My Life 2007

I was going to write a Christmas letter this year, but ran out of motivation. It still was fun looking through pictures of the year, remembering all that I did this past year. Here is a tidbit of my life from 2007.

In February, my parents and I stayed in a cabin in near Yosemite. Not much snow, but it was beautiful!

In March, we had a windy trip to Death Valley.

In June, I graduated!


In July, I was the maid of honor in Ashley's wedding.

In August, my family went to Canada.

In August, I started my first job as a teacher!

In December, I was "the lady at the well" in the Bethlehem.

Bethlehem!!!

The first night of Bethlehem is over! It was amazing to see it all come together after working on it so long. It's interesting to never have been on the outside of it... I know all the people and sets and so I wonder a little bit how it is for spectators.

Thank God that it didn't rain too much. It was muddy, but we could do our performances in the light sprinkle just fine. I remembered all my lines without flaw (whew!). I think I have the best job in the show. I have a few lines, which makes me feel important, but after that I'm not stuck in a booth so I was able to watch the show, work in a couple of booths, dance the Jewish circle dance, and wander around enjoying it all.

One Day to Go

I wonder at the functionality of my smoke alarms. I can see the smoke in my room from my burnt (and yet so tasty) chicken.

Bethlehem dress rehearsal is in an hour!!! I forgot my lines at the tech rehearsal yesterday. I just get too nervous! I found out one of my students is going to come one of the nights. What, oh what, did I get myself into? Thursday and Friday are forecasted as rainy, so please pray for a miracle! We cannot have rain. And I have a field trip Friday where we are walking and it cannot be canceled. Times like these I don't like the rain so much. Bethlehem looks absolutely amazing. I am so excited, worried, and nervous!

I was dead at school today and my kids were so good.

I Despise Report Cards

I think 2nd graders try to torture their teacher when she is sick.

I made a kid cry today. He says I am a mean teacher. Mwa ha ha.

I have a word of the day. Today's word of the day is "custom." Willy insisted that the word of the day was "crap." We had a talk.

Yay, class!

I was so thrilled with my class today. I had my first formal observation with by principal today and my kids have never been as good as they were today. Twas fabulous.

Yesterday I went to an autism conference. Interesting fact of the day: In 1990, 1:10,000 kids had autism. In 2007, 1:250 have it. Be afraid. Something is wrong with the world right now.

It's going to be a busy with weekend with Bethlehem set-up and practice and then report cards.

My life is so complex. Everyone's is, and I forget that. There are so many different parts of my life that add up to "me" and sometimes it is hard to put all those pieces together. I am looking through all my pictures on my computer right now because I want to print a couple, and it is so fun remembering everything and realizing that I have so many experiences and people that have shaped who I am right now.

I feel joyful right now. And thankful.

This past week I only taught two days because I had trainings and a holiday the other three. Friday was fun because we learned about Chinese culture and I have a kid from China who helped me a lot -- he wrote numbers and words, shared a game from China, and brought food to share. I was so sad that I forgot my camera!

Yesterday I went to another Bethlehem work day. I laid paving stones and climbed up on a high ladder to screw in dowels. That was fun. :) At these work days I'm thankful for the many projects I have helped my family with--I know how to climb a ladder, shovel, and use a power drill--and so I feel slightly useful.

Last night Thomas cooked a Thanksgiving dinner and I spent the night with Ashley and him.

Tonight I am going to San Francisco to give blankets and jackets to the homeless. It's going to be a late night, but I only have two days of school to make it through, so I think it will be okay.

A Wonderful Weekend

I love my church. I made a goal to finish all my work last week before the weekend, which I succeeded in, and I had a fabulous weekend. Friday night a small group of us re-painted the room we used for Hallowed and then went to Comedy Sportz, an improv show in downtown San Jose. Sooo fun.

Saturday I went to school for an hour (oops I forgot... I almost finished all my work) and then went to Bethlehem work day. I really do love hauling heavy things around. There is something satisfying in it. My arms are sooooooo sore today, though! Then I went to Ashley's and hung out with her family, who is visiting.

Today I went to church, then to pizza with Ashley's family. At 4pm I had a class called "Hearing from God" and then I went to the evening service. Then Impact (my college/career group) went to Danjela's house (who is from Bosnia) and we ate Bosnian food (which was delicious), talked a lot, and played games. !!!

EARTHQUAKE!

A 5.6 earthquake shook San Jose while I was at Bible study tonight! It was the longest one I have felt in a long time. The chandelier was swinging and the pictures on the wall moved a tiny bit, but nothing else.

I was at school for 14 hours yesterday, but today I had "healthy play" training and so I had a sub. Happy almost Halloween! (I keep forgetting that it is tomorrow since my school is celebrating on Friday.)

Hallowed & Bethlehem

I will tell you about some of the events that I have been busy with through church:

Hallowed (if you are confused by this description, just skip to the next paragraph):

Tonight there is an event called Hallowed. It's kind of hard to explain, but it will be a night of music and art with the theme of "sanctuary" that is an outreach in Downtown San Jose. The building is an old dilapidated youth center that I love because I love old buildings that are falling apart. On Tuesday we painted two little rooms and installed lights and doorbells and such and last night we brought in furniture and decorations. The people are going to enter the first room, which is all black with a black light. On the wall is written, "have you ever felt lonely? If so, write your name." and they write their name with yellow highlighter (which is really fun, I think). The idea is that everybody has lonliness. On another wall, it says "if you are alone, push this button." So they push it, and it is a doorbell and we are inside another room that is decorated like a living room with Happy Birthday stuff and we sing happy birthday to them (we know their name because someone on the outside greets them with a wireless mic) and they blow out the candle on a cake. The idea is that sanctuary is a place where you are accepted, like a birthday party. It's a little complicated, and I'm excited to see what happens tonight.

My college/career group is in charge of just one room -- there are lots of different groups involved in this event.

Bethlehem

Each year, my church does an event called "Bethlehem" where they turn our church parking lot into Bethelehem. It looks amazing. go to: www.bethlehemsc.com. Our church isn't that big, so I'm amazed at the size of this production. This was the first day of construction and I went to help from 9-2. Everything is in big trailers all year in pieces so they just have to put it all together (I say "just," but it is an enormous task.) I had the job of shoveling dirt to fill in around where they recently poured concrete. My arms are jello now. It was so good to be working with people, to be doing something physical, and to be outside. I thought a lot about family work days... building fences and roofs and gardens. It was funny to me that a guy my age had never shoveled before, because I think I have done a fair share of shoveling in my life. I think the day would have been more perfect if Cindy had been there calling for cookie breaks every so often. :)

So if you want to come visit me sometime, you should come December 6-10 and see the Bethlehem performance. I think I'm going to either be a greeter or in the marketplace. I hope I'm in the marketplace. Sounds more fun.

Reality Check

I forgot.

I came to school today going through the motions of teaching, reminding a student for the fourth time that he really needs to bring his book back from home. I forgot that some students don't have a home.

I stayed after school for three hours with a crying mom and her two kids, one of which is in my class. She got kicked out of her friend's house, where she was staying. It's raining outside. I hope they are okay.

I forgot to smile today, to welcome my students into a classroom that is theirs.

Learning About Ancestors

Most my students are 1st or 2nd generation Americans. It was fun to see where everyone's families came from! Look at the map we made:I thought this picture was cute. Every week we have an estimation jar and one person is assigned to count the objects. You can tell he is one of my lower math students because he didn't group the sticks. Very colorful, though!

Moss Landing

Yesterday was perfect. My mom and dad are staying at a bed-and-breakfast for their anniversary and they invited me to join them for the day in Moss Landing. It was a beautiful day of much-needed time outdoors and with my family.

Their bed-and-breakfast was the cutest thing ever. There were old boats everywhere -- the deck was an old boat, the planter was an old boat, the bed was on top of an old boat!

First we kayaked in the Elkhorn Slough.

Info for Mom and Dad from Wikipedia:
In the western U.S., a slough is a secondary channel of a river delta or a narrow channel in a shallow salt-water marsh, usually flushed by the tide. While this is in essence the same application of the term as used in the eastern U.S., a singular difference is that there exist no native trees in the west that would grow out into the waterway to form a swamp, such as the Elkhorn Slough. An estuary is a semi-enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea.
So who was right?

It was amazing! Otters (who have 1 million hairs per square inch on their body) played all around us and we could hear and see them cracking open shells with rocks. An enormous sea lion swam near us. Harbor seals were everywhere (one was zooming through the water like a speedboat). I felt like I was watching a Discovery Channel special on ocean wildlife, except it was all right there!

My mom tried to convince me that our kayak would not tip over. I was enjoying watching some pelicans, and next thing I know, my kayak is upside down and I am in the water (luckily with a wetsuit on -- no such luck for my dad). He says it was his fault, but I really don't know what happened. All I know is there was a harbor seal that was definitely laughing at us.

We ate lunch in Monterey at Bubba Gump's and ate lots of shrimp. Then we drove back to Moss Landing and took a walk on the beach. I have never loved the beach so much. It was like seeing home after a long time away from it. We took a nice walk and then explored (got lost, imho) the area around Moss Landing, which I think is so strange because there is farmland right next to the ocean. It's like Bakersfield meets Morro Bay. We watched sunset on the Salinas River. We ate clam chowder at Phil's Fish Market and then watched the stars from their room.

Overall, a lovely lovely day.

Stinky

I heard of an experiment where you put a bean in a wet paper towel and then it will sprout. My class tried it, and it worked, but it was the smelliest thing ever! All the kids had their noses in their shirts as they were trying to write a 10-sentence description of their germinated bean. Hahaha.

Vocabulary word of the day: Autumn

It is October which means I'm allowed to drink spiced cider. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Here are some pictures from my classroom that I took today:

















The fast plants are making seed pods, but the fire marshal came by today and said I had to turn the lights off at night, so we'll see how they suffer.

Math Monkeys

It's so interesting to see the kids on the laps of their parents during conferences. They are so small. When they're in class, they don't seem as young or small to me because I only compare them with each other.

Lori gave me magnetic monkeys a while back. I'm so glad the principal didn't walk by during math today because I had kids throwing monkeys at the white board to demonstrate word problems. :) All the kids were paying attention!

I'm Back!

Hope you all found your way back to this blog.

I went mini-golfing last night and now I'm tired!

Parent/teacher conferences weren't what I had been dreading. I just showed them some of their kids' stuff and told them a few things they needed to do at home.

Day of Rest

I got home from school at 8:00 last night. I was in bed by 8:15, woke up at 6 and ate breakfast, then went back to bed and slept til 8. I'm tired!

It was a good week this week. I had a substitute for Thursday and half of Friday because I had BTSA and RIS (Reading Intervention Specialist) meetings. Our staff took over a Mexican restaurant for happy hour yesterday. :)

Learning From Mistakes

I learned yesterday that I need to know what I'm doing with my students in the afternoon and not cram in random things and then get mad because they are loud (probably because they don't know what they're supposed to be doing). Today was much better. It was a lovely day, actually. We played math games and looked at our plants and read some stories. I had two parent complaints today, though. What do they think I am, superwoman?

I also learned yesterday to read directions. I was starving so I came home and made this weird pork dish that I bought the ingredients for. I got to the last line that said "simmer for 1 hour" and was very disappointed.

Pictures of Fast Plants

Watering the seeds:
Observing fast plant seedlings:

Oh, so cute!

Aren't You Jealous?

Peter Yarrow kissed my hand. (Okay, Steven, I know you don't care.) I saw him in a little mini-concert, mostly directed towards kids. You had to buy his Puff the Magic Dragon book at an independent bookstore in San Jose or go to the school that was being dedicated to get into the concert and afterwards he signed them. I went with Joanne's parents. So fun!

I'm not moving!

Rumors were astir that I might have to move classrooms, but we found out today that they are moving the staff room, not me, to put in the new kindergarten. Hooray!!!

The fast plants are growing and they are so cute!

Fried Rice Failure

I bought sesame oil so that I could make fried rice like my mom. I failed miserably and burnt the pan.

I bought a book that I'm really excited to read and have had time to get to page 5. From Through Painted Deserts:
"...everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. All my life I have been changing. I changed form a baby to a child, from a soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons."
--Donald Miller

Back to School Night was last night. It was okay, but it really made me feel inadequate and afterwards I just felt so bad for my poor students who are being hauled through this year of chaos with me. So I decided to go to Bible study even though I would be late because it's not healthy for me to go home and sit in my room and think unpleasant thoughts. I'm glad I went because afterward we played a slightly different version of King Jabba, which is the best game on Earth. I left at 11:00. I feel like a Sim. I can't get all those little happiness bars green. If I spend time working on my social bar, my sleep bar turns red and this a problem because I can't focus on writing anymore. Poor little worn out eyeballs.

We planted our seeds yesterday and the kids were really good at following the directions. My dad made a fancy light hooky together thing so I have 3 plant boxes all lined up. I hope they germinate soon!

I'm almost done testing the reading levels of all my kids. They range from level 3 (beginning of 1st grade "I can eat. The dog is brown.") to level 28 (end of 3rd grade level, think Harry Potter). It's like the old-fashioned one room school except they are all about the same height.

I am rock, I am an iiiiiiisland

"In vain have you acquired knowledge
if you have not imparted it to others."
-- my fortune cookie

I'm listening to Simon and Garfunkle and let me tell you, you should too.

Just to let you know, I love my kids.

:)

Woe is me

It's 10:00 and once again I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow. Ahhhhhhhhh! This job is ridiculous... who signed me up for this?

On a brighter note, I had a pretty good day with my kids today. I got a few shirts and a washcloth and a toothbrush holder at Kohl's and I met another girl at Bible study.

I made it!

Joanne drew this on our white board:


My first day of school was good. My class was well behaved (and so cute). My student with autism is pretty funny. I was so nervous the night before, but once the kids got there it was pretty fun. We had a pretty laid-back day. The principal walked in while they were silently doing an assessment (yeah for good timing) and so overall it was a good day. I definitely have a few challenging students. It was very hot today and I let the class vote on whether they wanted me to take them out for P.E. (I prefaced it with an explanation of how hot it was outside...very hot) and so we stayed inside.

I went to Bible study tonight and twas good, but now I have to figure out what I'm doing tomorrow. I feel like my "things to do" just keeps getting bigger and bigger and I feel like I can hardly plan a day but am expected to plan a whole year.


Here's my beautiful class:

This is What a Church Should Be.

I received this email today:

"Kimberly,

I'm the woman you sat next to at worship last Sunday morning at Santa Clara First Baptist. I got your email address from one of the leaders of the Impact group. I wanted to let you know that I'm praying for you as you start up your first official day of teaching tomorrow. I would imagine it can be scary and exciting at the same time. My prayer for you is that God will give you wisdom beyond your years to understand the needs of each of your students, that He'll empower you to be the teacher who can meet those needs, and that your life will have profound impact in the lives of many for eternity.

May God bless you and your fellow teachers and staff at Scott Lane."

Los Gatos Presentation Center

I just got back from my "Scott Lane Family [Staff] Retreat." It was absolutely beautiful there and I think it was the first time that I slowed down and breathed in 2 weeks. Maybe I'll save up $160 and go back some weekend when I need a break. It was good to get to know the staff a little better. I roomed with another girl who went to Cal Poly and student taught in Cambria the year before I did with the same teachers.

Tuesday only gets closer, doesn't it?

Piles and Post-its

My car is becoming a post-it note display case. I have directions to about a dozen different places.

We had a fabulous speaker this morning and then a boring, super-long speaker this afternoon. (I escaped and went to lie at the pool at one point.)

In case I forget, this is why I'm a teacher: I care about kids. So remind me of that when I get caught up in a tornado of paper.

I think I'm supposed to read this before next Tuesday:

Let's Go Fly a Kite

I've spontaneously decided to have kites as the theme of my classroom. Time I should have been using planning lessons (which I have done none of) I spent cutting out letters to spell "Flying to new heights in 2nd grade" on construction paper kites. I really hope they fit along my wall.

I met my BTSA support provider today and she is really nice and, well, supportive. She works at a different school because there weren't enough experienced teachers at my school, but I'm really happy to have her there for whatever help I need.

I just read an update from the Wadleys in South Africa. They visited a school where the primary grades are overflowing with 50-60 students in a class. And I'm sure they don't have fancy shmancy white boards, computers, headphones, and construction paper kites. I'm thankful for my school and can't imagine the stress of going into a situation like that.

And They Thought They Hired a Teacher....

When I got the key to my classroom, I spent an incredibly long time simply wandering around, staring at things, and wondering why Cal Poly never offered a class in "How to Set Up Your Classroom." Doesn't seem tricky, but believe me, it is. Today was the 4th day in my classroom. I was there from 8am to 7pm today and still haven't arranged the desks.

Overwhelmed was an understatement for my first few days. My apartment is still piled with half-unpacked boxes, but at least my classroom is getting somewhere.

So far, I love my school. The staff is very young and friendly and supportive and it has been fun getting to know them a bit. The bilingual 2nd grade teacher is also named Kimberly and she is a new teacher too. Half of the teachers are new to the school this year!

My school has adopted a lot of very new teaching techniques to help our English Learners, and I'm very excited about it. However, I have a stack of books on my bed that is larger than all the books I read in college combined that I'm supposed to have read by a week from Tuesday. :) The more I get done, the more I realize that there is still a lot to do.

I've been informed that I have one autistic student, and because of this the rest of my students are supposed to be the calmer students of the grade, which is a blessing.

I was going to give up coffee when I came up here. Not going to happen.