IDK my BFF Toni?

Why I seemingly laugh at nothing sometimes

My school still does homeroom. During lunch, another teacher who doesn't have her own room has her homeroom class in mine. Sometimes while I eat, I pretend to be entering grades at my desk, but really I'm watching her students.

Today a boy sat not too far from me rolling his pencil back and forth across his desk with an expression on his face that looked as though he himself was falling off a very large cliff. I immediately thought of Bri on Friday and her story about the boys in her class that furiously rub the tip of their pencil on their desk and then touch it on their cheeks and hands to feel the heat, yelling "ouch" in a tone that would indicate it was just as shocking as the first time they tried it. She added that they do this all day.

The image of Bri telling this story combined with the thought that we actually teach humans who do these things made me laugh out loud during homework time. I tried to stifle it without much success. That boy rolling his pencil stopped and looked at me like I was insane for laughing at no reason whatsoever.

Who would you rather have as president?

Uh, is this even a question? Seriously.

Wit from my students

I didn't think I'd like seventh grade at all. Through my entire graduate program I told myself, and anyone stupid enough to listen, that I was a high school teacher, the older the better. But I'm finding I love my students more and more. I've only been there a couple weeks but we've really connected. They laugh at my jokes, most likely because they don't know better, and I laugh at theirs. They want to talk and share and want me to know about them. They especially laugh when I tell them they need to stop talking because I'm the cutest thing in the room. Don't think I don't say it.

This last week we've been writing papers. And this weekend, almost all of it, I spent grading papers from my students. I teach the same class five times throughout the day and have about 160 students. It was a long weekend. I laughed myself to tears at one kid's paper though. I ran and showed it to my roommate Jessie, another English teacher, and she laughed too. Lisa, you will love this. The last two sentences of his introduction are exactly as follows:

Do you want to enter the rest of the fun-filled story with more exciting events about my ping pong experience? KEEP ON READING!!!!!!!!

My feedback:

This is a good introduction. And, while the last two sentences are cute as can be, in an academic paper it wouldn't be very appropriate. You made me :)

I'm employed as a teacher!

I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.
I will not drink coffee.

I am so tired. I don't know how I did this last spring.

Yoga

I haven't been writing much lately. I've felt slightly uninspired in recent days. I miss my wittier and more charming posts like my one on rules at the university or my three post series on Utah. I also kind of miss the ones in which I address my personal growth or the ones that included some amount of depth or perspective. Maybe I'm just too pretentious, or my standards are too high. I'm not sure.

Today, I did yoga for the first time in about three weeks. I love not doing it for a while and then going back to it. My favorite is when I move from upward facing dog to downward facing dog and I can feel my back adjust in three different places. I like the good hurt my legs and arms feel. I like looking at my yoga mat that has an adorable paisley print on it.

Every part of me loves yoga. Well, every part except my knee. My right knee enjoys giving me warnings that if I keep up doing yoga I'll be needing replacement surgery much sooner than I orginally planned. If I've gotten nothing else from my mother, I've inherited her bad joints. But actually, in her defense, my bad knee may have more to do with a rough fall on the ice when I was 15 rather than bad genes. I generally just tell it to be quiet and that my back needs the exercise more right now.

There is one part of yoga I don't like. That is my stability ball. I have a terrible time staying on it, even when I'm just balancing on it motionless. I think it may do that to me on purpose. It likes to see me fall off of it. Meet my nemisis:

Notice how I posted the picture in black and white for added dramatic effect. Makes it look extra evil, doesn't it? The ball is actually a pinkish red color. The ball is slightly too large for me even though it's the smallest size available. I've had it for two years now and I keep gradually letting more air out of it but it still doesn't seem to be the right fit. Oddly enough, while Lukey was visiting in July, he found the ball and thought it was the best toy ever. I took it outside with him and we played with it in the yard and driveway (take that, you lifeless piece of rubber).

I need to shower now. Apparently I sweat a lot when I do yoga.