Welcome to the Media Center...now here's your zoo pass!

Today was the 1st day of school for the 2009-2010 school year. My fourth year in education, and my first year as a Media Specialist. And WOW what a day!!

Let me in on some of the highlights from my first day:
7:15 - Patrols come in to get their post assignments and reminders for the day...nothing too exciting here.

7:30 - A bunch of my students from last year stop in to say Hi. One of Laura's students from last year comes in to give me a hug and the conversation happens like this:
T: "Mrs. Brockman, what are you doing in here?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
T: "Why won't they let you back in 5th grade?! What did you do that they put you in here?!"
Me: "I want to be in here, it's my new job."
T: "Ooohhh.....I thought you were in time out in here."

Nice...

10:15 - Time for my 3rd grade class of the day. One teacher (who is not scheduled) shows up claiming it is here media time. I tell her it isn't and she insists that it is. I give her the benefit of the doubt and run down to the real scheduled teachers class and she is not in her room. So..I decided that this is a good sign that maybe the schedule was wrong and go back and start class with the new class. Well...10 minutes later the REAL class shows up (FIFTEEN MINUTES LATE MIND YOU!) looking at me like I'm nuts because I am having class with a class that isnt hers. I explain the situation and she is off to get the other teacher -- leaving me with both classes, equaling over 40 kids! That's okay, I'm flexible, so we begin to play a game of stand up sit down. Finally the wrong teacher shows up, gets her class, and I continue on with my class. Yeah, all of this happened in 45 minutes!!

1:00 - Time for my 1st grade class of the day. First off, holy leprechauns! Half of these kids backpacks are bigger than they are!! Like a good media specialist, I meet them at the door, have them line up their backpacks, and start leading them to the tables. Well...somehow three boys shoot off like lightning around a bookcase and in 30 second have a whole half a shelf on the floor! And they are so stinking short you can't see them behind the shelves! I get them settled down and my aide starts reshelving and I begin my story. Two word in and I'm interrupted by "I gotta go wee wee!" Um excuse me?! Come again?! I translate to I have to go to the restroom and send her on her way with a pass. Two more words in.."I need to pee pee too!!" Great..it's contagious! I am twelve words in, meaning a good 1/3 of the class now has to relieve themselves, and we have a line waiting for the pass when I feel my pocket moving. One lil boy is tugging my pocket, holding himself, one leg crossed, the other hopping up and down..all while whimpering and crying out "my wee hurts" At this point I have an out of body experience and am now pointing and laughing at myself, because yeah..its funny. I snap back into myself and realize I do not want this child to "wee wee" on my foot and send him ahead of his buddies to the "potty." We get through our book, and start to corral them into their section of the library. Wow was that fun! I need a herding dog, a cattle prod, and a gate! We get them over there, talk about shelf markers, and check some books out...then time to go!!

It was a crazy day, but actually and enjoyable one. The great thing about being a resource teacher?! Each class is only 45 min long, so translated that means its so doable. I have a high tolerance for nonsense and bull$*!t due to my 3 years in 5th grade, so 45 min is cake. I just have to get used to the wee ones of the world.

Until next time...

The quilt of life..

Most days I cruise life, taking care of business while enjoying myself (most days) not really thinking about the big picture that is my life. Recently I have thought of my life as a quilt and my day-to-day memories as being the squares in my life. Take this past week for example:

Last weekend Jay and I drove to Crystal River to visit Jessica and Michael. It was such a great day! We really miss them. In the year and a half that they lived in Gville we grew close. We haven't seen each other in like a month, but we easily fell into conversations and Xbox games as if we just saw them yesterday. The day completely got away from us and before we knew it, the clock read 8 pm and we still had an hour drive home. As we back down their 45 degree driveway we were sad but already planning our next trip to CR to see them. Good friends do not grow on trees, but we have been blessed to have a handful of them come into our lives in the past year and are so thankful.

Thursday night we had our second meeting of our book club. Just like the first one we had a BLAST. We had four absent members, but we made do. The meeting was 5 hours long, involved 4 bottles of wine and some daiquaris, and even what seemed like thearpy. We talked about the book a lot and about our families and lives even more. Its those moments in your life when you kinda step out of the frame and go - wow, I am so lucky to have my life!

Last night Laura's family came into town - even Tommi!! It was super exciting to see Tommi outside of a computer screen. Last July Tommi left to serve his required duty in the Finnish Military. There have been hard times for him and for Laura, and it is so nice to be able to see him, hug him, and also see how happy their family is to have him back. I could not imagine having my brother that far away and not being able to talk to him all the time. Makes you realize that family extends outside of bloodlines. I consider Laura extended family, so of course if she is missing a piece of hers, I feel for her.

Also last night Deb's son, Danny, also known as D.P. had a CD release party for his new rap albulm and she invited us. So at midnight (yes midnight!!) we found ourselves in this bar, 1982, not knowing what to expect from the show. Deb was SUPER excited to see us and have us on the dance floor with her. The show was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Brandy and I had so many laughs at the expense of some of the Rhytmless Nation jammin' out in front of us, we all wondered how he could rap some of those lyrics in front of his mom, and I stood there in awe of how great he was and that, in a way, I knew him! At the end of the night Deb kept saying over and over again how much it meant for us to be there. It made me think about how important it really is to support the people you love in the things that they love. To celebrate with others is so exciting, and you really hope when you have something to celebrate they are there for you as well.

All in all, it has been a kinda eventful week! Let's see what else is coming my way! :)

Hugs and Lipgloss kisses!
xoxoxo

How do you handle being a spectator and not a super hero?

In the past week I have had some major difficulties - among the biggest is the multiple times where I was not able to swoop in and save the day for two of my loved ones. One being my uncle and the other my lil brother. Both had devastating situations this week and it was miserable for me to sit idly by and not have a way to fix it. Especially concerning my brother - when he hurts I hurt. I always want to fix things for him. And I could not this time. It's a horrible feeling. I take solace in the fact that when he needed someone to talk to I was there for him. I love my family so much, and some times I wonder if I love them too much...

"I think you guys just make up excuses to get together"

I have not really written about work a whole lot, and I have my reasons..it has been a KARAAZY year! This bunch has been/still is..I don't even know what adjective to use. I guess it just depends on the day, the weather, and who shows up. We have had two kids sent to A. Quinn from my room and another very close. Jessica left in December and the team dynamic changed, which was hard. And there are a whole slew of other issues across the grade as well. BUT, believe it or not the intention of this post is not to talk about how horrible it is, but to highlight the good stuff. (It has been my goal to dwell more on that then be a negative nelly)

With that being said...I do want to talk about my team! They are awesome and silly as hell! I would be absolutely lost without them. It is a given that day to day at work is going to be hard, some times pretty near impossible, but it is never completely horrible, because I have my team. They are the BEST people in the world, and I think we all balance each other out so well. I have never met a bunch of people (especially women) that are so truly helpful and supportive of one another. And we have F-U-N doing it!!

The title of this post was a quote from a comment made about our book club pictures, and well..maybe we do make up any excuse, but can you blame us?! We have had multiple people tell us they want to be on our team (but not teach our kids. ha!), which we find flattering. We stick together and have fun doing it! We now kinda have a nickname - "Fab Five" which was created for our kick ass shirts that we made and wore for the school bowling Happy How, and now look for any excuse to wear again:) My team makes me laugh, and that's great, because if we didn't laugh I think we'd cry...and now for some of our highlights:
Begining of the Year Party:



Christmas Party:



National Championship:



Bowling Happy Hour:


Math Boot Camp:



I realize I have been REALLY lucky for the past two years because I get to work with some of my greatest friends, and know its not going to be this way forever. But I will enjoy it while it lasts :)

Hugs and Lipgloss Kisses!
XOXO

Hi my name is Kristin and I am a part of a book club...

....and I like it! (Weird I know!) So, for about a year now mommy has been telling me how I should start/join a book club. She has been in one for over a year and LOVE it. As usual it was one of those "sure mom" things...don't get me wrong I love my mother and we do a lot of things alike, but I was not thinking a book club would be one of them. She kept raving about hers and how she enjoys it because she gets to read different books she would never pick up. I was happy for her and for the good books she recommended through her club, but still...in one ear and out the other... Skip ahead a year to about a month ago...I was taking Brandy home and we stopped by Target (shocking I know!) and she picked up Revolutionary Road. I told she would have to let me know how it was because it was not on my to read list (or to pick up actually) and then I heard mommy in my head raving about the diverse collection of books she had read because of book club, and without realizing it I opened my mouth and exclaimed "We should start a book club!" Brandy agreed and the plan was hatched. While on our regularly scheduled walk I mentioned it casually to Laura and she agreed. Then we invited the rest of our team, Jessica, and Courtnay and we began reading. None of us had ever been in or to a book club and did not know what to do or expect, but we decided to feel it out. We set a date, decided on what to read, and to bring a 1950s inspired dish since the book takes place in the 50s. Our first meeting was last night and.... Omigosh was it F-U-N!! I knew I would enjoy myself because everyone coming was on my team at work, and let's face it..Fifth grade rocks. I did NOT know, however, how much fun I would have. We talked a lot about the book and it was interesting to hear how we can have such different takes on the same character or small detail of a book. Then there is the fact that we are a group of 7 very different women. I think this last detail was the one that really made my night so amazing. At one point I looked around the table and was a little amazed that I never realized how awesome we really are. I found myself feeling so lucky that I get to be surrounded with such unique, intelligent, beautiful, and strong women everyday. I also found myself a little upset at myself that it took me so long to realize this. I LOVE my team and get along with them so well, but wow! Including our interns our ages range from early twenties to mid-fifties. All of us have come from different walks of life, have had different experiences, and in many cases the only thing we may all have in common is being a woman and an educator. There were stories shared, lessons, learned, laughs had, and memories made. I was almost a scene out of a chick flick where all of the random women come together for a loving and memorable, quote-worthy moment, and it was REAL! So moral of the story...okay, maybe there are a couple..1)Always listen to your mom..sooner or later you will end up doing it, so why waste the time dragging your heels...2)Book clubs ROCK..and 3)Schedule the next meeting ASAP!!
Hugs and Lip Gloss Kisses XOXO