Mute and Moose

My weekend battle with strep throat has left me a broken woman, a mere shadow of the teacher I once was. For the past two days, I have been teaching without a voice. And when I say, "without a voice" I don't mean "with a horse voice" or a "scratchy voice". I mean NO VOICE.

Despite all of my hopes and the best efforts of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, since Saturday I have been as silent as a singles ward sacrament meeting, as silent as a rabbit-eared-tv-set after the 2009 digital transition, as silent as a green missionary making his first door approach, as silent as a Haws at a blood drive, as silent as a republican at a charity benefit.

My new voice-less existence has made life somewhat difficult seeing as how 7th graders are not known for being extremely receptive to grammar principles taught via mime. I have also been spending a lot of time pondering deep, ageless questions like, If a teacher gives an assignment but no students are able to hear it, is it still homework? Needless to say, I am hoping my voice comes back really, really soon.
But until I am reunited with my once under-appreciated voice, I have have resolved to "look on the bright side". And so it is in that "make lemonade" spirit that I present to you my top five reasons why being a teacher without a voice is a good thing:

#5. I have much lower blood pressure because, when the kids ask me to repeat assignment instructions for the fifth time, I can assume that it really is because they really didn't hear me the first four times.

#4. My communications kidlets no longer resent me for forcing them to refrain from talking for their nonverbal week assignment.

#3. My students' important Hanna Montana and Guitar Hero conversations are no longer being interrupted by my thoughtless attempts to educate them.

#2. Two words : Pity Obedience.

#1. When I do try to verbally rebuke the kidlets for bad behavior, my rants have a greater impact because my voice sounds like it belongs to a Disney villain.

And now, on a completely villain-less note, today is my brother Moose's birthday. Doesn't he look so excited about being born?

Moose (a.k.a. Spencer Larry Rodriguez Gonzales Gooseface Moose Haws) is my parents' fourth child and the second born son.

Moose now lives in Buffalo, NY with his lovely wife and their beautiful dog Brady and their charming dog/rabbit hybrid Mia. Moose is going to graduate school and works for the NFL doing, um, something... footballish the Buffalo Bills.

Moose has always be the "Sporty Spice" of the family, playing baseball, football, and basketball all the way through school, then working as a manager for Cougar football during his stay at BYU.

Besides being the family's athletic supporter, Moose also had a reputation for being a ladies man. In fact, he is probably the only departing missionary who referred to himself as a "harlot" during his farewell talk. Want to know the best part of that story? He was quoting his mother and "harlot" was the nicest word he could think of to substitute when he deemed her original word choice as inappropriate for Sacrament meeting. Moose always could bring out the best in Mom...

Thankfully he married Briana who keeps him on the strait and narrow with her wonderful examples of goodness and purity... and her medical-field related knowledge of how to kill a person and make it look like natural causes.
Happy Birthday Moose! And here's hoping your Bills kick NFL trash next season so I can route for an actual team during the super bowl instead of cheering for whoever has the prettiest uniforms. LOVE YA!