• Vacuum to quell the Flea Invasion
• work out
• shower
• eat
• Scrub "call Vermont" off my cheek
• Learn to sleep with hands nowhere near face so that never happens again

Over the course of a year-long Biology program, a conscientious teacher should be able to pass on the skills needed for his or her students to become proficient in performing guided inquiry, if not full inquiry as described by Martin-Hansen. This should manifest not only in the increased comfort levels of the students with their lab work, but the length of time for which they retain the material learned, and their ability to make connections to other subjects. Now bake me a fucking cake. Hasta! ♥

W: Did I tell you the boy and I ended up stabbing each other with forks?
Rantelle: do both of you still have your various limbs intact?
W: Yes. He started it.
Rantelle: did you finish it?
W: Yes. By getting stabbed. And there were spatulas. I don't even know. We're not to clean the kitchen together anymore, Anne says.
Rantelle: lmao
Rantelle: did you sing the spatula song?* I do every time I use one
W: I was too busy shrieking, so no, but next time I shall.
Rantelle: spatulaaaaa**
W: Exactly. Only it was more like a smackula, because I was hitting him in the stomach with it.
W: Once it was a spankula.
Rantelle: oh no
W: And then he had to ruin it by making it a stabula. ._.

I woke up this morning with a sore throat and achy leg, rolled over to stare at the clock, and asked myself “am I really going to be doing this with my life?” In an ideal world I'd find a school that starts at like...1 PM. Maybe I can find a night school to teach at. Or just become independently wealthy and not work at all. I don't want to be a stay-at-home mom. I just want to not get up at 6AM!


We're doing an observational lab today, and one of the animals is a gorgeous grey berk rat. The first student who acts like a brat to him is going to make me quite cranky. I think they noticed this. My favorite moment of the day? The student who asked me if she could hold the rat. I told her no, and so she asked my mentor. He told her no, too, and then she sulked. Later, when everyone was done with lab, and things had quieted down I let her go back and pet the rat.
 

In the next period I decided to make some tea because my throat was wicked sore when I woke up. I left to get some hot water, came back, and threw a tea bag in my clear double-lined glass thermos. I look up. There is a student staring raptly at my thermos.
 

The tea begins to steep.
 

The student is still staring.
 

The water darkens.
 

The student still stares.
 

“Omigod, stop it!” says the girl next to her, and Staring Girl blinks.
“Fascinating, isn't it?” I murmur, and Other Girl giggles.
“How does it stay warm?” Staring Girl exclaims, just a little too loudly.
 

And then all of the sudden the entire class is staring.
 

“Would we all like to watch at my tea, then?” I say, and a few people giggle.
“Girls, I need to put some orange juice down and see if you'd stare at it,” says my mentor.
“Why?”
“Because it says concentrate.”
 

And that is how the second period met me.
 

Third period met me during a discussion between two loud guys at the back of the room about whether or not liquid nitrogen would ruin a banana. I chipped in with “nitrogen is an inert gas. It's already bonded to itself. So it wouldn't change the composition of the banana, or make it make you sick or anything, but you'd have to let the banana warm up first.” From the front of the room, at the other side of the girl who appears to have flambed herself with self-tanner.
 

In response I got a story about all the things the chem class had frozen and shattered with liquid nitrogen. And now we're all friends.
 

Later in the period, I am sitting at “my” desk drinking tea from the thermos (Note to self: Never drink tea in class ever again.)
 

The loud guy at the back of the room sees it and yells “what the hell is she drinking?”
I look up and catch his eye. “It's tea.”
“Tea?”
“Tea. Well, it was tea, *drains thermos* but now it's not.”
I turn back to my laptop, and he mutters “how the hell was I supposed to know? All I saw was her drinkin' a brownish, yellowish liquid...”
I look up again. “Yeah, that's called “tea-colored.””
“I don't drink tea!”
“Okay, how's this. Tomorrow I'll bring a different type of tea, and you can compare!”
 

There's a pause.
 

“...Who are you? Who the hell are you?” He's laughing.
“I'm the student teacher for next semester.”
“Aw, hell, next semester. (His class ends in four days.) Fine. I'm gonna come by and give you shit.”
I smile. “You do that.”
*thumbs up all around*
“Can't believe you've only been here two days and you're already messin' with me,” he giggles, and goes back to his work.
 

At lunch, I was abused by grape-scented lotion in the women's bathroom.

First thing I thought when I walked into the school this morning: Am I really this short? These are ninth graders, and I come up to their chins. Even in heels! (I can see it now. I'm going to be the teacher the students describe as “feisty.” Tall people are never feisty. That's an adjective reserved for short, angry women, small rodents, or dogs.)

Am pleased with mentor. Was terrified of department chair, and now that I know I am not teaching with her I am a lot less worried about my placement in general. Even better, his wife just got done with student teaching, which is why he volunteered to be a mentor in the first place. “I know what frustrations you guys have. We'll be meeting at least once a week to chat on top of class stuff.” Best of all, he has a snarky, sarcastic sense of humor. So not only does he get it when I do it, but his students get it when I do it. In theory. I don't start actually teaching for a couple weeks.
 

I had forgotten how much teenagers think about sex and genitalia. I mean, I think about sex a lot (I've been told maybe more than the average girl) but they put me to shame. The three boys sitting to my left in first period have spent the entire hour giggling and turning everything into a dick reference:

1. Streptococcus spp? hoo boy.

2. Dicoccus? That one's a killer, especially if the teacher draws clarifying diagrams on the board directly below the strep sketch.

3. Binary fission? Okay, in all fairness, this one actually deals with reproduction, but still.

4. Oddly enough, they didn't laugh at conjugation.

I've considered composing a list of everything my students snicker at and then writing a lesson at the end of the semester that somehow incorporates them all. I expect two outcomes: at best, they will laugh so hard I get a noise complaint; at worst, it will confuse them all terribly and I'll lose them.
 

In other news, I have selected my favorite text in the class. It's the one that has PENIS WTF etched into the spine. (Dicoccus, ha.)

Finally, a note to self. While thongs are useful in preventing awkward panty lines and go well under pantyhose, if you put them on in the dark things may get twisted. Sections may constrict when you walk into the building. Circulation may be cut off. I'll be sending out a search party for my left buttock at lunch. (“Who do you know who's lost a buttock?”)