I am afraid...

I am not afraid in the typical sense, I am however that my students think and act like the following clip from Junie B. Jones Loves Handsome Warren.

Junie B. has just finished telling everyone how she stayed on task during class for the whole afternoon when she says,

"Also I drew a sausage pattie on my arm.
Only that wasn't even an assignment.
That's called working on your own."

And that is my students. I will for sure update this again if and when I see sausage patties.

New Year and New adventures

So I wanted the first post of the year to be something good, so it will be pictures. On the night before I got on a plane, Mom, Dad, and I were in Anchorage and we stopped to take some pictures of the ice sculptures.

Some of the sculptures were really cool. I enjoyed the both bears. For the bear that we are sitting on (yes we were allowed), you will notice that I am sitting on my hands, which had gloves on which was smart of me. Dad on the other had was sitting on the ice. BURRR! It was 13 below after all. I am grateful for the cold snap however because it meant that we had really good ice sculptures.

The reason that you do not see Mom, is because she sat in the car with the heat on.So this is me wishing everyone a happy new year, and may I say, I LOVE ALASKA!

Reaon to be thankful

I do not really know exactly how I would like to start this post, so here it goes. I have lots of reasons to be grateful this Christmas.

1. I am grateful for Justin and Melissa. They picked me up from the airport at 2:30 am when they were not expecting me and then took me back to the airport the next night and didn't go home until they knew I was on a plane. They are great.

2. Mom and Dad. They were nice enough to pick me up from the airport after I finally made it into Anchorage.

3. Daniel S. This is the ticket agent who "cheated as much as he could" to put me as number 1 on the standby list for the flight to Anchorage instead of number 20. May you be blessed all you life.

4. The thought that I will not be as sad if I get stuck for longer on the way back to Colorado. It just doesn't seem like it will be quite as huge of a problem if I am stuck in Alaska as it would have been being stuck in Colorado.

5. It is Christmas. That means I get a break, I get to come home, I get to be with family and friends, and I have earned the name nit-nee. Thank you Mateo.


Now for the story. Yes like many of the holiday travelers out there I got stuck in the mess trying to get home for christmas. It began in Denver, where I was just a couple minutes to late to catch the early flight to Salt Lake. Had I been just 30 minutes earlier none of the madness would have happened. As it was however, I was not 30 minutes early and well that is where the story begins. I was sitting in the airport waiting for the flight to take off. I was really early so I was reading a really weird book. Then what to my wondering eyes should appear but a notice saying my 6:45 flight was delayed until 9:40. Not good news since my connection inSalt Late was supposed to take off at 8:50. So talking to the ticket agent she said she would put me on standby for the 5:05 flight that was for Salt Lake. Unknown to me she did not put me on standby, she just confirmed me on the flight. That would have been fine, until about 4:30 when the announcement came on the loudspeaker that they did not know where the plane was, that it had not landed in Salt Lake, and they were trying to find the plane. They did reassure us that they still thought they knen where the plane was, but that the flight for now was just delayed until 7:40. I was still okay and could still make the connection if all went well. Especially since the AK flight was delayed until 10.

Well life does not always work perfectly, and instead of ever finding the plane, they just canceled the flight. I thought I was still fine since I had a ticket on the 9:40 flight, but apparently the ticket agent who had put me on "stand-by" instead confirmed my seat, meaning that I had to be put on standby for my origional flight. I was very blessed to make it on that origional flight, and after another delay on the runway, we took off for Salt Lake, where I called my brother casue I had for sure missed my plane. Getting into SLC, I stood in line to talk to an agent about getting a flight to AK, but the agent kept on leaving. Finally tired, hungary, and yes, rather grumpy, I went to find my bag. During this whole time I had fun talking to Justin about when I was going to be in SLC. He of course was just laughing. Making my now moring better, I found out that I had to wait in another line to find my bag. Then another 35 minutes for them to go and get me my bag once alerted to the issues of me needing it. So at 2:30 am I went to Justins.

The next day I felt really good about putting myself on the now 20 person standby list. Justin now sure that I would be spending a couple more nights with them kept telling me that it was no use. But once I got to the airport a nice ticket agent listened as I told him what happened (except I couldn't remember which airport I had flown in from), and he did what he could to make me the most important person on the standby list. It worked, and after pacing in front of the screen that shows the standby list and the cleared list for what seemed like forever I was on. what a relief. It is amusing to see me on the standby list because it shows up PIE/B.

When we landed in AK, it was a relief to see mom. She was waiting. And then we got to wait for another hour for my luggage, so at 2:30 am we were home. Yeah. I love Christmas.

Thank you to everyone who helped me get home and I hope everyone out there had a very merry christmas.

Why I love teaching middle school and nursery

I was reading the different blogs that I keep track of, and I realized that it was time for me to post. It also just happened that I have two experiences that have made me laugh.

Middle school:

Student: "Miss Pierce, can I go and get a band-aid, cause I am bleeding?"
Me: "Where are you bleeding?"
Student: "Right here (showing me a finger tip that is NOT bleeding)."
Me: "You are not bleeding."
Student: "Yes I am."
Me: "No, you are not bleeding, you might have been bleeding before, but your finger is not bleeding."
Student: "I am still bleeding under my skin!"
Me: "No."

Nursery:

We were learning about the 10 lepers, and being thankful for all our blessings.

Me: "Today we are going to learn about 10 people who were really sick that Jesus bless and helped."
Child: "I know this story."
Me: "You you this story?"
Child: "Yeah, I know what happens."
Me: "Well do you know why these 10 people were really sick?"
Child: "Uh-huh, they were all really sick because they ate to many sandwiches!"
Me: "Oh."

Da Vinci Days art

I had my students complete art work as we were studying Da Vinci. I told you I would post pictures of the completed art, so here they are.

I especially like the expression on the "stroke" face.

What do you think, any of the students have a future as famous artists?

I'm a winner!

So down here, there is an annual contest among all the sixth graders and all the sixth grade teachers. It involves the Conservation agency, and all of the different types of energy conservation. Each year they sponser an energy conservation poster. This year the theme was "Water is Life" and we had to create posters on this theme. Each of my students was supposed to participate, and all of my students submitted posters for considerations. The prizes for this contest was money, and so all of my students put lots of effort into completeing this poster.

Well my students all told me that I was not going to win because the teacher who was in Stratton before I, was also going to be in the contest, and he was "really good at posters." So I told my students that I would not give in and that I was going to win. Well you probably guessed it, but yes I won. That is what the picture is, my winning poster.

The most boring post ever

This is not going to be a long post, due to the fact that there is really not much to update, but I am feeling a little like Justin about posting so infrequently. Anyway, here is the news.

In 8th grade we build a rollercoaster, and I even took a picture of it, but I cannot post the picture because my students all jumped into the picture. The photo, showes exactly what they are like, but you are going to have to take my word on it.

In 7th grade we learned all about Da Vinci, and what he did. They spent a whole week drawing like he did, and I will have to take a picture of their art. It is hanging in the hall, so I can take a photo while they are all in other classes. Look forward to that on a different post.

In 6th grade we are almost finished with Biology. I am really excited. We all had to create posters for the department of conservation, and they are going to be judged later this week. The people in the conservation office told me that I also had to make a poster, and so I did. If I win the contest than I get 50 dollars and free dinner. I do not know what I would do with all that extra cash, but it would for sure be something exciting.

That in reality is life. Sorry that it is not more interesting. Maybe later this week it will be better.