Published by Kelly June 7th, 2006
in School Stories.
So my whopping two year teaching career is coming to a rapid end (thank you baby P). I have loved teaching as much as it is a major pain in the rear. The kids are hilarious, there are always those few that you can’t wait to get rid of, but most of my kids I love.
I lucked out yesterday and was given a free yearbook. I kept debating on whether I wanted to spend $20.00 on a yearbook, I enjoy looking through it to see my kids and co-workers. I decided in the end that it wasn’t worth it with us moving, $20.00 can buy us a lot more at Home Depot rather than just a yearbook. Now that I have one in my possession for free the kids are all signing it. All of them have given me their phone numbers. That cracks me up. Some have asked for mine which I have to politely decline. I can’t imagine how often they would bug me if that got out…yikes! It is a sweet gesture, but I wonder how their parents would feel.
So a few months ago an email came around asking for volunteers for the “teacher dance” at the end of the year talent show. Now I can shake my junk with the best of them, but I was a little hesitant to dance in front of middle schoolers, not to mention I had no idea how big I would be by June. Needless to say, I started coming to the practices. IT didn’t take me long to realize this dance medley was quite cheesy and I really wanted to back out. Call it adult insecurity, but I did not want to look stupid dancing. As my belly has gotten bigger and bigger I feel like I stick out even more. Once the song choices were confirmed I REALLY wanted to back out. We open up with a country line dance to “Honkytonkbadonk” or however you spell it. I am not a country music fan so the title alone made me want to cringe. Next, half the group dances to “Respect” by Aretha Franklin. I like the song, but these kids don’t know 60’s music. Are they really going to go crazy when the song comes on. lets be real? Next, my group does a 30 second dance to “ABC”, Jackson Five. Again, a great song…not relateable to middle schoolers. Well we end with quite the modern number, maybe you have heard this little diddy, “Grillz” by Nelly. I can’t stand this song, it is so ghetto. We don’t even do a cool hip hop dance to it. The girl who is choreographing is a dance instructor. I had high hopes of this having some cool choreography, but you just can’t take the “shuffle ball change” or jazz squares out of a dance teacher. Everything is so structured and basic….UGH!
So here I am, t-minus 7 hours until our evening performance and then tomorrow we perform it twice for the student body. Yesterday was our dress rehersal. We performed it in front of the other kids in the talent show. There was only 30 kids there but I felt so stupid. My pits started sweating and I found it hard to look up and out while dancing. I am in the front row for 2 out of the 3 dances…go me! The kids did go nuts when they heard “Grillz”, go figure. Tomorrow when we perform for the students we are putting foil on our teeth when we do Grillz. This is half mocking, half…what more dignity do we have left? I have been assured by the teachers from last year that all the kids go nuts while we perform and they love it…yaddy, yaddy, yah. We are the finale, oh no! So for kicks and giggles, I think Ryan is coming to mock me tonight and maybe Candace. I will certainly make my mark on BMS tonight! Got preggers shaking her stuff up in the front row, can you dig my lovely lady lumps?
Happy 10 months to my amazing husband…I have loved every second babe!
Published by Kelly June 2nd, 2006
in School Stories.
Okay, so it has been like a bazillion years since I got my middle school yearbooks. My 10 year H.S. reunion has already come and gone (deep sigh). I forget the excitement of cracking the cover for the first time and of course, checking your own picture out first and then desperately scanning the pages to see if you made the cut anywhere else. There is a weird popularity contest where you count how many times your face made it in the yearbook and you casually share that number with your friends over the course of the day. My lovesick 6th graders have already taken magic markers and made large hearts around the boys they “love” and drawn “X”s through the guys they think are dills. My 8th graders are less demonstrative, they just want to get everyone’s signature. It is cute how they come in my room. Some just bust in and announce they want me to sign. Others just hover around my desk and wait for me to ask them. I remember desperately wanting the boys I had crushes on to sign my yearbook and loved when the teacher announced to pass our yearbooks around person to person (nothing like forced signings!) It didn’t matter if they wrote anything, a signature was just as gratifying. Oh preteen years….
I have all my yearbooks in a box somewhere in my parents attic. A few years ago I pulled them out and flipped through and read some of the entries. I could NOT remember who the people were or what the acronyms stood for on a lot of the entries. What was so important at the time means nothing later than a good laugh. My poor parents shelled out money for those sad little yearbooks. Thanks for the sacrifice mom and dad!
It was sad, even at my 10 year reunion I had the hardest time remembering people. Sometimes I feel like my life in NY never happened, nothing is vivid…is that weird? I never enjoyed junior high or high school. I LOVED college and those memories are so much more real, as well as the friendships. It wasn’t like I was unpopular in school, I just wasn’t popular either. I was one of those people who knew everyone and just floated through 6th-12th grade in this safe place.
Now I am going to show you my pictures from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. I know it will be hard to believe that I wasn’t made fun of…but please bear in mind that I grew up in upstate NY…big hair was our thing. I, in no way, stuck out with my appearance, I was actually quite stylish. Jump, set, spike with your comments about my appearance…these pictures are ridiculous!
(Check back after 5:00…I have to have Ryan scan them in afterwork….it will be worth your time to see these babies! OR if you go to this entry, you can see my 7th grade picture)
UPDATE: I left the pictures of myself at a younger age at school. I will post them on monday. In the mean time, look at this and this.
Published by Kelly May 5th, 2006
in School Stories.
No, noone asked me to sleep with them for a million dollars, although with our current financial situation there is a small part of me that would be tempted. I am kidding Ryan….I would never betray you ( cue “Faithfully” by Journey)
One of my students just came up to me and said, “Mrs. Portnoy, I have to talk to you right now. My mom and her boyfriend are starting a business. I have to ask you….do you wear lingerie?” I ask her to repeat the question because surely I do not have a 13 year old asking me if I wear “naughty wear”. Sure enough, that is exactly what she asked me. I said, “Why don’t you tell me what you have to tell me before I answer any questions.” She launches into this rambling explanation that her mom’s boyfriend wanted to know if there were any young teachers at the school that she could give their business information to. She tells him about me and he tells her to give me this piece of paper with a ghetto business card on it. The flyer starts off with the thought provoking question “Are you tired of spending your hard earned $$money$$ on cheap lingerie?” I didn’t add the dollar signs, they were already there. It then continues with an explanation of the wide variety of erotic items for both men and women that will cater to all of my needs.
The kicker is, they have no store, they have to meet you somewhere and let you look through a magazine. You don’t have to pay until the merchandise comes in and is “inspected”. That is a pretty noble process!
Well, I humor her for a moment reading over the flyer and desperately thinking how in the world can I handle this. I asked her if she told her mom’s boyfriend I was pregnant and would be getting quite big soon. She said she did, but he just wanted me to have the information because this month is my birthday and maybe my husband would want to get me something. (That was not a shameless b-day plug.) I told her politely that I wasn’t really into lingerie and especially now that I am pregnant, but I appreciated the info.
She told me to think about it and she would talk to me later in the day. ABOUT WHAT????? I am not discussing this with you any further, this is awkward and a little gross, and frankly I am sad that your mom’s boyfriend is having you bring a flyer for lingerie to your teachers, what are they thinking?
So should I be flattered by being the chosen teacher? If this is the start to my Friday, I can only imagine how the rest of my day will be!
Published by Kelly February 23rd, 2006
in School Stories.
A few teachers were sharing some stories about what either their own kids have said when they were little or some of their former students. Here were a few I got a chuckle out of. Am I getting too simple in my humor or is this really pretty funny?
A red-headed teacher I work with tells me that she had a short sleeve shirt on while teaching, exposing all of her freckles and a kid says to her, “Oh Mrs. Bruce, you are rusting, are you okay?”
My fellow SPED teachers son was at the grocery store with her in the check-out isle. He picks up a box of pads and hands it to his mom and says “Mommy, here are your diapers.”
The same teacher tells me during her student teaching a little 1st grader was sitting on her lap while she was reading to her and turned around and asked her, “How old are you?” she replies, “I am 26 why?” The little girl says “I was just wondering where your boobs were.”
Any yet another one from the same SPED teacher. She usually has some great stories in her repitore. When her little boy was really little he told her about a little black boy at his school he plays with. She said he got very serious and said, “Mommy, if you look really closely at him, he isn’t black, he really is brown.”
Anywho….love em or roll your eyes…sometimes I am hard up for humor at school.
Have a good one!
Published by Kelly February 21st, 2006
in School Stories.
It has to be said. Candace’s blog, Laughing Daisies, has officially been banned from my school computer. She obviously mentioned the word boob a little too many times! Way to go Can! You have gotten too racy for Middle School computers. It is amazing to me what gets blocked here and what doesn’t. Now I am forced to read her blog at home…what a pain!
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