First Day of Junior High

Off to Junior High go the boy and girl! Big time 7th graders! School now starts at a blurry 7:25 AM, which means we have to get up at around 6:30! Not cool! The sleep loving Andersons are really going to struggle with this early time. The man had NOTHING nice to say about it this morning!

They came home all smiles and very excited. I hope that they have lots of positive experiences in junior high. The strange thing for them will be that they are in every class all day together, except gym. Getting sick of each other is a distinct possibility.

I'm one of the few people I know who can say this, but I loved Junior High. Elementary school was a daily horror for me and Junior High was a chance to be someone new. I didn't realize I was miserable at the time in elementary. It wasn't until I started meeting new people that I finally felt myself relax. My grades improved and so did how I felt about myself. And fewer and fewer people called me by the loathed nickname that tormented both myself and my sweet sister. ( I know you're shivering to yourself right now just thinking of it, H.) The gist of it is, there's something to be said about meeting people who haven't known you since kindergarten. I found it very liberating. And these new people, in Junior High, didn't threaten to beat you up for looking at them the wrong way or accidentally bumping into them! What a novelty!

And Junior High is just big enough that all those old "pals" were easy to avoid. I saw less and less of them, until by High School, there were barely any left at all. Who knows where they all went; just blew away I guess. Well, not all of them. Just before the YMCA closed I saw Angela H., who was one of those K - 6ers' back at the old stomping ground. I hadn't said a word to this woman since probably the last day of sixth grade. I can't recall ever seeing her after, but I guess she was around. (I looked her up in my yearbook and we graduated together. What d'ya know!) She recognized me right off. (Damn this youthful look of mine!) I didn't know who she was until she introduced herself. We had a very nice chat-- and then she called me that name. I think I actually saw red. I don't know, it's all a blur. I don't know what I said, I hope it was something polite, but I know that I cut out of there quick. Sometimes the past REALLY needs to stay the past!

What a way to make a living

Tomorrow I start a twelve day stint in a second grade room in my home school. Hurray! 12 days of not waking up with the phone ringing, 12 days of knowing what I'm doing the next day, 12 days of being somewhere with guaranteed nice kids and not insane animals. Hurray again! I met with the teacher today and the plans are dreamy! Just broad strokes with general time frames and the instructions to just get through what I can. This I can handle!

And I picked that clip art picture because the kid in the pink shirt cracks me up. Every class has a kid like that!

Sharpen This!

You might think you know what my job is, but you would be wrong. I might pose as a "substitute elementary teacher", but in reality, most everyday, I'm a director in one of the greatest musical productions you've ever heard. It goes by many titles-- "Lead Dread", "Get to the Point!", or "Misery Wrapped in Wood". But the title I prefer is "Tragedy of the Pencil".

This show plays daily in most 1st and 2nd grade classrooms. It's a long show, usually five to six hours long, so wear something comfortable and make sure you have plenty of Tylenol on hand. As you move up through the grades, the length of the show decreases, but every now and then you''ll hear one of its catchy reprises or haunting melodies.

The marvel of this show is the variety of the musical styling. Some days it's sung to zany circus music; another day it might be an operatic lament. Will it be a big brass band complete with a cannon in tow or a retro interpretation of a dull needle on a skippy, scratchy LP recording of "Songs to Annoy". Whatever the tune, the libretto is always the same. Here's a small sampling. Feel free to tap you toe along to any tune that strikes your fancy.

My pencil needs sharpening! My pencil lead broke! Can I sharpen my pencil? Will you sharpen it for me? Our pencil sharpener doesn't work right. I hurt my hand sharpening my pencil. HE'S EMPTYING IT AGAIN!

Can I use the electric sharpener? ONLY THE TEACHER CAN USE THE ELECTRIC SHARPENER! Nuh-un! Yes-huh! The electric sharpener is too hot! It's overhot! It's our third one this year! She's putting colored pencils in the sharpener! I have a fuzzy pencil! I have a shiny pencil! I have a glitter pencil! She broke the sharpener! HE'S EMPTYING IT AGAIN!

I lost my pencil. Can't find my pencil! I just had it and now it's gone. He took my pencil. No, this is mine! No it's not! It's mine 'cause I found it on the floor! That's my pencil!

I broke my pencil. She broke my pencil. My pencil won't sharpen. This pencil doesn't have an eraser anymore! This eraser only makes black marks. Can I glue my eraser back on? Look at my cool eraser. Hey, that's my eraser! Nuh-uh! Yes-huh! I found it on the floor yesterday!

Our teacher lets us have mechanical pencils. My lead keeps breaking. I'm out of lead. [Sound of tiny bits of lead hitting the floor.] Opps! Can I borrow some lead? There's some in the teachers desk...in that drawer right there...she lets us borrow. I took my pencil apart and there was this tiny spring that was really fun and I was squeezing it and it went boing boing boing and then it flew over there and now I can't find it and now I don't have a pencil. HE'S USING A PEN!

I need a pencil. My pencil is too short to use. He has like fifty hundred pencils in his box and he won't let me have one. Fine, I'll just use a crayon and it will be ugly and I'll get a bad grade!

I broke my pencil in half and now I have two!

I wish I could offer you the entire show, but some things must be experienced in person to be truly appreciated. So, this is your director saying farewell and "Stop pointing that at me"!

What Happens in Book Club...

The girl belongs to a book club after school. It really seems like a great thing on the surface: They meet once a week for an hour and they are matched up with a Junior High age girl as their sister. They get a copy of the book they are reading to keep and snacks are served. Seems just about perfect. The problem comes in with the book they've been reading since the beginning-- "Little Women". Of all the wonderful, TIMELY books that they could be reading, why oh why, are they reading "Little Women"? It's been a long, long time since I read it and I'll confess I don't remember much about it. My mom had (and I'm sure it's still somewhere in the house) a Louisa May Alcott little treasury set. I can still picture it-- four little green hard-bound books in their own case. I loved how those books looked. I know that I read "Little Women", but I remember it took me a long time. I never read the other three. Not a good sign.

When the girl came home from her first meeting with her own fat paperback of it, I was baffled. What were the organizers thinking? Come to find out they are thinking that a production of "Little Women" will be in Cleveland in the spring and they are taking the girls on a field trip to see it then. Are they reading any other books? No, just this. They have a schedule of chapters to keep up with that will take them right up to the show, I guess. That is, if there's anyone left in the club to take.

Girls have been dropping out a steady pace of a one or two a meeting since the start. My girl and her two closest pals are sticking it out, though, I'm not sure why. All they do is complain- the book is boring, the older girls spend the meeting just visiting with each other, the snacks are gross- it's all unhappiness! I think it's almost a contest between them now: Who can stand it the longest.

To help the girl keep up, I checked out the book on CDs from the library. I thought listening to it would make it easier to follow for her and it seems to be working for her. Occasionally she'll come to me with a especially thick passage that she needs me to make sense of for her. This is not a fun book to read by anyones standard.

I assume that the existence of this club was to promote a love of reading, but it seems like a giant failure to me. When she comes home all bummed out by another annoying meeting, it makes me want to do is start my own book club. But I would do it right. The first book we would read would be "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman just to let them know that I mean business and this not going to be your average book club. After that maybe "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech. Then they wouldn't know what to expect. What's it going to be next? "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" or "Pride and Prejudice"? Could be anything! But I really doubt "Little Women" would ever make my reading list!

Ely Pride for him!

Ethan won Ely Pride this week! Way to go sweetie! He won it once before in 2nd grade. Here's the now and then pics.

January 2007

March 2003