One more week and I will be in Michigan! I am excited, although I will be spending as little time as possible outside - my mom accused me of going soft but let me tell you I have always been cold, heck I get cold on Arizona. Last night was the light parade here, it was fun to stand outside and watch all the Christmas lights without freezing your toush off:-)
Today I am working getting things around to go home, this week is going to go fast! The kids are revolting already, most of them misbehave because they do not look forward to these breaks and this one is three weeks. One of my students was suspended yesterday, I know big surprise. Apparently he has been playing with a lighter and spray cologne during my advisory period. One of my other students turned him in anonymously. I felt like a fool when my boss told me, here this has been going on and I had no idea. Thankfully she didn't blame me but I still felt like an idiot and he is in so much trouble when he gets off suspension. The rest of the students are just nutty anyway so I am hoping we can be a little successful this week and learn 1 or 2 things. Right now I am filling Mary Kay orders to send out, let me know if you need anything!

Today was the student vs. staff basketball game. It was great, I even made a basket! The kids had such a good time and we all got out of class for the morning. On another bright note my cel phone was returned, I am glad and keeping it in a much safer spot now. It is truly hard to believe that 12 year olds can be that malicious.
Anywho, I have gone through this mail process to have my mail stopped while I am out of town for Christmas. I have little faith that this will actually work since the donkey's who deliver mail cannot read but hey, it is worth a shot. I have a real problem with the USPS, they are not into customer service at all. For instance I recieved a postcard from the post here in Yuma saying that are staying open late so that people can come in at thier own convience during this busy time of year. The postcard then had the "new" times that they would be open, except that there were no new times, the hours have not been extended at all, this is just one nore reason to go postal :-)

So in order to understand this tale of the seventh grade teacher you have to know that I have trouble remembering things. I used to blame it on the medicine but now I just accept it for what it is. Today, toward the ends of 6th period, I had pretty much reached the end of my rope (this happens frequently) and a fellow teacher came in and needed some paperwork. I went to my back counter to help her when this small foreign object wacks me in the boob. This may not seem like a big dea, but please remember that throwing things is something my class has been workign on not doing for quite a few weeks now. So I look at the student whom I think is guilty and tell him to wait for me in the hall. Now, as a rule, we are not supposed to put students in the hall as a punitive thing but occasionally if I need to get ahold of the class I will ask one to wait out there so I can yell at them in private and then class proceeds almost uninterrupted. Today though was a bad memory day. I still have a headache and I was distracted by a colleague and so on and so forth.
The point of this story is that after the other teacher left I remebered that a student was there who had been out for a week and I had a grammar packet to give him. So I find it and give it to him and explain what I want him to do and them like a bolt of electricity I suddenly remember that I sent a student to the hall! So I blurt it out like an idiot that I forgot he was out there. I personally found this hilarious in that innapropriate, I shouldn't be laughing but I can't help it way. So I am standing by the door trying to compose myself to go out and yell and let's be honest, I couldn't remember what he had done. So I go out there and ask him what his excuse was, I tell him to stop throwing things and we move on.
Thankfully it will not scar this particular student for life but I am going to start having the students put a sign on the door or something when they are out in the hallway, so I don't forget them in the future. I was at this class a couple weeks ago and they told me that a teacher makes 5000 decisions a day and that 5 will impact a child for the rest of thier life. That scares me to death and ever since then I have been really weighing the smallest decsions, I think I need to go back to thinking that my decisions don't impact others and that I am only one person so how much damage can my inapropriate laughter cause. At least I will feel better.

I have a new theory, for those of you who are familiar with the postage theory, this is much better! See yesterday I discovered that in Mexico even though there are public bathrooms, they cost 25cents. At first I was like why? and then I go tthinking about it, if the United States had us pay a quarter to use a public toilet we could raise a lot of money (it would also cut down on the amount of change we carry around). This money could be used for many things, eradicating disease, feeding the hungry, giving books to children, making the bathrooms smell better. I don't really care how the money is used but I think this is a valid idea. There is nothing in the Bill of Rights that says we have the right to free toilets wherever we happen to be at that moment. Just something to think about the next time you use a free toilet.

Well, I have been out of commission for a couple days with a nasty migraine. But today I went to Alodonase, Mexico to do some Christmas shopping. I met La guerita and her husband there, they live in Mexico and he cannot come here so I go there to visit. It was fun but thank goodness I was with Spainsh speakers, you get better deals if you speak the language and it is easier to order food.
I would like to tell everyone that I am not sure that lack of border control is the problem that the governement should be worried about. When I came back into California today, I was asked if I was a U.S. citizen and what was in my bags, to which I responded yes and some turtles, a mirror and some jewlery. The nice border patrol agent smiled and said have a nice day. No I.D. check or looking in the bags. Not that I particularly minded the speedy exit but I worry about how easy it is to get in and out of Mexico. Now, this is a particulary touristy area and it was welcome back snowbird day but still, I said I had turtles, how did she know I didn't mean real live, turtles. I just found it strange that La guerita's husband cannot come here but I can walk around with anything I want and no one cares because I said I was a U.S. citizen. I am rethinking my career, maybe I should go back to school and become an immigration attorney or something. Anyway, that's all the computer I can handle for now.