At Least They Think I'm Awesome...

So this picture is probably illegal. But, oh well. I had to show you all the third graders and their amazing signs for the character counts assembly we had last Friday. They sang a song. When little children sing, you can't help but love them.. Which is good because it had been a hard week and I was seriously considering becoming a truck driver. Anyway, they were adorable and cute and wonderful and.. Awesome.

This, dear friends, is Sophie. She is a temporary guest in our classroom for she actually belongs to one of my students. She's a big furry gray spider who rarely shows herself. Her little cage is rather uneventful. Did you know that spiders are nocturnal... just like Vinegarroons and Snails. All the action happens at night when we're not here. The moral of the story is... they just chill all day long and are probably cutting loose every night when no one is here to witness.

Here is the class snail garden. It's cool and disgusting all at the same time. In here we have: Bob, Hotdog, Joy McJoJo, Trevor, Scooter, and Salt and Pepper. The kids took a vote to name these guys... they're a creative bunch to say the least. The snails love carrots. I have pulled the old trick of convincing the kids that cleaning out the snail garden is cool and awesome even though it's just gross. It's like.. Tom Sawyer, was it? Huckleberry Finn? when he didn't want to white-wash the fences. It's great and I am just oh so sneaky. Ha

This one is definitely my favorite. His name is Henry. He was a gift to me from the teacher I am with. He's huge. Today I brought him 10 crickets to eat and as soon as I poured those poor souls into his little "tank" he snatched one up and broke it in half and munched that sucker right on down. He's pretty freaking awesome, if I do say so myself. I think he's an angry arachnid. He always seems so peeved. Oh well. So is the life of a 3rd grade class pet.

My life, these days, revolves around students. I'm with kids in some variety all day every day. As we all know, I student teacher 27 3rd graders. After I'm done with them at 3:15, I head up the road to coach an 8th grade girls volleyball team for another 2 hours. On Sundays, I teach the CTR 4s in Primary. Children. All the time. Fortunately, I love them. But, it is exhausting. Needless to say, the volleyball gig ends today. They have their tournament and, well, I'm not hopeful. I made my team run a mile yesterday (and I ran it with them to show that it could be done...) and you would have thought I was hanging them by their toenails. Such complainers. We're 0-7. It's tough. They're good girls but this is the first year of playing for some of them so it's a hard thing to teach. And, I'm headed back to the ole Singles Ward officially to join folks my own age and hopefully go to Sunday School and Relief Society for awhile.. nice. I'll miss my sweet Primary class, but I'm sure they'll be juuuuuust fine without me, the Reverence Nazi. Haha.

Yesterday at school was fun. I got to teach math and science lessons and spelling. Then, deep into the afternoon, we took a recess break. Well, there's one student who has the coolest hair ever and I like to run my hand over it. He knows this. So, we have created a game out of it... he hides from me and I chase him. Well, yesterday, on the playground... it was on. I chased that kid down. Haha. The kids thought it was the most hilarious thing ever and were saying things like "Miss Hoover, you're sooooo fast!" "We've never got to see Miss Hoover run!" "She was probably holding back.. and she still caught you!" It was great. Not a big deal, but funny just the same.

Every morning I'm greeted by such pleasant little voices when I open the doors to retrieve my class from the playground. Here are some of the things my sweet students say: "AhW! Miss Hoover looks so pretty today!" "She always looks pretty!" "Miss Hoover! I'm so excited to see you!" "I love your hair today" and the boys give me high fives and fist pounds and we make our way into the class to learn. I love them.

As for my life outside of teaching... I'm still trying to run and stuff. It's been hard with volleyball practice and my online class, but I've been going. I'm taking an excellent institute class where I'm really learning a lot. Good old Old Testament.. Not bad. I went dancing last weekend for the first time this semester. It was awesome and I anticipate many a return with my dear friend Susan.

My newest plan.. You know me... always have a "plan," even though they usually fail. My plan now is to hit the road to Utah after I graduate. I don't know if I"ll have a job there or not but I'm quite willing to just work at Target or Applebees until I get something teacher related. I'm also swimming around the idea of starting my Masters while there. I don't really want to pay for it though, so we'll see. And the great debate is whether or not to go to Salt Lake or Orem/Provo. If i move to SLC, there are more jobs. If I move to Provo, I can start my masters, for cheap!, at BYU and be near all the happy university kids. So, we'll see.

Anyways, that's my life to this point. It's interesting. Things are changing in ways I didn't anticipate. But, I'll try to post my experiences as they occur, including the details. Life is what it is. We learn through all this craziness... fortunately it makes us cooler people. Thankfully.

A joke on of my "kids" told me this morning:

Q: How do you wake up Lady Gaga?
A: Poker Face

I laughed, out loud.