too cool for drool.

no one reads this... at least on blogger. but if you do, leave me a comment.

i have a new friend. :) her name is Betsy. she likes doing crafty things that you can see the results right away, has a really neat house and a fun hubby, and invited me over for Thanksgiving. :) And she has a brother named Jeff who has a truck and knows a lot of neat places to hike - and pretty much grew up down here yonder. they have a sister, too. and a mum and pop. hahaha. . .
you can't tell that i've been helping my Spanish kids write children's books since Friday.

or that this morning was like Christmas for me - I got the textbooks I'd ordered!!! :) God is SO good, especially since this week is chaos with AIMS/PSAT testing and we wouldn't get much done in them, so I have all WEEK to plan. and :) yeah. There is a "Bonfire" on Sunday. which is great - and yet reminds me of the MSU /UM bonfires. did they have one this year? (or, was it even UM?)

and now for something completely different.
i'm going to bed.

Marie-Therese Gown GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

Marie-Therese Gown GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

this is an ama zingly cute dress :)

Plea for help. well, kinda. more of a plea to buy stuff...

I am attempting to get some kids to go to Costa Rica this coming June - but there's no way they can afford this on their own... so i've been trying to find some good fundraisers... A few of you gave me ideas, and a few others just gave me... some fun things to do. or something.
Example:
bake sale, hug sale, sell toilets, car wash
sell chocolate bars (*we live in the desert. kinda)
change your name for a day, wear pajamas in school...

However, here are some real things you could do to help:

Buy magazines at up to 85% off!! (amazing, I know!)

Buy (online) at your favorite stores (BestBuy, Target, WalMart, etc...) through this site, which will give us a comission (only when you go to those stores' websites through our "mall." Click here!!
( http://visitourmall.com/costaricatrip/ )


And if you do something as simple as your "online shopping" through these links, you'll be sending some kids to Costa Rica - most of these kids haven't even been out of the southwest!


just a thought. and a petition, of sorts. :)
thanks for reading! :)
~Amanda

It's Friday and time for Surf's Up!

My lesson plans for yesterday and today? Watching the movie "Surf's Up." In English. I think these kids need a break, that way they'll be ready for the REAL STUFF come the beginning of next quarter.
Anyway, the movie Surf's Up - Quite reminiscent of the movie "Cars," for some reason - same adult-humor (by that I mean not in rating, but the jokes they throw in there), same silliness (baby penguins? pit crew? :) ) , slightly awkward "romantic" moments,... weird.

Lani -"Can I tell you something personal?" (haha)
Cody -"Well, we're in the shower together..."

Lani Aliikai: Oh, crap!
[runs out to save drowning penguin]
Cody Maverick: Oh man, I'm in love.
Chicken Joe*: You should go talk to her.
Cody Maverick: No way, man!
Chicken Joe: Dude, she's totally into you! She called you crap!
*played by Jon Heder :)

And there are also borderline ridiculous statements...
Chicken Joe: Cody's around here somewhere, I can feel it in my nuggets!

[Cody has just raspberried at Glen] ***this is one of the funniest scenes. :) It was fun watching my kids watch it. hehe. ...
Glen Maverick: That's really disrespectful.
[Cody blows another raspberry]
Glen Maverick: I would never do that...
Cody Maverick: Mm-hm. You just wouldn't make it out of your mouth.

Chicken Joe: I'm Chicken Joe. Joseph. It's long for Joe.

Cody Maverick: My name's Cody Maverick, Shiverpool. You?
Chicken Joe: No, I'm not from Shiverpool.

If you can't tell, I dig Chicken Joe. My bros do, too. :)



And I am supposed to get paid today... Which is great, because if I actually get my checks - yes, plural. then I can buy groceries, maybe a table and some chairs (so I don't have to sit / lie on the floor to eat) and take my laptop to BestBuy so it can see the doctor... (pray that it still works... it has a fan problem right now.)

So,.. my pans for Fall Break? Which starts this afternoon and ends really early in the morning on the 20th. . .

Go shopping in the "big city" - Albuquerque. Probably experience some reverse culture shock.
Best Buy, Target, Barnes and Noble, World Market, Goodwill. (Goodwill is the only one of those five listed that's relatively close to me right now... sad.)

maybe go to the Grand Canyon. or hiking somewhere....

and it's my prep period now! More later, perhaps!

excerpts from test #1.... which has a high grade of 76 so far... :-/

"Write a dialogue between two people/animals:"

"Hi my name is Walter and I'm from Teaxs my nationality is white. My birthday is on the 10-18-79 of this month. My favorite animals are horse's, dog's, and cats. My activities are riding horses, working on my dog. My dislikes are not to sit around at home." *totally in English. haha.

Señor Cortez - ¿hola?
Señorita munez -' HUH? (¿que?)
Señor Cortez - Do you e speak ¿español?
Señorita munez-Nope. Sorry.
Señor Cortez - Alrighty then, good day to you.
Señorita munez- peace out! !

"Mi nombre es Tom... Soy de America. Soy Americana." (mixing genders - calling himself a woman...eeps! )

"Como esa usted, Señor Marcus? (idk just sed something)
Buenos diaz, Señorita Sally =) haha. random name. "

"FORGOTZ"

"Hola! Yo soy un perro. Me llamo es ginger. Soy de Mexico. Me gusta leer. No me gusta nadar afuera. Mi cumpleaños es vientiseis de julio."

"Hola mi nombre es Boomer. Hola Boomer, mi nombre es Spagnoli.
Hola Spagnoli. ¿De donde eres? Yo soy de America. ¿De donde eres Boomer?
Yo soy de Finlandia, no me gusta Finlandia. ¿Cuando es tu cumpleaños Boomer?
Mi cumpleaños es el cinco de Mayo. ¿Como Ud? Mi cumpleaños es el tres de octubre. La fecha de hoy_ Hoy es el seis de octubre, spagnoli.¨

"Hola! Mi nombre es Señor Pez. Yo soy de America. Yo soy americana. Me gusta nadar afuera." (Señor Pez is what I named the "class" betta fish.)

"Rocksand. brou October 23, 1990. She is 18 teen year old. She is from tubscity. She lik to Ranch. and basketball. her favert colors pink and blue. She Rodeos when she is off school or out of school.
Sister = Dana. Bod 10/28... likes to whack tv, and cats. we..."
*this just confused me.... so i wrote "in spanish, please" on his paper. in spanish.

What time of day would you say the following? -
"Buenas tardes" _______--> "late to class"

plarnsenger bag,

Another fire drill! That makes three!
And it is "spirit day" which means that there is chaos and half of my classes are going to be out working on floats - and we have a test in here on Monday.... meh!

I am going to try to use this time - before the pep rally, at least - to plan for next week. And, since we don't have books yet, to use the Paso a Paso website to make up some vocabulary handouts and worksheets using the aforementioned vocabulary.

So I call the kids in my classes "children" - like when it's time to get started, I'll say "Alright children, get out your packets,..." and funny times - some of them call me "mom" now - "Okay, mom." hahahahahah. this makes me smile. :)

I went to my first lady Pirates volleyball game last night - It was confusing because they played to 25 for each match.... our girls are pretty good - the other team was decent, too - we had several long volleys going there for awhile.

I am mostly done with my plarnsenger bag - my plarn messenger bag... :)
yey.
i am going to make some mittens.
and keep working on my blanket. and the baby sweater that I started....
for a girl baby.
The girls in my 1st hour just happened to have "John Tucker Must Die"with them, and I just happened to bring my DVD player... so they are watching it. Danielle (who brought it) has hot pink hair. :) hehe.

Back to making up stuff to learn next week! :)
and making students turn things in! :)

and maybe going to the football game tnight. if i can find someone to go with - I went to the bonfire last night and no one really talked to me, and I couldn't find any "teachers" to hang out with, so I left.

Ugh.... some people's children.

today i taught a fourth of my 6th hour class. the rest of them chose to talk incesantly while i was reading vocabulary words and explaining things. . . it was terrible. I was having them repeat vocab after me (so they'd know how the words sound) and eventually, they just kept talking after I asked them to stop at least 5 times. So I sat on the side of the room where no one was talking amongst themselves, and finished up with them. The rest of the kids kept talking, and I didn't really care anymore because they chose to so I didn't feel like wasting my time or everyone else's by not continuing with the lesson...
needless to say, they better not be disappointed with at least 5 points off the test. which they are most likely not going to be ready for on Monday....
pssshhh.

i haven't seen the sun in awhile. maybe i'll go outside.
or just do my ballet conditioning video again - i did it last night and it was in-tents. :)

what i love love love.

I first found these at Kmart:

but I found that they have a website - ! and they also have tea flavors and other great fun things. so if you like tea or coffee and want to try something amazing - go here:

http://fusiongourmet.com


oh i am taking donations of these, too... some of my kids try to sleep in class, so i tried bribing them with these and unfortunately, they liked them... oops... :)

i am LAME. with a capital L.

So yesterday I was extremely frustrated on the inside and slightly smilie-ish on the outside because of the not=getting-a-paycheck thing,
and then Christine and Gay kidnapped me and made me go to Gallup with them. I got to see a teacher store and buy two purple pens so I can grade papers; we spent an hour or so in Goodwill while Gay was waiting for her order at the pharmacy and I found the SWEETEST dishes set.s.
One was a teaset type of thing - robin's egg blue thick melamine dishes with multicolored fleckles all over it - about 7 or 8 small plates, some saucers, and 4 or 5 cups, and a creamer/sugar bowl set.
and I found some really cute cups - two are chiner teacups white with red/blue flowers(i found it on ebay's site...), and then two -with 4 matching snack plates(?) - are more like coffee mugs with orange and pink flowers. and adorable. and totally match my black towels. as weird as that sounds. because blue speckleware, pink/red/orange/white cups, and black towels for some reason look great together.


As to why I am lame?
I am at school. On a Saturday. Playing on the Internet because I have nothing to do. I spent the morning digging in the sand?dirt? dust? and planting birdseed (yes, birdseed.) and arranging rocks in my yard. And moping around feeling sorry for myself because I have yet to find someone my age who wants to do something with me. (maybe that's why I bought so many teacups, because I reallly, reallllly want people to come over. butI don't think that can happen if I can't even buy a kitchen table, let alone a shower curtain so I don't soak the floor every time I want to be clean.
and I want to go to church in Gllup tmorrow, butI don't think that will happen, because I can't even buy gas enough to do that and make it through the next few weeks. I am going to leave school now, because I haven't gotten anything done, and maybe I will just go home and crochet plastic bags into something useful. like maybe a purse. And come back tomorrow afternoon perhaps when I am less lonely and frustrated. Arrrr. (it's homecoming next week - go Pirates! :) )

snails can be hilarious, too. (and soft, apparently)

My last class of the day is a "Reading Builder" class. I have no idea what to do with them:
So, I found some old composition books in the closet and they write in them almost every day.
Sometimes I give them poems to read. I am thinking about making them read The Sound and the Fury....
or some other Faulkner.

I just found out that I am not getting my paycheck today. Which is awesome, because I have no money until the 10th now.
and no furniture, really...
and like no food. meh.
Trust in the Lord with ALL.... lean not on your own understanding...,
at least i'll get a big paycheck. I hope.



A few days ago I had them write about "snails." ("At least mention the word snail somewhere...")

here are a few excertps: (keep in mind that these are high school students...)

" Well I never seen a snail before so yeah. So I seen the picture of one before and it looks wicked. I also heard that they are very slow at moving to different places. And that's all I got to say about them."

"Snails are bugs or i think fishes maybe either. There like slower as slow. We used ot have one but it died so that's it. "

"...I wonder why they're small and slow even though I haven't actually seen one but that's how they are." ...

"I seen a lot of snails at my grandfather's ranch in tanner spring..."

"OMG!! Today I feel so weird, because i have alot of energy drinks and i should of only drank one but nope i drank 4 now i feel sick but it is alright...." (this one made me laugh, because nowhere in the whole entry was the word "snail" mentioned.)

"I'm tired I can't think I like to carry around snails there fragile and soft."

(After reading cummings' poem: "I carry your heart is the most gayest ***ing poem I ever herd in my life. It's so gay it makes Micheal Jackson wanna be a rock star Just kidding It's a ok story.")

(from the same feller):" Is a snail those thing with a shell on there back.and there all slimy and sh(scribbled out). I seen a snail before at my house. They crawl very slow. It would take them months to crawl a mile.

"Over the weekend we went to G-town (Gallup) and my parents bought my sisters two snails and now I have to feed them everyday when I get home from school. It's all retarded and stupid and dumb and like one of them died two days ago. "

"One day I saw a snail at a park in Salt Lake City that time I was about 10 years old..."