They really think I'm that dumb!

A month or so ago, one of my students broke his ankle, so he got to stay in from recess everyday. Apparently it's awesome to stay in my class during recess, because next thing you know, everyone is "sick" and needs to stay inside too. Unless there is a fun game going on or their best friend brought a cool toy from home.

So I had to start a new policy: you have to have a note from a grown-up to stay in. It was working pretty well. I could just say "where's your note" and they'd give up and get back into line.

One day, we were already 2 hours into school and just about to go out to recess. One of my girls walks up and pulls a folded 2-inch piece of paper out of her pocket. She has it to me and says, "Oh, this is from my mom. I forgot to give it to you earlier."

Gotta give her an "A" for effort...but a "B" for spelling and punctuation.

Seriously???

I foolishly thought that having a movie party as a reward was a great idea. (Insert evil laugh directed at me.) The kids were all excited about, been talking about it for days, did all their work so they wouldn't lose said party. And several students claimed their moms "wanted to bring in a treat," which translate to "I volunteered my mom with her knowledge." One little girl had been saying from day 1 that her mom was going to bring in popcorn. Reminded me everyday and got notes so mom would know what time.

Now back me up on this...when someone says their bringing popcorn for your movie party, big bag of popcorn, already popped...

Yeah...not so much.

The woman, who can 35 minutes late, brought 4 boxes of unpopped popcorn. And then ask, "Oh...do you need help popping that?"

Seriously?!?!

How To Have The Best Birthday EVER!!!

1. Get pre-birthday mint chocolate cake the night before.

2. Your awesome roommate decorates the downstairs of the house while you're asleep.

3. Said roommate also ties balloons to your door, which make you nearly pee your pants when you open the door to the dark hallway.

4. Get to wear sweatpants and sweatshirt to school (Red Ribbon week dress-up themes).

5. Get to wear a tiara to work (just because I can!).

6. Best friend in Jersey sends you flowers at work.

7. Your students actually behave, for the most part.

8. Cake at lunch.

9. Cupcakes at the end of the day.

10. Great songs playing on iPod Random Shuffle on the way home.

11. Los Hermanos for dinner, with fancy/fruity drinks.

12. More cake.

13. Lots of birthday texts, phone calls, Facebook post, etc.

A Big Confidence Boast

(Sorry to those of you who already heard this story)

Last week, I was having one of those "fun" days. Had a cold, students are nuts, etc. Then one of my students decided to make my day even better. Enjoy the following conversation:

Student 1: "Miss Bramhall, do you have any kids?"

Me: "Nope."

Student 2: "Are you even MARRIED?" (said with some shock and disbelief)

Me: "No."

Student 3: "How old ARE you?!?!?"

Me: "26."

Student 3: "You're 26 and NOT MARRIED?" (pause for look of total shock) "If your 26 and not married, you like NEVER going to get married!!!"

Me: "Thanks."

Senile or ADD

Ten Signs You're Going Senile or Have ADD

10. You throw your keys in the trash.

9. You have to be reminded what you were just talking about before the funny commercial came on.

8. You have to go back into the house to get your iPod, and then again to get your wallet.

7. After all that, when you finally get where you were going, you realize you left your keys to the building.

6. When you go to eat cereal, you notice you have a fork.

5. After eating said cereal, you try to put the cereal box into the fridge.

4. Your brain won't let you go to sleep until you've made a list of all the stuff you'll forget by the next morning.

3. Five times in one day, you forget why you went into a room.

2. You have to make six trips up and down the stairs because you keep forgetting stuff.

1. All of this happened in less than 2 weeks.

A Cautionary Tale

When you are

down the Provo

be sure to wear your

or else the

will treat your

like a

The End

Are you kidding?

I was able to help carry this into the basement...

I helped carry this into the house...

But I try and lift this into my car...

And I get this!


(And I look like I have mustache because of weird shadows)

Are you kidding me?!?!

Always Cheers Me Up

Nuff said

PASSED!!!

I passed the evil test!!! I could not believe my eyes. When I took the test, they said that it would take 4 to 6 weeks to get your results in the mail, but you could get them online as soon as they became official. By Saturday, I just couldn't take it anymore. The anxiety was going to kill me. And if I didn't passed, I'd have to sign up real soon to take it again.

I think my heart actually stopped for about ten seconds as I was logging on. Then when the score sheet opened, you have to scroll down to see the actual score. My hand wouldn't let me scroll down. I think my thought process was: "If I don't see it, it doesn't exist!" Finally, I got up the courage to look...176 out of 200!!!! Happy dancing and screaming sum up the next ten minutes. :)

The Roots May Be Brown...

...but I have got to be a true blond. I had one of those moments that have to be straight out of a dumb blond joke book. Almost three weeks ago I got all my tax stuff ready and mailed it in. I even put extra postage on the one that I was worried was too thick. I went off on Spring Break feeling great about getting everything done ahead of time. I got back this week and got back to regular life. This morning, I grabbed my check-book to get books from our schools book order. I opened it up to write my check and there was my check for my state taxes!!! Keep in mind today is April 14th.

The words "dumb blond" can't even begin to explain how stupid I felt.

And not to worry; I took the check to the tax office and they said it happens every year.

Evil Test

To become a level two teacher, and basically be a teacher forever, you have to take the Praxis II exam. I prepared, I studied, I even made flashcards. I was so ready. Then I went to take the test. I should have known this was going to be bad. I had to be up on campus by 7:30. I get there and just stand around for a while and then they tell us we can go into the classes to take the test. To get in was like getting into an exclusive club: they checked your ID against a list and if you weren't on their list, they booted you. After waiting in one line, I find out they changed the room number at the last minute. Luckily it was just across the hall, but still...life isn't stressful enough, let's play musical classrooms. And as we're waiting in line, I over hear one girl say that her friend took this test 4 times before she past. (start hyperventilating)

We finally get in the class and into our seats. Now on the ticket/info thing I got, it said that if you arrived a minute after 7:30, you would not be allowed in. Yet, up until 7:45, they were letting people walk in. So then they finally start...with reading a million instructions and yelling at anyone who is chewing gum, myself included. Then they had to pass out test booklets, which was mad extra fun by the fact that they had 9 different tests going on in our room, and each one had different instructions and booklets. We finally started around 8:15.

The Praxis II exam consists of 24 multiple choice question, then reading 4 case studies and answering questions about what teachers did right and wrong, making sure you mention different teaching and learning techniques, which I knew inside and out. When I was studying, I read a bunch of these, so I knew that when writing these, more is better. So on the first three (out of 12), I wrote everything I could think of to go with the topic. I was so creative and wrote fun activities that the teacher could have done instead. Then I looked at the clock...45 MINUTES..for THREE QUESTIONS!!!!! Did I mention you only have 2 hours for the whole test? AHHHHHHH!!!!!

So I started working a little faster. I get about 3/4 of the way done and look up...30 minutes left!!! So I started frantically writing anything I could think of, as fast as I could. I think I'll get the last three marked completely wrong because they're not quite legible. But I FINISHED!!! With 45 seconds to spare. As I left, my hands were literally shaking (I was panicking and holding the pencil real tight at the end), and I couldn't get my heart to slow back down.

When I came home, I couldn't really answer any questions with words, mostly just "hhhhhmmm....mmmm...." Thank goodness of awesome roommates. Abby took me out to Texas Road House, which in my world, is equivalent to heaven. And we even convinced a couple friends to come with us.

I won't find out the results for about 4 weeks but I am not going to stress between now and then. I studied all I could and if I have to take it again, I am finding a new profession. :)

Yes, I am awesome

My boss told me so: I officially rock. This last week at school, I had heard rumors about we were going to have observations in our classrooms. I hadn't heard anything official, so I was going to plead ignorance for not signing up. Big mistake. When you don't sign up, your principal will happily oblige with a "pop-in" observation. And of course it's on the day when you want to kill a student or two. :)

Lucky for me, two miracles happened: a) I had an great lesson planned for that time anyway, and b) second graders still get freaked out if the principal walks in a room and therefor behaved a little bit better. So he watched and took notes while I taught my class about centimeters. I guess I've finally been a teacher long enough that this doesn't phase me. The only time I really remembered he was there was when one of students wanted to measure the principals shoes for our practice with rulers.Then after about thirty minutes he left.

Yesterday, after school, he reminded us that if we had been observed, we had to met with him. You go over your evaluation and talk about good stuff you did and things you need to work on. He got busy after that, so I went back to my room to work on stuff and figured he'd catch me next week. Later, my boss realized I was still there, so he came and went over everything in my class. Turns out, I am an AMAZING teacher, in case you didn't already know. I know it sounds like I'm bragging (which was not my intention), but it's just really nice to hear that you're really good at your job. Especially at then end of a difficult week.

So now I basically have a certificate that says, Yes, you are awesome.

First Time for Everything

I had two big firsts today. First, when I went to the bank today, I successfully used the vacuum-sucker thing. I had tried it once before, but failed miserably. This time, I did it without dropping anything on the ground and without having to ask the nice bank man for any help. Though I did manage to dump out the entire contents of the change pocket of my wallet...but luckily all that fell inside the car.

Then, tonight, the big first happened. I am a 26 year old who has never tied a cherry stem into a knot. This is mostly due to the fact that I don't really like cherries. And my last attempt (also my first attempt) was an embarrassing public display at an FHE. I always thought it would be easy since I rock at unwrapping Starbursts. :) Abby and I got dinner at Sonic tonight, which of course means giant Cherry Limeades...Mmmmm! When I got to the end of my drink, I saw the stem sticking out of the ice, mocking me. So, for the next 10 minutes, I worked that stem to death until finally...

I DID IT!!! I finally did it! And yes, I did scream like a little girl. I think it had something to do with watching the Olympics at the same time.

Yes...I know how pathetic I am...but if you don't celebrate the little things, where's the fun in life?

A Computer Blessing

Thank goodness for blogs and Facebook. I know it's kind of lame, but because of awesome computer-ness, I feel like I'm still very close to a lot of people who are far away. I just reconnected with some old roommates and discovered old inside jokes never die. I can also see my family who live far away and watch their cute kids grow up. Thank you to the computer and internet gods! :)