Being Loved

Sometimes I really like my other school, and today was one of those days. There is a teacher who teaches 5th grade, and she is like my favorite her class is one of the most well behaved and well mannered classes anywhere. I enjoy working with them, I feel most of the time that I have them right in the palm of my hand eating every word I give them. It is an awesome feeling. Today I was teaching them a fun line dance I learned to Thriller, yes Thriller. I thought it would be a great treat because the kids are all obsessed with Michael Jackson. All of the classes enjoyed the dance. While I was eating lunch this one teacher was talking to me and she told me how she had told her class how lucky they were to have me, because I guess the other guy wasn't very good (maybe thats why he was a sub and he didn't last the whole year). She told me that she can tell I am a very good teacher. I hope I can live up to that, but it makes me feel happy and appreciated when teachers tell me such things. I enjoyed finally having my own room at my other school. Yes it finally happened, well I have half of my room, they just condensed the huge book mess to half the room, because it is a rather large room. The first day was kind of interesting because there were no chairs, so I had to improvise because the 7th and 8th graders would have had a fit if they had to sit on the ground. I was pulling out piano benches from the digital pianos, random stools and then some of risers. I felt at that moment that I truly was in the ghetto working with highly underprivileged students. So yeah it is good to feel needed, gives you the boost to make it through the day before Halloween!

Mi Familia

I love my family, they are absolutely amazing! I will post more of my trip after I finish getting all of the pictures, oh how I also love digital cameras. So this past weekend was a ton of fun. We started off saturday morning with a breakfast with the Riding family. I love spending time with the fam. Then on Sunday morning my cousin Ethan gave his talk in church before leaving on his mission aka missionary farewell. It was fun to see a lot of the Jones side of the family. My sisters came home just for sunday to see ethan talk in church. Afterwards they were going through closets looking for halloween costumes and other dress up stuff for EAC's spirit week this week. We got a little crazy as sisters do and it was just tons of fun. We hadn't really done anything like that for a while and it was so much fun to be super goofy! I got to see all of my babies this week and just spent part of the night holding Treyson (my adorable new nephew) and playing with his older sister Cali who I love so much. Abby is turning one soon which is crazy from what she was a year ago. You sometimes forget how small she was because she is not small anymore! Well it's bedtime and I will post florida stuff as soon as I can! No promises.

I heart my ghetto kids!

Let me start of with a CAUTION! This post will contain some language, if I were to edit the language it would take away from the story, and in all honesty it is not offensive in the context of my story.

This week there was the quarterly district testing know as the AzAC, I forgot what exactly it stands for, but anyways on wednesday all the teachers got together to grade the writing portion of the test. As we were sitting in the cafeteria grading, one of the teachers started freaking out about what she was reading. I became very curious as to what she was "Oh My Gosh"ing. She let us read it, and the paper went a little something like this, and I forgot what the prompt was for the paper.

The teacher told us she had a shit for us to work on. We worked hard on our shit. The substitute told us that our teacher had some shit for us to work on.

I was like wow, this student must not like going to school, but then another teacher read the paper and she thinks the student was meaning to say sheet. Yay for my ghetto English Language Learners, who knew that i could make the same sound as ee?

Ok no more issues, just more funny stories!

That was exhibit a, now here is exhibit b. On my lovely id i get to wear, and I have a different picture on each id for my two schools. One of my students said "Miss Jones, you used to be really tan" How I wish I were still that tan.

My final story of the evening and it is my favorite so far. So we are about to start week 9 and at the school I am at 2 days out of the 6 day cycle I still don't have my room. It is full of textbooks from a barcoding activity that was supposed to be completed in July. So I have been teaching in the art room and trying to come up with fun things to do with the kids in the art room until I get my room, which is a really nice big room that I would love to utilize! Anyways last week the 8th graders were being punks like 8th graders like to do (let me tell you jr high general music is interesting because they have to be there, it isn't an elective like I'm used to) I told them that I was upset I didn't have my room yet and I could tell that they really weren't liking what we were doing. I am trying my hardest, but I am about out of ideas what to do with them. So anyways later on that day after I sent my principal my lesson plans for next week, she sent me an email saying that she wanted to see me sometime that afternoon. I was little scared thinking I had to fix my lesson plans or something. When I went to go talk to her it was about what had happened earlier in the day. Some of the students went and told her I was unhappy I didn't have my room and she asked me if that were true and I told her yes. There isn't much more I could do, and I asked her if there was anything I could do to get my room. She told me that she had some parents scheduled to come work on the room. We will see what happens when I go back there in the morning, I am still planning on being in the art room because I don't want to get my hopes up!

Woohoo!

This past week was pretty fun and very busy. Legally Blonde was hilarious, there were some parts and innuendos that aren't necessarily needed but some think they are! It is always fun to go to the theater. I love people watching and going to the theater is a great place to do such things. The population of Arizona is rather quite diverse state, and when you go to such places you witness that. There was a lady sitting on our row who reminded me of Edna Mode from the Incredibles, except her glasses frames her square not round and she had white hair, but everything else was about the same. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear her talk. I laughed to myself a little.



I "officially" graduated friday night and that was fun. Walking kind of helped close that chapter of my life. I am done with school for now and probably a long time. I got to meet the president of my school who I had really never heard of and I haven't taken any classes there for a year now since I was student teaching a year ago and then we sang the Alma Mater. The ceremony was nice, there were about 120 getting their Bachelors and about 100 Masters so it wasn't too horribly long and it was at a really nice Baptist church in Phoenix. The bad thing is I sat next to a guy that was a little bigger and a smoker, so I was starting to die towards the end. We then went to Culvers to get some custard. Abigail had ice cream for the first time and it was so cute. She was unsure of it at first but then she wanted more.

Random thoughts

I have had a bunch of random thoughts in my head. First off I will be back in Florida in less than a month for a much needed visit. People laugh at our family for our countdowns to disney, but it is my second home and it is time to go back for a visit. My cousin and I are going to have a blast, even though she has she might have other reasons for her trip that might be discussed at a later time.

I miss driving my red mini van soccer mom car for festivals. They were really fun to drive and I miss Stitch and Mickey, thats how we distinguished between the two. It wouldn't be bad to drive one someday.

Sadly my social life was better in Florida, I think part of that is in the ward we are all kind of forced to make friends because we don't know anyone and thats how we roll. My ward is kind of in a funk right now, I'm trying to do the best I can, but its hard.

Continuing with my social funk and longing to be back in florida I pass by the airport everyday on my way to and from work. I just want to go jump on one. Don't get me wrong I enjoy my job it is tons of fun, there is tons to explore. I think I might have like a post disney depression or something.

My nieces are super adorable and keep getting cuter and cuter and I can't wait for my nephew to arrive, only a couple more weeks.

Next week is going to be tons of fun. Me and some of my cousins are mini subscription holders for the broadway season at gammage. Thei first show is next week and we are seeing Legally Blonde. We are also going to see Phanton, Annie and Marry Poppins. I'm so excited that I have a job so that I can do fun things like that. Also next week I am officially graduating from college. I get to attend Ottawa's graduation ceremony. I missed the one back in April and they are allowing me to walk. I paid my $100 graduation fee, I'm going to walk and get my cap and gown and all the hoopla associated with it, just so that it really feels official that I did all that work!

I love watching "Toddlers and Tiaras" on TLC. The pageant moms crack me up, most of these mothers are living vicariously through their daughters. They should just have a pageant for all the old crazy ladies to live out their dreams!

I think thats enough random thoughts for the day. Enjoy!

End of Summer :(

Since Labor Day has now come and gone, and school has been in for a few weeks, summer is now over (it doesn't really feel that way outside very much). The past couple weeks have been tons of fun and very crazy! My cousin who got married and moved up to Canada and then had a baby came down to surprise her mom for her birthday. It was fun seeing her, her husband and their adorable baby. He is really cute but my niece is still the most adorable thing ever! We'll see what happens when my nephew gets here in about 5 weeks. We got together to celebrate my grandpas birthday and it was a blast to hang out with the whole Jones family.

I love 3 day weekends! It was so nice to not have to go to work today. I could have gone out of town to the cabin or Sedona, but I decided to just stay home and chill. It has been so nice to sit home and get stuff done. We cleaned off the back porch and reclaimed it from all of the spiders and who knows what else was living there. We also discovered that our neighbors peacock has made a nest in the very back of the yard. I don't that if it has eggs they would be fertilized so we will see what happens.

On saturday was the grand opening of the newly renovated Rhodes pool. The facility is gorgeous, a major improvement from what it was, it isn't going to be the lame boring pool it used to be, now that it has the flow rider. I talked my dad into riding the flow rider, I figured it would be good publicity for the Vice Mayor to ride it don't you think, especially after the little speech he gave! It was tons of fun to ride on it again because I got to go to paid training thursday night to learn how to use it so that the lifeguards can teach others how to use it. I think I'm addicted, it is so much fun. You can go boogie boarding with out getting sand everywhere!

That is pretty much all there is to my life right now. Work is still going well, it can be interesting at times but I'll survive. We'll see what adventures come my way this week!



Hopefully my dad doesn't kill me for posting these pictures, but I just had to, they are awesome!

Out of the Mouth of Babes

My mother has been watching kids at our house for I don't know how long. Yesterday I walk into the house after work and one of the mothers is there picking up her I think 11 month old and this wonderful 6 year old who loves to ask questions asks the following question about the baby.
L- "Does she know how to talk yet"
Mother - "Not quite yet, She can say things like dada"
L - "Can she say Mozart?"
Mother "No not yet!"

I was dying laughing. When we told his mother (who is an orchestra teacher) when she came to get him, she started laughing. She was really excited that he remembers such things.