That one teacher post.

Here we go again, your monthly teacher post! I know you’ve been DYING for this latest issue.

The more I teach, the more realizations I come to. For example, kids don’t pay attention to me HALF as much as I thought they would. Sometimes I could do cartwheels in front of them and they’d be oblivious. I mean, hellooooo? Aren’t I entertaining? Just kidding… This is how a student brain works: If it says, “Spanish is tricky and I don’t feel like listening to the teacher today,” that automatically implies a few things:

• I think I’ll start daydreaming about that cute boy I saw in the hallway.
• I’ll stare off into space.
• I’ll pull out a pad of post it notes and bounce it up and down like a yo-yo/accordion. Why….? -___-
• I’ll try to poke my neighbor in the eye with my pencil.
• I’ll attempt to text in hopes of not getting caught.
• I’ll go blow my nose 800 times.

Another thing I’ve learned these past 12 (HOLY COW WHERE IS TIME GOING) weeks, is that I am expected to be SuperWoman.

See, look, it’s me! Except not really. I’d probably get reported for wearing an outfit like that to school and never be allowed to teach again. Now, as a teacher… I mean Superwoman, I’m expected to have the energy of the energizer bunny (it’s really hard to compete with that guy, let me tell ya…), have a rock of an immune system, be a walking encyclopedia, have the patience of a saint, the creativity of [insert famous artist/composer here], and look presentable all the time (sadly, I had to kiss the college sweatpants look goodbye). I’m a psychologist, a mom, a nurse, a comedian, a role model, a lover, a listener, an advice giver, and not afraid to make a fool of myself anymore. It’s been a learning experience, that’s for certain. I can’t tell you the number of times I have come home and immediately had my face hit the pillow (energizer bunny fail).

I’d also like to dedicate a section of this blog to “That awkward moment when…”

That Awkward Moment When….

A student tells you he’s failed as your student… and as your friend…

Your student stands up and his pants fall down.

Someone attempts to make Mexican hot chocolate for food day and it ends up tasting like an ash tray.

Your students reenters the room after getting a drink, coughs, and a piece of tortilla chip flies out of his mouth and onto the carpet and the entire class sees to which he then proceeds to yell that he coughed up some of his lung. “MY LUNG. DID YOU NOT JUST SEE ME COUGH UP A PIECE OF MY LUNG? OH MY GOSH, MY LUNG IS ON THE CARPET. Señorita, can I go to the nurse? I just coughed up my lung.”

Your student asks you for your phone number… or your address.. or to prom for Spring of 2014..

You tell a really good joke and start to laugh then can hear the crickets in the background because no one thought it was funny. What do you call a no eyed deer. NO IDEAR. dum dum dum shhhh

3 drums and symbol fell off a cliff.. dum dum dum shhh

ahem… anyways.

You get mistaken as a high schooler on casual Friday and get asked for your hall pass by a fellow co-worker. He was charmed to meet me, I was mortified.

As always, I love what I do and look forward to work every day. I think I simply need to start incorporating coffee into my diet…

That’s all I got for now. I’m gonna go practice the guitar

Next month’s issue: Running into your students in public settings and they try to call you, “Katie.”

Chao for now mis queridos.

A penny for your thoughts…

I’m not entirely sure what direction this blog is going to go in, because I’ve decided to write and I don’t even have a topic. I’m the worst.

Today in class, one of my students broke out into Christmas songs while we were going over the homework. It was Carol of the Bells, of course, my favorite.

“BING. BONG. BING. BONG. BIIIIING BOOOONG BIIIIIG BOOOONG. na na na na na na nana” He even threw in some crescendos and decrescendos in there. I wanted to LAUGH SO BADLY. Now, normally if we were all busy doing something and he did that, I would laugh, absolutely. But I couldn’t, because I had 58 eyeballs staring at me and him. He proceeded to lay his head down on the desk and say, “I ate gummy wormssssssss.”  16 year olds. I’ll blame hormones. That’s a legit thing that makes people silly sometimes (me included, hehe).

I have also officially stopped recognizing myself as Katie. Before, if I heard the name, I’d immediately turn around. Now I realize that they are probably not talking to me. However, it’s not a good thing because when I’m outside of school, I don’t really listen for my name anymore either…. zoops

It was mol day today. Happy mol day to all of my chemistry friends. 6.02 x 10^23? Maybe… I don’t even remember what a mol is. My adv chem teacher would be mortified.

Okay, moving away from teacher corner. Onto the “word of advice” portion of the post.

Don’t chew ice. I developed this bad habit when I was… oh, about 16. Since then, I have continuously chewed on ice I’ve had in my cups and my water bottle. Now my teeth hurt. Real bad. It’s to the point where if I drink too cold of water or some other choice beverage it hurts. AY CARUMBA. Is there a toothpaste I can get for that…?

Moral of the story — no ice chewing.

Onto the “Katie is feeling ambitious” corner of blog. I just contradicted myself a little bit with the whole name thing, didn’t I?

I’ve got the marathon itch. Yep, it’s really bad. I need to DVR the Kona Ironman because I’ll be in Milwaukee when it airs this weekend. That’ll definitely make me sign up for it…. I’m thinking a spring marathon, end of April. U of I possibly? I want to break 4 hours. Time to tackle the beast again : ) Last marathon I did, I died at mile 21.. and the one before that I was sooo close to 4 hours, but then someone stuck a hill at mile 25 and I had to walk a lot. Oh well.

Look, marathoning. Dang it.

That one randomism-

Do you ever feel this way? Because I feel like it’s the story of my life.

• Me: I’m so tired I could collaspe into bed and sleep for a year..
• Me: gets in bed
• Me: How was Earth created?
• Me: Who made microwaves? Cause I know Otis made elevators, his name is everywhere.
• Me: How does the internet even work….? hmmm
• Me: I’m hungry
• Me: thinks about something I did 4 years ago, sup memory lane.
• Me: remembers 73 unfinished tasks
• Me: too wired to sleep.

And one last piece -

Listen to the song “Mi princesa” by Victor Muñoz. I’m not sure if that link above worked. Spanish speaking Bruno Mars? And this song is so freaking cute.

Quiero que seas mi princesa – I want you to be my princess

Quiero que seas princesa de mi corazon – I want you to be the princess of my heart

quiero ser el sapo que beses por amor – I want to be that frog you kiss for love

quiero que seas la bella y yo la bestia – I want you to be beauty and I’ll be the best.

COME ON. Prince Charming…. so cute. We listened to that in Spanish class yesterday. I was probably the only one melting in class realizing how cute his lyrics were. le sigh.

That’s all I got for now kiddos. Have a wonderful rest of your evening!

Katie

“Yeah, you’re going to be Miss America!”

2 students walked into my room today during my prep with excited news, “Señorita, guess what?! We heard a rumor about you!”

I felt a wave of panic wash over my body. Oh dear, what could these two girls possibly know about me? What are the kids talking about?

“…is it good or bad?”

“Yeah, we heard you’re going to be Miss America!”

Woah, hold the phone. First of all, phew. That’s a good rumor to have spread about you (I think). Rule number 1 – don’t spread rumors. Second, I had casually mentioned  that I had received a letter at the end of the summer nominating me for Miss Illinois. Illinois is WAY different than our fair country. Illinois is to state as America is to USA is to country. No way. Next thing I know, I’ll be hearing that I’m Miss Universe…..

My kids bug me on a daily basis about signing up for this pageant. I tell them I don’t have time. “You have to make time for it, Señorita….” <— wise words from my high school boys. They have a point, but I think I would much rather spend my free time with family and friends, or running, not prepping for a pageant, no offense.

Let’s be real, this isn’t exactly the face of the next Miss America. I look like I have a severe case of the Mondays. Eating frosting from the jar probably didn’t help the situation.. haha

I’m flattered that my students think I could be Miss America, really, but I think that sometimes those kids exaggerate a little bit. To add to it, they also keep trying to get me a boyfriend and set me up with other teachers. Cute, but no. or He’s MARRIED. sigh.

On a different note, my roommate invited me to go to a yacht club new member initiation on Thursday. I don’t have a yacht… nice thought? When people ask me what kind of yacht I have, what do I say? Sorry, no yacht..? She specifically told me no creepers are allowed either. Hmmm, comforting. Like I said, it was a nice thought.

AND tomorrow is my bffae’s 21st birthday. I can’t believe you’re that old already! It seems like just yesterday I was just pushing your little Tracker out of the snow and slipping on the ice as you swiveled around the parking lot of the high school screaming. hahahah oh my gosh, you still owe me for that Maxwell.

Quick story — HEY you’re still reading, you are THE best. In high school, Max drove a little Geo Tracker. I called it his go-cart, tin can, whatever. We decided one snowy day to venture about a mile from our houses down to CVS. On the way to the store, we drove past the high school parking lot. Max decided it would be an adventure to turn in and slip and slide across it. I don’t even know what the point was of him turning into the ice covered parking lot of doom, but the next thing I knew, we were sliding straight into a snow bank.

Good, we were stuck, and we were stuck good. I had thrown on some moccasins and a light jacket because I thought we were taking a quick trip to CVS. Reluctantly I agreed to hop out and push. It was slippery, mind you, and I was trying to get traction on the ice with moccasins on my feet. It wasn’t a pretty site. I even fell a few times (no surprise there). A cop drove by too, and didn’t stop (thank goodsness… my parents would have killed me!). With one last joyous push, I freed the go-cart from the snow and landed flat on my face. Trying to run after Max fish tailing back and forth attempting to exit the parking lot was not easy. I was slipping, he was sliding. I was angry but laughing at the same time. Eventually, I was able to reach his car and hopped in.

“Okay, Katie. Now you need to lay across the back to distribute the weight evenly.”

“Um, what?” SO THEN I LAID ACROSS THE BACK OF THE CAR.

I don’t know how we made it out of the far lot without dying.

I wasn’t angry at all, it was actually a really funny incident, and I laughed really hard when I wrote about it.

You’re welcome, Maxie.

That’s all for now.

Chao mis queridos.

Katie

Life update from yours truly

Ahh hello, hello!

This is probably going to be the worst blog post you will read all day, just to warn you.

How’s everyone doing? I’m not doing bad apart from the fact that I’ve eaten my weight in candy due to the candy jar on my desk… I tried to post a picture of it, but I don’t know how to right click and save anymore because I got a new computer, so whatever.

Anyways, I signed up for a half marathon as some sort of strange motivation for myself this past weekend to start running on a more regular basis again. So I signed up for the race Sunday…. Today is Wednesday… yup, looks like I’m batting 0-3 with running this week. I’ll get a run in tonight (I will, I promise). Oh yeah, the race is Sept. 29… no big deal though, I cranked out 10 miles last Saturday sin problema. We’re good.

School is going. It’s busy. I love it. I’m finding myself getting there earlier and earlier each today. I’m getting there around 6 am now. What? My roommate isn’t even awake then. There’s just so much to do! So many little things that add up to a whole lot of stuff… last night I didn’t leave til 6:30 pm… For those of you doing the math, that’s a 12.5 hour day. I’m slowly building my relationships with my students. They’re very good for the most part. Also, I’m not sure if it’s just something about my nature, but they like to tell me stories about  weird things happening to them. One kid was weed wacking and tripped over a bucket and fell onto his weedwacker…. while it was still on. Good thing he came to school the next day with his intestines still in tact. Another one of my students announces every day as we walks into my class, “AH. Nothing like the smell of bubble gum in the morning.” What? I have an apple cinnamon air freshener in my room… Bubble gum makes me think it smells like a preschool. He assures me that he likes the way it smells, but still………

I somehow just managed to accidentally zoom in on the font on this computer, and now can’t figure out how to zoom out. I need a tutorial for this Mac.

This weekend my friend Mary is getting married, so we’re going to get our nails done tonight for the wedding. I need to leave in approximately 4 minutes to ensure I’m on time. That probably will not happen and I’ll end up speeding and being angry because people are poking along on the interstate. I’ve never been in a wedding up until now, so I decided to take the wedding shoes out for a “test run” if ya know what I mean. I wore them to work on Monday all day. Not bad. My toes were feeling pretty pinched towards the end, but I think they will be very manageable. Anyways, the weather should be nice and the leaves are starting to slightly change, which is perfect (in my book) for an outdoor wedding! yayy

Last weekend I went for a bike ride with my friend Rosie. It was really chilly and we had to wear our spandex because it was a tad windy and only like 50 degrees. The ride overall was pretty smooth sailing. It wasn’t until we were about 3 miles from her apartment (so after like 30+ mi of riding) that she got a flat. She said that she doesn’t normally get flats so it must be me….. (jokingly, of course). We had to walk some on a country road outside of town until we were saved. We truly embraced the meaning of YOLO there. KIDDING. Carpe diem is so much better than YOLO.

Not this weekend, but next weekend I have nothing planned, and I’m SUPER excited to sleep in and do nothing.

I also want to quit texting because the iphone is terrible for texting. It’s very frustrating… I always hit the wrong buttons and misspell things. I miss my keyboard and t9 ….first world problems, I know. Maybe it’s time to go back to our good friend Alexander Graham Bell and call people.

Thanks for reading the worst blog post ever. I’m running late (go figure).

Hasta la proxima vez!

Katie

P.S. What kind of bus crossed the ocean? Columbus.

 

A note from the desk of la Srta. Pay

Buenas tardes, todo el mundo.

HELLO EVERYONE. I have officially survived my first week of teaching (plus some). No one has eaten me, nor cussed me out, nor done anything absolutely horrific. I haven’t tripped while walking around the classroom, and have even managed to make my students laugh. Granted, it isn’t until AFTER I start to laugh at my own joke that they laugh.. ahem, anyways, I’m working on the funny part.
Here’s the lowdown of my classes: I teach 6 classes – 3 of Spanish 2, and 3 of Spanish 3. I have about 150 students in total of which about 110 are boys. It makes for an interesting dynamic. I tried to go into the situation being a hardass – no smiling, no nonsense, no talking, just do your work. I was so scared the kids would walk all over me. Who am I kidding? That isn’t me at all. While I do expect a lot from my students (they have their first test tomorrow.. dun dun dun), I have realized that there is a lot of room for fun and that I don’t have to wait until November to smile (as the old teacher tale says). There is one hour that is a slight annoyance — we have an advisory and announcements period. Here, I babysit 20 juniors while they do their homework and listen to announcements. It’s not even in my classroom! grumble. But, the worst the kids do is talk and show up late to class, so I really can’t complain at all about my job. In fact, after the first day, I danced around my classroom with my mentor (WHO is incredible and a native Spanish speaker, I might add).

On the other hand, I have to come appreciate the teaching profession a whole lot more after being in it a week by myself. I’m exhausted all the time and have come to the realization that I will probably be exhausted until next summer (which I might try to go to Spain and work at a camp…? maybe? wanderlust problems.. or maybe I’ll just stay at home and run, I don’t really know.) Teachers put in long days, sometimes up to 15 hours a day. I had no idea. And yes, I am a notorious procrastinator, but I don’t piddle around at work because all of my distractions are more than likely blocked websites (i.e. pinterest, facebook, etc.) Maybe I’m just a slow worker. Anyways, it’s all worth it to me. I have been throwing around the idea of coffee drinking. I’m afraid I’ll become addicted, on the other hand, it would make prying myself out of bed at 5 am a lot easier. SPEAKING OF 5 AM, I had my alarm set this morning for 5 pm. That was good……. Thankfully my bladder never fails me and I woke up at 5:22 in a panic.

I just want to say that I love my job. It’s worth it being so busy. I know they say the first year is the hardest, so if I survive this, then I think I’m good.
Now– story time:

I have kids that push my buttons, kids that are filled with excuses, and kids that just make strange noises. 7th hour Spanish 3 is my absolute favorite hour of the day. The kids are talkative and excited, and really like to participate. As we were reviewing a worksheet in class today, one of the boys was drinking out of a plastic bottle. He made a squeaky noise with the bottle because “his tongue got stuck”(or so he says). Now, any normal adult would be able to handle the situation without laughing. Me, nope. I think this was the first time I laughed in front of them. Do you know how hard it is for me to not laugh all day (all I give is a smile or a chuckle)?! Super mature, Katie… I hope I’m not losing my credibility with them..

anyways, that’s that. I love my job. I love Spanish. Esto es todo.

Chaooooooooooo
….and no one can pronounce my last name.

Going with the flow

New blog post — am I trying to study for my finals right now? you bet. Is that happening? Nope..  (word to the wise — never take summer school online classes..)

I’m a planner. I like to know what’s going on way in advance. My life is so busy that it’s hard not to plan everything. But, because I’m such a planner, leaving wiggle room for unexpected changes can be difficult. Now, I’m speaking more big picture here — jobs, running marathons, etc. If dinner plans change or someone has to cancel plans, I promise I can handle that.

Now, some of you may disagree with me, and that’s okay. This is America (see Amendment 1). I’m a firm believer in that “everything happens for a reason.” What ever luck you may encounter, good or bad, I believe that it has a purpose and happened for a reason. I’ll use myself as an example. I often find myself standing in places and having experiences that leave me saying, “This would only happen to me..” or “Why meeeee?” Generally, I have bad/strange luck. Only every now and then do I have good luck (like finding $20 in my pocket or winning front row seats at a concert). Those things, my friends, are a rarity.

When an unfortunate event occurs (not in your favor), it’s a lot easier to sit there and whine about it. For example, I crashed a pretty nice tri bike last weekend — the Speed Concept 9.5 to be exact. MSRP? $6,059.99. Go me..

Now, I didn’t plan for this to happen. Funny thing was, before I crashed, I was just thinking to myself, how awful would it be if I crashed? The demo bike is toast, with demo meaning demolished rather than demonstration in this instance. I can’t go back and change what happened nor somehow to try to pencil this accident into my life book. It’s really easy for me to say,  “If only I hadn’t ridden the bike,” “if only I had gone and seen my friends instead of going for a bike ride,” “if only I had taken a different route home…” well guess what? It still could have happened!

I’m supposed to be doing a half Ironman in August. I’m less than a month out with a potentially fractured elbow. I find out the results tomorrow, but it’s not looking too promising. I’m hoping that I just really bruised it badly.. I do bruise pretty easily!

yep, that’s my leg.

Again, I could sit here and kick myself about the bike and the accident, but I can’t change the past, instead I just have to roll with what’s happening in my life right now (go with the floooow).  I’m thankful I walked away with minor injuries. I could have broken my pelvis, suffered from head trauma, or even been hit by the semi following me and died. I’m a lucky one folks; my legs work; I can still run; I’m living and breathing — so that’s why I can’t complain.

I couldn’t race this weekend in the Evergreen Triathlon either (shout out to all my Tri Birds ), so I volunteered instead. Yeah, it made me want to race so bad, but I can’t do anything about it. I had to change my plan and be okay with it.

So, going to back to the notion of “everything happens for a reason,” maybe I’m supposed to break my elbow. Who knows?! (Granted, I’d rather it NOT be broken… ha).

Moral of the story — be flexible with your plan. Learn from experiences. Don’t dwell on what happened but keep moving forward.

This is all the teacher in me speaking, by the way.

That’s all folks!

Until next time,

Katie

 

50 Things About Me

Here’s a list of 50 things you wish you knew about me, or maybe by the end, wish you didn’t know. : )

I love gum.

50. I talk a lot. I could quite possibly carry on a conversation with a brick wall. That’s a skill you can take to the grave, folks.

49. I’m a technological immigrant rather than a technological native, like I should be. Computers are confusing!

48. I’m a lazy runner. I would much rather run 12-15 miles slowly than do speed work, hill work, etc.

47. I go to bed “early.” During the week, I’m usually sound asleep by 10:30 pm… sometimes even earlier 0:)  ..it’s okay if you’re jealous

46. For as much as I like to bake and cook, I’m not sure if I could properly hard boil an egg. Thank you, Google!

45. I apologize too much.

44. I grew almost 2 inches after high school.. which was absurd. It’s official, I’m an alien.

43. Knowing Spanish has ruined my English. I often mix up words in sentences and put them out of order. For example, at work the other day, I wanted a customer to sign their receipt. I said, “Can I please have me sign you this?” What I really meant to spit out was, “can you please sign this for me?” Hopefully he didn’t notice.. I won’t even go into saying “Si” to woman when she asked me a yes or no question. Dios mio..

42. I’m kind, passionate, forgiving, and empathetic.

41. I have the strangest luck, good and bad. Weird things happen to me on a weekly basis. It’s one of those things where I just say, “Why me?” Like, for example, the time when I was teaching and the clock fell on my head. What are the odds of that?!

40. My hair has a mind of its own… but we all already knew that. A girl can hope for straight hair, but some things in life are just not possible.

39. For all the times I’ve been/ lived in Chicago, I’ve never been to Navy Pier. #touristfail

38. I think blue grass music is so freakin cool! The more banjo and mandalin, the better!

37. I think each one of my calves weighs about 8 lbs a piece. It’s ridiculous.

36. I have a gluten allergy, which is kind of unfortunately. At least I don’t have tummy aches all the time anymore

35. I think it would be fun to fix up a house someday.

34. I can drive stick shift. And, on that note, one of the only times I swear is when I’m driving a stick shift. Killing a car in traffic results in colorful words spewing from my mouth.

33. I get injured… a lot. Silly body. I’m currently icing my tendon as we speak.

32. I have never had a cavity. *knocks on wood*

31. I have a very child-like sense of humor. Laffy taffy jokes may make you cringe, but I love them.

30. I wish my last name was easier to pronounce.

29. Chicago is my favorite city of all time.

28. I’m pretty open minded.

27. I’m a fair weather person. A heat index is way better than a wind chill.

26. Purple is my favorite color.

25. I think I could be a vegetarian… but then there’s bacon mmmmmmmm nope.

24. The average adult laughs 13 times a day, I’m pretty sure I laugh 13 times in an hour!

23. I genuinely mean everything I say.

22. I sweat a lot. It’s not a dainty sweat either; it’s a “someone poured a bucket over me” type sweat. Sorry in advance if we’ve never gone running together and we do and that offends you.

21. I eat something chocolate everyday. It blows my mind how some people don’t like chocolate! They’re missing out, or just lucky.

20. I’m kind of insecure. It’s much better than when I was in high school. Taking compliments is so difficult!

19. I love the Christmas season!!! FELIZ NAVIDAD, EH? Sometimes I even turn on Christmas music at the end of October…. : )

18. Why are potato chips so easy to eat?

17. While we’re on the topic of food, I loooooooooove peanut butter.

16. I was born to love and think about people.

15. I love to take pictures, but not be in them.

14. I should marry a Spaniard. or a runner. or a triathlete — someone who understands my crazy antics.

13. I still have a blankie.

12. I have a very difficult time staying awake through an entire movie. I fell asleep at the beginning of 300! sigh..

11. I don’t mind doing laundry. It’s folding clothes that’s the tough part. Ironing… what’s that?

10. My roommates and I have a cactus named Brock. He has cute little clothes and dresses for the seasons.

9. I have blotchy skin… It’s.. cute..

8. I’m getting very good at detecting sarcasm. However, I, myself, am not yet fluent in it.

7. I’m happy I grew up where I did.

6. My brother and I still sometimes act obnoxious and like we’re 10. It’s actually really fun.

5. I love country music!

4. I’ve got a lead foot, I won’t lie. Though, I’ve never been pulled over. *knocks on wood again*

3. I don’t understand the term ‘pack lightly.’

2. I’m going to be a Spanish teacher in the fall!

1. I have major Peter Pan syndrome. The idea of growing up is very unappealing and kind of scary.

So there you have it, folks. 50 things about yours truly!