Minions and Panda

Today I gave my minions a pop quiz. There were five questions, the first two were math questions and the last three are as follows:

3. Yes, the Rumors are true, Mrs. Hughes is having a baby! Do you think it's going to be a boy or a girl?

4. What should Mrs. Hughes name her baby? (One name for each gender)

5. Mrs. Hughes is due February 26, 2009. Most babies are not born on their due dates, but are close. When do you think the baby will be born?

Today has been precious. The minions have been so funny about the responses. I have great stories from every period! I have advice about not getting massages because it will make the baby come early, and kids who didn't believe me. It was wonderful!

Healthy Baby

We got to see our little baby yesterday! He is healthy and happy and doesn't like to hold still. My Hero told me that this little boy takes after his mom. He has all body parts and didn't want to show one arm. We know he has it, because the hand attached to the arm is down by his bum, so there has to be an arm. He also wiggled his fingers and that is also a sign there is an arm, he just didn't want to show that part of him.

It was amazing to see him move and now I know what he feels like as he moves and he doesn't sit still. It doesn't matter if I'm standing or sitting, he's moving around in my belly. Really weird feeling. I'm worried for when he gets bigger and it starts to hurt.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Wednesday and Thursday were Parent Teacher Conferences (PTC). This is mainly an endurance game for the teachers, because we put in 12 hours a day for two days in a row and are expected to say nice things to the students when we see them and say nice things to the parents, especially if the parent starts to yell or get mad at you. It is obviously your fault as the teacher that their student is failing, especially when their student has turned in a total of one assignment for the whole year. But I didn't get yelled at, and most everyone was happy to have their student in my class--which is an ego stroke for me!

This PTC, as a school we had the absolute best experience. Unfortunately it was not my minion, but my neighbor's minion. But it still makes a great story. Mrs. J, my neighbor was explaining to one parent about why their child was failing TA. TA stands for Teacher Advisory and we encourage the use of planners by doing planner checks to make sure minions are writing in them. This hopefully helps minions become more organized. She explained that this particular minion did not use his planner and was failing because of it. Mrs. J. said that she wanted to help him learn responsibility. The Mom said, "That's what I'm hearing from most of his teachers." Mom looked at minion and said, "you need to learn to be responsible. They're trying to help." Without missing a beat, the minion replied to his mom, "I get my irresponsibility from you Mom. After all, you had me when you were 15!" There was an awkward silence and Mrs. J tried to change the subject as fast as she could.

All the math teachers have been dying of laughter over this story. It makes us laugh really hard, and I thought I would share.

I'm doing great, not showing at all, and in a few more days I will be able to know what I'm having! I'm really excited for Tuesday!

Two weeks of Minions

I have now had two weeks with this years batch of minions, and they are up to their usual tricks and I have many stories about them.

Yesterday two of the stories happened and they made me very happy. The first of them happened not in my class. Mr. S, another math teacher had one of his minions tell him that he was boring. Mr. S then said that if he wanted an exciting math teacher the minion should sign up to take a class from me, Mrs. H. The minion then replied, "Mrs. H, is like a kindergarten student who's really good at math." When Mr. S told me that story, I just laughed and laughed.

The other story happened during 7th period, the second to last period of the day. Every Friday I celebrate that I didn't kill any one, no one killed me, and I get to sleep in tomorrow by dancing to the music in the halls. Before 7th period, I was dancing in the halls and once it started I passed out papers. Half way through the process, one minion looked at me and asked, "did you just change your shirt?" "No. This is the shirt I've had on all day long." Another minion asked me if I'd been wearing the shirt in TA (2nd period) and I looked at him and said, "Yes." The whole class was convinced that I had changed my shirt right before I came into class. Mr. S thinks I should change my shirt halfway through the period sometime next week and see if they notice or say anything.

Last week, the principal shared this story with me. She told me that she walks around during lunch talking to the kids and she asked one seventh grader who their favorite teacher is. The seventh grader said, 'I think it's Mrs. H. But she's scary." The principal asked why I was scary, and the seventh grader looked up at the principal and said, "You know she wears a calculator on her leg, That's scary." The principal and I thought that was funny too.

School

School has started again. I like my classes this year, because of two things: 1. the sizes of classes are smaller than last year, and 2. I have a prep period! These two things make school a whole lot more bearable than last year.

I'm in the process of learning all of the names of my minions. I think I'm at about two periods shy of knowing all their names. It's a lot easier to teach them if I know their names. Odd, then I can tell them to stop talking to their neighbor and give them the stare down, and mostly the kids are really good.

I don't have any real complaints, and it's great. I'm having fun, and trying to get rid of a cold. Some days I really wish I could take nyquil, but I'll survive. Tomorrow's FRIDAY!!!

August Graduations

My Hero graduated from BYU this past week. I am so proud of him! It was a lot of fun to see family and play around with everyone a few last times. His family came up to visit and we got to take pictures and it was loads of fun!

My Hero also has a job for the next five or six months studying a bug. He gets to travel and catch the bugs and publish, so we're pretty excited. And the six months is the best thing that could happen to us, because he'll finish working just in time to take care of the baby that is coming!

We are both so excited for the end of February! So excited! That's our news. And no, I'm not showing at all.

Girls Camp

I spent the last week at Girls Camp in San Diego. It was tons of fun! I vollunteered to go with My Hero's Mom and we were the camp cooks! I enjoyed cooking for lots of people but it felt completely cycical, because once we had cleaned up one meal, we started on another meal. We went to the mountains and camped in the beauty. My only complaint was that there was a pleathera of Breaking Dawn books.

I had read the rest of the series and now hate Bella. I don't like her, and so I am refusing to read the books and it was all over camp, and everyone was obsessing over it. I understand everyone will have obsessions, but I don't like how my students obsess over the book and wish that they found something else to obsess over.

School starts in a week. I'm sad to go back. I've thoughly enjoyed my freedom. It will be hard to give it up.