Tuesday, October 20, 2009

About a Rabbit

I woke up the other day and tripped over the rabbit on my way to go use the bathroom. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not completely functional in the morning. They also know that anyone silly enough to get in my way, might be tripped over. So most people give me a wide berth. Additionally, my conversational skills are devoid of substance and I frown a lot for the first few hours of consciousness. Basically, I am not a morning person. Anyway, I began that morning by being tripped by the rabbit. I swear I heard the damn thing snicker. I kind of mumbled an apology that also included a warning to move next time. When I got out of the shower, my eyes had opened but my brain was on autopilot. I thought food, coffee, and go to work. So I enter the kitchen and the rabbit is stalking me all over the place. Like, literally! The psycho rabbit was running at me and chasing me around the kitchen. It was silly. I was doing my best to avoid the rabbit while contemplating what psychotropic drug it might need to stop being so aggressive. Then I realized the reason it was stalking me. There was no water or food in it's bowl. So I stopped what I was doing and got the poor starving and dehydrated thing some food and water. I am not sure if any of you have ever been menaced by a rabbit before but it is a little unsettling. At first you think it is going to hop past you but instead it stops in front of you and then follows you around. I have had managers, in some of my past jobs, manage like that. They follow you around and appear suddenly at your shoulder when you take a second to breathe. You may be thinking that I was over reacting but you must take into account that I was not fully awake. Then realize that finding the rabbit charging me at every turn, especially after it peed all over my flip flops, to be a little strange. No sleep, deliberately tripping, pee sabotage, and other odd bunny behavior could be the sign of a coming apocalypse but in this case it just meant the rabbit was hungry.

In another bunny related adventure, I felt you should learn about the naming of this bunny. Maryjo got this rabbit from a school. Apparently a class found this rabbit and took it in for the school year. At the end of the year she took over caring for it. Maryjo has a funny nack of not remembering this rabbit's name. I can't say I blame her because it was a completely sucktacular name like Laverne or Shirley, named after the characters of that old sitcom. An utterly forgettable name if you ask me. So I realized this rabbit desperately needed a name. Last time one of Maryjo's rabbits had a horrible moniker, I asked for the readers of this blog to help. The response was mediocre at best. Add that response to the fact that I have hardly posted in the last couple of months and I realized that leaving it up to you would not be a great choice. So I started thinking about what I knew about this bunny and other rabbits in general. This bunny is brown, soft, relatively mellow, likes grapes and sits in odd and uncomfortable looking spots. I then thought about rabbits in general. Rabbits like to have sex and reproduce, they hop and they are vegetarian. So I put all this information in my amazing name-o-matic machine (also known as my brain) and I came up with "Sexual Chocolate". The rabbit's name is Sexual Chocolate! For those who think this name is odd, realize that I didn't ask you. If you think the name sounds familiar you are right. It is not an original name! The name comes from the movie Coming to America. In that movie, Eddie and Arsenio head to a fundraising event in New York and there is a band performing at it that is named Sexual Chocolate. The announcer says "Give it up for Sexual Chocolate everybody! Sexual Chocolate!" Maybe like 1 person besides the announcer claps. Any way I figured bunnies like to hump and this bunny happens to be brown; the name is pure kismet!

If you have a better name, Maryjo would like something besides the name I have come up with. Please post your suggestions, as a comment, here. I will take the best and debate whether it is a more fitting name for the rabbit. If it is, then you will be the proud namer of a rabbit, and I might even get you a copy of my next year's photo wall calendar! (still in development)

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Hippity Hoppity Updatity!

Wow! I am busy!

I want to write a little more for the story being posted here but I am behind on my work sample. I decided I needed to put out an update so that you know what is going on with me. I have a month left at the elementary school and I finish up my science unit on the human body next week. Of course, after that unit is done I will teach the last 3 weeks full time. I am looking forward to that but I am also a little nervous about it. I am already teaching science, a novel workshop and reading. All that is left is writing and math. Oh and the other things we fit in here and there, like PE and what not.

As far as the work sample is going.... it isn't going well. I have ben having trouble getting going and as a result I am now behind. What really pisses me off is that I also have to get online 4 days a week and write a bunch of crap. Between the work sample and lesson planning I have enough to do. If I could figure out how to shove the electronic discussion question forums up people's posteriors I would feel a little happier. Since that won't happen I figured I would try whining. As far as the work sample goes a lot of the problem lies in my court. I am working hard to readjust my attitude about it. I am trying to get over the act that it is a worthless piece of busywork and realize that it is a worthless piece of crap that is my ticket to becoming licensed. Licensed in a job market that has no jobs.... WOOHOO!

I recently bought a Wii Fit Plus for my dad's Wii. I needed to figure out some activities that I could do inside when it is raining outside. This 85 dollar addition adds a lot of things I can do including yoga, strength training and quite a bit of other things. I tried it out last night and I did a lot of activities including a small run, a bunch of yoga and some interesting blance exercises. I am planning to use this to help fill in those times that I can't get outside for a run because of weather or homework. Homework interferes because a lot of the time directly after school is the best time to get crap done. If I run after school, I end up not getting around to homework. Which is another reason I am light years behind.

Other things are happening that have been interesting. The school district I am doing student teaching in is working without a contract in place. There is a huge disagreement that is mucking up the works. It has gotten to the point that a strike is becoming more of a possibility. The issue is that the district has decided that the teachers need more contact time with students. They pulled the magicaltime frame of a half hour more per day out of their rears but have failed to say how they will implement this additional time or how teachers will be given time to plan for 30 minutes more of instruction. I have been in the classroom and I can tell you that planning is key to being a good teacher. I also know that there is hardly a moment that I am not working with students. I work with them all morning, including recess time. I get a break at lunch and then I am back in the class helping out or instructing. I am just a student teacher and at this current moment I have times where I can run away to use the restroom, make copies for an upcoming lesson or ask a question of another teacher about an upcoming activity. If I was the regular teacher I would not get these reprieves. I would be using the restroom at lunch and at the end of school. I would have to figure out a backup plan, on the spot, if I was missing the copies needed for my lesson. I would basically need to be super organized in the 45 minutes of planning alotted before and after school to make sure I was ready for each day. There is not a half hour laying around that is available to fit anything in at the elementary school level. What is truly funny is that the district keeps saying that they will make time in the existing school day for the extra 30 minutes. From what I can tell that leaves recess being shortened or eliminated, which is a bad idea! Of course they can not come out and say how this time will be added without a change to bus routes or the school day. I am interested to see how this all plays out.