Wake me up when December ends...

Man, these last two weeks have been crazy, and from what my fellow-teachers tell me, next week, the last week of vacation, THINGS ARE JUST GOING TO GET CRAZIER!!!

Almost, every single day, this week, I came home and just wanted to collapse and sleep forever. I don't know if it was because we had our first field trip to the Houston Children's Museum, which I would say, was successful, it was my first field trip, and I DIDN'T LOSE ANY STUDENTS although there were a few I was tempted to leave there.... which is incredible since I had no parent volunteers [every other class had at least two], and twenty insane first graders.

Maybe it was because we had our holiday program right smack in the middle of the week? And while my kids looked really cute dressed as reindeer and Santa Claus, that afternoon I wanted to send them all to the North Pole, to stay.

I also had to give my math benchmark this week, since we have to give it in December, and it's really tough for all my first graders to sit still and take a fifty question test. Though, I graded all my test this weekend, and most of my students, showed as huge growth from the beginning of the year. I had one student, who knew 15% of the material back in September, who knows 54% of the material now. I have some kids who went from about 60% to 90%, there were huge growth spurts for all my students. I'm not too sure about the other class, since I only got them in October, I don't have their BOY scores, but with the exception of a few, they're all, at least within 50%-60% mastery of the material, which since this is the MOY, I would say means they're on the right track, so I must be a damn good math teacher despite my wackiness and the fact my students says I'm like a giant kid.

This week I learned how valuable PowerPoint is. My school has NO science curriculum. I mean we have a curriculum, but no books to support it, so all the science is basically DIY. I've been making a lot of PowerPoint presentations to present the material lately, and my students love them. I also have the only first graders who can probably say bioluminscent and actually know what it means. I've made one for natural sources of water, manmade vs natural light, sound energy, and rocks and minerals, and they're all pretty awesome.

Our staff party was last night, rather uneventful except for the white elephant fight over the Magic Mike video that I brought for the grab bag. I wound up with a box of pretty martini glasses.

One more week of school, then a two week vacation, and I CANNOT WAIT, I love my little firsties, but man do I need a break from them.

Changes.

So, I've finally started writing my Christmas Cards, and with the exception of the people, who I've known forever, I seem to spend a lot more time decorating the envelope than actually writing messages in the card, but as I'm coloring envelopes and pasting stickers down and addressing these cards to my friends, some of which I haven't seen in years, really, and some, who I've simply lost touch with due to moving to Texas, I just started thinking about how much people and life changes.

For me, one of the weirdest things was having to write four lines on my return address, instead of three, since I now live in an apartment, after living in a house for most of my life, and just having to write a new address and zip-code, when my old address was like clockwork, it's weird.

I have one friend, she was my best friend, and the only roommate I could ever stand, in college, and I was addressing my Christmas Card to her and her new husband, and I just couldn't believe how much things have changed in about ten years. She just got married, she's expecting a baby boy, in about a month, and it's hard to believe that my favorite partying buddy is now a wife and mom, mind you, I'm very happy for her :), but it's just weird to think about how far people have gone in one direction or another.

I had another friend, in college, she was pretty much the goody-goody two-shoes of my friends group, the one who always adhered to rules and directions, and now, ten years, after college, she pretty much ran the other way on the behavior spectrum, and she does things I never would've thought she would do in college.

Then, I had one friend, he was a really nice guy, but very shy, not really sure what he wanted to do in his life, didn't know how to talk to girls, and now he's been married for about three years, and he has a baby daughter, who may be about two now, and it's hard to imagine this guy as a family fan.

I don't know changes are bad necessarily, as long as you stay true to yourself, I mean, I know how much I've changed in even the past two years, and I still think I'm me, just not the wild and crazy me, that I used to be, I have responsibilities, that I've never had before, I've finally manage to be on my own, I have a real job, I moved out, real life sort of clicked into place, recently.

I guess it's just crazy because it doesn't really seem like things change as you go about your daily life, until you just really sit down and think about it.

I hate getting gas.

It has NOTHING to do with my Jersey roots... I went to college in middle of nowhere Amish country Pennsylvania, and pumped my own gas for four years... back when gas was actually under a dollar.

I hated getting gas in New Jersey too, and they do it for you, all you need to do is pull-up and they pump it.

I think it's my OCD. I can't stand having to deter from my original root to make a fifteen minute detour to get gas, it stresses me out.

I knew when I moved to Texas I would have to pump my gas. I don't always have too, sometimes, on date nights, I can convince boyfriend to drive my car, stop at the gas station and fill my car for me [with my money, of course], so I don't have to deal with the stress of pumping gas.

But I didn't realize how much anxiety it would cause me.

Maybe it's because I live off of East Alabama, which is the weirdest street in Houston because it changes depending on the house. Whenever I'm driving home from work, you can't make left turns onto any main or side roads because it disrupts the flow of traffic, so I get stressed out thinking or rerouting my usual drive just to get gas.

Or maybe it's because, the first time I got gas in Texas, on my own, I didn't realize my dad had told my credit card company that I had moved, so whenever I tried entering my zip-code, the Jersey one, of course, it kept on telling me I had an error, and it wouldn't let me get any gas or use the card.

Perhaps it's because the gas pumps at the gas station seemed possessed...  They'll let me fill my car with like two gallons and then they'll just stop pumping gas, and I need to repeat this process about five times, and every time I add more gas, I think my car is going to explode.

Whatever it is...

I had to get gas today, AND IT SUCKED.

Christmas Tree Envy

When I was little, I was always jealous of my friends around the winter holidays. They always had these awesome Christmas trees, and covered their houses in these kick ass Christmas lights, and then they'd always ask me what I was doing for Christmas.. and I'd just be like I'm Jewish... Sure we got eight days of presents [although as I got older, it was more like here's money, go buy your own presents], but it just wasn't the same... I had Christmas envy.

It wasn't just the trees. I wanted Christmas lights strewn all over my house, I even tried to bargain with my parents, claiming we could use blue&yellow lights to represent our Jewness... It didn't work. I obsessively listened to Jesus Christ Superstar. I sent sparkly holiday cards out instead of Hanukkah cards because Hanukkah cards just weren't glittery enough!! 

From then on, I decided, no matter what happened when I was older, I'd have my own Christmas tree, whenever I lived on my own, even if it was covered in gelt and dreidels.

Fast Forward to December 2012, I finally accomplished my goal, I'm living on my own, even if it's over a thousand miles from New Jersey, in cowboy land, also known as Texas, and the first thing I did, after Thanksgiving, was demand that we drive to Target and get my first Christmas tree.

The first night, we got it, I spent countless hours tying microscopic string through red, silver, and black bulbs [the colors of my favorite Commander deck in Magic the Gathering, if you were wondering] hanging them on my tree [only after did I realize that paperclips worked so much better then strings], along with boyfriend's year old candy canes, while watching the Queen of Hearts episode of Once Upon a Time... Then the next day, I went to school, came home, and found this:

Thanks, Kitties.

All my hard work, on the floor. Of course, this was probably my fault because not only did I want a shiny sparkly Christmas tree, when I moved, I wanted fuzzy and cuddly pets too, so let me introduce you to Thing One and Thing Two:

The orange one, is my boyfriend's little terror, Ajani Gucci Goldmane, and the black & white one is my baby Sorin, the Lord of Innistrad, and before you ask, YES THEY ARE NAMED AFTER PLANESWALKERS FROM MAGIC THE GATHERING.

Anyway, I wasn't going to let our cute little terrors prevent me from having my Christmas Tree, so after calming myself, I went at it, again, and now I present to you, Christmas Tree, part Two:

And it's not done yet, my boyfriend still fully intend to stick useless Magic the Gathering cards such as Jar of Eyeballs in penny sleeves and lace string through them, as ornaments.

Kittehs 1, Me 2.

But of course, I haven't forgotten my Jewish roots:

There's my dedication to Hanukkah, glitter gel clings, that Ajani keeps trying to get through my windowsill.

He's contemplating how he can make them his.

And even though I've managed to find myself in Texas, where apparently it's 80 degrees in December... Seriously, WHAT IS UP WITH THAT? I'm still bringing Christmas... [even if I'm a Jew].

 [The Target dollar bins are amazing]

Even my Kitty's have their own Christmas Stockings:

So, finally, after 21+ years of lusting... I've finally got my own Christmas Tree. And I couldn't be happier.

Now all we need are some Christmas lights...