Mira Mira on the Wall...

...what is the data you can recall?  It seems that writing a blog for fun is easier said than done as school projects and thoughts are becoming the norm these days.  The good news is my math class is really starting to blow my mind with some of the things in which we are being introduced. 

Thing #1:  www.gapminder.org   NOTE .ORG not .COM

This website allows you to graph out a rather random amount of data collected over the past 10 - 100 years.  Want to know the correlation between number of cups of coffee drunk per person vs. the economic output for any country?  This is the place.  Want to know if the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a lollipop changes depending on the country you are in?  This might not be the place, but you never know with Gapminder!!  With the amount of data collected and organized on this website one has to wonder what the relevance of the data means.  The data sets lead to multiple questions, which lead to multiple hypotheses, which lead to more cups of coffee.  Bottom line - it is a start to getting information in front of students. 

Thing #2:  The old fashioned mira!!

If you are like me, you LOVE beach volleyball, AND you had never heard of a mira before.  Our professor dropped one of these in front of me in class last week and I felt like I was at the police station again looking through a two way mirror (the good side).  It was a red tinted flat piece of plastic that resembled one of the flat winged fighter planes from Starwars.  The wings held up the body of the tinted plastic and allowed for a reflection back and line of sight through.  Meaning if you had a circle on a piece of paper you could line up the reflection back with the circle still seen through the plastic and you would have yourself the line of symmetry.  It was awesome!  I immediately went and bought myself one so I could go home and show my wife my face is symmetrical, just like her favorite actor Denzel Washington!

So how can I use these in the classroom? 
Fair question.  Gapminder has so many possibilities of data that I would introduce the site to my class and ask them to come up with data and some thoughts about what the numbers mean.  It would lead to some great class dialogue and then maybe even further to a small research project.  As for the mira, any lesson on congruency would be horribly hampered without one. 

Since it has been a while since we've had a funny for the day, here you go:

How is duck tape like the force?

It has a dark side, a light side, and it binds the universe together!

Final Analysis of 4th Grade Student

The following is my final thoughts on my 4th grader.  Thanks to all who commented on my ideas.  They were all greatly appreciated.

I was lucky enough to have three little birdies chirping over my shoulder the past couple of days.  I felt like Uncle Remus whistling with the butterflies as he walked down the dirt path – carefree and ready for life. 

Then, like Uncle Remus, I realized I live in American society and the boundary lines for what we can and cannot do have already been drawn.  Meaning Uncle Remus was an African American living in the south and I am a student teacher who wants to think outside the box.  Luckily the little birdies were there to steer me towards an idea that came from….our textbook….yuck!  That idea is something called the “Optimal Learning Model” designed by Reggie Routman, a self proclaimed master of the reading arts.  This model takes Vygotsky’s ideas and puts them to work in 4 main parts:  Teacher modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and finally application of the strategy.  The big question is how I could fit this sumptuous model into my lesson plan.  Here’s how:

The teacher brings in a 10 word list of his own and with ideas from the students creates a quick 2 paragraph creative story using each of the words on the list.  Once the draft is complete the teacher rereads the story out loud looking for any choppy sentence flow as well as grammatical errors. 

To transition into guided practice, the teacher will hand out the 25 word list to the students.  He will take the top two words on the list and as a class they will come up with multiple ideas that can be progressed into a story.  Since “Carrot” and “Group” were two words my student misspelled consistently they can be used as an example here.  The teacher could say “What about a group of bunnies hopping along when they come upon a batch of carrots?”  The teacher would reread the sentence with the students so they understand the process of what they are about to do.

The transfer of responsibility would occur at this point when the teacher says “Game on!” and the students continue the process on their own.  The teacher walks around watching the progression of the creative ideas being written onto papers across the room, as well as answering any questions that might be asked.

The application of the strategy would come when they revise their drafts.

That would be an example of the Optimal Learning Model :(

Now that I have incorporated Ms. Routman into my lesson, I want to “redump” my thoughts about my student’s writing based on the eclectic samples I have been able to research.  I believed in his creativity because his original writing sample told me multiple times he was creative and loved art.  His story about talking dogs expressed his ability to write out his thoughts of a scene as it unfolds.  It felt like I was reading a screen play, “I told them I would put them back in their cage if they weren’t quiet.  I fell asleep.  When I woke up the birds only chirped…”  He was great at telling the reader what was happening at every moment in time.  At one point in the story he opened up by writing “Evan wanted to fly like the birds”.  It was the first, and only, time his creativity entered the realm of emotions going on inside his characters head.  He needed a LOT more of this to capture the reader’s attention.  I might be reading too much into this but it makes sense that for a student who is writing a scene involving continuously moving action, his brain might get a little ahead of itself.  He is always thinking of what is going to happen next and this distracts his brain from focusing on the conventions of the writing (spelling, structure, punctuation) that was going on the paper now.  This idea makes me feel better about forcing him to fit 25 correctly spelled words into a sentence.  I would make sure at least 10 of the words are adjectives that might push him to describe more of what is in the scene, as opposed to just what is going on in the scene. 

Looking forward, if I were the teacher for this student, I would add a lot of creative writing to the curriculum as the practice of writing will help him connect his ideas with examples.  I would also bring computer lab into the writing process because of the spell check feature of MS Word.  The more he types the more he’ll see corrections that need to be made.  Practice makes perfect and the more he is encourages to read and write, the more comfortable he’ll feel about showing off his work in front of others.  Being proud of his work would be the ultimate goal in any work we would do in the classroom for this student. 

Cheerio

All About Me (Literacy Blog)

I apologize folks again for my jump into school thoughts and ideas.  My Literacy class requires a brain dump of thoughts about an assignment and that is what you will read if you wish to continue.  And BTW, if you are a Steelers fan....booooo!!

My thoughts about my 4th grade student and his writing sample:

The first thing I notice about my student’s writing is the penmanship.  It isn’t perfect, in fact many teachers might say he needs a lot of work on it, but it is easily legible and very artsy.  You feel like you are reading graffiti on a New York wall.  There isn’t much on paper but you know there is a lot that is being said.  The title of his sample is “All About Me”, a prompt the 4^th grade class worked on to get the kids to write some ideas down about themselves.  The main points I picked up on from his writing is that:

1)      He is tremendously creative

2)      He loves art and is a good drawer

3)      He gets nervous when others look at his drawings

4)      Other teachers will tell you how good he is!

He begins and ends his sample with the line “Talk to (3^rd grade teacher) about me” and “You better talk to (3^rd grade teacher)”.  His entire writing sample is surrounded by a defense mechanism installed in case the reader doesn’t believe him.  We are told the 3^rd grade teacher will back up the story.  He wrote that he gets nervous when people see his drawings, but that “it doesn’t bother me”.  I’m not so sure he believes that quite yet.

His ideas and content are limited, but adequate for a sample about 150 words long.  He was able to hit the four main points above without any examples.  Therefore I shall not focus much on this trait.  Organization wise it is tough not to notice he writes on his page as if he is writing a poem.  Five stanzas, four to five lines each make up the page.  Each paragraph focuses on one of the main points, with the last one offering a summary.  His motivation for this writing sample seems to come from his love for art.  I look at some of his other writing and it all is neatly organized on the page.  The penmanship is legible, although uncontrolled.  His organized chaos is easy on the eyes as it seems to all have a place on the page. 

His voice does seem sincere, but his claims have nothing to back them up.  I want to know what he is working on, what his interests are, what his reason is for enjoying the drawing.  His writing isn’t compelling as it does not allow a distinct perspective on the topic. 

His word choice is limited to the basic words of “drawing, creative, and art”.  He misspells words here and there, such as “stuf” and “grops”.  The pattern of missing double consonants and leaving out a vowel in a long vowel sound is consistent throughout his writing.  This might be an area I could focus on during the lesson plan as he seems to fit in the middle to late within-word pattern level (Templeton and Morris, 1999).  I have not been able to see other writing samples in depth so I am not able to see if these spelling miscues are consistent across the board. 

***UPDATE***
He arrived for school during the third week and I was able to gain a plethora of information from him in a 30 minute period of time, including several writing samples.  My first glance proved that he is a chronic misspeller.  The piece I had from him last last wasn't only a prompt, but a final draft that had already been revised several times.  The fact that he still misspelled two words in this one shows that his writing style is quite a bit hurried.  I described it as artsy earlier and I'll stick to that, but I do want to add hurried to that definition.  He writes like he is in a hurry.  To test this idea I had him write a paragraph for me about something he wants to do when he grows up.  He SLOWLY wrote "I want to dizine cars".  I noticed this was in cursive so I asked him to write another sentence normally, here he QUICKLY wrote "My naber helps a lot whith that".  I think I'm onto something here.  It seems obvious that if he slows down his writing he might be able to improve his handwriting and possible give himself a chance to think through more of the word conventions.  On a first draft of a short story about a dog, he misspelled about 15% of the words on the 10 pages of text.  I will have to enter this into the lesson plan.

His ability to read words placed him well into the 6th grade level.  I brought the book "The Little Prince" for him to read as it started with a young artist trying to make a point with his drawing.  He read three pages in about 8 minutes and answered all the comprehension questions sufficiently enough to prove he understood what he had read.

I want to dump a little more of my mind on the short story about the talking animals.  He expressed some incredible creativity in his writing about a flock of birds coming to life, talking to other animals, while incorporating a magic bottle into the story.  Unfortunately a lot of his sentences were choppy and riddled with grammar issues.  I went back to check his "Error Guide Spelling Inventory" he performed two weeks prior and confirmed that he fell in the "Late Word Within" pattern which means he is "approaching fluency".  Maybe, but when he writes his brain goes into creative mode and forgets the grammar part.  This will be very much added to my lesson plan.   ***End Update***



 His language is basic.  His writing looks artsy but his words leave you standing in a gray field with no landscape around you.  In other words, they leave little to the imagination, which seems backwards for someone who loves to draw and be creative.  His sentence fluency is choppy as about half of the sentences begin with “I”.  It is tough for the reader to get into a flow.  I am torn wondering if he found any motivation for this prompt assignment or if he found so much that he didn’t know how to write it all down on paper. 

If I could attempt to pull this all together I would state that he seems to be motivated to write about himself in some way shape or form.  I would want to ask more questions concerning his abilities in drawing and creativity.  “In what ways are you creative?”  I want to expand upon his ideas about himself that he began to discuss in this writing sample.  Maybe, just maybe, we can get him to burst open and express all of his thoughts about himself.  Even if he doesn’t though, I can just get the answers from the 3^rd grade teacher!!

Lesson Plan Rough Draft

When it comes time to write up an official lesson plan for my student I will want to get more information from him in terms of writing samples as well as more face time.  ***Update***  I did get time with him on Tuesday of this past week and was able to gather enough information to update the below lesson plan to account for his "hurried artsy" writing. 

Objective:

• Students will be able to write out main ideas onto paper
• Students will explain the main ideas using an example to illustrate the story
• Students will be able to write a compelling story for the reader.
• Student will be able to learn to read over his finished writing to check for grammar errors

EALR’s used:

• 1.1  Student pre-writes to generate ideas and plan writing.
• 3.1 Student develops ideas and organizes writing

Materials Used:

            Notebook with a page for ideas, a page for examples, and a page for why it is important to the student the idea be in the piece.

§         Paper

§         Pencil

• A list of 25 fourth grade level words

What the Teacher Will Do (Instructional Responsibilities):

            The teacher will start by informing the students that they will be writing a short story.  The teacher will hand out a list of 25 fourth grade level words that are commonly misspelled (although the students won't know that).  The story will be confirmed to two written pages and must incorporate all 25 words in a creative fashion.  The creative nature of the assignment will lead to several unique ideas formulated from the same 25 word list.  The goal for our student will be to slow him down in his writing and allow him to see the words written correctly on his paper.
     The teacher will then ask the students to reread their stories to check specifically for grammar issues and flow of story. 

Assessment:

The teacher will assess the student’s ability to write outlines of their storyline looking specifically for a well organized sentence with correct spelling and grammar.  The teacher will also assess the student’s ability to write down examples that back up the ideas written on the page, again looking for spelling miscues.  

IPod Touch in the classroom?

Heck yes!!

Depending on your view of technology; I've either been very lucky or very distracted over the past three weeks due to the fact that I have been given the opportunity to use Apple's IPod Touch.  The goal is to find ways to use the interface with students in the classroom.  Things such as voice recording software, interactive applications that help with math, spelling, grammar, even geography.  There is even a kids version of the World Series of Poker!!  Talk about learning your probabilities.
I was given an assignment this week to think about a couple students I currently work with and come up with some realistic ways that this IPod Touch could help them with their studies through differentiated learning.  Believe it or not, I did the assignment!  Now I just have to put it into words,  But before I do that, I think we need a soundtrack.  Click below to get in the blogging mood (it takes about 8 seconds to get going)

Applications!!!  Also knows as "apps" to us young hipsters.  Anyone can write code for an app and request it be placed on the sacred "App Store".  Some apps are Free, some are a buck, some even go for $2.  Either way, there is pretty much an app for everything now adays.  So what about a student in 6th grade that is WAY behind on his or her math basics?  "Kids Math Fun" is coming the the rescue.  This simple application is nothing more than a colorful, creative way for students to practice repetitive math problems.  It is quick and allows for multiple choice answers such as 4 + 9 or 8 *7.  Pit two kids next to each other and make it a competition and you have yourself a fun and exciting way for students to "play" their way to understanding basic math.  I tried this with a student in my class that is having difficulty with simple mistakes (adding and subtracting) and I watched as he tried to beat his time over and over again for about 20 minutes.  When he finally got 25 correct in less than 2 minutes the smile was almost ear to ear!!

On the other side of the coin is the student who is excelling and needs a resource to gain further information.  Ladies and gentleman, bring down "wikipanion".  To all you nay-sayers about the wiki world and how the information is not vetted properly....."booo"!!  It is an incredibly efficient way to find information that the student can verify through different sources.  At the very least it gets the ball rolling.  I introduced this app to one such student in our classroom and they:  1)  Loved having something to work on as they finished the assignment earlier than the rest of the class.  and 2)  fully understood how they could use this to gather information for both their science and social studies projects.  Time well spent!  A valuable lesson to teach to our up and coming American cultured children.  Next?  Greed is good!!

Finally for a student that was creative beyond his years, I showed him an app called "Storykit".  It as an app run by http://www.childrenslibrary.org/ and puts books into kids hands without having to physically head to the library...and it is free!!  On top of this, it allows you to interact with the book.  You can create new pages, edit the pages that are already there.  Draw pics.  Rewrite stories.  Its like the actor who has always wanted to direct getting the chance to do just that.  I'll admit it takes  LONG time to get used to the functionality and even when you gain experience it can still be cumbersome.  But limitations there are not!  Students can create entire projects using this app that can either be presented to the class, or the entire world via the internet!

Bottom line, I'm just scratching the surface with what this thing can do in the classroom.  As the quarter moves along I'll get to play with more advanced stuff and maybe even make a movie on the darn thing!!  "More than Words" on the little screen?  Pretty......Pretty Good!

Cheerio

MOG #2...Seahawk Style

The Oregon Ducks just lost the National Championship game.....clearly they didn't read the book about winning by the aforementioned Seahawks!!! Some local artists transformed a current rap song into a sweet melody all about...you guessed it, our beloved team from Seattle!! Unfortunately I can't figure out how to upload the audio file to this here blog so in the mean time, click the video below to hear a song from a previous Seahawk team that rode the Blue Wave deep into the playoffs back in 1985! Ladies and gentleman...let's math Blog!!

 

Today our class learned some strategies to help middle schoolers learn some basic math functions. Two in particular stuck out. One is that there is no such thing as subtraction, as all you are really doing is adding the opposite of a number. 5 - 6? Clearly you are just adding a negative 6! Kind of like when you see the $114 check show up in front of you while at the local Buca de Beppos, you can now look up at all the free loaders in your family and say calmly, "Well, we're adding the opposite of money from our future dearest family. Now who wants to go get a job?" The other thing was that the famous pedagogical teaching method of FOIL is waaaaaaay too overrated by the educational community. Technically it makes sense, and gives kids a precise process for working out the distributive property of multiplication, so why don't we just teach the distributive property of multiplication? Ask 100 students what the distributive property is and you might get 2 that can tell you. Ask the same 100 kids what FOIL is and there is a good chance 100 will say "It's that thing you do to numbers in math!" Simply teaching ideas that make sense.

1) Teach subtraction is actually addition

2) FOIL is for campers stew, The Distributive Property of Multiplication is for math stars!!

It is tough to go through a 4 hour class without having any questions but today's class was quite solid in how clear the information was conveyed. So my mind shifts to what more can be done in the classroom. We ran through a quick exercises that helped explain that a number such as 325 is actually 3 100's , 2 10's and 5 ones. For the math geeks out there, we explained the number system of base 10. It seems this is a great way of beginning to explain the base 10 system, and how other systems use different bases (such as computer programming in base 2). If someone understands base 10, they'll understand base 5, and so forth. This understanding would help sooooooooo much in allowing the brain to figure out simple algebraic equations. What would be some reasons we don't add this to the curriculum of our elementary schools?


How would I use this in the classroom you ask? Heck if I know...but it would be cool if my students understood the importance of 10 in our number system in that it makes quick calculations much easier. I mean hugely easier. Like $100 level Who Wants to Be a Millionaire easy!!


MOG #2 out.....with a funny for the day, Chicago Bears Style!

Did you hear the new penalty for speeding in Illinois?

On the first offense they give you Bears tickets, and on the second offense, they make you use them.

OR

Mommy Bear and Daddy Bear were in divorce court. The judge looked down and asked the Baby Bear, “So Baby Bear, do you want to live with Daddy Bear?” “Oh, no,” Baby Bear replied, “I don’t want to live with Daddy Bear. He beat me.” “Well then, you should live with Mommy Bear,” answered the judge. “On, no, I don’t want to live with Mommy Bear. She beat me.” “Well then, Baby Bear, who do you want to live with?” Baby Bear said, “I want to live with the Chicago Bears. They don’t beat anybody!”

Cheerio

Seahawks Heard Round the World

A Great day to be a Seahawk fan!!  I've been writing about how ridiculous this year has been for the Hawks to even be in the playoffs.  Now a 41 - 36 stunning victory over the defending Superbowl Champs...how sweet it is.  Below is arguably the best run in Seattle Seahawk history:  If only I could find the Steve Raible commentary to go over these silent people from NBC.  GO HAWKS!!

Math is Back Baby!!

To all my loyal reader out there, the blog you are about to read will take you on a path down a road lined with numbers.  My math class this quarter is all about best practices in teach students mathematics.  So consider yourselves forewarned if you are looking for quick wit, dry humor, and maybe a little curl at the corners of your mouth....you just might find some here!!  Let's math blog:

Three questions will be the core of each and every "math blog" I write (hence forth knows as the "MOG")

1)  What did I learn (in class)?

2)  What do I have questions about?

3)  What are the implications for classroom practice?

So let's start with #2.  Our class was given multiple math problems that required us to come up with algebraic functions to act as "rules" to help find answers.  Stuff like "you have x number of adults and x number of kids on one side of a river and we need to find out y, how many trips it will take to get all the people across the river under m set of parameters."  My question is simple....are we suppose to know this stuff ourselves if we are going to be teaching it to kids?  If not...shouldn't we?

Back to Question 1:  I learned in class that a collaborative group working on the same problem can offer you several different ways of getting to the same destination.  I pretty much gave up on the river problem when one of the people in my group said "what about if you do this....."  Oh yeah I said, and the ball started rolling.  Unfortunately the ball didn't stop rolling until 5 hours and 12 pieces of scratch paper later when I finally came up with the function.  I could also state that I relearned several math concepts that clearly I had forgotten.  (x-2)^2 needs to use old Mr. FOIL...not Mr. Simplemath like I tried. 

Implications for classroom practice:  Well the answer is in the question....practice!!  Make sure you know the answers from all directions, or at least feel confident that you will be able to see everything the kids will see.  Putting my student hat on I realize we are being taught ways to teach this material, not ways to do it.  So one major implication this lesson has for classroom practice would be to think about how we as teachers can get the students to think about these problems in different ways.  How can we offer up hints that keep them intrigued without allowing them to feel overwhelmed to the point they want to give up. 

I will say I called several friends and threw myself a party when I came up with the answer to the problem.  It was a success that I hadn't felt since the old college days when I would put days into figuring out a math problem.  I notice that most of my math problems the past so many years have begun to all start with "How are we going to pay for x with y in the bank and z yelling gimme gimme gimme?"

MOG #1 Out

Here We Go Again

Three weeks ago on December 11th I wrote my last blog.  At the time I truly thought I would write every couple of days due to the grand experience I was going to have AWAY FROM SCHOOL.  Turns out my life outside of school is really quite....well....boring.  With that in mind I prepare to begin the final regular college quarter of my life.  In preparation of this new quest I write the 10 things I learned during my time away from the classroom.  Ladies and Gentleman!!  Let's Blog:

Things I learned over the past three weeks:

1)  The Seahawks made history tonight by becoming the first team in NFL history to win their division with a losing record.  Not only to they get to play into the postseason they get to HOST a playoff game.  A home playoff game is a coveted asset to have and to be rewarded for a 7 - 9 season with a home playoff game against a team that won the Superbowl last year and currently stands with an 11 - 5 record is a tad bit ridiculous.  So ridiculous in fact that there is a good chance the rules for making the postseason could very well change next year making it impossible for another team to duplicate what the Seahawks accomplished tonight.  A once in a lifetime opportunity.  As I said, history was made.  Go Hawks!!

2)  Side career?  I finished three videos during this time, one of which was a huge family wedding video from my trip to St. Louis back in October.  I have become very good at filming the events and then editing the film down to a watchable storyline with music to bring out the intended emotion.  Someone told me they paid someone $2000 to make a video of their wedding and it "sucked" compared to what I did for my cousin.  Well, I said, "I guess you were just born into the wrong family".  One of my projects for my classroom will be to put together a "video classroom portrait" based on the "My Family Portrait" project that has been online for many years now.  My favorite to this point is on the link below:  It is emotional, funny, and makes you want to be with your family.  http://www.vimeo.com/1925071

3)  Snow rules!!  I spent 5 days in Eastern Washington with my family in the 0 - 12 degree weather.  The snow was so cold that we needed one gallon of water per igloo block to make the snow stick together.  Eventually we make a HUGE igloo that my daughter and I tried to sleep in one night when we realized just how cold 1 degree is.  It's cold man.  Plus when the blocks of ice sit for 8 hours in sub 0 temps....it becomes one giant block of ice.  That will remain pretty strong until the spring acid rains return:(

4)  Mythbusters!!  Quickly becoming my favorite show on TV by testing myths such as dipping your hand into a pot of molten lead resting at 900°F.  How is this possible?  The answer will blow your mind.  It is possible, and they show you how!

5)  Xmas lights are da bomb!  For our eyes AND the companies supplying our electricity.  A local botanical garden puts on a large display every year and this year they had to start charging $5/head because they claim it costs over $500,000 to put on the display for the three week period every year.  Whoa!!  Each of those little bulbs burns 5 watts.   Watt?  I said that each of the little Xmas lights that you see hanging from a house uses 5 watts.  Watt?  Nevermind.  Take a gander at this Electricity cost calculator before you put up Xmas lights of your own.  It'll make you think twice.  Click Here.

6)  Amazon.com giftcards are also da bomb!  This is weird because I have never once used the term "da bomb" before in my life, but yet I've used it twice in this single blog.  For good reason through.  You can buy ANYTHING on Amazon's website and the giftcard is your passport to by anything you want.  And since most older people you know have no idea Amazon sells more than books, it makes you look really smart...AND all they have to do is go to the local Grocery store to find them for you.  Xmas, BDays, hack even Festivus!!  You can finally see what it would be like to live in a materialistic world where you can buy everything you ever wanted...even love and friendship!!!  Can you do better than free love and friendship?

7)  New Years Eve is for the young.  We spent the last night of 2010 with people all over the age of 55.  It was a quiet evening as my wife and I were able to keep everyone awake until midnight only to watch the group mildly eek out "Happy New Year" and "good night everyone" in pretty much the same sentence.  By 12:02 am on the first day of 2011...crickets!!

8)  Dreams.  I had one of the most vivid dreams of my recent memory the other night.  I can't get the images out of my head because I'm not sure what they mean.  The dream came directly from my heart.  I know this because the theme of the dream seemed to be "Just follow your heart silly".  The good news is I am.  I am two quarters away from being a full time teacher, unfortunately the dream didn't have anything to do with teaching.  What it did have to do with was the most beautiful thing I could have ever imagined.  The takeaway for now:  I want to have dreams like that so much more often.  (For those of you with gutter minds, the answer is no).

9)  Winter's Bone.  A dark movie that is getting rave reviews.  Why I am not sure as it was a window into the world of small town organized crime.  It took me back to a time I never had in my life where if you wanted something, you just walked the 800 yards to your neighbors house.  If they didn't have what you needed, you went 800 more yards down the dirt road to the next house...and so on.  The first house of the movie was a girl just walking around looking for her dad.  If you like dark, slow moving movies than this one is up your alley.  But I would say for a slow moving dark movie that rocks....always head to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  One of the best films of the past decade hands down.

10)  I can't wait to get back to school.  Three weeks of seeing what my life is like without all the hubub, the interaction, and the experience of teaching was enough for me.  Tomorrow morning I look forward to heading back to class.  A feeling I didn't think I would have ever had.  A feeling that gives me inspiration and motivation. 

Until next time.  Go Hawks!  Go Huskies!  and Go Teachers!!

Funny for the day:

What is red and smells like Blue Paint?

Red Paint!!