The Lost Art of a Ham and Cheese Sandwich

Growing up, my dad made my lunch. Everyday I wanted a lunch, I had a homemade sandwich and snacks. I mean, I could buy lunch if I wanted, but why would I when I had the best sandwich ever? I know we already knew my parents were amazing, but what I didn't realize was what that sandwich represented.

Fast forward to today. I administered the TAKS test. I administered the 11th grade ELA test and the test takes all day. As a result, kids can't take a lunch break, so we bring in lunches for kids who want the school lunch. They eat at their testing desk. Kids can bring their own lunch and kids are even allowed, and encouarged, to bring snacks to eat throughout the day to help with their energy during the long day.

Today during lunch I saw something that I have never seen in all my years of teaching. I saw a student bring a homeade sandwhich. I didn't realize how rare it was until today. In a class of about 25 students, one student brought a homemade sandwich. It was in a container and he had a banana and some other snacks. You could tell someone cared if he ate well. One other student in the class had a sandwhich from Subway and almost everyone else took a school lunch and ate it with their bags and bags of junk food. On a daily basis I see kids eat and its pretty much school junk food: cheese fries, slushies, hamburgers, etc.

Isn't there something wrong with this picture? Not only is there a deeper issue of a lack of good eating habits, but I think something is very wrong with the lack of homemade sandwiches.

For me, my daily sandwich represented consistency, security, and loving parents. And today, I knew that someone cared about this kid. Someone cared enough to send him to school with a healthy lunch. Someone cared how he performed on today's test. Someone loved him and I saw it. I saw it all in the sandwich.

So my question is, where have all the ham and cheese sandwiches gone?

The Ghost of Valentines Past

Brad and I just celebrated our 4th Valentines together. Yes, 4. How could that much time have passed so quickly? We decided not to celebrate Valentines together since it was so close to our 6th monthaversary, but he surprised me and we celebrated! Yay! (Good move, Brad). And as I was thinking about Valentines, I reminisced about all our past Valentines. They were all so special.

I'm starting with Valentines 2007. Brad and I had just started dating, and really, no Valentines before 2007 really matters anyway. :)

In 2007, we went to Backstreet Cafe on Shephard. We were the youngest people there and it was very nice. We had a multi course meal and had a blast! If you've never been there, you should go and try it out. And then after dinner, we took pics of ourselves. Classic.

Valentines 2008, may be my favorite Valentines yet. I'm sure you remember the infamous Valentines Ditch Day. Brad and I took off Valentines from work and spent the day doing our favorite things: We ate breakfast at Le Peep, hung our at Herman Park, went to the Museum of Fine Arts, ate Chick fi la for dinner, and then went to the movies. It was awesome!!! I think everyone should have at least one Valentines ditch days in their lives. It's just happy!

Valentines 2009 was special. Our only Valentines as an engaged couple. We went to brunch, I got my Iphone and then dinner with my parents! I even wore my Valentines tshirt. :) How cute! As I'm sure you can tell, Brad puts together beautiful flowers!!

Valentines 2010! We went to Ousie's Table, which is sooo nice! Brad had called ahead and had them put roses on our table. They are still sitting on our kitchen table and are beautiful! I had scallops with risotto and if you don't know me well, I LOVE scallops! And if you don't know me well, stop reading my blog, thats just creepy. Anyway, we had a delicious meal and an awesome dessert...chocolate rasberry creme brulle. Mmmmm. It was a lot of fun!

Hope you too have had some wonderful Valentine's with your loved ones.

My favorite baby boys

One of the great things about dating Brad was getting to know his friends. Meghann and Marcus Sauer have been such a joy to know and we ALWAYS have a great time when we're together. And they have the cutest little boys! This past Sunday we met Titus James for the first time and had to take a billion pictures of this handsome little boy. I know you'll enjoy the Sauers as much as we do :)

Brad and Baby Titus James. He's a natural. And how cute is Titus James?

Titus James and I.

The whole family! They are such wonderful people and I am incredibly blessed to know them.

Teaching

When you are in college, training to be a teacher that changes the world, there is just so much they don't tell you. It's probably a good thing they don't tell you, because we might not have become teachers. I am technically a teacher, but on a daily basis I'm a number of other things that no one ever prepared me for.


This week I was a....


1) Custodian - Sweet student A thought it funny if he through student B's ring in the trash. Awesome. I dug in the trash and then made Student A put it all back.


2) Security guard- Crowd control is my life. You have no idea what crazy is until you have seen one of the largest high schools in the country switch classes. 4,000 kids walking across the school in 5 minutes. It's quite the sight.


3) Counselor - Sometimes, I learn more than I ever want to know, I can't even begin to share all the things kids say.


4) Doctor - "my head/stomach/piercing/feet/etc hurts." They come to class after eating cinnoman rolls and chocolate milk for breakfast followed by chile cheese fries for lunch and then skittles for their afternoon snack. And then they say they have no idea why they feel sick.

5) Teacher - And some how at the end of the day, I will come back and do it all again, and most of the time I like it. Weird, I know.

Month 5

Happy 5 months to Brad and I!

In honor of our 5 month-aversary, I'd like to list some of my favorite month 5 moments.

- Dancing in the bathroom, while getting ready to go out for my 26th birthday.

- Laying out by the adult only pool in the Bahamas drinking Mud Slides and eating really good pizza.

- Seeing Jason Castro at our hotel in the Bahamas.

- Bringing in the New Years in the Bahamas with champagne and a billion fireworks displays.

- Drinking green margaritas in Shreveport.

- Being ridiculously cold at the Independence Bowl.

- Hours and hours and hours of traveling together over Christmas break.

- Hours and hours of listening to Mariah Carey's Christmas CD while traveling. "Baby, all I want for Christmas is youuuuu"

- Having a Christmas tree in our apartment.

- Getting Brad's old Christmas ornaments and putting it up on our little tree, especially the one of Barney: the younger years.

- Getting my Nikon D-40 and taking pictures everywhere we go.

- Learning about a lychee.

- Being in love.

I love you, Brad. :)

I'm Bringing Conjugations Back

I have posted the following video for you to see. My reasons are 3 fold: 1) I don't feel like doing work 2) I haven't posted in a while 3) Who doesn't like a good rendition of Justin Timberlake's "I'm bringing sexy back?"

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=25683&title=ConjugationsBack

Love it. I know you will too and besides, what better time than the present to review conjugations? We could all use a little grammar in our lives.

The Art of Teaching

I'm a teacher. That is my job. Some days it feels like a job and sometimes it feels like a hobby. Some days, I come home and think to myself....I am changing the world, I am making an impact, this is good. And then there are other days when I come home and think "If today's high schoolers are any reflection of the future of our country, we are in big trouble." But most of the time, I'm somewhere in between and today was an in between day. My kids didn't wow me with their Spanish skills, but they made me laugh and when they can make me laugh, that's a good thing. That's really what relationships are all about. And I think relationship is ultimately what makes a good teacher, not great lesson plans or cool school supplies. (Although, sometimes I'd like to believe its cool school supplies). Well, today first period was making me laugh. First they started playing a game where they went through the alphabet and started naming animals that started with the letters. They were working, they really were, but they were also yelling random animal names. They even had me googling animals that start with an "x". X-ray Fish...there you go. I even learned something new today. Then there was the game where they all said quotes from Finding Nemo. They were lucky that is one of my favorite movies. They were making me laugh...especially the part where they imitated Ellen Degeneres' character.....they were speaking whale. You know the part i'm talking about. Gosh, it was funny. That story had nothing to do with the content I teach, but if you were there you would have laughed too...and sometimes we just need to laugh more, don't you think?