Can't live with them...

I teach high school. Which means I spend much of my time with 15- to 18-year-olds. And some days it's a little rough. They can be rude, disrespectful, spacey, irresponsible, lazy, and overall incredibly frustrating.

However, they can also be delightful. And on days that are tough for other reasons (like today) they always seem to come through for me.

I've been super tired because I keep staying up to watch the Olympics. And for the last few days I've had a really sore neck and shoulders which has transferred to a constant headache--and it's all starting to wear on me. So this morning I tried to avoid looking like death warmed over by putting a flower clip in my hair.

At the beginning of 3rd period as I was trying to get them settled down and focused, a student raised her hand. I really didn't want to take the question as I was trying to get class started, but decided I ought to since she'd gone to the trouble of raising her hand. This is what I got:

Student: Madame, I enjoy your flower.

It's amazing how one little moment can make me feel better. :) And as the cherry on top, the choir proceeded to work very hard and learn an entire new song -- in French! -- in one class period. Good stuff.

And here's a little love from last week. About a week ago we went on choir tour to San Diego. It was tons of fun and totally exhausting. And I came back to this letter written on the white board by my Chamber students who didn't come on tour.

**Warning--it's a little ridiculous! I left misspellings etc. intact so you can get the full affect. I did, however, break it into paragraphs to make it more readable. Just imagine all of it written on a white board--the text size got progressively smaller toward the end. :)

Dear Ms. (soon to be Mrs.) Thorne-
We hope that you had fun kissing your boyfriend in front of Shamooo. Meanwhile, your favorite students...CHAMBER...found out where you lived and duct taped your roommates to a wall and force fed them sourkraut (from J-Dawgs) with a funnel. The only way they could make the dreadful torture stop, was to tell us your age. Your rommates are no longer with us...So when you go home to your apartment, expect 500 chainsaws to be sitting on your bed...So we ordered pizza (my favorite) while you were on your adventure, and unfortunately didn't leave any extra for you...Sorry...

so we have a confession...we stole the chairs in Capella (yes I said Capella). We hid them in your soul...

So we have a story to share with you while you were away in Califor-ni-A. So. While we were watching The Sound of Music in B3 a devil spirit came over Kyle's body and he all of a sudden broke Anthony's right femur, comm__tive fracture!! Paul was the only eye-witness to this tragic catastrophe, and in his anger toward Kyle, got on a rainbow colored fluffy unicorn named Buffy and gauged Buffy's horn into Kyle's earlobe. Spencer was in the corner of the room giggling to himself, blowing bubbles and breathing in helium. Just then Cody & Jessica came walking in discussing the welfare and composure of toothpicks (a hot button issue in Congress @ the present moment). The sub was tied to his chair with Kyle's spare floss, while the movie Chuckie was rampaging the TV screen, a favorite of the THS film lit class.

Finally, the chaos was too much for Cody and Jessica to handle the situation any longer, so they pulled both their wands out and revealed themselves. Cody was really Harry Potter and Jessica really was Hermione!! Were you expecting that?!!? In unison, both yelled, "Expelliormus!!" and Voldemort appeared! It was really Spencer all along! Whoda thought! The bubbles Spencer was blowing were magical acidic bubbles, that would make any spell evil. So unfortunately Jessica and Cody were of no use to the side of goodness.

Murphy was our only hope, and he came bursting into the scene (he had a "feeling" he should come). His new found energy from losing weight (and his training from Jackie Chan) granted him the power to sing a unreal high pitches. He sang so high and so loud that everything in the room turned into...string cheese!

All we want to say is that we miss and love our Mama T!!! Never leave your kids again!!

P.s. you got married on choir tour...to Shamooo!!! Your boyfriend wasn't good enough!



Yep. They may drive me crazy some days, but then I read that last sentence before the p.s. and realize I don't know what I'd do without them. :-)