05-14-2011

No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.   That song can get quite annoying; or so I learned on Friday by the other teachers in the building, who not so politely told me to quit singing that song.  Apparently they didn’t agree with my style of teaching rhymes.  Also, limericks are not appreciated in the elementary level either.  But I dare anyone to find a better way to get kids to value literary art than to include swear words.

For all intents and purposes school finished on Friday, although we still have classes until lunchtime on Tuesday. The kids have made it clear that they are done learning for the year and I don’t have the will to bend spoons, so we’ll call it a draw.  They’ll be watching a movie and helping me clean the classroom.  I’ve also made a DVD for them, using video I took throughout the year.  We’ll watch that and I’ll give them each a copy for their troubles.

Students have been falling asleep at school more frequently lately.  I know what you’re thinking, but their daytime slumbers are not indicative of my teaching style.  Well, not entirely.  It is still light outside until past midnight, so the kids stay out much later playing, making them tired during the day.  It is also getting warmer outside now.  We topped 40 today and it didn’t even freeze last night.  This was the first morning in a long time that it hasn’t been below freezing.  The Yukon is still frozen and will be until after I head south for the summer.  A huge problem that can happen during the breakup is flooding caused by ice-dams.  We are seeing that now on the Kuskokwim River to the south of us.

With less than a week left until I head down south, I’m looking forward to a warmer climate.  I’ll just have to put things away for the summer and hope nobody decides that I’ll be better off without some of my stuff.  It usually isn’t a worry that someone will break in the houses during summer, so I feel our house will be safe.  I am going to hide the small TV just in case. 

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the blog after next week.  I planned on writing just for the first year, but I may continue with it.  This has been cathartic for me to be able to talk about my week without being interrupted.  Monica will be up here next year, so unfortunately for her, she’ll be hearing all about my day in person.  She tolerates my ramblings pretty well.  And when I say she tolerates, I mean she ignores. She has to.

I’ve baked my last loaf of bread for the year, so most of my chores are done.  Except for the report cards, but at least I can have toast at midnight when I’m still trying to finish report cards.  And I have learned my lesson about using limericks in the report cards.  Until I’m able to find something else that rhymes with Nantucket, I’ll be using Spenserian sonnets.