A Very Exciting TWO Hours

Tomorrow is GrandPal's Day at our school. What does that mean?? well, we do a little Thanksgiving Program and invite everyone's grandparents to watch. but, not everyone has grandparents, so we call it GrandPALS so you can just invite an elderly friend and be happy about life.

Anyways- we spend ALL week practicing. Literally, ALL week. There is not much teaching or learning that goes on this week. Oh, parents of my students... ignore that last statement. This was a VERY valuable week to your child's academic career!

Moving on... Tuesday we had the MOST exciting 2 hour rehearsal EVER! did I mention that my kindergartners sing 2 songs and say 4 pledges and sing 4 songs to the flags and they're done. Yes, their part last about 15 minutes. They got to practice twice. And we were sitting there for 2 hours.

Sounds like it should be a boring 2 hours. But it was not...

On Tuesday, during the 1st song... a 1st grade boy locked his knees and starting fainting. The choir director rushed to get him, picked him up, handed him off to the only man in the room (PE teacher), and they laid him down and took care of him. He was fine and back on stage in about 20 minutes.

BUT, his almost fainting caused one of MY students to be SO frightened that she literally cried for the next 4 hours. She was afraid that she was going to faint! (remember there are 150 OTHER kids who did NOT faint and the "fainter" is back on stage singing, but nope, she was still scared!!)

AND, at the same time, my new student, who has been here for about 2 weeks, she started crying because she doesn't know all of the words to the songs and doesn't want to be in the program. That one was easy to solve, "OK, you don't have to be. But you have to watch and clap and smile."

AND, moments later, my co-kindergarten teacher looks at me and says, "I think I'm going to be sick." I answered, "OK, I'll watch the kids, go to the bathroom." To which she responded, "No, I have to call the secretary and get a sub, I've got to go home."

So she left. and then proceeded to text me every time she threw up... in the school bathroom, twice, at every stop light on the way home, on her pants... etc.

And there I was... left in a rehearsal with 2 criers, 1 almost fainter, and a missing sick teacher.

Happy Tuesday to me. Hoping the actual performance tomorrow goes much better.

Goals

Thursday morning at school chapel, my life was forever changed. I have new goals to set. Thanks to this man...

Orville Rogers

Yes- this man is 90 years old in the picture. And he is setting a world record. After he turned 90, he set the world record for fastest mile and fastest half mile for his age group- beating previous records by 30 seconds or more.

Here is accepting one of his world records. WOW!

And while his running records are quite impressive (he has 10 gold medals and has entered into only 10 races). His life story is even more impressive.

We watched a news clip from a couple of years ago when he first set the records and then he stood up and told his story in a very strong voice.

Here are some goals I now have, thanks to Orville:

~ read the Bible all the way through more than 40 times (He is currently on read through # 46. He reads the whole thing every single year.)

~ be a missionary

~ be married for a very long long long time (His only wife passed away just 2 weeks before his first race after a lifetime together.)

~ be healthy in eating and exercise for the rest of my life

~ be a member of a church body for half of a decade (He has been attending the same church for 53 years - can you imagine the impact he has on that congregation? his years of faithfulness and loyalty to the Lord and his community)

~ be so successful in my endeavors that people are motivated, yet so humble that people are drawn to me (I have a long way to go on BOTH parts of this goal)

At the end of the video, the little girl sitting next to me looked up at me and with a very confused look on her face said, "Mrs. Sawyer, are your eyes wet?"

Yes, Mr. Rogers just changed my life and my goals, my eyes were wet.

Transition

This story comes from a teacher friend... she teaches at a lovely school district in the suburbs of Dallas. Great area, great families, great school.

Oh and they are geniuses out there and still do HALF day kindergarten!

So... she had a little boy last year in half day kindergarten who was a great student. And he moved on to first grade this year, whole day school.

First day of first grade, the little boy had a great morning, did his worked, obeyed, and was happy.

Lunch time came and he started packing up his back pack, because that's what you did in kindergarten.

The 1st grade teacher came over and said, "Oh honey, we stay all day in 1st grade, it's not like kindergarten."

The flustered boy threw his things to the ground, looked at the teacher, and said, "Well who in the Hell signed me up for this?????"

No Words

In case you're having a hard time figuring out this picture. It is a pair of panties in a plastic bag. It is laying in broad daylight on the floor in our backpack room. Why? you might ask. Because a little girl wet her panties and then she put her dirty panties in a ziploc and laid them on the floor. For all to see. This is a daily vision in my room. well maybe just weekly.