TWO DAYS!! SQUEEE!!!

Oh my lord, y'all, two days of school left until midwinter break.

I. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

Jumping up and down, laughing with glee, clapping my hands: that is me every time I say, TWO DAYS!!!!

Anyway, I have to make this brief, because this was one hell of a day and it's nearly bedtime.

First things first, Class A was good today. Not perfect or anything, but good. They did their work, and I'm really seeing improvement with dialogue writing skills (I've been hammering them with punctuation rules for three days). That makes me feel really good, because I can see the fruits of my labor, if you will. That means that I'm not just standing in front of them speaking nonsense; it's actually going into their heads! It's working!

Class B was not too bad either. Two of them happily and quietly cleaned up the nasty mess that Class C left in there during social studies (that traveling teacher uses my room during all of my preps except lunch). Most of them also did their work, and I am seeing improvement. Whee!

I lit into Class C at the beginning of class, talking about the filthy, disgusting mess they left my room in, and if they did it again, they would ALL be in there at lunch scrubbing desks and everything else in the room. After that, once we got to work, they did okay. Still a lot of talking going on, but plenty of people were working. Even some of the lower-level kids are almost perfect with their dialogue! Not quite as much improvement across the board in that class, but it is an inclusion class, so I'll cut them some slack.

After school, I went to a diner with Ms C, Ms J and the other Ms F. We had a good time and I was stuffed afterwards. Yum. I got seasoned curly fries, a chocolate milkshake, and a giant caesar salad that I couldn't finish.

Then, soon enough, it was time for conferences. I was not looking forward to it, other than to get it over with. However, it was pretty unstressful, overall. I didn't have a big backup like I did before. I think that there must have been fewer parents or something. Of course I didn't see many parents of the bigger problem kids, but most of them I've already been in contact with and can call them or something.

They kicked all of us out at 8.15 and I got home by 9.15.

Oh, I forgot something really cool. Did I mention that I was in the paper? During the MLK Day volunteer event, the two students of mine that came and I got interviewed by a reporter at Newsday, and the article came out the next Sunday. Well, I always forget that it's not just me anymore, that I'm in the school framework/family now, so I didn't tell anyone at school. (I'm not linking to it to keep my school's and my own anonymity. You're not missing much; I'm mentioned in the first sentence, and then it talks about my students for awhile, then goes on to talk about other people. But still, pretty cool.)

Yesterday someone must have brought in the article and showed it in the office. Mr Principal stopped in this morning, first to tell me that he talked to Obnoxious Mother yesterday but 'took a bullet for [me]' and supported me. Awesome! I thanked him. Then he congratulated me on the article and praised me for doing that. And shook his finger at me for not telling anyone. I was all, aw shucks.

Later on, I checked my mailbox in the office, and they photocopied the article, put a note saying 'look what Ms C did!', and gave a copy to the whole faculty. Wow! And Mr Principal wrote up another note to me recognizing my 'going the extra mile' kind of thing. So now I have something to put in my file for good stuff. Neat. :)

Now, of course, it's up to me to get off my lazy ass and KEEP finding volunteer opportunities. We all know that once a year for two hours does not cut it. Even once a month is pretty trivial. So get on that, me.