Load of Bollix

 The times they are a changin' 

For the last 3 days I've been in Rome. It was boss, just like this shot of me with Augustus/Octavian in the Vatican Museum. I was in Rome to be trained to take a group of teenagers to Europe....I'm not sure anything can prepare you for this, but whatevs. I'll take a free trip to Rome. Here are the highlights in the form of bad movies made with a 7-year old Kodak Easy Share camera. Please note that they are educational-y because I am a teacher and I made them to show my kids (kids as in students, not my own personal progeny).   You live.   You die. And finally, or, alora, as the Italians would say, here is evidence that I threw my coin in the Trevi Fountain, so I'll be back again, one day.

the fun stopped hours ago

pretty much sums it up

FML as the kids would say.

That's all I got.

A wiser woman than I once said that there is a Wayne's World quote for every moment in life. I'd like to add on to this proverb that there is a Wayne's World quote that is applicable to every classroom procedure. For those of you who aren't familiar with this most classic of films, in the rising action, the evil Russell gives Wayne and Garth backstage passes to an Alice Cooper concert. The guys are so psyched to have backstage passes that they just walk around showing everyone their badges. Once they get to Alice, the scene just gets better. This scene, coupled with an old nametag lanyard I never bothered to throw away, is the inspiration behind my class bathroom pass for the upcoming school year. Party on.  

Being a wholly realistic breakdown of how I am spending the first few days of August.

Summer is a glorious time to refresh, relax, and renew. Its also a good time to meet up with friends I haven't seen in awhile, which inevitably turns into a prolonged Q&A session (Q: "Did you have a kid since I saw you last?" A: "No. Did you?"). Thus, my most recent pie is an homage to the inquisitive spirit that as of late characterizes my summer.

Being a wholly honest and specific update on how I spend my time in summer.

Every summer, when I have way too much time on my hands, I find myself vowing to do two things: 1) Train for a half marathon. 2) Lose weight. The first fails even before I begin because I always realize that:           A) I hate running.           B) Summer in the greater Washington metropolitan area is akin to being trapped in the armpit of a sweaty giant. It's disgusting, pure and simple. It's like living in a swamp (because...it is swamp) and it's the worst possible time and place to be running when nothing is chasing you. The later always fails because I realize that I am not willing to either exercise more or eat less. I walk a lot. I like to walk. I like to be outside. I do not like gyms. I can create the best excuses in the world to weasel out of a gym, such as:                     i) "Did you know that the treadmill was invented during Victorian times to keep prisoners in solitary confinement from going insane?"                    ii) "

Doesn't get much better than this. 

It's been awhile since I've signed into my blog, and now that I have given up facebook, I intend to spend more time writing. I found this draft from last summer sitting in my dashboard. One year later, I still feel it is very relevant to the crazy world of public school teaching. Here’s the thing: I think I’m a bad teacher. I don’t want to be a bad teacher, but I decided I must be because I could not answer the following question posed by a bunch of English teachers: How do historians use writing? Um...to express ideas? In truth, I’m not sure it is different from other disciplines, other than the obvious: 1. it is actually interesting and 2. it has no bias (ahem). Here’s my secret on why I wanted to be a teacher. It was not to ponder questions such as the one above. I wanted to be a teacher because I thought teachers were role models and, here’s the crazy bit, I fancied myself a good role model, especially compared to the World At Large. I vote, I recy