Stay Calm - School's Almost Out.

"So often you find that the students you are trying to inspire are the ones that end up inspiring you."
To start, I am aware that I have not written to you wonderful people in months. And, I am sure, that your suffering has been egregious. So I begin with an apology. I will follow up said apology with all the excuses, which are like fingernails on a chalkboard to a teacher at the end of the school year - I loathe excuses, that I have for my lengthy absence. I apologize for not writing. I have missed this communication as much as you have, believe me. Writing to You, whether the Yous be zero or ten, is something I look forward to every week. Unfortunately, during the last half of the school year my endurance level began to suffer and I had to let go of something. I actually let go of a lot of somethings (the fact that the salad I ate yesterday was the first salad I've eaten since somewhere around March is a testament to that) but, I really did miss writing to my family and friends (I didn't miss the salad. I am a rather unhealthy person when it comes to my junk food habits). 
So, now that I've written you a paragraph of an apology I will commence with the excuses in triplicate. Many wonderfully, amazing, inspiring, enjoyable things have happened since I stopped writing to you. I've also been pretty stressed out as the school year closes. Planning these last couple of lessons has been like dragging myself through nearly dried concrete and I have had many, many distractions. Waking up at 5:30 (which got moved to 5:45 a couple of times this week) has been torture. So, excuses. 
I'm going to start with the wonderfully, amazing, inspiring, enjoyable things that happened most recently and then go backwards. This is weird for me. I love to do things in chronological order. If my first year as a teacher has taught me anything it is that everything needs order (with very explicit instructions, starting with:"Make sure you write your name on this paper, otherwise Casper shall steal your A away from you.") and everything has its place.  However, because the recent stuff is fresh in my mind and the happiness gained from these events has been less diluted with daily grind, I am excited to talk about that stuff more.   Schools Out! - Next Week This little bit of knowledge has me the most excited right now. The last two weeks we've been testing - blegh - with a couple of lessons sprinkled on top -  the better to torture you with my dears. So, I've been having them round out their Final Projects for The Giver and we switched gears and started to talk about poetry this week. Poetry has never ever been my favorite part about English Language Arts. Whenever there was a poetry unit in school I struggled because my favorite type of writing was more personal narrative/prose. Poetry, while I like to analyze a poem that I find interest in, has never been all that enthralling for me. 
STILL, these kids make it a lot of fun. Finally figurative language is starting to click. They actually quite like getting deep into a poem and looking for theme. It is interesting to see the differences of meaning from their perspectives. We read "Do not go gentle into that goodnight" and it was super difficult for them, but a lot of students had some great insight into the poem once I helped break the meaning down for them a bit. Some stuff I've never thought of before! 
We've been doing some Found Poetry. If you follow my Facebook feed you'll know that writing poetry is a pretty scary task for these kids. They really don't have a good enough handle of language yet for feeling confident with figurative language and meanings. So, found poetry gives them some wonderful language to work with. I've been using a technique I learned in college:  1) Every student gets a poetry book, we sit in a circle. They get 1 minute with that book.  2) They have to find one line of poetry that really speaks to them and write it down.  3) After the minute, they pass the book to the next person and they get another book. Now they can choose any other line that they like from that book to try and add meaning. 4) So, students not only get to read through 30! different poetry books and styles, but they also get to practice finding meaning in poetic line and using that figurative language (using language they never thought they could use) to make their own meaning. 
THEY LOVE IT! They didn't want to stop! They really enjoyed sharing their creations afterwards, because it was really low key and most of the poems came out pretty funny.  Even though I'm excited to be done for the year, I wish I had MORE time with them! Craziness. 
26 Years Old I turned 26 nearly two weeks ago. I don't feel old. I feel like I want more life. Those are the feels. Since my birthday and our anniversary falls within a few days of each other, we just celebrated both during the weekend. So, we went and got wings - which I love and Daniel doesn't... so I don't get them very often. For my birthday, I wanted either another ferret friend for Dixie, since we're down to just her now and she looks so lonely in her cage, or a tattoo of a ferret. I've been thinking of getting a tattoo for a very long time now... so, I did it! I got a pretty dang awesome ferret tattoo. I love it. Tattoos are painful. Yes. Still, I didn't cry, so if you want one - it hurts but you won't cry. 

2 Year Anniversary We made it to the big 2. Ha! Well, I had a lot to say here about communication and marriage being easier than I thought it would be... but honestly, I get so irritated about reading other people's marital advice through Facebook and other social media outlets.... I am not going to bore you with my own pieces of wisdom or how marriage has been super awesome for me and how Daniel is the best thing in my life (okay, this is true, but I'm not going to bore you with more explanation). I'll just tell you about our awesome anniversary, which was awesome.
One of my dear friends once explained to me how his wife and he take turns planning a date for their anniversary every year. It started off as small stuff, dinner dates and such, and now that they are older and more established they do fun things like go on week long vacations and such. I really liked the idea of only being responsible for an anniversary date once every two years... so, Daniel and I have taken up this tradition. 
This year was my year to plan. So, I went with an UP/Travel inspired theme. I'm a theme person. Everything is themed. First, I wrote Daniel a poem (yeah, I know I just told you how much I didn't like to write poetry.... but, to be honest my anniversary comes at a bit of a bad time of the year for me and putting effort into anything outside of school... "ain't nobody got time for that") about loving our adventure together (talking both about our marriage and our move to Cali). Then, I made him a treasure map (I did!) with hints to our destinations on them. At the end was our treasure, which is where I'd give him with his present. I even made him an "Ellie Badge" (UP fans) and we both wore them throughout the day. 
The first stop was the Endeavor Space Shuttle. This is free to see at the California Science Center and Daniel has been begging to go for a while. He enjoyed seeing it very much. I even made him cry, I'm sure it was about how awesome I am.... NOT how awesome the space shuttle was. *sigh* 

Then we went paddle boating on a "natural" water collection point in Los Angeles called Echo Lake. That was a lot of fun. I enjoyed being outside... it's been a while since we've both been outside.... sun, air, we both got totally burnt. 

Then we went to dinner and went home to watch Up. Home is where his present was. I was being sappy. I gave him an adventure book, it's kind of like a bucket list. It's really neat, I'll show it to you sometime if you're interested. 
That was our day. I love my husband very much and that is all I'm going to say on the subject.
  The End? So, I had a couple of other things I was going to write about, you know - the wonderfully, amazing awesome ones... but, I'm getting tired of writing which I KNOW means you're getting tired of reading. I know readers.... right now you're finger has been trembling on that scroll bar... yup, yup, anniversary, birthday, yup...I'll just find a key word to write about in the comments section, that will make Brandy happy. I teach 6th graders, I know how it works. So, I will write some more about my adventures on NEXT WEEK's (for sure!) post. Sound golden? 
I love you guys! Thank you for reading! I miss you a ton!
OH! PS! Those of you who haven't been updated - I will be in Utah for three weeks at the end of June/beginning of July! Text/chat/call/message me if you want to meet up at all! I am game,  though I plan to spend a lot of time with my family - I will definitely make time if you want to say hi! 

<3/Brandy