Memories

Our Branch Presidency is being released on Sunday. We are really going to miss Brother Pincock, Brother Barker, President Jones, Brother Burgess, and Brother Hobson. We are also going to miss their lovely wives (and Allison who is Josh's soon-to-be-wife).
I've spent a lot of time reminiscing about our adventures with these wonderful folks, who have become the real stars of my little blog. So to honor them (and to give me something to post about during a week that has been filled with weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth) I decided to dedicate one more corner of cyber space to their unparalleled leadership during the past 3.43 years. Below, you will find links to the posts that memorialize some of our branches greatest adventures. And no, you will not find a link to a post about our disastrous rafting trip that will forever live on in infamy as the day that several of us almost drowned and a the day a park ranger almost got (deservedly) lynched. That is one of those memories that is best left repressed.

Here are the top seven Parke Avenue Branch posts about activities wherein I did not have a near-death experience:

How many other branches could inspire such a great literary work? To read our "Parke Avenue Branch Night Before Christmas" click HERE

Hungry for some hot dog Jello? Click HERE and relive our branch dessert cook-off.

To reminisce about our adventures in t-shirt design, click HERE Have a sudden craving for Halloween candy and republican rhetoric? Relive our Halloween party hosted by John McCain and Sarah Palin by clicking HERETo spend time with some real "Fascinating Girls", during our enlightening Relief Society Sleep-over, click HEREFeel like reliving the now legendary branch camp out of '08? You can take a trip down memory lane (or memory water-slide, as the case may be) by clicking HERE

To get down and very, very dirty with the P.A.B., put on your four-wheeling helmet and click HERE And if you want to remember what happens at the branch when the Branch President leaves town, you can click HERE

Who ever we sustain on Sunday is going to have some big shoes and a lot of blog space to fill. And a lot of refreshments to organize.

After all, we are a hungry bunch.

And hot dog Jello is a hard act to follow.

A Dark, Dark Day

We just found out that our Branch Presidency, the BEST Branch Presidency in the history of branches, will be released next week.

I am sad.

I am in mourning.

I want someone to tell me that this is all just a really cruel joke that President Sagers mistakenly thought would be funny.

I want to toilet paper President Sager's home.

And his offices at the stake center and institute building.

I want the Barkers, Hobsons, and Joneses to work out a time-share custody arrangement so that I can live in their basements and attend church with them on a rotating basis.

I want to cry.

I want Chocolate.

I want a lot of Chocolate.

I want to watch this video over and over while eating chocolate.

The Church is still true, but it is going to feel a lot less like home for a while.

Fearful Friday

I drove up the road apiece after school today to meet some friends at Shoshone Falls. I have lived in this area for over four years, but had never been to see the local natural wonder. As we neared the falls, my friend Zealanda commented that Shoshone Falls is, "The Niagara of the West". That comment got me thinking about the actual Niagara Falls that I was privileged to visit twice over the course of my mission.

As I thought about those two p-day excursions, a long-buried memory came rushing back to me...I am scared of waterfalls. Not the cute little waterfalls in my hometown, of course. Being afraid of those falls would be like being afraid of a fuzzy blue teddy bear. I am afraid of REAL water falls, like Niagara and Shoshone which, if we were to continue the bear metaphor, would be like facing down a rabid grizzly the size of a small skyscraper. My companion in the photo below may look like she has her arm around me in a gesture of love, but really she was just trying to keep me from bolting away in abject terror before the photo was taken.

So I started getting a little nervous about visiting the falls...until we turned onto the narrow, winding road that led to the falls. Remember my fear of driving in bad weather? Well, it turns out that driving on anything but straight, flat roads in partly sunny weather pretty much freaks me out. But at least the knowledge that I could plunge to my death at any moment while attempting to navigate the blind turns distracted me from my fear of what was waiting for us at our destination.

Once we parked and I overcame my fear of accidentally driving my car off the driveway of death, I was free to focus on my fear of waterfalls...

...and my fear of heights, which conveniently resurfaced as we walked down the see-through stairs to the overlook. While other people, like the young children below, enjoyed the unobstructed view of the falls from the railing, I was content to stand back...way back...and take in the awesome force of nature from a distance.

Eventually I managed to pry one hand loose from the railing (the railing on the back part of the overlook that was about ten feet away from the railing near the falls) and snap some photos.

I was not brave enough, however, to get close enough to the real railing for a photo of me and the falls together. Instead, I chose to stay as close as possible to the nice, stable, non-fatal mountain that the overlook was built on.

Sure, the view from the other direction is a much more beautiful and special...but this nice safe view from the coward side of the overlook will always hold a special place in my heart. In fact, I may name my first child after it. Sagebrush Sure-Foundation Diesel has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Vin and I would call him/her "Sage" for short.

I had plenty of time during the drive home to reflect on my fears...waterfalls, heights, twisty cliff-rimmed, blind corners of death... and realized that I have more of them than I would like.

I am scared of spiders... especially my arch-Nemesis Frakenknspider who takes up residence in my bathroom when he isn't too busy eating neighborhood dogs and kidnapping small children.

I'm also scared of needles, and pins, and swords, and pretty much anything else sharp. The picture below? It is currently frightening me more than the state of our nation's economy, JFAC's proposed public school budget for the 2009-2010 school year, and swimsuit season combined. Really. I almost had to put a post-it over the picture below so I could type this paragraph. Sad, but true.

I am also scared of parents... not my parents, but the parents of my kidlets at school. Big people in general freak me out, which is one reason I am so content to spend my days surrounded by junior high kids. But I have heard enough stories of angry parents yelling at teachers to make parent-teacher-conferences an ulcer-inducing experience.

And then. of course, there is my newest fear: Somali pirates. Call me paranoid, but count myself lucky every time I make it all eight blocks to school without being hijacked, and I was glad to be traveling to Shoshone Falls today with friends just in case those sneaky Somalis tried anything on the freeway between my town and Twin.

When I started this post, I thought blogging about my fears might be good therapy. I thought that getting all of my phobias out in the open and examining them in the light of day would help me to overcome them.

But now I'm thinking that I will be lucky to make it through the night without dreaming about being crushed to death in a waterfall after falling from great heights while driving my car on twisty-roads in bad weather attempting to escape from hypodermic-wielding Somali pirates who wanted to yell at me about failing their kids. Their eight-legged-spider-kids.

So much for facing my fears. Repression is the way to go every time.

A Good Day

Today was a very eventual day at the junior high. Our librarian's son, a very accomplished military pilot who was on his way to somewhere military related, flew his giant DC-something-or-other real low over the school. Most of the classes came out to watch as the ginormous cargo plane buzzed us twice. It was such a great addition to the academic day that I proposed we make "airplane watching" a part of the daily curriculum. The kidlets (and many of the teachers) agreed with my proposal becuase, well, THAT GIANT AIRPLANE ROCKED!

Earlier in the day, we finally got around to have the silly string war that the kidlets earned during their Accelerated Reader Challenge in February. It was a total blast...even though I still have silly string tangled in my hair, stuck inside my ears, and smooshed into my clothing 11 hours later.

When the fumes settled at the end of the fight, it was clear that the teachers had kicked some serious kidlet backside. Here I am explaining to this sweet little 8th grader that, "Teachers rule and students drool!" You can tell by the big smile on her face that she agreed.

And as if today wasn't already cool enough, my A-day kidlets made it even better by singing the ECA Song at the top of their silly-string-fume-damaged lungs to the principal and other assorted staff members who were cleaning up the silly string carnage from the floor outside my room.

THE ECA SONG

(to the tune of "Kill the Beast" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast)

The test will make off with your playstations!

He'll come after your Wii's in the night!

You're not safe until your grade is mounted on your fridge!

I say we kill the beast!

We're not safe until its dead!

It will come stalking us at night!

Said to sacrifice our grades to its monstrous appetite!

He'll wreak havoc on our summer if we let him wander free!

So it's time to take some action kids!

Its time to follow me!

Through the halls, down the ramp,

Through the lunchroom to the classroom,

Its a nightmare but its one exciting ride!

Say a prayer then we're there

At the doorway to a classroom

And there's something truly terrible inside.

Its a test! Its got fangs, razor sharp ones!

Massive paws, killer claws on four arms!

Hear it roar, see it foam, but we're not going home till it's dead!

Good and dead!

Ace the TEST!

Eat a mint, grab your desk,

Find that knowledge in your thinking place!

We're counting on Miss H to lead the way!

On page one, then page two

Where we'll find a tricky question.

Its the kind that you don't see every day!

It's a test just as long as a novel.

We won't rest till its good and filled in!

Sally Forth, Tally Ho!

Grab your lead, breath real slow

Now's the moment...here we go!

We'll find all the answers and fill in the bubbles!

We won't pass what we don't understand

And so it scares us

And this final is mysterious at least!

Grab your lead, and your guides!

Don't forget those study guides!

WE'LL SAVE OUR GRADES AND SOCIAL LIVES!

WE'LL ACE THE TEST!

And they will "Ace the test" too...just wait and see!

Taking One For The Team

One of the most vital qualities that can found in successful educational professionals such as myself, is the willingness to "take one for the team" or suffer immense amounts embarrassment in the name of the educational process. Last week was full of opportunities for we bestowers of knowledge to heap indignities upon ourselves so that the children might reach their full educational potential. In my classroom, the catalyst for teacher-humiliation-extravaganza was my all-time favorite narrative poem, The Highwayman.

The first casualty to suffer in the name of education was Iron Man. When I first started reading this poem with my classes, I would pick a female kidlet to dress up as Bess, the Highwayman's doomed love. The girls didn't mind the dressing up, but they did have a problem with having the drama musket tied to them to facilitate Bess's noble act of self sacrifice. So last year I tried dressing up boys as Bess, but that worked a little too well. They loved recreating Bess's death scene so much that we spent half the class period resolving disputes over who got to put on the dress and have the musket tied to them.

In an attempt to avoid those problems this year, Iron Man was recruited to "take one for the team" and be our Bess stand in. The kids enjoyed it, but at the same time were somewhat concerned for Iron Man's emotional well-being. A few even suggested that I invite the school counselor down to talk to him about any issues his cross-dressing episode may have left him with.

After reading the poem and acting out several key scenes, the kidlets were assigned to write a newspaper article. In order for them to write truly informative articles, the kidlets needed more details than the poem provided, so we held a press conference so that they could interview various witnesses to the events in the poem.

First up was Bess's grieving father, Mr. Lordland the landlord.

Once the kids had finished practicing their higher-order-thinking and questioning skills on Mr. Lordland, they were able to interrogate Tim the vengeful stable boy. It was Tim's tattling to the red coats that led to the deaths of Bess and her sweetie the Highwayman and the kidlets grilled him mercilessly about that. They also asked him why he was speaking with a southern accent when the poem was set in 18th century England.
Next came one of the red coats who had been present at both of the unfortunate deaths. Merv the soldier. The kids were particularly hard on him because, according to the text, the soldiers were drunk on duty when the tragic events transpired.

But even the kidlets disapproval of the drunken redcoat was nothing compared to the abject hatred they very quickly developed for one of the Highwayman's victims, the Grand Duchess Wealthina VonRichie. Days later, the kidlets were still complaining about how rude she had been to them during the press conference because they were"poor disgusting gutter rats."

But in the end, my two days of self-inflicted multiple personality disorder were worth it. The kids review valuable writing skills and practiced vital thinking and questioning skills. And some day, with a lot of intense therapy along with serious pharmaceutical intervention, Iron Man and I may recover from the "Highwayman" unit.

And it helps to know that I am not the only teacher in my school willing to suffer humiliations on a grand scale for the good of the kidlets. In February, we challenged the kidlets to earn 5,000 Accelerated Reader points and promised them that if they made that goal, our principal and the guy teachers would wear dresses to school.

Well, the kids ended up with 9,000 AR points, and the male role models at our school went above and beyond the call of duty...dressing up as Hannah Montana and her back-up singers to perform a special musical number at our talent show last Friday.

Talk about taking one for the team...

And this was after the state legislature voted to cut our salaries.

How much do we love our kidlets?

What would we do to help them succeed?

We care enough to "take one for the team" on a regular basis... and love every minute of it.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

My sister and her husband just welcomed a new baby into their home, which is exciting for many reasons. There is the anticipation of the arrival, the drama of the delivery, and the surreal feeling of having your home inhabited by a soft, sweet, squishy stranger who wasn't there the day before.

And then there is the excitement that surrounds "the name." Bestowing a name upon a squeaking, squirting infant is exciting for any family, but it has a heightened feeling of drama thanks to my family's long tradition of choosing names that come with narratives. Take my dad, for example. His name is Homely. Part of the narrative behind his name is the undisputed fact that he was the ugliest baby ever born in the St. Anthony hospital, a title he ll still wears with pride to this day.

Then there is my sister Jenny (the mother of the newest name-ee in our family). She has the unique distinction of being named the same thing twice. When she was born, my folks named her Jeanette. That was it, no middle name, just "Jeanette." But after a few months of having folks address their new baby as "Jenny", my hippie parents apparently decided that people calling the child something other than her proper name would result in some bad chi, so they did what any loving, chi-concerned parents would do: they spent the time and money to legally change her name to Jenny Jeanette...essentially naming her the same thing twice. Kind of like Pago Pago or Sirhan Siran.

Jenny continued the tradition of names with stories behind them when I was born. My parents were going to name me Emily until my sister, who was two at the time, saw me and announced, "No! Mindy!" Instead of correcting their first born, by hippie parents had a conversation that must have included at least a few phrases like this: "Hey...the kid is naming the baby! How groovey is that? It's, like, so totally cosmic." I don't think they took into account that Jenny only knew a handful of words at the time. To this day I count my blessings that my name didn't end up being "Dolly" or "Binkey" or "Poopie."

My brother Warren managed to make it through the naming process without too much emotional scaring, but then Spencer came along. Spencer ended up with a name that was unique in many ways, but especially for its length. On his first day in kindergarten, the teacher had all of the kidlets take a seat on the carpet and showed them the alphabet. She told them when she pointed to a letter that was in their name, they should stand up. When Spencer stood up for almost every letter of the alphabet, the teacher's first thought was that this kid wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. She tried to explain to him that all of those letters weren't in the name "Spencer." You can imagine her surprise when my little brother informed her that "Spencer" wasn't his full name. His full name was "Spencer Larry Rodriguez Gonzales Gooseface Haws. Eventually Spencer ended up shortening the whole thing to "Goose", which morphed into "Moose" in 9th grade and he has been "Moose" ever since.

Now the next generation is dealing with the name issue. All of my niblets have fairly normal names that have some sort of significance behind them. Of course, they all also have nicknames bestowed upon them by their loving Aunt Mindy. Bentley is either "Bent" or "Yeltneb" (Bentley backwards) depending upon how much I want to annoy him. Maxwell is "Max-Pax" and Jonah is "Joe-Bo" (both nicknames that I jacked from their momma). Ruby is my little "Rubistar", while Kenna Rae is my "K-Ray" and Kylie Marie is the one and only "Kylie Monchichi", due to her startling resemblance to the character from the 1980's of the same name.

And now I have a new niblet to nick-name. I would like to introduce you to Milo Fisher (His middle name is my great-grandparent's last name). I am going to meet him this weekend, at which point I will greet him by his official niblet nickname : Mi-Guy. I can't wait. I love holding babies when they are still new and squishy!

If you would like to get to know Milo and his family a little bit better, check them out here . Welcome to the family, Mi-Guy. You have absolutely no idea what you are in for :)

Tests and Trials

My 7th graders recently staged their own episode of "Literary Law & Order" with Prometheus as the defendant. We read in class about how the well-intentioned Titan disobeyed a direct command from Zeus and gave humans fire (along with the unfortunate "free-gifts with purchase" that came along with it, including old age, disease, and worry). Zeus was so upset with Prometheus that the Olympian sentenced the Titan to an eternity of being chained to the top of a mountain where he would become the daily breakfast buffet for the giant vultures who got to come and rip out his liver. The kids thought that punishment was slightly cruel and unusual, so we decided to set up a court appeals to rehear Prometheus's case. The kidlets did a great job filling all of the trial parts, including judge, jury, witnesses, and bailiff. I was really impressed with their command of legal jargon and courtroom protocol.

In fact, they impressed me so much that I was going to dedicate an entire post to joking about how all of their real-life court experiences had prepared them for our mock court... until recent events surrounding some of our kidlets stripped that joke off all of it's intended humor.

So instead of seeing a billion photos of last week's trials, you get to see a billion photos of my bulletin board. Isn't it pretty? Or, at least it was pretty before that blasted End of Course Assessment started ripping it to shreds.

The second semester Final Test is even meaner, hairier, slobbery, and more dangerous than the first semester Final Test. This version has mutated to include four arms, a tail, razor-sharp horns, claws, and fangs, and has a nasty case of acne that even Pro Active couldn't help.

The second semester test started breaking through the bulletin board last week, but the kidlets had done such a great job defeating his smaller and less-zit-riddled cousin in December, they weren't really too concerned about this new threat...until today when he finished breaking through the corner of the board and brought his buddy the ISAT with him.

That dastardly duo managed to cancel spring and threatened to ruin the kidlet's much-looked-forward-to Summer Vacation!

Panic began to set in but, ever the fearless leader and educational warrior the kids know they can turn to, I swooped in with a battle plan to help them defend their 4th quarter report cards.

Today we started learning the stirring battle hymn of the seventh graders, "Kill the Beast" (a re-written version of the tune from "Beauty and the Beast" that I will share on a future post) and we began to get reacquainted with Captain Study Guide. Hopefully the combination of Captain Study Guide's vast store of knowledge and the adrenaline-producing strains of our ECA song will overpower the evil tests and liberate the kidlets from a dreary future of summer school and/or punishment chores.

Of course, after we spend 7 weeks getting ready, they had better defeat that test by a pretty sound margin...otherwise cranky parents, extra chores, and confiscated Wii's are going to be the least of the kidlet's problems.

Seriously.

Where do you think Zeus learned that whole "daily disemboweled by giant vultures" trick?

From his 7th grade English Teacher.

It's in the handbook.