Archery, Work Stuff, & Car's Lucky Day

Forget those other songs; THIS one's the best.

No, I'm not going to stop posting mushy love songs anytime soon. 

I've been in insomniac-mode again this week.  I remember the days where sleep-deprivation used to bother me.  Now it's like, "Yeah, whatever." 

Today was Read Across America Day, so the language arts teachers dressed up as literary figures.  I was Katniss from The Hunger Games.  My costume was mediocre.  I did her tell-tell side braid, boots, and mockingjay pin, but without the bow and arrow, it just seemed a bit lacking.  The school said "No props,", so the bow had to stay at home.  Too bad.  A bow and arrow makes for awesome classroom management.

Speaking of bows, Clint and Elijah have started doing archery.  Clint has been expressing to me lately that he often feels frustrated that he has no goals in life--nothing to aim for.  Even though writing a manuscript is a bottomless pit, he feels envious that I have a dream that I'm trying to reach.  I told him that getting his black belt was an awesome goal; he just happened to already reach it.  But I guess that's the problem...now he needs something new to strive for.  So I suggested, "Why not become a bad ass at shooting a bow and arrow?"  His dad just gave him one for Christmas, so it was a pretty natural suggestion.  Now I've created a monster.  He is getting really into it, and I didn't realize how much money can be poured into archery.  But I'm happy he's found a new hobby that excites him.    

Trin had to do a creativity project for her ASB class.  She decided to create a dance routine that combines moves from bo staff and traditional form.  The dance was only about a minute long, but it came out pretty cute:

A quick update on yesterday's post:  Niecy's back to work this Monday!  Needless to say, I'm pretty thrilled about this.  I also noticed during lunch today that a couple of newer teachers have joined our ranks.  A computer teacher who transferred from the high school has been eating lunch with us lately, along with the new Avid teacher who replaced Brad.  My friend Lauren has also rejoined us (she quit eating in the staff room during her pregnancy because the smell of everything made her sick).  I had such a pleasant time at lunch today and decided that I've been way too whiny about "change."  I still wish I could keep Mr. Moore next year though.  I'm going to miss bantering with him every day, and his shiny bald head, and his fishing stories, and that scoffing laugh he does when he thinks I'm nuts  (crap--I just realized that I forgot to pay him back the lunch money he loaned me this week).

I've been teaching my homeroom class how to line dance every Friday.  Homeroom is a study hall class, but I noticed last term that the kids generally don't have homework on Fridays.  Figuring that unwinding in healthy ways is an important part of good study habits (sounds legit, right?), I officially launched a line-dancing unit.  Now every Friday we go outside, I teach them the moves, and when they're ready, I blast the music and we dance.  So far we've only done the Cupid Shuffle and the Electric Slide (Electric Slide took three Fridays--we finally finished up today).  Next week we'll do the Cha Cha Slide, and the weeks that follow will include the Macarena and Powerstep.  The Powerstep is trickier...that one's going to take several Fridays.  Toward the end of the year, I might have to teach myself some new dances in order to keep going.  I'd love to teach them some fancier stuff, but I'm clueless how to do them. 

Wow, it is SO easy to write a post when you've just written one the day before.    

I just noticed that this is my 497th post, and I have exactly 497 followers on twitter.  What are the chances?  It reminds me of the time my car reached 77,777 miles and it was 77 degrees outside, so there were seven sevens going across my dash.  Hold on, I'm pretty sure I have a pic...

That day, a friend of mine told me that I should've gone 77 mph, that way I could have enjoyed even more sevens.  I told her that going 77 mph on a residential street while attempting to take a pic of all these sevens would probably have been a recipe for disaster.