Just something to think about...

"Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding line, and no way of knowing how near the harbor was. "Light! Give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour."

-Helen Keller

My only question is, do we cherish education in the same way? Would our lives be different if we had a different attitude about learning? So many do not have the opportunities that we have. Do we take advantage of them? Are we using our minds and capabilities to their utmost capacity? If not, what a terrible waste. 

(Can you tell that I am a teacher?) :)

Chinese Food

Whenever we get together as a family, it is guaranteed that we will have chinese food. The greatest part of chinese food are the fortune cookies (never mind the fact that fortune cookies are an american novelty and not chinese at all!). We have had some interesting advice in the past but tonight we had my all-time favorite:

Do not kiss an elephant on the lips tonight.

Need I say more?

Procrastinating...

I have a TPA to be writing. It is due tomorrow. Tomorrow at 4:oo pm. Am I close to finishing it? NO! Have I even started? Of course not. So in the spirit of polical correctness- which is what I have to be in writing this silly thing, I am going to share some of my favorite "politically correct terms" for common events in a teens life...

*No one fails anymore- he's merely passing impaired.
*Your bedroom isn't cluttered- it's passive restrictive.
*These days a student isn't lazy-he's energetically declined.
*Kids don't get grounded- they merely hit a "social speed bump"
* Your homework isn't missing- its having an out of notebook experience
*You're not sleeping in class-you are rationing consciousness.
*You are not late- you simpley have a rescheduled arrival time.
*You're not having a bad hairday- you're suffering from rebellious follicle syndrome
*You don't have smelly gym socks- you have odor retentive athletic footwear
*You don't talk alot- you are abundantly verbal.
*You weren't passing notes in class- you were participating in the discreet exchange of penned mediation (one of my favorites)
*You're not being sent to the Principal's office, you are being sent on a mandatory fieldtrip to the administration building.
*It's not called gossip anymore, its the speedy transmission of near factual information.
*The food in the cafeteria is not awful- it's digestively challenged.

Now I am off to write...like a mad women.

A productive day...

5 layouts- what a fabulous day! The wonderful thing about digital scrapbooking is that when you are done you just shut down the computer- NO MESS! I was a paper scrapper until about 6 months ago when I became addicted to Digi Scrapping. I LOVE my Adobe Photoshop CS (I would die without it!) and have become a scrapgirls.com junkie.

Here is a picture of Little Miss (as my sister calls her.) Doesn't she make the cutest little fairy?

This layout I used: Avalon Collection Biggie by Valeria Randall (available at scrapgrils.com). Font: MA Sexy

Instead of working...

Today I have not been in the mood to work- at all. So instead of tackling the GIANGANITC pile of paperwork that awaits me or even the powerpoint I need to create for tomorrows lesson, I have spent the last 2 hours scrapbooking. Even though I haven't been able to get anything "constructive" done, I had a very productive two hours, as far as scrapbooking goes. Here are some of the pages I did today...

(When viewing, the files are going to be huge so if you hit CTRL+ (-) [the minus key] the picture will get to a size that you are actually able to see.)

Be Silly Today...

'Nough said.

Wasting Time

There always seems to be a million things that I should be doing and yet I never seem to get around to doing any of it. Right now is a perfect example. Instead of working on my TPA (Teacher Performance Assessment) or the 10 lesson plans that are due on Saturday or the two papers that are also due on Saturday, I am sitting here blogging. Of course, now that I have procrastinated just a moment or two more, I am now off to start my work. So, if you don't see from me or hear from me the next couple of days, I am buried in the mound of paper work that the state of California has deemed necessary for me to complete in order to be qualified as a competent teacher.