A vintage Christmas

I know that all of you who normally receive my awesome Christmas cards in the mail are heartbroken this year, but in order to make sure I stay on budget even through the holidays, I am sharing my card electronically with all of my Internet-savvy friends and family.

Next year, things will return to normal. Promise.

Why, you ask? Because starting in January, I will be returning to what I love best — as Marketing and Communications Director with the City of Bryan.

I'm very excited about this opportunity and cannot wait to return to what I am meant to do with my life.

Teaching has been an awesome experience, and I will miss my kiddos, especially the ones that say that dardnest things, but communications and marketing is where I belong.

So until next year, you'll just have to enjoy my Christmas card via my blog.

And look forward to snail mail in 2013.

Sophomores say the dardnest things

I've heard plenty of crazy comments from my kiddos over the past 12 weeks, so I've tried to remember a few of my favorites just for you.

These actual conversations with 15 year olds should make you smile. And hope that you never have a 15 year old.

Makeup leads to babies

At a home football game a few weeks back, I had the wonderful opportunity to hang out with some of my kids from class. They are all obsessed with Kassidy, and I had promised them during the day that I would make sure they got to hold her at the game. Fast forward to game time, in which one of my male students decides that Kassidy is the cutest baby he's ever seen. As I'm responding to comments about how pretty her eyes are, I happen to say that when she's a teenager, she shouldn't need to wear a lot of mascara because her eyelashes are so long.

And then my favorite male student, while holding Kassidy, looks right at me, directly in the eyes, and says:

"Makeup leads to gawking, gawking leads to kissing, and kissing leads to more babies, and we can't have any of that."

And then he adds that he wants to have a baby right then and there so his baby can date my baby.

And then I take my baby back from him and go home.

Smuggling children

Another one of my favorite Pre-AP students is begging me in class one morning to bring Kassidy to class one day so they can all play with her.

Me: "I wish I could guys, but then you would get nothing done all day."

Student: "Oh come on, Mrs. K. Bring your daughter to school one day so we can play with her. I can get her in. I'm Mexican."

Me: "What does being Mexican have to do with this conversation?"

It starts with a V

And my all-time favorite conversation took place with a student who always comes into my class and announces that he neglected to take his ADHD medication for the day. He does this a lot, so I finally ask him why he never takes his medicine.

Me: "What type of medication are you on anyway?"

Student (with a serious, thoughtful look on his face): "It starts with a V. I think it's called Vagisil?"

Me (laughing): "Sorry, son, but you're not on Vagisil."

And, what's really sad is that he never realized why I was laughing so hard.

The life of a first-year teacher

Yes, I'm alive. Promise. But in transitioning to the new job, I have realized that every day, I am more and more behind. And every day, I better get my butt moving so that I can mold the youth of America the following day.

So, I'm a little over two weeks into teaching, and I must admit that my experiences have been pretty dang interesting.

I never understood why teachers wore those lovely lanyards around their necks. I mean, they're not really a must-have accessory. But, on Day 2, after a certain teacher — ummm, Mrs. K — locked herself out of her own classroom, I quickly decided that lanyards were not only fashionable, but functional.

And, it only took less than two weeks for me to get my first poem from a student. Granted, he had gotten into trouble with the rest of the class, and he wanted me to know he was sorry and that he really liked my class, but it was a sweet poem nonetheless. And he made sure to close it with "Please don't hang this up." Ah, kids.

You wouldn't believe what gets a classroom of 15-year-olds going either. I mean, we can be reading a cuss word in Of Mice and Men, and then they can't stop laughing.

Or, during my awesome denotation/connotation lesson where we discussed word connotations and their more negative counterparts, you would think I gave each student a new car because they were allowed to use the word "slutty" compared to "promiscuous" or "druggie" compared to "substance abuser." Hey, whatever makes them remember a concept, right?

And yesterday my kids had a nice laugh when I came to school without a voice. And I still haven't gotten it back either. But I couldn't help but smile when one of them said, "Mrs. K, isn't that ironic that you lost your voice?"

"Why, yes. Yes, it is."

And then he told me my hair looked beautiful.

And then reality slapped me in the face again, and I got back to telling my kids to sit down and be quiet and work on their group activity.

All without a voice.

Matching lunch boxes would be so darn cute

As of today, the opportunity to walk into school together with my husband carrying matching lunch boxes increases exponentially.

What, you say? Oh, yes. It's true.

After seven years with Texas A&M, I am leaving. Leaving to teach a bunch of 16-year-olds in Franklin. I am about to become a sophomore English teacher, which means I am going to change the world one grammatical error at a time. Or at least try.

And I am going to make sure my students know that it's okay to begin a sentence with the word "and." And that you don't have to stick with the five-paragraph rule when writing. And I plan to post a lot (not alot) of English-related cartoons and funnies around my room. Who says you can't make learning fun?

Gosh. My poor future students have no idea how much I love my red ink. And I just bought a whole new box of red pens to get me through the year. I hope it lasts.

And Brady and I will get to carpool to school together. And eat lunch together (if we choose). Drop off and pick up Kassidy together. Heck, even work out together.

Let's hope this professional career change doesn't make my marriage end in divorce.

Or matching lunchboxes. Because that would just be ridiculous. Or would it?

And even though I've already posted my awesome good-bye video to Facebook, I actually still have some extra awesome friends (you know who you are) who starred in my awesome good-bye video that don't have Facebook accounts, so this is for you guys. I smile every time I watch it. And laugh. A lot (not alot).