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Leaving Open House, and getting home from it, are two great feelings. Walking to your car, with all the other teachers heading out doing the same, leaves me with a feeling of accomplishment, of achievement. I've gotten through another Open House. I put on another successful show. But getting home feels great. I never go home between then end of the half day a school, and the event. There is usually too much to do, and if I happen to be ready enough, I just worry too much while I'm at home. So I stay, get my work done, and hopefully enjoy a very casual, stress free, early dinners. So by the time the night is over, it has been a long day.
I think this year's Open House was good. I think I had about 25 families show up, but more than that, I had about 5 former students come by to say hello. One was in 10th grade, and apparently making really bad decisions (baby on the way and in a gang). Another was a 22 year old I had when I taught 2nd grade at Price. I totally remembered her for some reason . It turns out she is the oldest sister of a current student of mine (I had the two girls' brother in between having the two of them). I had 2 students who are now juniors in high school, and apparently doing well, with plans to go to college. And then I had 2 girl who I had 3 or 4 years ago.
It's always pretty fun to see former students. But when they are young adults, it's just weird.
* * * * *
It's always good to get Open House over with, for a couple of reasons. The first (and they are in no particular order) is that there is always a push with teachers to get new, good work up on the bulletin boards. That means pushing your students for their best work, and then taking down all their old work and putting up new work. And teachers usually put more art work, and work in general, up on the boards. So we're jamming art, writing, and math all over, in every space we can find.
Another reason is that once Open House is over, it seems the end of the year is finally in sight. All year long you look for the State test, and prep for that. Once that is over, it's the big push for Open House. Now that that is behind us, we can finally look towards the end of the year. But it's going to be a busy 3 weeks.
In a couple of days we have the all-school Olympics, which my class has not prepared for at all. Then the week after that is Gold Rush, which we are way behind in. We are going to have to practice singing, dancing, and doing the play a lot these next 10 or so school days! And then some time around then there is our report card prep day. Once that hits, I'll be busy after school for about 3 hours, for at least 3 days, and probably more. Then there is a whole list of little things that need to be done before the school year ends (literally, we are given a list), all of which take time and energy. By the time that last half day of school rolls around, it feels so good to get it over with.
I think we're planning root beer floats after lunch on that day, just like last year.


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And now it's time for the "I love you like a fat kid loves cake" memorial Worst Lyrics of 2008, March Madness–style tournament, this year a terrifying mélange of appalling oral-sex requests, bargain-bin philosophies, grammatical atrocities, and cringe-inducing pillow talk. To elevate the drama, I provided a trusted colleague with the 16 artists who qualified and had him assign seeds — Lil Wayne you expect to go deep into a showdown like this, but Lucinda Williams? Some fantastic match-ups resulted, but in the end, nobody is topping Nickelback's backstage-pass bon mot, as devastating a blow to feminism as Katy Perry and Sarah Palin combined. Oh, for those innocent days of 50 Cent.
Download The Worst Lyrics of 2008 Tournament chart.

subset: commoncrawl