Can't Get Away From It

I love the Olympics. Winter or summer, it doesn't matter. I love 2 weeks dedicated to young athletes from around the world competing, and the pomp and circumstance of it all. I was lucky enough to go to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. It was fantastic seeing the events in person. (Except the men's walk-race which took place outside the stadium while we watched it on the jumbo tron).

Stein and I have been watching the Olympics religiously on TV this past weekend. It was convenient over the weekend, because you could see a lot of the events live, even with the time difference. When we couldn't see an event live, and would have to wait until that night to see it replayed, I tried my hardest not to watch the news, pay attention to the headlines on MSN, and listen to NPR. This morning proved to be the hardest.

As Stein and I got ready this morning, the Today show was on. They are broadcasting live from Beijing, so of course they're going to keep the viewers up to date on what's happening. When they started reporting on the swimming events which we hadn't seen, Stein immediately switched the channels to keep us from seeing the full report. I went in the shower and turned on the radio, just in time to hear, "And last night's swimming event..." I said, "La la la la la la" out loud to keep from hearing it. Then I just turned the radio off. But then, as I exited my email this morning, MSN's home page had a headline about the event. I tried to avert my eyes, but I think I may have an idea of what happened. Don't tell me - I didn't read the details, and we'll hopefully get to watch it tonight.

Connections

I will post and download pictures from our canoe trip today, but before that, I need to post about a fabulous phone call I received last night.

I know that Sara and Karen are going to moan when they read that last sentence. But I won't give away too much. Although I do hope Sara is feeling okay today...

Anyway, I digress. The phone rang, the number shown on caller i.d. was unknown, so Stein let it go. Then I heard the familiar, "Kelllllyyyyy Leeeee!!!!!" that I heard so many times during college. One of my roommates was visiting our other roommate in France, and I knew right away that I needed to answer the phone. A cackle from thousands of miles away could be heard over the phone. What a treat. I went back and forth with the two of them, sharing current news and stories along with memories of all of us together. I was so jealous that they were together to see smiles, to see expressions, to see body language. But I was thankful to hear their voices, hear the familiarity, hear the comfort. I was right there with them.

We talked for an hour and a half (thankfully, Karen has free international calling) and I savored every minute of it. When we were done, I was compelled to get on Facebook and join, just so I could be part of what they were talking about. And once I joined, Karen and I continued our conversation. Into the wee hours of her morning, into the later hours of my evening.

We Need Rain

Or a horse to eat the straw that is our lawn.

Differences

I am starting to reflect on the experience I've had with this summer program, and I have to say, it's been a great one. I can't help but compare it to what I have now named my "hellish long-term sub job". The differences have been incredible. One big difference is that with the summer program, I am not counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until we're done. In fact, I'm going to be a little sad on the last day when I say goodbye to my kids.

First of all, I have had a class size of about 7 kids, give or take 2-3 on any given day. Out of these 7, I have had only one challenging boy, who I had in my class as a student teacher. In fact, all of the kids I knew from my student teaching days, either in Linda's class or Matt's class. It was easy, then, to re-establish ground rules for behavior. Classroom management was a breeze.

I had to pinch myself numerous times throughout the program. Sometimes the kids were engaged in an activity for almost an hour straight, and actually asked, no begged, to do learning activities. This is unheard of in teaching. Despite the rapid pace I had to teach with trying to cram everything in, I was definitely spoiled this summer.

But you know what? It felt good. I believe in things like, "Good things come to those who wait", or, "It all comes out in the wash", or, "If you do something good, it will usually come back to you". A karma of sorts, I guess. And then I think back to that "hellish long-term sub job" and I think, yes, this is definitely a karma of sorts.

We Have Spirit, Yes We Do

Thanks to all of you who made comments about school and class spirit. I'm going to use a lot of your ideas this week and next week.

This poster was a brainchild I had somewhere around 2 am yesterday morning. I wanted to make some sort of poster to hang on the door to let the rest of the school that we had class spirit, and remind the kids in my class where they were going (ha ha). The picture doesn't do it justice, but the letters are colored with a silver marker, and the lightning bolts are cut out of sparkly paper.

I put it all together at 6 am yesterday morning, so I could hang it before the kids came to school. (I did take a picture with them near it, but I figured I would keep their identities private here and leave it to the school website to show their faces). On the other door of our room, I made a similar sign that read, "You are now entering the Steinhauer Power Zone". I know, kind of cheesy, but sometimes the kids are all about cheese, you know?

Can you believe we only have 5 more days of school? Wow, did this time go fast. And yes, I've been having fun. No, I've been having a blast.

The West Side of the State

So where have I been? Well, we were out of town once again this weekend. We had a wedding in Holland, MI on Saturday, and stayed over until Sunday. It was a short but nice trip, especially since I've never been to Holland before.

We left early Saturday morning to make it to the wedding at 10:30 am. The wedding was followed by brunch at a restaurant on a lake. Like most of the Midwest this past weekend, the weather was gorgeous. Sunny, in the 80's, and most importantly, no humidity. So having the brunch on this lake was fabulous. The groom sells boats, so of course the bride and groom and bridal party arrived at the party aboard a gorgeous boat. Quite an entrance they made!

There was a cocktail/dessert/dancing reception that night (yes, there was a 6 hour break in between - ugh) which was held at an historic mansion. So during our 'break', Stein and I walked around downtown Holland. It is a great place, with all kinds of shops and restaurants on the main drag. We were able to find a restaurant with an outdoor deck to enjoy the weather a little more. The reception that night was lovely, but as my sister-n-law put it, "It lost the oomph when we had the break." I have to agree. I felt like we were just at another party with the same people we saw that morning. It seemed separate from the wedding.

Sunday morning we had breakfast in Holland, and then headed to Saugatuck on our way back home. We walked around there, went into a few stores, and enjoyed the weather for another day. How lucky were the bride and groom to have such beautiful weather? And then also to be getting on a plane to go to Hawaii? Hmmm.

I do have to say that I enjoy the west side of the state a lot. You have Lake Michigan, which I'm familiar with, but it's almost like another lake on this side. The beaches are less crowded, cleaner, and you can watch sunset over it. Don't get me wrong, I am still biased toward the lakefront path and beaches in Chicago, but it's just different over here. The towns that dot the lake in Michigan all feel the same: laid-back, friendly, comfy, and quaint. And with most of these western Michigan towns only 2 hours away, we can visit them whenever the spirit moves us.

Glimpses

Glimpses from my classroom this week that once again make me thankful for what I have, the things I've experienced, and where I have come from:

• A girl desperate to invite her friends to her birthday party, writes out 'invitations' on scraps of torn loose leaf paper.
• A boy returns one of my books he borrowed and brought home, and the pages reek of cigarette smoke.
• On the cigarette-smoke theme, I bend over to help a girl and her hair and clothes reek of smoke.
• I tell the kids, "Multiplication flash cards are available at the dollar store, surely you have a dollar?" When most of them say no, I say, "Well, then you can make your own. You have paper at home, right?" There wasn't an overwhelming response of "yes".
• When doing word work with nouns and verbs, no one knew what a captain was. No one knew what the word ponder meant. And those weren't the only two unknown words.

What kills me about all of this, and I know I've written about it before, is that we live in Ann Arbor. It's a college town. You don't expect things like this. And I really don't think the people in this town, other than the people who live near the school, do either.

Again, I find myself in the short time I have with these kids, giving them as much worldly exposure and experiences as possible. But there's only so much time in summer school, especially with shortened days and trying to fit in as much reading, math and writing to catch them up for 5th grade in the fall.

"If I ran the zoo..."