Saturday, May 15, 2010

Still counting down till Memorial Day....

It's kind of amazing how much my attitude about this year coming to a close has changed in the last week. Now I am so ready for it to be over. From the horrible 7th grader who is trying to make me a victim of junior high bitch-politics by turning some of my favorite kids against me for no reason, to the utter waste of time school seems to be during a month of state testing, to stress from planning "Jumpstart your Health" without having any idea how it will actually go, I'm ready to fast forward to June.

For some reason, the system for state testing involves dragging it out for about 3 weeks, as opposed to getting it all done in a few days like I remember doing in middle and high school. As a result, it doesn't feel like anything is getting done in junior high classes. The science class has been watching Avatar, while supposedly working on a project (I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that if you put this movie on and turn the lights out, 7th graders are NOT going to be focused and gung ho about getting a project about plate tectonics completed to perfection). Not quite sure what the teacher's logic is here, but given how low many of the kids' grades are, I'm sure they could use a more conducive working environment in order to put a good effort into this assignment. The English teacher was gone all of this week, meaning all the class did was watch a movie, and more importantly I had to deal with increasingly restless junior high kids without any backup all week. I'm pretty conflicted about the remaining 2 weeks of after school program; my main concern is having a good handful of the kids on board to be at the health night.

Every time I go to Portland it gets harder to leave, especially when it's 75 degrees and sunny. Last night we went down to hang out and see a show (which ended up being really weird but it was still a fun night). This morning we went to the Saturday market, walked around, bought PUPUSAS, and lounged in the sun. Furthermore, the "Doggie Dash" was just wrapping up as we arrived (some sort of dog-walking 5k or something), so there were hundreds of dogs walking around. I'm looking forward to spending many long hours at the Saturday Market next year when I am an official Portland resident. I still have 3 months to secure a job, and I think I can do it...

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