I Heart Snow

There is officially no happier moment in a teacher's life than finding out that school has been cancelled due to snow. :-) We got around a foot on Saturday, but I thought they'd get it all cleaned up by Sunday. Not so! We got Monday off, and it was absolutely glorious.

I was worried to go back on Valentine's Day, thinking the kids would be crazy, but they were actually quite nice. The day started off great with Matty hiding jewelry in my car (I had the best Valentine!), and stayed pretty decent. I gave my kids Care Bear Valentines in their folders, and they were really nice about it. All of them said thank you quite sincerely. Go figure...give them food and treats and they complain that they're not better. Give them paper Valentines, and they are touched. :-) Nice kids. I went down to take a Valentine to Luis at the Renaissance Academy downstairs in our building, and it was like a whole different planet down there. Their hallways were empty, quiet, and clean. We ran into only one student, and she visibly had a pass. She said, "Hi! Can I help you with anything?" Tom and I almost fell over, it was so amazing.

It was also my brother's Birthday....Lord, I can't believe he's 17. My parents gave him a mandolin, and I got him the case for it. My parents, being ever hysterical, gave him the case first, filled with candy. He checked it out, and then opened it, expecting the mandolin to be in it, and said, "cool, I like the crunch hearts." He's learned to play along with my mom. They gave him the mandolin and he, I guess, figured out how to play it. Good stuff. I think he's going to come visit me in March.

Thursday was a pretty awful day. I walked in at 6:45 am to set soe stuff up, and discovered the strong smell of gas. I went in to the room, and it turns out that some charming child had turned on every single gas valve in my room. You'd think I'd have them turned off unless we were using them, but no one can find the valve, so they're active. You'd also think that being an educated person...a CHEMISTRY teacher, no less, I'd have left the room, but that's just giving me too much credit. I came in and opened all the windows and went about my business in there for about 40 minutes before I went down to my morning PD meeting. Needless to say, by the end of the day I was feeling quite sick. My mom had me call poison control, where I got yelled at by the lady I talked to. Then I took a nap. I didn't die, that's the good news.

Friday I gave a quiz so that I could have a quiet day. After school I went down to A.C.C.E. academy, which is right by my house, to give blood at their blood drive. One of my fellow corps members, Pam, just got transferred there, and their sophomores were doing the drive for service learning hours. Another nice school! I gave my blood, and then I almost passed out, so that was cool. I had to take it easy for the rest of the day so I didn't die.

Now I'm spending the weekend hanging out. I bought a new camera yesterday, so I should be able to start posting pictures on here soon. Wish me some productivity and relaxation for the last 2 days of my last 3 day weekend until March 31.