I love that that was the moment when I knew that you were the prophet for this day. 

Happy birthday, Thomas S.!

Schule

I just had the following phone conversation with my little baby sister:

Me: Have you started school yet?

Her: Not yet, we start on the 27th.

Me: Oh wow! Are you excited?

Her: YES!.....sort of......no, not really.

I feel you, girl.

Although every time I see this sign, I get a little bit more excited :)