Homecoming Parade and Game

That's right, a parade. The school I teach at is almost 100 years old, and the stadium is only about 3 blocks from the school, so every year there is a parade down to the stadium. The band plays and marches, the cheerleaders march, the choir marches, and each class creates a float on the back of a tow truck that incorporates the theme from the walls and their prince and princess. Then everyone marches down to the stadium where the Alumni Association sponsors a free tailgate party, and then, of course, the game.

Here is the senior float. Their theme is Sleeping Beauty and they made a cardboard bed.
This is the junior class, their theme is The Little Mermaid...but they didn't plan particularly well, and everything kept falling over. Imagine that, here in Seattle and all, that the day might be windy and things made of cardboard and tape, roughly the shape of sails, might blow away.
The sophomore float, obviously their theme is Snow White.
The freshman class, whose theme is Beauty and the Beast.
The game was COLD COLD COLD. It is supposed to be about 22 degrees tonight and it was hovering about 35 at game time. Some of the girls were wearing short dresses and heels, but the seniors have figured out how to work the system....this one was wearing jeans and boots under her dress. =)

We lost the game to a decent team. I will say this though, there were 5 calls against my team for 12 men on the field (those of you ignorant of football, there can only be 11). It is ridiculous for a team to get 5 of those calls in a SEASON, much less in one game. Ah well.

Dance tomorrow night....VERY small cheer. EXTREMELY SMALL. I hate going to dances. I have to stay up WAY past my bedtime.

Homecoming is sort of fun

Homecoming is a big deal in Texas, but it is a different kind of big deal here. Two weeks before the big dance, the Homecoming theme hints start coming. Then the theme is announced, and that's when the wall decorations go up. Every day there are class competitions at lunch, and then on Friday there is a parade. With floats and a marching band. Then a tailgate party and a cookout, and then of course, the game. Then on Saturday is the homecoming dance. As a class advisor, I am somewhat involved in these shenanigans, and thought I would share them with you....Lucky you.

This year's theme is "If Only For One Night" and the wall decorations are centered around fairy tales, with each class choosing a different fairy tale that will be carried over onto their float on Friday. So last week was spent in a flurry of paper, paint, and tape and the kids spent 4 hours after school on Friday and 5 hours on Saturday morning putting up the decorations.

I am the advisor for the sophomore class, (who chose Snow White) and here was the plan:

Here is the result.....
Here was the plan for the other wall....
And here is the result...clearly there are some issues with following a plan and reading directions.....
The dwarves are pretty good. Very realistic. Unlike the trees.

This is the freshman wall, their theme is Beauty and the Beast. The pictures of Belle and the Beast are life-sized.


This is the junior wall. Their theme is Shrek. Just kidding, it's the Little Mermaid. =) Arielle is also life-sized and the had a larger-than-life, truly excellent reproduction of Arielle and the prince riding in the boat, but they had a lot of trouble getting their work to stick to the wall, so it had fallen down this morning when I took pictures.
And here is the senior wall, who chose Sleeping Beauty, with a truly great dragon fighting a knight down the staircase. The seniors of course win every year, but they definitely deserve it this year, they did a great job. Simple and awesome.
This is also life-size


More Homecoming joy to come....but at least there won't be mums!!!!! (inside Texas joke...)

Thanks

Thanks for the support, those of you who emailed or called me. It helped.

Updates:
Some kids schedules have been scrambled, so things have sort of leveled out, and my 6th period is going fractionally better. I have discovered that a couple of my most obnoxious kids are absolutely terrified that I will contact their parents, and the word is out that I called 7 parents from my 1st period class, so they know I'm serious. Things will continue to go mostly in a positive direction.

My shoulder is completely better. No pain! Yea!!

I don't think there is any way my paycheck could possibly get smaller, so I will eventually catch up on all things monetary. I have started the habit over the last few weeks of leaving my debit card at home, thereby removing temptation, and I am working quite a few extra hours.

Homecoming is next week, and there is no school on Friday, so although it will be a busy weekend, I can sleep in 3 straight days.

The weather is cool and rainy (Woo hoo!!) and it finally feels like fall! I can't wait for Indian Summer with crisp, cool weather!

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As stated, this is Homecoming Week. Last year, I was amazed at the artistic ability of the various classes as they decorated walls in the commons. This year I am also impressed and hope to post pictures on Monday....but I spent Thursday, Friday, and two hours this morning in the commons with every artistic bone in my body crying in pain as I watched the machinations of the kids in attempting to decorate their wall. The inside of my lip is bloody from where I bit my lip to let them do what they wanted. I left after 2.5 hours, but Clark (co-advisor) stayed with the kids. I refuse to call to see what ended up happening. When I left, they had 2.5 hours left to decorate, and there was NOTHING on our wall and the kids had already torn through an entire roll of Gorilla Tape. In case you aren't familiar with that, that is 35 yards, or 105 feet of tape and all they had hung was 3 trees. Pictures Monday.....

A Meeting of Minds

So a couple of weeks ago, the freshmen elected officers for the coming year, and today the old officers and new officers got together to "pass the torch" and talk about ideas for the coming year, and what worked and didn't work last year. My president this year was a girl who is both a perfectionist and a control freak, and in addition has a naturally whiny voice. She is the one that on a previous post, completely ignored me with the ticket issue for the dance last week, and for the entire year constantly complained that the other girls didn't do anything while at the same time insisted on doing everything herself. So the meeting was going along well, considering we were dealing with 8 freshmen girls, =) and the new girls had some great ideas, and the other officers were telling the new officers all the things they need to know, but then she finishes the meeting with the following words; "Maybe we need to have another meeting, you guys seem kind of dysfunctional." I almost spit out my coke. Definitely the quote of the day.....

Finally the dancing

Ok, first of all, Blogger has arbitrarily changed my header, now it sucks, and I apologize. It offends my sense of aesthetics. Punks!!! Change it back!!!!

Secondly, on a school related note, the freshman Last Chance Dance was last night and it was actually pretty successful. They worked hard on it, but here is a list of positives and negatives.

First, the negativees:
1. if I hear the phrase, "well, but that's what the (sophomores/juniors/upperclassmen/others etc) did" again, I might have to scream.
2. My president (who uses the above phrase almost exclusively) stopped by the morning of the dance to ask if she could (since all the other classes did this) make copies of the tickets in order to sell more. I looked her in the eye and said "no, we are not making more copies." They sold out of tickets during lunch, but then I looked down after school and discovered they were selling more tickets. I ran down there, and got in her face about it and found out that she went above my head, to the vice-principal, and asked him the same question, and he made her 20 more copies. I totally blew up at her. We had bought glowsticks to give away at the door, and I pointed out to her that now we would not have enough glowsticks to cover everyone. I was so mad at her that I had to hang out in my room for an hour and a half before I cooled down enough to go downstairs and help decorate.
3. the principal was not happy that not all the kids got to buy tickets. We pointed out that we had been selling tickets for a week and that the fire marshal had placed the limit for that area of the school at 300 people and he was still mad that we didn't just pick up and move the dance to the gym - 20 minutes before the doors opened.
4. There are only about 15 people at my school that ever volunteer to chaperone anything, and some of them were busy last night, and the 9 that did volunteer didn't all show up, so there were only 6 chaperones for 285 kids. At a school with this amazing caliber of teachers, I get really tired of begging over and over for chaperones, and even more when they don't show up.
5. the photographer called at 2:30 to say that the background we had picked out was unavailable.
6. the dj did not receive the playlist that we sent, so of course the kids complained about it

Positives:
1. it was the last dance of the year, so the kids all knew how to behave and there weren't any problems
2. the 6 chaperones that were there were great and did an awesome job
3. the place was packed so it was a great fundraiser!
4. the officers did all the decorations beforehand and sold water throughout the dance without any prodding from me.
5. it's over and it will be February before we have to throw another dance


Funny sidenote - there was an annoucement and a real push to get the kids to stop freaky dancing, so for the first hour of the dance they didn't know what to do with themselves.

Senior Project Mayhem

In Washington, seniors are expected to produce a senior project in order to graduate. The specifics are up to the individual district, but it basically is supposed to be a project that allows them to use the knowledge and skills they gained in school to produce something useful. I have heard of kids designing and producing video games, kids that learn a new language, or write a big research paper, among other things. My district has the kids make a portfolio of "best works," their best work they've done over the last 4 years, and then do a presentation to teachers and community members. I really, really dislike this practice for several reasons. First and foremost, they are forcing the majority of the senior class to perform to the lowest common denominator, to the standard that only the laziest aspire to. True, requiring a project where they use the skills they acquired in high school would result in a lower graduation rate at first, but a project like that is something that would actually be useful. A portfolio that is essentially a "refrigerator door" of all the good grades they got is neither useful nor necessary. No college will care about any item in there except their transcript, and they are not creating something that will be of any use to them later in life. In addition, the differing requirements for Special Education and ELL students are not only not addressed, they are completely ignored - which I'm pretty sure is illegal. Another reason that I was so maddened by this process this morning was the sheer volume of useless paperwork that is expected to be generated by each student. The freshmen in my advisory are working on their part of this project and they have about 12 different items in there already. Each of those items has to have a 150 word reflection on it, even things like their transcript. What exactly are you supposed to say about a transcript? Whatever. I will support it because it is the graduation standard in my district, but I don't have to be happy about it. Let's put it this way. I understand that this is the easiest solution for the problem of what project to do, but it is nonetheless the lowest common denominator in a district that is already struggling with excellence.

Sleep Reading

So some people sleep walk, some people talk in their sleep, I apparently read in my sleep. No, I am not kidding. My college roommate (and best friend - props...) tells me that I will turn on the light, pick up a book, and hold it in front of my face, all while sleeping. I do not remember these things, but I believe they are true, because every now and then I will wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning with my light on and my book beside me. WEIRD. It wouldn't be so bad except that when I do this I end up really tired the next morning. So I read in my sleep last night and I was so tired all day today. On a positve note, the freshmen I had in my room all week testing did so awesome, I was so proud of them! I made them cupcakes last night because they were so great. I am glad to be done with testing too, even though I did get a lot of filing and general organizational stuff done. Yea for me!

Testapalooza

Wow, so the first day of WASL testing was today...and I am tired. I had freshmen in my room and they were pretty good, but I felt rushed all day long and I have more to do tomorrow...and more to do tonight.