ECMOA: Special Snow Day Edition 12-17-08

Happy Snow Day! I live in Vancouver, Washington which is sometimes considered as part of the Portland-Metro area. Something that I’ve learned in my seven years of residence in this fair city is that a tiny bit of snow makes the entire region shut down. I grew up where we got snow every winter, usually around a couple of feet or so. Sometimes we got more (6 feet was the record in my lifetime); sometimes we didn’t get snow at all. However, snow didn’t paralyze the entire community. People know how to drive in the snow in my hometown. Very few people know how to drive in the snow around here. Long story short, we’ve had a dusting of snow. Seriously, I can still count individual snow flakes lying on the ground. And school has been canceled. Full disclosure, I live in Vancouver, and Vancouver School District is open today. I’m sure that the upper elevations in Battle Ground where I work has some decent snow. I’m currently watching news reports of “Arctic Blast 08.” My cat, Baxter, LOVES these kinds of days because he likes to attack the ticker running along the bottom of the screen. He’s a giant cat, so he has not problem standing up on his hind legs to bat at the screen with both paws. He has worn himself out and is sleeping next to me on the couch.

I’m actually kind of glad. I brought home some work to do just incase we didn’t have school today. Plus while I generally like my students, two consecutive days of late start makes them exhausting and nearly unbearable. I have to remind myself that they don’t get snow very often, so it’s a big deal to them. Whenever we get snow around here, and the kids are confident that the two inches accumulated on the ground means that they will be sent home early (for the record, that has never happened in my 7 years in the district), it makes me have one of those “back in my day…” moments.

So, here is my own winter weather tale:

My sophomore year of high school, I had to walk to school because my dad was at an outage with the truck. My dad was branch manager for the White Salmon branch of Klickitat County PUD, so when the weather was nasty, he was usually at work coordinating the restoration of power to the outlying areas. We hadn’t heard of any closures, so I got ready to walk to school in about a foot of snow. The walk wasn’t that far, a little less than a mile and a half, and one that I had done since I was in the 5th grade. The walk to school took me up the road to the top of Strawberry Mountain (a very deceiving name—a hill at best), then down through an orchard to the school. I got all bundled up and headed out to school only to find the doors to the high school locked. I walked around to the front entrance which was open, and saw a sign that said “School is 2 Hours Late.” I decided to go ahead and walk the mile and half back home instead of sitting around at the cold school for two hours. After enjoying some hot chocolate, I trudged back to school. Another sign greeted me: “School is Canceled.” Crap. By the time I made my fourth trek through the orchard it had snowed another few inches. My mom just laughed at me when I got back home. She told me that she had heard on the radio that school had been canceled about 20 minutes after I left home the second time. I thought the whole thing was kind of funny as well, though I was disappointed that I didn’t get to sleep in on the snow day. I believe these kinds of experiences are filed under “Character Building.”

ECMOA for the Month of November, 2008

November is the 4th best month to be a teacher. June, July, and August getting the top three spots, of course. Why is November so great? Lots of days off. Between Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving Break, I get a random four days off from work. Plus it usually starts on the tail end of a week of half days for parent/teacher conferences. While we do get two weeks off for winter break, the chaos of dealing with amped up teenagers for the first two weeks of December counterbalances the joy of a two-week vacation.

It’s a short installment this month, but it doesn’t make it any less awesome. Enjoy!

Moment 1:
Two students were talking by my desk.
Student 1 (to several students): “Do you like spaghetti? Do you like spaghetti? Am I like the only person who doesn’t like spaghetti?”
Student 2: “Why not?”
Student 1: “Well, I choked on a noodle, just a plain noodle, when I was little.”
Havig: “Were you attacked by a pack of spaghetti as a small child?”
Student 1: “Yeah, spaghetti killed my father and raped my mother.”

The timing was hilarious.

Moment 2:
From a student’s paper regarding parental advice:
“My mother drives me insane. She likes really disgusting things, which is probably why she is a dental hygienist.”

The opening line from another student’s parental advice paper:
“You know nothing of granny squares!”

She later explained what granny squares were, but I still think it is one of the best first lines I have read. I am going to start using it as my “you’re an idiot!” phrase.

Moment 3:
“I’m sure your bladder will make friends some day.”
- student in response to my explanation that I have a very shy bladder, and thus do not like using the restroom when other people are in the restroom. It wasn’t just the comment, it was the really creepy way the student made the comment that made this awesome.

Moment 4:
A conversation with my freshmen about parents:
Student 1: “How old is your dad?”
Student 2: “He’s like 30.”
Student 1: “So he had you when he was 16?”
Student 2 (slightly perplexed): “No, my mom was like 20.”
Havig: “I think you mean that he’s in his 30s.”
Student 2: “Yeah, I didn’t mean he’s 30.”
Havig: “’Cause I’m going to be 30 in a few days, and I don’t feel like I’m old enough to be your parent.”
Student 2: “Yeah, I think you’re old enough.”
Much laughter from the class ensues, and I mock hurt from being called old. Another student explains to Student 2 why what she said was so funny.
Student 2: “Oh, I meant that you’re were old enough to have kids.”

Moment 5:
“Oh, crap! I just killed that hooker!”
- one small child’s parroting comment after watching some teenagers play Grand Theft Auto according to one of my third period kids.

Moment 6:
So, my third period class may have been discussing serial killers. Okay, I was telling them about a great moment in an episode of Criminal Minds where this guy (the un-sub) chops up his victims and puts pieces of them into the chili that he’s serving to the volunteers who are searching for the victims. How messed up is that!? There is this great line from this episode. A priest and one of the investigators is questioning the un-sub about one of the victims whose body has not been found. After way more searching on the World Wide Web than I’d like to admit, I found that the character’s name was Tracey Lambert. Anyway, they keep asking "Where is Tracey Lambert?" The un-sub goes on a tangent about God. The priest states, “God is inside all of us.” To which the un-sub replies, “So is Tracey Lambert.” Then a bunch of clips run showing the volunteers eating the chili con Tracey Lambert. Awesome! As I was telling them about this episode--which had everything to do with what we were discussing in class at the time, I swear--the following exchange occurred:

Havig: “So this serial killer was hacking up bodies, as serial killers sometimes do.”
Student: “Hacking, like (cough, cough)?

It took me a few minutes to regain my composure after that one. I guess from this day forward, I must differentiate between the hacking that serial killers do with knives and the hacking that my cats do to get rid of hairballs.

ECMOA for the Month of October, 2008 Part II

Here’s the second half of awesome moments from the month of October. By the way, if you are extra bored or have some time, you should check out my other blog, Stupid Baby Names and Other Things that Bug Me. You can find it at stupidbabynames.blogspot.com. I have quite a few name rants in the works plus I’m reviewing the best and the worst of holiday songs.

I’m going to break them up by the classes as opposed to individual moments just for kicks.

From the freshmen:

One student had forgotten to write his or her name on a vocab quiz, so I took it around the classroom to find the owner.
Havig: “Does anyone want to claim this?”
Student: “There’s no name on it…oh.”

Student 1: “Ms. Havig, who do you think would make a better president, McCain or Obama?”
Havig: “Well, since I’m a teacher, I’m not really supposed to share my political views with my students.”
Student 2: “Did you say a llama or Obama?”
Student 1 (sarcastically): “Obama. Yeah, who would make a better president, McCain or a llama?”

Student: “How do you spell, climb-ed?”
Now this may be one of those kinds of things where you had to be there to really appreciate the humor in this situation. After this student asked for some spelling assistance via exaggerated enunciation, it became an on-going joke to over emphasize the ed ending to most words.

From the seniors:

A student had this as part of a journal entry.
“You calling the kettle black is what old people usually say, which is funny because the metaphor doesn’t really make any sense.”

And finally from the sophomores:

“This is where they all hate each other.”
- in reference to the characters in second section of Joy Luck Club

It think this next one is my personal favorite from this round. The students received progress reports awhile back, and one of my students’ progress report was printed with the watermark on the paper upside down. Basically, the school printed some of the progress reports with the paper going the wrong way. Ah…education.

There are more on tap for November, so stay tuned.

ECMOA for the Month of October, 2008 Part I

Okay sports fans (that’s a colloquialism that I got from my dad), let’s be realistic. I am not very good at posting once a week like I used to be. I’m hoping for at least bi-weekly postings, but monthly postings may be what you get. To the four of you that actually read this blog, I thank you for your loyalty.

I’ve noticed that the majority of the moments these days are simply quotes from my students or conversations that I have overheard or have had with my students. I do miss the days of a particular student’s stories about how she broke her glasses or how she lost them (one apparently shouldn’t tape one’s glasses to one’s cat’s head). I’m realizing that the students who I had as freshmen when I first started the English Class Moments of Awesomeness are now seniors. How time flies.

On to the awesomeness!

Moment 1:
“Pale is the new tan.”
- one student to another student as they compared their tans, or lack there of

Moment 2:
“It’s like homework, you can only use it once.”
- student response to an assignment question regarding parental advice

Moment 3:
This was a side conversation that I had with one of my freshmen, and the seriousness of the question totally cracked me up.
Student: “Your tongue’s a muscle, right?”
Havig: “Yeah.”
Student: “So could you pull your tongue like if you really got into a piece of cheese cake?”
Havig: “I have no idea.”

Of course I spent the rest of the day craving some tasty cheese cake.

Moment 4:
If you don’t know me, let me summarize my personality for you as briefly as possible. Sarcasm is my personal dogma. I was also raised in a staunch Norwegian household where not only was crying an unacceptable form of communication, but expressing emotions of any sort was highly frowned upon. In fact, it was a sign of weakness. Needless to say, I’m not the teacher that students run to with their little teenage drama episodes. My fourth period class even had a conversation about my lack of touchy-feeliness. With that in mind, enjoy this next moment.

During a vocab quiz, a student made a bizarre sound like a cross between dry heaving and a hic-up. I looked in her direction looking between her and another student inquiring what the noise was and who made it.

Student 1: “I hic-uped.”
Student 2: “Don’t judge. We all hic-up.”
Havig: “Not like that.”
Student 2: “Oh, harsh.”
Student 1: “Way to be a supportive teacher.”
Havig (with a sigh): “We’ve gone over this.”

Moment 5:
My 4th period class was out of control on a Friday a few weeks ago after we had an assembly. They were all fired up and couldn’t really control themselves. After showing them my great annoyance with their behavior, they tried to convince me that they weren’t annoying, just really spirited. They were trying to claim that they made my day more interesting.
One student who I had as a freshman last year tried to make her point.

Student: “Remember how last year you would tell a joke, and no one laughed except for me?”
Havig (skeptically): “Right.”
Student: “Well, isn’t this much better? Everyone laughs at you. (awkward pause as she realizes what she said.) Not like that.”

Ahh, in the immortal words of Bill Cosby, kids say the darndest things.

ECMOA for the weeks of September 15-26

The Best of the Rest of last year:

There is one moment left over from last year, so here it is:

When the students get their yearbooks every spring, they obsess over them pretty much until the end of the school year. One student was adamant that people look at the picture of one student.

Student 1: “Okay, there’s a girl who growls in her pictures. She did it last year, and I was hoping she wouldn’t do it again, but apparently that’s her smile.”
Student 2 looking at picture: “She does look angry.”

Done with the old, on with the new…

There are a few moments from the new school year thus far. It takes awhile for the kids to get used to my warped sense of humor. The first few weeks are spent reassuring the students that I am not, indeed, out of my mind.

Moment 1:

My sophomore honors class read two novels over the summer, Ethan Frome and Gulliver’s Travels. The general idea of Ethan Frome is that the main character is in an unhappy marriage with a woman named Zeena when he falls in love with a young woman named Mattie who happens to live with them. Set in the early 1900s, Ethan and Mattie feel like they have few options. They decide to try kill themselves by sledding into a tree at the bottom of a large hill. The students researched marriage and held small group discussions about the novel. The following responses didn’t earn a lot of points for the groups who wrote them, but they still are kind of funny.

“If you didn’t love the person you’re married to, it sucks.”
- in response to: what have you learned from the reading, research and discussion?

“Today, people would’ve divorced Zeena by now.”

“They have better accuracy of committing suicide.”
- in response to: what alternatives do couples today have that Ethan did not have?

Moment 2:

Also from my sophomores:

“I’m going to get me some baby-skin boots.”
- student while reading “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift

If you haven't read "A Modest Proposal," I highly recommend it. Swift's mastery of satire is brilliant. Also, after you have read it, the Chili's babyback ribs jingle will never be the same. Trust me.

Moment 3:

The counselors moved 5 students out of my 3rd period into another teacher’s class because I had 10 more kids than she did. I talked to the 5 kids out in the hall toward the beginning of the period, and then they went down to the counselor’s office to get the paperwork. I was talking to the class about the day’s assignment when the 5 students came back, grabbed their stuff and left.

Student 1 inquiring about the student leaving: “Where are they going?”
Havig: “I’m having them killed.”
Student 2: “You said that with a straight face. That’s really scary.”

Of course these students don't even know the half of it. They haven't even seen my zombie preparedness fighting stance, and they haven't heard about the latch in my basement that keeps the zombies out of my house. They really have a lot to learn.

I hope you enjoyed this installment. I promise that I have more on the way.

Back to School ECMOA 2008

WELCOME BACK ! ! !

It is another new school year, and overall I’m not entirely hating the fact that summer is now over. The students started school the day after Labor Day, and ever since, I’ve been trying to learn 150 new names. It is always strange how at the beginning of the school year, the kids all kind of look the same. Most of the girls have long, straight hair in shades varying from blonde to dark blonde to light brown with blonde highlights to light brown without highlights to slightly darker brown…well, you get the picture. And for reasons still very unclear to me, the boys are still sporting the “I-need-a-haircut” haircut.

The students are starting to be less frightened by me, and they’re showing their personalities more and more each day. Sometimes it’s through well-rehearsed eye rolling. Sometimes it’s through laughing at my really bad jokes. Who knew literature could be so funny? Or maybe they're just laughing at my story about the time I got a black eye via the screen door handle while I was trying to grab my cat who was trying to go attack a raccoon 8 time his size.

We’re going to start on a note of not-so-awesomeness because, well, because what’s the point of having a blog if you can’t vent.

Back to School ECMON-S-A

So my computer doesn’t work. As in my school computer which I need to enter attendance, enter grades, email, create assignments, print, etc. does not work. I knew this before school started because like a sucker, I came in two weeks before school started to prepare for the start of school. Computer no worky. (That is a Havig familial colloquialism meaning something does not function properly, by the way.) No worries though. I put in a work order, and it should be fixed in no time. My tech-savvy co-worker even took a look at it and did all that stuff that I don’t know how to do, and she said the outlook was bleak. five weeks later, I’m still without a computer. I called IT during the first week of school and left a message. Shortly afterword, the IT people sent out an email to the entire district telling people not to call after they have submitted a work order. I’m sure lots people had requests and were checking on the status of their work orders, but I couldn’t help but feel like the email was directed at me. I’m also pretty sure that my work order was either “lost” or moved to the bottom of the pile.

Enough complaining on my part . On to the awesomeness ! ! !

These are from the end of the year last year, so we’ll consider the Back to School Best of May and June English Class Moments of Awesomeness.

Moment 1:
My honors kids were reading Joy Luck Club, and the class was discussing why the main character’s mother pushes her to succeed so much.
Student 1: “She does it out of love.”
Student 2: “What’s love got to do with it?”
It wasn’t until a few beats later that she realized what she said. Unfortunately, she declined requests to sing the rest of the Tina Turner song.

Moment 2:
Also during the Joy Luck Club unit, one student misread the title “Red Candle” on the board as “Red Candie.”
Student 1: “Red Candle…candy…candle…candy. I guess candy is spelled with a ‘y’ and not ‘ie.’
Student 2: “Candie with an id sounds like a hooker name.”
Student 1: “All artificial sweeteners are hooker names.”
Havig: “I don’t think I’ve ever met a hooker named Splenda. Have you, Student 1? Equal? Sweet & Low?”

Moment 3:
More Joy Luck Club goodness. For each of the families, there is a quiz that the students take. A student had come in to make up her quiz and was about to hand it to me while I was sitting at my desk. She saw a quiz key on my desk and started checking her answers.
Student 1 with growing look of horror: “Oh. Oh. OH.”
Havig: “That’s the wrong key.”
Student 1: “Thank goodness. I only got one right on the first side.”
Student 2: “What happened?”
Student 1: “I was looking at the Ha-su family on instead.” (The name is actually Hsu.)
Havig: “I like how you say the Chinese names like they’re Spanish.” (Earlier, she had pronounced Jong as “Hong.”)
Student 1: “Well, I don’t know Japa…” (She stopped herself realizing her mistake.)

Moment 4:
I don’t remember how this conversation started, so we’ll just go with it. I should point out that Student 2 is a boy, and the others are all girls. Once again this is my Honors English II class during 4th period.

Student 1: “Nancy Drew wasn’t around in 1903.”
Student 2: “Yes, it was. Nancy Drew is timeless.”
Student 3: “Have you ever even read Nancy Drew?”
Student 2: “No.”
Student 4: “What boy would read Nancy Drew?”
Havig: “It’s not like it’s a girly book. It’s not all flowers and ‘I’m so in love.’ It’s ‘I found a skull, and now I’m going to find out where it came from. That’s Nancy Drew. Well, that’s my Nancy Drew.”
Student 4: “Honestly, what high school girl goes around finding skulls?”
Student 5 tentatively raises her hand.

Moment 5:
Student 1: “I spell phonetically.”
Student 2: “As opposed to correctly?”

I have some more from last year, and this year’s batch of kiddos are already contributing there own moments of awesomeness. Stay tuned and have an awesome week.

June 17, 2008

It's the last day of school! ! !