Journal Gems Part Deux

I finally got around to reading through all the journals and some did not disappoint.

I finished reading L.'s journal (the boy who gave us the gems of proper English Lady and "Hey laaaady!"). When asked to write about his favorite thing about Valentine's Day, he said: "Valentine's day is a day of love. My favorite thing to do in v-day is make out. Joke. It's dance." With what he said last time I have a difficult time believing that he is joking. Come on guys, you're 12! Go play with dolls or something equally child-like.

K., who always sings this song from The Hangover whenever he's with his friends, said "I am a cat. I hiss and purr and meow! I love to claw the couch and eat cat chow. I'M A CAT!!" I'm imagining that this was a song going through his head. Oh, man this kid is classic.

Another K. said, "Freaking girls! Telling people things that I didn't even say! They can be so irritating sometimes. They can be cool but most of the time they are freaking annoying!" I hear ya. Girls are annoying until you're at least 18. Keep that in mind little buddy!

Open Letter to All Single Gentlemen + a Little Rambling

Remember how I said here that my blog would be about "my job hunt and love life"? Neither did I. Well, the job hunt is over and has been for quite a while so naturally the blog transformed into being all about my job and the funny things my students say. Where did the love life go? Oh, wait...it was never here to begin with.

Well, though the loving is still missing, I have made good on 2 of the 3 things I said I was going to do to find me a handy and handsome husband. I've been to my singles ward FHE (Family Home Evening for you non-Mormons) twice now and I am officially a part of the Activities Committee so not only do I plan all activities, I have to go to all activities or I look like a hypocrite. And no one wants to date a hypocrite.

I've also been so awesome at not staying in my safe little Ash J. bubble. I've talked to all kinds of people and met a few that are turning out to be great friends (and maybe handy, handsome husbands...).

But still no dates...what's the deal? I'm giving you a challenge gentlemen...Ask a new girl on a date once a week. One date per week, not that hard. The only criteria is that you have to ask out someone you've never gone out with before. Preferably that cute girl from church...you know...the one that you always compliment on her super cute headbands...and the one that you notice changed her hair very slightly...yep, she's way into you....ASK HER OUT! Am I sounding creepy? I'm always afraid I'm sounding creepy and no one is here to tell me if I am. But seriously, what is the deal? Just ask girls out. None of this pansy "Let's hang out" crap. I want a real date. As in you pick me up and take me somewhere. We talk and get to know each other, maybe we share a dessert. It doesn't matter as long as it is a real date...HANGING OUT IS FOR LOSERS. There, I said it. Now get to it.

I don't know where all this rambling came from. Thanks for reading. And if you're a single guy...go ask a girl out RIGHT NOW! What's the worst that could happen?

Journal Gems

My students have been writing in journals since the first day of school. Sometimes I give them topics to write on, sometimes I let them write about anything they want.

On our last day of school, I gathered all the journals (yes, this is the first time, oops!) and have been reading through them. While most of the writing is mediocre at best, I have gotten some gems out of these journals. For example:

L. (the boy who gave us the gems of proper English Lady and "Hey laaaady!") said: "I can't help it if my face is so beautiful that girls just want to date me."

J. (I've never talked about her before because she is very quiet and doesn't give me gems like some of the other kids do.) said: "I love this class because my teacher, Miss J., is the best teacher ever...When I have to go to 7th grade, I'm going to cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and keep crying because I don't want to leave this classroom and Miss J. because she does not stop teaching until we all get it. That's why she's the best teacher even in the whole world." (I had to add this for my own narcissistic tendencies, not because it was funny or anything.)

She also said: "Miss J. is the best teacher in the whole world, I mean it, she is too good for all of the men out there. So watch out you women, Miss J. she is going to wop your butt so hide your men because she will take them from you because your men will look at her and leave you and go with her." Yep, what she said, you women. Oh, man. I almost peed when I read this one!

K. said: "Yesterday, Miss B.'s sub was so cute!!! L. and I went to mix-it-up and he was our teacher...well, we saw him and both said at the same time that he looked like EDWARD!!! Oh, and the sub was nice."

H. (who talks exactly like he writes) said: "I still don't get the whole point of this assignment because I think my palm will explode before I finish this page. No joke dude. I am not playing."

I haven't read all of the journals yet so I'm sure you'll hear a few more before I go back on track. This is why 6th grade is amazing.

Miss J.--1, Charter School--0

I got word a few days ago that one of my students who transferred to a charter school (find out how I feel about charter schools here) in October is coming back to my class. Wahoo!

She and her father both agreed that she was not learning as much at this new school as she did with me. Woot. Makes me feel so good to know that I am making a difference and I am a good teacher, as opposed to how I was feeling here and here.

Catching Fire

Book #44: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

This book is the sequel to the Hunger Games. **SPOILER ALERT!! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE HUNGER GAMES, AND PLAN TO, DO NOT READ THIS POST.** You've been warned. I can take no blame if you ruin your life by reading this post before you read the Hunger Games.

Seriously, these books are that good. You need to read them. And if you read this post it will just ruin the whole experience. Ok, go read.






Hope this is enough space for people to get the hint...Anyway, onto the book. I'm going to be lame again and just reproduce the blurb from the book cover.

"Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of rebellion against the Capitol--a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the Districts on the Capitols cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying."

This book was great and kept me turning the pages (I read until 2 am one night even though I had to get up at 7am...I just couldn't put it down. Then I kept thinking about it as I was trying to sleep. I even dreamed about it.)

I'm dying to read the last one, Mockingjay, which isn't even released until August 24. Ugh. That's 5 months away. Are you kidding me?

Happiness of Today

Things that have made me incredibly happy today:

These roses (my sister gave them to me for my birthday...they've hung on for a long time). When she gave them to me I had to just set them on the kitchen counter because I didn't have a vase. They've been in random containers since. Today, I finished off the last of the jelly and I though, "Instant vase." I love them now that they are in a jelly jar. I'm kinda ghetto, ok? But it is super cute, admit it.

Eating apples and peanut butter for lunch. Have you ever had the organic peanut butter from Costco? Holy cow! It's amazing! I could drink it for 3 meals a day...but I won't because that would probably be weird to some people...but it really is that good!


My ceiling went from this


to this. Oh, happy day! And, it no longer smells like gardens and old men.

Hope your day is happy!

Say What?!

I just realized this as I was putting off finishing a project for one of my classes...

I will have my MASTER'S in one year and 1 month!

Holy crap-balls, Batman! That's so soon! One stinking year...I can make it through! Go team, go!

If you'd like to find out about the most amazing school you could ever hope to go to, click here.

Pancake Goodness

I have this hatred for cottage cheese. My hatred probably stems from a combination of the facts that it has the word cheese in it, it tastes like something horrible vomited and tried to pass it off as food, the texture--gag me with a spoon!--and it looks like what I imagine marshmallows would poop.

Somewhere along the line, I heard that it is really good for you. Ugh. That's probably why it tastes so bad. Anyway, with this new knowledge, I decided I'd try to eat it. I tried it alone...again, gag me with a spoon. I think I was dry heaving for a week. Then I tried combining it with pineapple chunks. Better but I could still taste the cottage cheese. Finally, I mixed it with some yogurt. Texture of the cottage cheese is still there but the flavor of the cottage cheese is gone. With this discovery, I occasionally buy cottage cheese in the hope of being healthy and eating it with my yogurt. I don't eat it as often as I should and I always end up throwing away a tub of cottage cheese.

Enter StumbleUpon. I'm obsessed. Lately, StumbleUpon has been showing me lots of recipes. I found this one for pancakes today. You're thinking..."What? She was just talking about cottage cheese and has jumped to pancake recipes. This off-track time is really affecting her brain." That's where you're wrong, lovelies. This pancake recipe has cottage cheese...I'm going to try it...tomorrow...and I'm going to wake up early to do so...no more sleeping until 10:30 (though my 11 hours of sleep did help fight the eye junk...it's gone, and Lelan, it's not pink eye...phew!...my diagnosis is just a combination of stress and lack of sleep.).

Anyway, on to the pancakes...

Blender Pancakes

Combine in a blender:

1 cup small curd cream-style cottage cheese

4 medium or large eggs

1/2 c unbleached white flour

1/4 t salt

1/8 c melted butter

1/8 c canola oil

1/2 c skim or 2% milk

1/2 t vanilla


Whirl at high speed 1 minute. Grease griddle thoroughly before cooking.



Serves 3 as main dish.



Always make the first pancake right in the middle of the griddle at the hottest part. It will get bubbles as any good pancake should but don’t let that be your only guide — you have to keep trying to turn it up at the edge to make sure its cooking right. The key is to flip it as soon as you can. Hopefully this occurs at the point that its golden brown. If it takes more than a minute or so to cook, turn up the heat! If it is too dark when it sets up enough to flip, then turn it down. Temperature variations on the griddle are not your friend.

Recipe and photo from here.

They look fantastic! I love me some pancakes!

Eye Junk

Does this happen to anyone else?

For one reason or another, you wake up and one eye is super sore or tired or annoying and you can't do anything about it?

Trying to rid yourself of the problem, you rub the eye so hard that you look like a cracked out raccoon? You wiggle your eyes in all directions so you look like a you may have escaped from a mental hospital yesterday? You try to wink so that eye doesn't have to do any work but then you realize the creep next to you thinks you're flirting with him and you quickly get up to get as far away as possible but because your eye is closed your depth perception is off and you knock over a whole case of books? No? That hasn't happened to you?

Holy cow. This eye junk is driving me nuts-o.

Still Not Sure

I've been trying to write this post for a long time. I've been debating back and forth on whether or not I was even going to publish it.

...

Today was a blah of a day.

I didn't do anything today because I couldn't make myself. I just sat around in my pajamas wondering what that smell was...it was very possibly a combination of old curry and unshowered me.

I'm angry, saddened, perplexed, and a whole bunch of other emotions that I don't have words for.

I don't know that I want to really even talk about it yet. I'm not sure why I'm even writing these things. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do about it but know that it is there and it's hurting me.

...

I had to stop. Right now it's just too painful. I don't know that I will ever finish this but I had to get some things out.

If You Go to Bed at 9pm...You're a Grandma...or Ash J.

Has daylight savings kicked anyone else's butts?

I am struggling. Last night at 9pm (technically still 8pm in internal clock time) I was ready to go to bed. Geesh! I'm such a grandma!

Maybe instead of looking for husbands in the singles ward, I should start looking in the retirement homes. :)

Wedding Anxiety

After I wrote the Quick Write, I remembered that I really did have something I wanted to write about. My dream wedding...

OK, not dream wedding as in "Wow! This is exactly what I want my wedding to be like." but "I had a dream and was going to get married."

Onto the dream.

I'm headed to a friend's wedding (yep, we were getting married on the same day...the nerve!) with my family. I don't remember much of the wedding at all because I was so preoccupied with the fact that I was getting married in a few hours. I was sure that I had forgotten to do something and I would arrive to get married and someone would tell me I didn't have everything and would not let me get married. I was also really annoyed that I had to be at this wedding even though I had so many things I could have been doing to prepare. I was so anxious in this dream. My biggest fears were all included in this dream: not being prepared, being embarrassed, not getting married to the person I love so much (though I never saw him, I'm sure he was handy and handsome).

That was really it. Just me with a bunch of anxiety trying to run through a check list of things I was sure I hadn't done that needed to be done. Same old Ash J. Anxious about things she can't do anything about.

Wedding

To see a wedding in your dream, symbolizes a new beginning or transition in your current life. They reflect your issues about commitment and independence. Alternatively, your wedding dream refers to feelings of bitterness, sorrow, or death. Such dreams are often negative and highlight some anxiety or fear. If you dream that the wedding goes wrong or ends in disaster, then it suggests that there is more negativity that needs to be dealt with.

To dream that you are planning your own wedding to someone you never met, is a metaphor symbolizing the union of your masculine and feminine side. It represents a transitional phase where you are seeking some sort of balance between your aggressive side and emotional side. Two previously conflicting aspects are merging together as one.

via

Quick Write

I have no real reason to be posting anything today. Let's make this post as random as possible.

When I want my students to just write and not worry about what is going on their page, I have them "Quick Write." The premise is that you write every thought that pops into your head, no matter how odd it sounds. I usually tell my students something like this: "If you're writing about what you want to do when you get home after school then your brain starts thinking about kittens, YOU WRITE THAT. Then your brain goes onto your favorite song, YOU WRITE THAT." Usually I do the activity as my students are doing it then I share so they know what I expect. The other big thing is that you don't edit anything you write. What I write in the moment is what is going to be published. (Though I will check my spelling.) So here's the blog version of Quick Write.

I bought some skinny jeans yesterday. I always thought my thighs were way too big to wear skinny jeans but my roommate insisted they look fabulous. We'll see.

Here's a recipe I really want to try. Maybe I'll have my sister who loves baking make it for me.
Chocolate Marshmallow Cake by Dana from Made.

Quick Write is much harder on the computer. There are all these little things to distract me that are not present when it's just you, paper and a pencil. Gosh. I never thought about that before.

I'm reading two books right now. Catching Fire and The Girl Who Could Fly. I've heard great things about both and I really wish I could read them both simultaneously but that doesn't work. I really want to finish them but everything else just keeps getting in the way. Thanks a lot, Life!

My family is coming over for cake and ice cream tonight. My littlest sister made cup cakes. They look fabulous. I hope they taste as good as they look.

I went to church today. I love church. It's such a great 3 hour block of time. We have a new bishopric. They are great gentlemen.

I have a pile of crap (not literally) in my room and I don't know where to put it. So it's going to stay a pile of crap for a few more days.

MMM...Curry

I made the best dinner ever. So much better than this horrible cheese stuff.

My roommate got the cook book Cooking Light Way to Cook: The Complete Visual Guide to Everyday Cooking for Christmas. It has amazing recipes. She's made Curried Chicken and Cashews many times before and I have eaten it many times but I've never made it myself. Because she wasn't home and I was jonesing for some good curry, I dove in and made it.

**Some people might be saying, "Jeez! That's a ton of cilantro!" It's not. Cilantro is fabulous though there is a fine line between delicious and what I'm sure spicy soap would taste like. When using cilantro proceed with caution because no one wants to eat spicy-soap-flavored curry.

Here's the recipe. It's pretty easy.

Sauce:
1/3 cup fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
3 tablespoons water
1 1/2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon rice vinegar

Remaining ingredients:
3/4 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
2 tablespoons canola oil, divided
1 1/2 cups vertically sliced onion
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon Madras curry powder
3 small dried hot red chilies, broken in half
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 cup dry-roasted salted cashews, chopped
3 cups hot cooked short-grain rice

1. To prepare sauce, combine first 5 ingredients, set aside.
2. Cut chicken across grain into 1/4-inch slices; cut slices into 1/2-inch wide strips. Cut strips into 3-inch-long pieces.
3. Heat a 14-inch wok over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon oil to wok, swirling to coat. Add half of chicken to wok; stir-fry 2 minutes. Spoon cooked chicken into bowl. Repeat procedure with 3 teaspoons oil and remaining chicken.
4. Add remaining 1 teaspoon oil to wok, swirling to coat. Add onion, ginger, and garlic; stir-fry 1 minute or until lightly browned. Add curry powder and chilies; stir-fry 30 seconds. Add sauce and chicken, stir-fry 1 minutes. Spoon into a serving dish. Sprinkle with cilantro and cashews. Serve over rice.

Makes 4 servings.

I didn't have the chilies so I used some hot sauce. Also, if you don't like spicy just don't add them or don't break them in half. I also didn't to the wok business. I just cooked everything in a normal pan. Though I like the cashews and I had them I decided not to put them in to save a few calories.

I think next time I make this I'll try it with brown rice.
I could eat this for every meal. Did I mention that it's a diet recipe. Only 439 calories. So stinking good! Go make it!

Only one thumb was injured in the making of this meal.

On the 12th Day...

...of birthdays, someone awesome should give to me

magic no-more-sick pills (sick on your birthday? Ugh! That super sucks!),

something made with love,

via

someone to decorate my bedroom,

via

a handy and handsome boyfriend,



a magic pill that helps me not procrastinate EVERYTHING,

via

my own private chef,

a copy of Catching Fire,

five superb headbands,

via

these Lucky Loop Flats,

size 9, how nice :)

students who want to learn,

these awesome skirts,

and a trip to Washington, D.C.

I Hate Cheese

I really do. Every kind of cheese...American, mascarpone, feta, blue, sappy love-letter from a boyfriend, Parmesan...you name it, I hate it. You're probably asking yourself why I feel that I have to share this little tid-bit with you.

Well, I do have a reason. I'm telling you this because I made a pasta dish. It is loaded with cheese. I wouldn't have made it if I wasn't being the best sister EVER. My little sister is going to a party tonight and needs to bring a pasta dish. Because she has lacrosse practice, she doesn't have time to make one herself. Because I am off-track right now, obviously I have tons of time to spare. I made Rigatoni with Creamy Mushroom Sauce. According to Giada De Laurentiis, it's an easy recipe that takes 22 minutes start to finish. Yeah, it takes that long if you have a sous chef. If you do it all by yourself, it's more like an hour.

Fast forward that hour I had been cooking and I decide I should try it to make sure it tastes decent. Let me remind you...I. Hate. Cheese. This dish tastes like, well, cheese. Barf. Even considering that fact, I was starving and just spent an hour preparing this meal and I wanted something to eat. I had to find something to cover up the cheese flavor. My first thought was chicken but the problem was I didn't want to cook anything else. I substituted with red pepper. That helped a little but it still tasted like cheese. I decided not to finish the meal.

On the 11th Day

...of birthdays, someone awesome should give to me

something made with love,

via

someone to decorate my bedroom,

via

a handy and handsome boyfriend,



a magic pill that helps me not procrastinate EVERYTHING,

via

my own private chef,

a copy of Catching Fire,

five superb headbands,

via

these Lucky Loop Flats,

size 9, how nice :)

students who want to learn,

these awesome skirts,

and a trip to Washington, D.C.

On the 10th Day...

...of birthdays, someone awesome should give to me

someone to decorate my bedroom,

via

a handy and handsome boyfriend,



a magic pill that helps me not procrastinate EVERYTHING,

via

my own private chef,

a copy of Catching Fire,

five superb headbands,

via

these Lucky Loop Flats,

size 9, how nice :)

students who want to learn,

these awesome skirts,

and a trip to Washington, D.C.

Thanks A Lot, Dr. Ravitch

Hi, kiddies. If you haven't caught on yet, I went to a liberal arts college to get my undergrad. I am also going there to receive my master's. That being said, we have many opinions about the government and how much they're screwing up the education system and, inevitably, your kids.

Last night in class, my professor told us of Diane Ravitch. Ravitch is an education historian who spent most of her career battling progressive educators. She served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department. Now, she is in the final stages of an about-face on almost every stand she once took on American education.

via

There is an article about her in the New York Times and you can read the whole thing here.

What is infuriating is that she is one of the people that pushed so hard to get No Child Left Behind, endless testing, and charter schools and is one of the big reasons we have all these ridiculous things today.

I've included a few quotes from the article that made me angry and hopefully optimistic simultaneously.

"Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools* and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education."

"Charter schools, she concluded, were proving to be no better on average than regular schools, but in many cities were bleeding resources from the public system. Testing had become not just a way to measure student learning, but an end in itself."

"Ravitch told school superintendents at a convention in Phoenix last month that the United States’ educational policies were ill-conceived, compared with those in nations with the best-performing schools."

“'Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect,' she said. 'They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.'”

Let's hope this turns us into a nation that can be proud of its educational system, just like Finland**.

*If you don't know what charter schools are let me explain. Charter schools are schools that receive public money but have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to public schools. They are not private schools and cannot charge tuition but most charter schools hold a lottery to get into the school. While some people swear by charter schools and think they're the best thing and their kids are getting a far superior education than they would at their local public school, most charters have all the same problems public schools do, and they are bleeding money from the public schools in order to operate. The only difference I've seen is that occasionally the class sizes are smaller. And yes, that will improve your child's education because the teacher can spend more time with your student. However, if we'd just stop trying to find the "easy" answer and invest more in public schools and stop being buttheads about raising taxes, we in public schools can and will give your child the most superior education in the world. Just pull your heads out and invest in your future, deal?

That turned into a tangent. If you can't tell, I despise charter schools. I think they're horrible and it sickens me that we have to give up some of our public funds (which we get by following rules, regulations, and statutes set up by the government) and hand them over to charter schools who don't have to do any of those things. UGH!

**Finland is at the top when it comes to highest school success. When the NEA vice president (Lily Eskelsen) went to an international education conference, she spoke with their head of education. She asked "What are you doing to help your kids succeed in school?" The first thing out of Henna's mouth, "We got rid of standardized tests a long time ago because they don't tell you anything." Also, Finland has basically no students who are learning Finnish, (students learning English are called English as a Second Language (ESL) or English Language Learners (ELL) in the United States so I guess I can call them FLL?) so they don't have that hurdle to jump. All professional people are paid the same in Finland...doctors, lawyers, teachers...same salary. So people who really want to teach and would be good at it are not turned away by the fact that they could make double if they went into another career. And the distribution of wealth is pretty even. Everyone is middle class.

When we fix all these things, maybe we'll be able to match up with the education giants of the world.

How Often Does This Happen to You?

You put your iPod on shuffle and skip through almost every song until you find one you really want to listen to? I do it all the time.

I swear I like all the songs on my iPod but when it goes into shuffle mode I hate them. It's a weird cosmic event.

Today was a different day though. It was like my iPod was giving me a musical, early birthday present. Every song was like my iPod was saying, "I love you, Ash J. You're amazing. Here's an amazing song. You're welcome." Song after song it happened. I never had to skip, not once.

I spent my 20 minute drive to school and 20 minutes home from school singing to songs like it was my American Idol audition. I belted out such classics as The Thing Song by Sisqo, Billy Jean by Michael Jackson, Brown Eyes by Destiny's Child, Don't Let it Go to Your Head by Fefe Dobson, I Can Hear the Bells from Hairspray, Lean on Me by Bill Withers, Disney classics like One Jump Ahead and Part of Your World, 99 Problems (with some self editing) by Jay-Z, Eh, Eh by Lady Gaga, Take My Hand by The Cab, and Like a Boy by Ciara.

Oh. It was a magical car ride. Thanks, iPod. You're the best even if your battery life is about as long as my students' attention span.

On the 9th Day...

..of birthdays, someone awesome should give to me

a handy and handsome boyfriend,



a magic pill that helps me not procrastinate EVERYTHING,

via

my own private chef,

a copy of Catching Fire,

five superb headbands,

via

these Lucky Loop Flats,

size 9, how nice :)

students who want to learn,

these awesome skirts,

and a trip to Washington, D.C.