"I made a discovery this weekend. I discovered that Domino's pizza is delicious when you're drunk on malt liquor."--16 year old in freshman math class
Freshman science class in response to science teacher talking about chemical bonds:
"Bond, what's a bond?" "James Bond!" "007!" "I love James Bond!"
"I was driving on the highway, and my contact fell out, so of course I stick it under my tongue and kept driving...."--4th grade teacher telling a story at lunch
In Junior high after school film club, making a film about zombies. The film is a mockumentary about zombie research, and the teacher asked the junior high students to shout out potential interviewees:
"A zombie!" "A zombie doctor!" "Someone who was bitten by a zombie!" "A JEW!"
"So on Thanksgiving day, we'll have our sons over, and their 2, MAYBE 3, girlfriends with them."
-7th grade English teacher trying to set me up with her 35 year old son while the 7th graders listen in
"No Joe! You can't play deaf! Whenever you play deaf, the story can't move along!"
-After school teacher to high school drama student who was leading improv games for the junior high kids. His character was driving a car, picked up a hitchhiker, and she started singing Christmas carols. He started doing "sign language" to sing along.
So I guess you could say I was thoroughly entertained over the past week and a half. Even though the junior high kids sometimes drive me absolutely crazy, they still manage to make me laugh a lot, perhaps even when I shouldn't be laughing.
My big project now is PROJECT: BERNARDA. She's the new freshman with zero English. I am working with her one period a day solely on practicing English and working on her homework, in addition to sitting in on her classes to help her then. I'm really invested in helping her to get better with her English, though I've also been getting frustrated because she sometimes seems to let her extreme shyness get in the way of her retaining information. I ask "how are you" every day, and while she's getting better at responding (usually "good"), more often than not she just smiles and puts her head down, saying that she forgot. I don't believe that she actually forgot, but whatever. She is definitely getting better. I had Liz ambush her the other day and ask her what her name was, and she answered correctly after some hesitation. Progress.
Tuesday, the 17th, we had our americorps-organized family cooking and healthy food night at Morton high school. One girl came. So we just ate the food. The next night, the Mossyrock junior high cooking club made dinner for their parents. We had about 30 people. Not sure what the secret was there, but we're going to try the health night again, perhaps at Mossyrock and Morton on different nights.
Monday night of this week, we had our Migrant Parents night, and family math night. That turned out to be a success as well. Basically the program is federally funded, and the money goes toward organizing migrant families in the community, ultimately with the intention of being more connected with the school and organizing events to practice math and literacy skills. This is the first year of the program in Mossyrock, so it's been somewhat slow; the next meeting of parents isn't until March, though I'm hoping there will be a reading or literacy night organized before then. It was really nice meeting the parents of elementary kids I've been working with.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, it's practically here. We're having a big bash at one of the americorps houses, complete with tons of food, wine, and a massive fort made out of blankets and pillows. Liz and I also made pilgrim hats and Indian feathers out of construction paper (while watching ELF), so it's going to be festive. And once that's over, it's the Christmas season!!!!!
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