Since All Hallow's Eve is right around the corner I have been racking my brain about what I should be for Halloween. I have also been telling myself it is ok to eat lots of candy because it is that time of year. So I thought this would be a great time to make a list! I haven't done one of my lists in so long that you would have to archive all the way back to college to find one on here that is even remotely entertaining. Now that All Hallow's Eve is approaching at a scarily rapid speed here goes nothing! (not that I'm promising this is going to be remotely entertaining)
31 things to do to make for a safe and successful Halloween season:
1. Think about what you can be for Halloween
2. Tell yourself you will come up with something before then so not to stress
3. Get stressed anyway because your costume has to be just as good or better than last year
4. Continue to feel stressed, yet still do nothing about it. Well, maybe a google search of "Halloween Costumes" to get ideas
5. Get annoyed that you could find nothing and then deem google an unworthy search site.
6. Plan a haunted party
7. Realize it's going to cost a lot to make things actually look haunted--no one believes the old "sheet over your body" as a ghost anymore. I mean, it's the 2000s now.
8. Give yourself a pat on the back for at least thinking about it--you really did have good intentions
9. Go to a haunted house
10. Leave the haunted house realizing you just paid way too much money for people with make-up to yell in your face
11. Also realize as you're leaving that you just waited in line for over an hour and got through the actual haunted house in less than ten minutes
12. Laugh at life's little ironies and tell your friends you can't wait to do it again next year
13. Get into the spirit and decorate your house! (do not stand on glass tables no matter how badly you want to hang flags with pictures of cute little pumpkins from your ceiling)
14. Paint some pumpkins and get high from the spray paint fumes. Then you can laugh in a silly manner about nothing at all really
15. Set it on your stoop for all the world to see
16. Hope it doesn't rot before All Hallow's Eve actually comes
17. Watch scary movies and later extremely regret it
18. Hope your new tired state (since you can't sleep at night after all those scary movies) won't hinder your costume search
19. Wonder when everyone else suddenly came up with great costume ideas
20. Think about that haunted house again, realizing you can actually do it for free
21. Have people pose creepily in random places as your guests arrive. Once the guests have been frightened, have them join in the creepy posing. Make sure to have old school organ music playing the the background and no lights except candlelight.
22. Reminisce about the good old days when you used to trade candy after trick-or-treating
23. Also reminisce about how getting candy from your neighbors was the biggest day of the month. Realize that would still be a pretty big day.
24. Think about other Hallow's Eves you can barely remember because jungle juice sounded better than candy
25. Wonder what happened to all your old costumes
26. Look ferociously until giving up and buying a new one (when you finally do figure out what you'll be)
27. Become disgusted with American society for spending so much money on one silly day that holds no real meaning
28. Admit you are just as American as the rest of them and go by yourself some more candy
29. Don't make a costume that is too tricky to take off just in case you get lucky later that night
30. Or maybe, after all that candy you ate this month you should be a mummy--by the time you get all those layers off the other person will have probably passed out. Thanks to Hershey's, it will be for the best.
31. Remember this is a time of festive frivolity and there is no need to get stressed out. But if you do, just grab some chocolate, that always calms the nerves.
Happy Haunting!
BOO!
Friday, October 21, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
A Blink of School Life
The bell frightens me as it dings loudly, singling the end of this period and seven minutes until the next. Seven minutes until the calm serenity is sucked out of this room and replaced with loud annoyances. A day like this I wonder why I wanted to be a teacher. Yet, as the room fills with teenagers I am reminded once again. Their energy seems to fill me with my own and I am instantly ready for whatever the day may bring. I am nearing the end of my short two and a half week stay in these challenging classes, and weirdly enough I am getting sad. This feeling has caught me completely and utterly off guard because the first three days I was here I thought I would never be able to make it through. My seventh period was going to eat me alive. I would never be able to teach them the materials right--after all it is science. I guess I should just be glad it's not math. I went home exhausted after the first week, wondering how I was going to make it through the next two weeks. Yet here I am, almost there and wondering what my next step is going to be.
I have been subbing for three years. Sometimes I see the same classes, sometimes the students remember me, but mostly I am a nameless sub and they are all nameless students. I do my best to be fair, to be stern and to be me. They seem to like me enough, yet as the bell rings and they dash home I am forgotten, as they are for me. Emptiness slowly filled me. Not over a day or a week or even a year, but as the third year began, I realized how hollow I had become. I was just a replacement. And if I couldn't fill in they would find another replacement. I have no responsibility, no knowledge of what I teach, no relationship with the students. Although sad, after school I was glad I could leave at the same time as the students, glad I could visit coffee shops during my off periods and read book or write, glad that I never had to take home a single thing to grade. My nights were me time--free time. I could do whatever I wanted on the weekends. I could even take a trip and not have to worry about missing days, I made my own schedule after all. Yet with all of these things that I love, all of the freedom and time, I still wasn't fulfilled. The hole was still growing.
It wasn't until I landed this two and a half week science job at my old high school did I realize what I had been missing all along. Students saying, "Hi Ms. D! Bye Ms. D! Thanks Ms. D!" (well, they say my full name, but for blog purposes I will just leave it at that). Students recognizing me when they walk in, talking to me about their life, feeling comfortable in my classroom. No more "Oh we have a sub today?" Or "Who are you?" No more just nodding and smiling at teachers in the hall. Now I could stop and talk to them, laugh in an office with them, get to actually know them and learn from them. I didn't even care if students wanted to come in for help (well, if they ever did) because I didn't mind helping them. I actually wanted to help them. I was beginning to feel good about my decision to be a teacher again. I wasn't wavering in the right and wrong, I was happy with the responsibility of grading and figuring out plans. I was happy with anything that would actually give me a name. I was happy not just being "the sub". Of course there were the challenging students that made me happy I didn't have to stay past this week. But even they couldn't take away this new fulfillment I had. Even they couldn't turn me away from this job. I wasn't going to let them defeat me, I was going to let them challenge me, test me and make me the best teacher I could be. Now, if only I had a little more time!
But as things always do, this job will soon be coming to an end. My freedom will return to me in the form of fall break where I will jump joyously throughout the town until the week is up when I realize that I no longer have a place at this school. Or any school for that matter. From there I can sadly sink into myself or know that sometimes that's just the way things go. And I will do everything I can to get back into my own classroom someday, to get back to where students know me and I know them, to get back to my true passion. Each day is a step in the right direction, even if I am a nameless sub, I have to know it will all work itself out someday. Well, maybe it won't magically work itself out, I'm sure I'll have to do some work :)
I have been subbing for three years. Sometimes I see the same classes, sometimes the students remember me, but mostly I am a nameless sub and they are all nameless students. I do my best to be fair, to be stern and to be me. They seem to like me enough, yet as the bell rings and they dash home I am forgotten, as they are for me. Emptiness slowly filled me. Not over a day or a week or even a year, but as the third year began, I realized how hollow I had become. I was just a replacement. And if I couldn't fill in they would find another replacement. I have no responsibility, no knowledge of what I teach, no relationship with the students. Although sad, after school I was glad I could leave at the same time as the students, glad I could visit coffee shops during my off periods and read book or write, glad that I never had to take home a single thing to grade. My nights were me time--free time. I could do whatever I wanted on the weekends. I could even take a trip and not have to worry about missing days, I made my own schedule after all. Yet with all of these things that I love, all of the freedom and time, I still wasn't fulfilled. The hole was still growing.
It wasn't until I landed this two and a half week science job at my old high school did I realize what I had been missing all along. Students saying, "Hi Ms. D! Bye Ms. D! Thanks Ms. D!" (well, they say my full name, but for blog purposes I will just leave it at that). Students recognizing me when they walk in, talking to me about their life, feeling comfortable in my classroom. No more "Oh we have a sub today?" Or "Who are you?" No more just nodding and smiling at teachers in the hall. Now I could stop and talk to them, laugh in an office with them, get to actually know them and learn from them. I didn't even care if students wanted to come in for help (well, if they ever did) because I didn't mind helping them. I actually wanted to help them. I was beginning to feel good about my decision to be a teacher again. I wasn't wavering in the right and wrong, I was happy with the responsibility of grading and figuring out plans. I was happy with anything that would actually give me a name. I was happy not just being "the sub". Of course there were the challenging students that made me happy I didn't have to stay past this week. But even they couldn't take away this new fulfillment I had. Even they couldn't turn me away from this job. I wasn't going to let them defeat me, I was going to let them challenge me, test me and make me the best teacher I could be. Now, if only I had a little more time!
But as things always do, this job will soon be coming to an end. My freedom will return to me in the form of fall break where I will jump joyously throughout the town until the week is up when I realize that I no longer have a place at this school. Or any school for that matter. From there I can sadly sink into myself or know that sometimes that's just the way things go. And I will do everything I can to get back into my own classroom someday, to get back to where students know me and I know them, to get back to my true passion. Each day is a step in the right direction, even if I am a nameless sub, I have to know it will all work itself out someday. Well, maybe it won't magically work itself out, I'm sure I'll have to do some work :)
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