Comic Relief

Before we begin, let me introduce you to some of my friends/co-workers. I will probably be talking about them in my blogs quite a bit, so you will need some background on who they are.

--Tiffany Isabel: Graduated from college with Tiffany in 2008. We were very close friends in college, and we now work together. She teaches 4th grade right next door to my classroom. She's pretty much the reason I have a job at River Road because she set up my long-term sub position in 2009 that you will read about below.

--Ian Allen: Graduated from college with Ian in 2008. Ian thought I was a mean person in college. Haha. Now he gets to work with me everyday since we are both on the 5th grade team at River Road. Poor Ian is the only male on our hallway...some days I think he wonders why he does this to himself.

--Shanna Scott: Shanna and I met in 2009. While she was out on maternity leave during 2009, I was her long-term substitute. Our friendship continued well after her return, especially after realizing we are both extreme Type A personalities. Shanna taught 4th grade up until this year, when she joined Ian and me on the 5th grade team.

--Danielle Graves: Danielle and I have gotten to know each other over the past year at River Road. She is such a funny girl, which is a good indication that I will want to get to know her better. She keeps me laughing. I want to go sit in her classroom for a whole day and listen to her teach because she is hilarious. She taught 1st grade last year, but was moved up to 4th grade this year. We welcome her to our hall with open arms.

Now that you have the background on a few of the people that I'm close to at work, let's move on to today's post.

So, a couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from a mentor at our school. Since I am a second year teacher in the school district, I am assigned a mentor, which in turn, makes me a mentee. I will keep this mentor for three years. Almost there. Anyway, this e-mail was to inform me about a dinner coming up for the mentors/mentees in the county this Thursday at Chef Lee's. Please read the bolded e-mail below.

_______________________________________________________________________

Hi Everyone!

We are SO excited about our annual Teacher Support Specialists/New Teacher Chef Lee's Dinner! We will have our dinner Thursday Night at 6:00 pm at Chef Lee's on Bradley Park Drive!

We want you to invite all the TSS and Induction teachers in your building! This is always a great night of fellowship and FUN! :) Remember, this is a Dutch treat night out! Chef Lee's has a special all-inclusive dinner price of $12.00 just for us! This includes your meal and drink.

We will see you there!

_________________________________________________________________

Okay, so after reading this e-mail, I really didn't think much about it. I kind of wanted to see who all was going before agreeing to going. I put it to the side to come back to later.

This morning, before school began, Shanna asked me if I would be interested in going to the dinner with her because she's my mentor. After a bit of stalling, I told her I didn't know if I wanted to go. She told me that we needed to go, and that Ian needed to go too since she's also his mentor. My response to her? "I don't know if I really want to go. I don't know about eating Dutch food." Needless to say, she and Tiffany thought this was pretty funny because as you all well know (everyone except me, I guess), "Dutch treat" means that you pay for your own food. :/ I was seriously confused after reading the e-mail for the first time. My thoughts were, "Why would a Chinese restaurant serve Dutch food?" I think after reading the e-mail, I actually said that out loud to myself. Anyway, who knew? You learn something new everyday. I didn't feel so bad when Shanna and I asked Ian if he wanted to go, and he responded, "Well, what's the Dutch thing about?" At least I wasn't the ONLY one!

It's always nice to have little comic relief moments like this throughout the school week. I'm glad that I have a strong friend/co-worker relationship with several of the teachers on my hall. It makes for a more enjoyable school year.

Before I go, I will leave you with another funny story from today. While teaching about the Bill of Rights, I ask my 5th graders what a right means to them. One students replies, "Something you have that no one can take away." Another student replied, "Something all Americans have." The next student replied, "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law." Yep...word for word. I had to face the board for a few minutes to contain my laughter. It's moments like these that really keep me going. I love to hear the funny things that kids say. Needless to say, we cleared up the type of rights we were actually talking about, but I have to appreciate this child's perspective on what a right is. If you lose your sense of humor in the classroom, you'll be in for a miserable year.

Hope you enjoyed reading!

Have an awesome HUMP DAY!

Facebook Frustrations

Hello again, friends!

Since I became a facebook member in 2005, there have been a number of things that frustrate me about this social network. Not only do I get to see how many days until somebody gets married (I love when they start the countdown at 175 days until I get married...I mean, really?), who's having a baby, who stole whose man, who cheated on who, etc., I also get to see things that really frustrate me. The two ultimate frustrations of facebook for me are picture posting and status updates. You may say, "Well Katie, that's what facebook is about!" Yes, I know, but I don't want you to think that I have major problems with all uploaded photos and all updated statuses. I have a problem with the following things:

(A) : When uploading a picture, please make sure you have clothes on.
(B): When updating your status, please check your spelling and grammar.

Let's start with A. I am so sick and tired of seeing boys on facebook without their shirts on while flexing in a mirror. Not only are they taking a picture of themselves showing off their bodies, which is very vain if I do say so myself, but flexing? Really? After investigating and realizing that 9 out of 10 of these boys (or men) are single, I understand that they feel that maybe showing off their bodies might attract a mate, but I really have a difference of opinion. Boys, if any of you are reading this, please know that MOST females don't find this attractive. A word of advice: Leave something to the imagination...it's much more attracting than having you show off what's underneath. Now, let's move on to the flexing part, which is the most major part. I know you boys work long and hard on your muscles, but save your showing it off for candid shots at the beach or the pool. Boys, please know that this is not an attack on you. I'm just trying to help you. If you feel the need to find a partner, I hear match.com is wonderful! I actually have a few friends that have met very nice relationship material on this Internet dating site. Now, with all this being said, this is only my opinion. :)

B. "Ima hv a gr8 dy tody." Seriously people...do you know how many seconds I have to read statuses like this to figure them out? It really does a number on my nerves. I have pondered over why I have this frustration with grammatically incorrect statements. The only conclusion I can come to is that I am a teacher, my whole family are/were teachers, and I have had my grammar corrected my whole life. It's taxing to teach children this day in age when technology has played such a huge factor in damaging how we speak, write, read, etc. But how can we blame the kids when they get on facebook, myspace, or any other social network, and are exposed to adults who post these kinds of things? What kind of example is being set? Everytime I see an incorrect status, I want to comment and correct them because it's the teacher in me, but I don't. I'll just blog about it instead. Please do not take me the wrong way either; I understand the occasional typo. We're definitely all guilty of that, but the above example (which was a real post) can't be passed off as a typo. I just wish that people would begin using spell check as a tool in their everyday lives. It's there...use it!

That's all I have for now. Off to bed I go...after checking facebook, that is.

Here I Am AGAIN!

Hello friends!

A friend of mine, Tyre Gill, inspired me to begin blogging again today. It has been a while, but with good reason. The last blog post I made was from my old computer. When the mother board decided to die, which according to HP, is a common problem, I only had a very slow, dinosaur of a desktop to do anything with. That lasted several months until we purchased a new laptop. So really, there has been no good reason at all not to blog since buying the current computer.

Things have been busy in the Cooper household. This summer, we've had 2 weddings, both of which I was a bridesmaid, built a pool, accomplished many home improvement projects, and...well...that's basically it. David works almost everyday, while I enjoy my summer vacation. My days consist of me attempting to clean and do laundry, while trying to ignore the temptations of the swimming pool outside. Needless to say, the laundry never gets caught up, and the house is never as clean as I would like it to be.

The dogs, who are currently our only children, have been better than ever. As you all know, we used to have a cat, Yolonda, but she ran away in November. I pray for her return daily, but I'm prepared that it will never happen. No cats from now on is David's policy, not mine. We had a few set backs with Gunner beginning in April. He had a hematoma in his ear. After three surgeries, two of them at one vet, and the third at another, we finally got it corrected. It has been a long, expensive process, but he's back to his old self...finally. Bristol has been healthy as a horse. (Knock on wood!!) Now, if we can keep Bristol out of the pool, we'll be good to go in the animal department.

There will be many more blog posts to come. As of now, this blog will be pretty random until the day that David and I have children, I'm sure. I was just thinking yesterday, during one of my frustrated moments, that I need to begin keeping a journal. Then today I thought, why keep a journal when I can just blog??? You can look for many frustrating moments coming up over the next few weeks as my summer vacation comes to a close and depression sets in. Although, I'm pretty pumped about next school year, so far. It's coming, so I might as well get ready!

Gunner Bunner's 4th Birthday!

Today was a good day in the Cooper household! It was Gunner's 4th birthday! We celebrated by sleeping in, running in the backyard, treats, and extra kisses from mama! (Most of you probably think I'm crazy, but until I have kids, my dogs are my kids!) I was a little nervous this morning when I woke up to such a beautiful day because Gunner's previous birthdays have not been so pretty. The first 2 birthdays consisted of a destructive tornado in Columbus the first year, and a tornado warning (with no significant damage) the second year. His 3rd birthday yielded a snow storm in West Central GA that produced about 6 inches of snow. I was nervous because the weather on March 1st is always nasty, so I didn't know what to expect today...an earthquake or a wild fire perhaps? We made it through the day with nothing happening except for rain that began about an hour ago (with the threat of snow tomorrow). The day was closed out by a delicious doggy dinner consisting of boiled chicken with chicken broth over kibbles! It appeared to be delicious to both Gunner and Bristol. Yolonda had a canned salmon dinner as part of her celebration, which she also enjoyed. Gunner had a great day! He is looking forward to celebrating Bristol's and Yolonda's double birthday celebration on May 13th!

Gunner Bunner really enjoyed his birthday celebration...he is so sleepy!

Bristol is full and sleepy after celebrating Gunner Bunner's 4th Birthday!

Mmmm...that was a delicious salmon dinner!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUNNER!!!

Roman Numerals...

A couple of weeks ago I had a few friends over to my house. During a late night discussion, my guests and I talked about roman numerals. Don't ask me how this came up, I don't remember; however, I specifically remember us discussing the roman numerals 3, 4, 5, and 6. Of course it was the standard discussion that I imagine most people have about roman numerals (not that this is ever much of a discussion with anyone), but we couldn't decide which was which. We finally reached a consensus that 3 is III, 4 is IV, 5 is V, and 6 is VI. Some of us were right (me being one of them :)) and some of us were wrong. After the discussion, we came inside. Someone pointed up to my wall clock in the living room and said, "Hey, your clock has roman numerals!" Everyone's attention was drawn to the clock, but we couldn't find the roman numeral 4, also known as IV. After several seconds of looking at the clock, we found it...


As you can see, this clock, that has been in my house for quite some time has the wrong roman numeral for 4. Not to mention, it has a very large gap in between 4 and 5, which is why it took us a couple of seconds to find the 4. I wonder who made this clock? I wonder if they even thought to do their research before putting the roman numerals on it? All of the other roman numerals are correct...why is it that the 4 has to be wrong? Now everytime I look at this clock I get upset. This is just one of those things I will never understand. It looks lovely on my wall, but it's wrong; therefore, I know what I'll be asking for on the next gift giving occasion.

Here goes...

Writing a blog is something I have been thinking about doing for a while. Up until not long ago, I had decided that I would not start a blog until I get pregnant; however, with the recent rumors about Facebook deciding to start charging their members for the service, I figured I would begin my blogging life. Not only will this give my friends and family a chance to "keep up with me," I think it will also be an outlet for me. Sometimes I just need to be able to share my opinion with someone other than David (I'm sure he will appreciate this too). You will find in future posts that I have a strong opinion toward many things, I'm frustrated by certain things in life, I love my dogs and cat more than most people, I have a very strong group of friends, I have a very close-knit family, I get pleasure out of the small things, and I would like to take over the world one day. I'm also hoping that this blog will force me to take more pictures, which is something that I don't enjoy doing; however, maybe if I prove to David that I will take a lot of pictures, I will get a new camera. Sounds like a plan to me! Welcome to my online diary...I hope you enjoy!