Whoa Nelly

I keep thinking things are going to get easier our something, but that has just not been the case so far. I never made it home Tuesday night-I went to mom and dad's and wore some of my sister's clothes from high school to work the next day. Wednesday and Thursday I left right at the end of school, but just felt brain dead when I got home. Same today. Moments from this week:
Colonial Day was today, and the kids were actually very well behaved and looked really cute doing their dance.
After a shoe-throwing incident from a student other than the usual shoe-thrower, I was talking to some of the aides about how hard it is to love these kids so much but have them struggle and test you. One of them said it's just like raising kids, who scream and tell you you're the worst mom and they hate you, and I realized that was probably why I go home so drained.
Our Captain Hook is going to be so great. He sang his solo today in chorus, complete with a voice he has come up with and gestures and inflection. After seeing so many terrified little elementary school auditions, it is shocking and refreshing and exciting to see talent like that. I'm excited for how the show will turn out-I know it will be a mess all along the way, but the product will be really good.
I saw a headline about a mom suing a school because her daughter wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom and peed her pants, and I immediately thought "this happened in a special." Sure enough, it was the music teacher who denied the bathroom request, because she thought they had gone before class. Every non-teacher and probably most non-specialists would read that and be appalled that a kindergartener was denied a bathroom break, but THE STRUGGLE IS REAL.
I don't know if there is some crisis happening in Saudi Arabia right now, but we keep having kids move in from Saudi Arabia.
I looked up park ranger jobs for the summer and was really tempted.
A story from the past: The greatest compliment I have ever received was from a friend on study abroad. She said I reminded her of trees. To some this would be very weird, and I will try to explain why it meant so much to me. I love both The Sound and the Fury and A Room With a View. In The Sound and the Fury, Benji describes Caddie as smelling like trees, and is very upset when she puts on perfume and no longer does. Her tree scent represents innocence and the natural. Caddie is a very complicated character, but she is always spunky and loving, so despite all of her questionable decisions, I really like her character. And I like the Caddie who smells like trees-who is independent and feisty and possibly the only one who loves her handicapped brother. From A Room with a View, I have acquired the romantic notion that I want to be an "outdoor" person-I want to remind people of a view, not a room. Not that I necessarily spend a lot of time outdoors, but to have that spirit about me. Which is why my friend saying I reminded her of trees is just about the best thing anyone could have said.

11:06 on a Tuesday night

The cast list is done.
Harper Lee is publishing a second novel.

Halfway

Today was the last day of the 2nd quarter, which means I am halfway through the school year. It doesn't seem like it has been that long, but then I think back to some of the things that have happened and I realize that was a really long time ago. So I guess that means I've still got a long way to go.
Tonight, I picked up my cousin from the airport and helped him scout out the location and logistics for his PROPOSAL!!! I am so happy for him, and he has grandiose plans involving a surprise flight, the Netherlands carillon bell tower, and hundreds of tea lights. That I will apparently be in charge of.
Here's hoping it is neither windy nor rainy!
A story from the past: Going back to the "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" story I tried to start once but got deleted. In middle school, we did a line dance unit in gym class. Learning valuable classics like "The Electric Slide," "Cha-cha Slide," or Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It." At the end of the unit, we had to join groups to present a specific dance to the rest of the class. This was daunting for me, because I was a horrible dancer and had not really been successful with anything we had done past the first week or so. So, I joined the group for "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," which was one of the easier ones, and thought this would be least embarrassing for me. As part of this whole to-do, we were encouraged to wear a costume representative of our dance. Though we had heard the song many, many times, the only words I knew from the song were "bad, bad, Leroy Brown. Baddest man in the whole damn (I don't remember if they edited that word or not) town. Badder than old King Kong. Meaner than a junk yard dog." And that's all I knew. Being in 7th or 8th grade, we discussed our ideas for costuming, and then the teacher came over. We said we didn't really know what to do, and she said "well, you know, bad Leroy Brown was a pimp." I did not know what a pimp was, but everyone else seemed to and the way the teacher said it made it sound like it was bad, but it couldn't be that bad, right? I mean, this was public school. Blissfully unaware of the implications of everything that then happened, the rest of the group said we should "dress like pimps" by wearing suits for our costumes. When I told my mom I needed to wear Dad's suit coat and shoes for my dance, I'm sure I didn't tell her it was because I was trying to dress like a pimp, and if I did...as much shame upon her as upon my gym teacher who told us to in the first place! I don't remember what the other girls wore, but I remember it was a much cuter version than what I was wearing and I felt and looked like a total idiot. Especially in my dad's shoes, which made it very hard to dance even an easy dance like "Bad Bad Leroy Brown." I just looked up the song, and holy moly, I would probably get fired if I tried to use that song in my class. And I would DEFINITELY get fired if I told four girls to "dress up like pimps."

Mine eyes have seen the glory

Of the Mariinsky Ballet. I was enticed by The Rite of Spring, which was very cool, but oh my, their classical stuff was incredible. It is late and I need to go to bed, but oh my, it was so beautiful. I kept trying to remind myself that the ballerinas are technically human, but I don't think I believe it.

Bought pencils

I just read an article about how people find recordings of the mundane more interesting than the important, so I am going to make up for the fact that I skipped a few days by writing about mundane things, making this post MOST INTERESTING OF ALL. Here goes: I bought pencils. 48 of them. Hopefully between those and the remnants of the old ones were can get to the end of the year. I bought them while at Target Saturday night, getting Relief Society birthday candy and talking to Diana in the phone. There were these pretty glass water bottles on clearance, but only one design was marked clearance, which of course meant I wanted the other full-price design, but I couldn't justify it, so now we just have to hope I don't break my pretty glass water bottle. I have been in the market for a water bottle for a while, bit I can't ever seem to get one that doesn't leak. This one just proved to be pretty enough for me to get over that concern. I tried to get my nail polish off today, which exposed how crumbly my nails have gotten recently. I don't know if crumbly nails is something that a manicure would help, but I'm too afraid to ever get a manicure unless my nails are perfect. Like people who clean their house before the maid arrives. Kind of related to how I had plucked my eyebrows for years, but Mom would keep mentioning how I shouldn't pluck my eyebrows until she showed me how, so I would try to let them grow out a bit so I could ask and have her "show me how," but having them grown out annoyed me so much I would just pluck them again and start the cycle all over. I just scrolled through my brother's Facebook to see if the girl he likes had liked or commented on anything, to see if I could gauge her interest level (important note: this was not done at the request of anyone other than my curiosity). Turns out, she wished him happy birthday and liked his latest status/funny post, but nothing before that. I think this is better than a few things from long ago and nothing recent, but frankly, he has posted a lot of great stuff that was definitely worthy to be liked. I tried to do laundry today but there was like a three load pileup. Here's hoping there's a pair of clean garments in my drawer. I finally threw out a giant empty chip box and goldfish box and pudding box. I had always been too lazy/would think about it when the weather was gross and I didn't want to go out top the bin, but somehow today, despite the fact it was wetly winter mixing, I found the strength. And now a lot of space on my shelves.
Okay, if that was not mundane, I do not know what is. Since today is supposedly historic, I would be remiss if I did not mention the apparently "worst blizzard in ever" that is hitting New England. A whole bunch of states issued travel bans, which I didn't really know you could do, but which sound like a good idea.
I would also be remiss if I did not mention that it was my brother's birthday and I gave him a Lego set and we went to Outback and on Sunday had a mega birthday dinner with his roommates and my roommates and two girls who bought the dinner at the service auction and another girl in the ward with a January birthday.

Midnight post

Well, it looks like it is already Saturday. How did that happen? Tonight I went to Lake Braddock's production of Hairspray, which I thought would maybe be a little bit of a trial to sit through. Boy was I wrong! The middle schoolers who I helped with were now in the starring roles, and they did a great job. Strong singing, good comedic timing, the pit sounded great-it made me think teaching high school could be fun again.
I learned one of my students has perfect pitch today when he wrote the pitches I had played for a dinky little listening assessment. He is in the same class as the girl who is spending her weekend making recordings for her application to a summer festival at Indiana. #notworthy
A story from the past: Erin had a makeup play set and we would give each other makeovers. One day, she used the eye liner pencil to draw big dalmatian spots in my face. We thought this was hilarious. When I went home though, we had to leave for Josh's baptism. Though it was a kid's makeup set, the eyeliner was very hard to get off, and I had to go to the baptism with the faint outlines of dalmatian spots on my face.

Still Haven't Bought Pencils

Which meant one 5th grader filled out his literacy assessment in orange gel pen. Such is life.
Because it did not snow today, auditions continued as usual after school today, until 6:30. There were a few very strong contenders, but you can imagine my annoyance when My Little Pony girl (so called because we once had to take a My Little Pony away from her during chorus, because yes, she was a 6th grader playing with a My Little Pony), was first up and had no idea what she was doing. She had never looked at the song or the dialogue--which we knew because she actually said that to us. We also had a girl whose mother had emailed earlier in the day saying she had forgotten to remind her daughter her audition was that day, and she had her permission to stay after. Turns out, her daughter was never signed up for an audition at all and had absolutely nothing prepared. Or there was the girl who had a complete nervous breakdown while waiting and had to be coaxed into the room like a dog learning how to go up the stairs. And then she had a lovely voice and was a pretty good actress. One of my favorites was our very first audition, yesterday morning. He had written that he wanted to play John because "I have the most in common with John, except that I'm Asian and a little bit fatter in the face." Bless all their dear souls.
A story from the past: I think on my 6th or 7th birthday, Doug told me about this thing called "college." He said that when you got older you would move away from your family for four years and go to college, which I found very upsetting. Especially since it was my birthday, which meant I was getting older and therefore that much closer to going to college.
I have to remind myself when I am teaching the younger grades that there are things like this that they still have idea about and might be fearful of, just like I was. For instance, when I wore my glasses for the first day this year, they were all fascinated. I told them that when I don't wear my glasses I am wearing contacts, which are little pieces of plastic you put right on your eyeball. They were amazed, and the next time I saw them (not wearing my glasses), one kid asked if I had "that glass in your eye?" I was confused at first, but eventually realized he was asking if I was wearing my contacts. It comes up every now and then still-they are just so curious. One day as a first grade class was leaving, one of them grabbed me and told me she was afraid. Afraid of the little glasses, my little glasses. This particular student is kind of a space cadet, so I thought she might just be saying things out of her imaginary little world, when I realized she was talking about contacts. She wears glasses already, and it is quite possible that this makes the idea of contacts much more immediate to her, and the thought of having to put things in your eyes as a first grader would be pretty terrifying. I tried to reassure her that everything was okay, and she wandered off to class.