spritechan | Entries tagged with nokomis

Tealie pointed out that today is our last ACTUAL teaching day together. When we found out two years ago that I would be with Jenny last year, we both got a bit emotional about the fact that we were breaking up as co-teachers, and now we're making it permanent! We tried, we really did!! It was actually sad to think about, because I feel like there was so much we didn’t get to do together this year because of various roadblocks, but overall the year was good. We didn’t have any real conflict that I can think, no tension between us or struggles. We got along really well and are much closer friends outside of work. She even has begun sending me more “home life” snaps that are more personal. It’s cute.

Today was another long day. At Nokomis I started going through and organizing my files intermittently, and then I went up and pulled Idrew to talk about his services for next year. Janice had caught me in the hallway and said he seemed a little less happy to see her, and she was worried he was upset about qualifying. So he and I had a really good conversation about what the services will look like for him - they won’t be much. At this point it will just be a study skills class to help him with his work. He is smart, so he’ll be in gen ed classes all the way. I gave him the rundown of the structure of the day there, how teachers will help him, how he’ll definitely make friends (and several of his peers will be attending Parkway too). At one point I asked him what his biggest fear is about going to middle school, and he gave the cutest answer: “Like I’m the new kid and everyone will be staring at me.” Awwwwwwww.

I went back to Parkway to finish testing Miracle, and that took almost 2 hours because I was giving her breaks and chatting with her and Aazariah. I hadn’t had a chance like this all year to really connect with her, and I know both of their older brothers. I never had either of them in class, but Miracle’s brother Tre was in my buddy room a lot. He seemed like a cute kid, just some difficulties with focus and I know he has an untreated hearing problem. Miracle told me he got arrested this year for breaking into someone’s house, and she went on at length about how he’s not a bad kid and he’s been mixed up with a bad crowd since going to high school and his life has been threatened as a result of the fact that he’s trying not to run around with these other boys after going to court and having house arrest. She’s really worried about him and said she’s still mad at him for behaving that way. I know she’s just really worried about him and her family means so much to her.

After testing I drove us to Dairyette. It’s like a Dairy Queen, but it’s a one-off establishment that’s been around forever on the east side. I bought them each a treat for staying so long after school with me. While there I ran into Gustavo! He goes to the high school closest to Parkway. He seemed good, he asked about anime club and the kids he was hanging out with completely reminded me of the group in Spider-Man: Homecoming - unapologetically geeky but also really funny. He seemed sad that I wasn’t gonna be at Parkway next year even though he never even visits, lol.

I walked the girls across the street to the apartments where Miracle lives. She harassed her mom about,eating us in, banging on the door and calling her several times in the span of 30 seconds, and her mom came storming to the door yelling, and the look on her face when she saw me was hilarious. She of course stopped yelling immediately and apologized to me, saying that Miracle will often call her from WITHIN the tiny apartment. I told her she didn’t need to apologize to me, and that I had told Miracle she was being annoying. Lol. We talked about Miracle for a bit, she signed the papers I needed her to, and I was on my way home.

Once I got home I realized I was so damn tired. Steve and I laid down for what we thought was only a short amount of time, but turned out it was almost 2 hours!! We must have been really tired. It felt sooo good to sleep but it meant I was too hungry and low energy for yoga, unfortunately. I fixed us up some delicious potato kale soup with leek, and it was AMAZING. I toasted some bread cubes and pumpkin seeds and that took it to a whole new level. Soon after we ate we both realized we didn’t have near enough calories for the day, so I suggested maybe we get ice cream from Dairy Queen. When we started walking, I opened Pokémon Go to find I had an EX Pass! Gasp! And it isn’t for this weekend, thank god, since we went be in town this weekend. I practice,y yelled at Steve to check his phone but didn’t want to give it away, so I got to watch his face light up at his own surprise invitation. It’s for next Tuesday to catch MewTwo and I could not be more excited.

We made the short trek to DQ, he got a seasonal fruit blizzard (small) and I got a salted caramel blizzard (mini). They were perfect to our needs and a great treat to end the day, but I was SO thirsty by the time we got home.

Thursday. The third day*. Today was the first blazingly hot day of the year. Like, the kind of day where the weather screams, “REMEMBER ME!?!?! MINNESOTA, WHERE THE TEMPERATURES ARE ALWAYS EXTREME MWAHAHA!!!” It was 93 and humid, and it was 86 degrees before 9am. So sweaty. I wore a nice new flowy soft dress, and the rest of my school year is going to be almost exclusively dresses, as neither of my schools have air conditioning and it is so sweaty.

My morning was good, we switched to mean/median/mode/range and plotting and analyzing data, and that’s been going well. Helped Vincente and Malik on their stuff of course, talked about silly middle school things like how the space between the crook of your elbow and your hand is the same length as your foot, how even though Malik is only 12 that he already experiences “tall people problems” such as hitting his head on the bus door and that his bed is too short and he has to spread his legs to sit on the toilet because the wall is too close and his femurs are too long. I’d like to add in a side note here about this specific one, where he told me this last one the most innocently a kid could, like not at all thinking about the fact that to sit on the toilet he would need to be pooping and of course it is taboo to admit you sit on the toilet in middle school - though this generation is way more open to talking about pooping/farting etc. than mine was... I might have actually melted into the floor if ever it was suggested I do either of those things during ANY of my school years. XD

2nd block was fine, the first period was kind of annoying because Chanel was gone again, and I let the second period be super low key because there were only 4 of them and Dyshawn was really in the mood to talk to me today and it’s the end of the year so I let him. He’s the ringleader of a trend of timed “slap boxing” matches at school. Slapboxing is exactly what it sounds like: like boxing, but you hit with an open hand so as not to leave marks or do lasting damage. The new game invented and going around the school is to get filmed slapboxing with someone for 10-15 seconds and then you’re done. I asked Dyshawn what the purpose of that was, and why it was fun. He said a lot of people kind of want to fight or prove themselves, and a timed match (supposedly) means no one gets mad, hurt, or (probably most importantly) caught fighting at school. He showed me a couple of videos - Brian had angrily told me that Dyshawn was targeting the 6th graders but there were kids of all ages in our school participating - and everyone is smiling in them before and after???? So like, it seems to be working for now... but you KNOW someone’s gonna play dirty and it will all fall apart. Really interesting though. When I was in school play fighting was really rare, because it ALWAYS turned into a real fight. And in my hometown, if you were caught fighting, both parties went to court. Always. No exceptions. It was a great deterrent. I’d say from 7th-11th grade (I didn’t go to high school for my senior year) I witnessed 4-5 fights in total. A couple of years ago that was the daily average at my school, a school of 500 kids. Anyway, kids are ridiculous and endlessly interesting.

After that I went out to Eden Prairie to meet Steve, Nick, Quimby and Courtney for lunch. Since Steve’s last day at Supervalu is tomorrow, and they all work out in EP, Steve invited me out with them. My car’s air conditioning is broken and I like the windows down anyway, so I was a sweaty mess by the time I got all the way out there (about a 35-minute drive). We went to India Palace... Wait. India Palace is in Woodbury! Jk, this is a different India Palace. They’re franchised, and this place was good, but not as good as the one we love. But it was definitely tasty. We took our time eating and chatting, and invited people to hang out today after work. Then we stopped in at Starbucks because it was in the same strip mall. Then Steve and I said cute goodbyes and walked to our cars... and I couldn’t find my keys. Kay, I REMEMBERED locking my car. The first thing I thought of was how I’d JUST locked my keys in my car twice over the last 3 months. Awesome. But I distinctly remembered tucking them into my purse! Wtf! I started kind of panicking, because I didn’t see them in the car, so I didn’t think I locked them in. And then I turned and Steve was walking back to me! He came back to bring a drink to his coworker Jay, and I filled him in on my problem, and we went into the Indian place again, thinking maybe I left them on the table. Nope. Went to Starbucks, not there either. We walked back to my car and peered in super intensely. Didn’t see them. Went BACK to the Indian place. Back to Starbucks. KAYYYYY. I knew I drove there using my keys??? I could NOT figure it out. Steve had to get back to work, and I really needed to get back to work, and I was so afraid I’d call AAA and they’d open my car and the keys wouldn’t be in there, and then what? Eventually Steve had to leave but he felt really bad, and I started to call AAA but decided to retrace my steps one more time (I tend to panic when I have an audience and can’t see or think rationally because of embarrassment/insecurity/idk), and lo and behold, found them on my walk. THANK GOD. Called Steve, so relieved, jfc.

I still had enough time to make it back to Nokomis without getting in trouble (as in, with enough time to be face-to-face with kids). Today was actually a concert practice day for the younger kids and the older kids are finishing up a poetry residency with real poets, so I spent a lot of time in the E2 classroom talking with Nicci, one of the E2 teachers. Then I decided to take Jeremy for some work, and he asked if he could bring a few friends with since it was gonna be just him. I said sure, and so he and 3 friends ended up in my office for about an hour. They were all super cute, like, “So this is where you go every day” and one of them even asked me if I lived in that office. I pointed to my comfy chair and said that’s where I slept. They all figured out I was joking, but in that kind of innocently suspicious and somber way younger kids who don’t understand dry humor do. It was still funny. They were all working really hard, and two of the boys were so happy when I helped them figure out how to do some of their math work, and Jeremy was just beaming with excitement of being able to work with his friends in my office. Every so often one of them would quietly say, “It’s so nice in here. I can actually think because it’s *quiet*.” Aww.

I got home around 4:35, and Steve got home soon after. We picked up and put away laundry and collected alllll of the dirty clothes and got them downstairs, and the house is vastly improved. Someone in the gaming community died today, TotalBiscuit if you’ve heard of him. He had cancer, and he was 34. People told the Hearthstone streamer Trump (not to be confused with the other guy) WHILE on stream, and he told a few stories of his interactions with TB and Hearthstone beta etc., and the stream comments were a mixture of support and comments about cancer and TB’s experience, and he suddenly broke down into tears. Chat immediately turned into a bunch of hearts and “everyone cries” and people encouraging him to end the stream to grieve. He initially said he’d be fine, just needed a few minutes, and mentioned how surprised he was that he started crying. He broke down a few more times over the next 10 minutes or so and was finally like, “Okay guys, you’re right, thanks for understanding, gonna take tonight off.” it was quite sad, poor Trumpy boy, heart hurts for him. I think Steve and I both got somewhat choked up just in sympathy.

Eventually Nick, Courtney and Scott came over and we went to Catrina’s for burritos. They were yummy as usual. Catrina’s is a local Mexican food place, like Chipotle but better in every single way except for the fact that they don’t have a vegetarian meat option, just beans. Catrina’s opened a few years ago, and we know the owners pretty well. They opened another location a year or so ago, and they’re just about to open a third location, and they were recently featured on a national news segment. They’re delicious and we go there every week at least (they’re also within walking distance of our house). Good thing we didn’t decide to walk today, because it started storming after we got there. Phew! Today I decided to mix up my salsa choice because the citrus jalapeño just looked too fresh and good. Today was a good burrito, as usual.

When we got back to the house, Scott played the remastered Shadow of the Colossus, we put on the Office, Steve started a game on the SP, I continued working on Mom’s fingerless gloves after Steve guilt-tripped me EVEN THOUGH I wanna knit my shawl instead (“Leah, it’s getting way past Mother’s Day and I don’t want you to be giving these to her for NEXT mother’s day“). I’m actually almost done with them now, just gotta finish the cuff on the second one, knit up the thumb, and add the kitty heads. And weave in the ends of course but that’s a given. And THEN I can work on the shawl. The next thing I start should be the afghan Bethany wants for her wedding. I can work on it alternately with my shawl or other projects.

On my knitting podcasts, a frequent topic is whether the people in question stick with one project, or have several going at once. When I began listening to podcasts, I thought that I was basically a “one project at a time” person, because even if I’d have multiple projects started, I was never working on more than one thing at a time. Unfinished projects were projects I’d abandoned but not emotionally given up on and didn’t want to admit that I’d never finish them. Now that I knit like every day, and more seriously, I generally have 2-5 projects going at any given time, and I’m confident in where I left off and that can and will finish it. It’s funny, when I thought about how I only worked on one thing, it made me feel very knitters, but that was only because I associated multiple projects with not finishing them ever. Now that I actually have been consistent in getting things finished, and working on different types of projects at the same time (more mindless things for on the go, more elaborate ones for home), I feel way more knitterly smug than before. Also I just really love knitting.

All day and night Steve and I were texting each other cute texts. We’ve been so good lately, he makes me so happy. I love spending time with him and we have so much fun. SO MUCH LOVE!!! So goosh <3

I spent this morning being stressed about work because I knew it was going to be a ridiculously busy day from start to end, and then we would immediately segue into Gamer Monday. Because I had gotten so much sleep during the day on Sunday, I wasn’t as tired as I could have been even though Steve tossed and turned forever, to the point that every time I’d fall asleep he’d roll over and wake me up, and then he tried to turn Hearthstone on his phone after having built a little pillow wall to block the light from me (this failed because I just woke up to his movements lol). Eventually he left for awhile so I could fall asleep and he could get tired. I assume he tried to sleep on the couch and when that failed he came back and I was sleeping enough to stay asleep after he got back into bed.

The morning was pretty similar to Friday - morning basketball with the boys, Josie as the sub, running various boys back and forth to reset and teaching Malik more 2-step equations patterns. Jane, the nurse, told me she visited with my Nokomis principal over the weekend (they’re friends outside of school) and Melissa told Jane that she was going to miss me. Aww. 2nd block was decent, again with walking through 2-step problems with the groups. Seriously, do you remember learning 2-step equations? Not only are they really fun and easy. Once you know the pattern, but they’re directly applicable to a myriad of real-life situations. I was in advanced math all throughout my school age years, but I did not internalize these concepts AT ALL when I was learning them. I really enjoy them now as an adult and I try really hard to impress the value of specific concepts like this that are valuable to everyday life.

Best part of my day: coming home to see Steve for 10 minutes as I grab food for lunch before heading to Nokomis. I cut up a giant apple and gave half to Steve and added the other half to some cantaloupe and took my Naf Naf leftovers. We talked about the rest of the day plans and professed how much we were missing each other. I did get to talk to him on the phone several times today while transitioning between schools and that was really great.

Nokomis was really busy, as Mondays are my busiest kid days. Any spare second I had was spent working on the evals and IEP for the afternoon. All too soon it was 2 and I needed to run back to Parkway to present my academic findings for Kee, one of Molly’s OHD students in her setting III ASD program. That went a lot better than expected and I was able to leave by 3. Elba, the assistant principal, and I walked out together and she put her arm around me and said she understood how hard it was to go between two schools and that everyone wants you full-time and you work so hard, etc. She’s never been affectionate with me before and it was really cute.

Okay, BACK to Nokomis and finishing up some last-minute things on Jeremy’s IEP. Jeremy’s parents are the cutest, and they were actually really relieved when we told them that Isabella doesn’t qualify for SpEd at this time. You never know whether parents will be happy or upset to find out their kid doesn’t qualify for services, because some parents see the benefits of SpEd while others worry about stigma, etc. But thankfully they were happy and we talked about how at the very least, Isabella has no delays and is in fact above average in some ways, but she’s young and immature and struggles with focus and it will be a good idea to keep an eye out for changes in the future, whether her attention improves or worsens. Jeremy’s IEP went well; he’s old enough that I felt confident speaking to his 5th grade year and beyond to middle school (and Jeremy has a sister that goes to Parkway so parents are familiar with it). By the time they left it was 5pm. Ugh, such a long day ;A;

Raced home to Steve, watered my plant, and we went to pick up Tyler for game shopping. We also played and talked Pokémon Go, did a Gengar raid, and Tyler opened my whole world up by notifying me of an app that rates your Pokémon’s IVs and potential. Weeeee! No games were found today and we only went to Level Up, but burritos were had and they were delicious. After we dropped Tyler off, Steve and I came back home. He played a couple arena games in Hearthstone and I wound yarn for a shawl I want to start. I got a tangle in one of the yarns right at the end of winding (I believe it started that way, lame) and that took forever to fix, so I didn’t actually get to start the shawl today, but maybe that’ll be a thing tomorrow. I’ve been really wanting to start one of my cool new knitting projects with the beautiful yarn.

I participated in a sock knitting contest, where you try a technique you haven’t done before and post it in the thread on Ravelry - it was aptly named the “Never Have I Ever.” It was super easy for me, having only knit one pair of socks prior to the contest, lol. I had a feeling I’d win something even though over 150 people entered (I am generally a lucky person with contests and such), but often times I get the Monkey’s paw when I do win. That’s a tad dramatic, but what I mean is, often I get the “worse” or lamer thing, and I would say I definitely DID win the lamest prize - a slipper/sock/foot covering book. But I haven’t actually SEEN the book yet and I could easily just be a crybaby because I ALWAYS want to win yarn, basically exclusively, lol. Anyway, it’s still exciting to win something and hear your name read over a podcast. Pretty sweet.

I got to work st a reasonable time today, which was nice. Not super reasonable, but before the bell. I wasn't going to be in first block for most of the time because I was testing a student for Brian. I also went to teach him how to do the ELL curriculum-based testing since I'm not going to be there next year and this is supposed to be the standardized/normed test for students who speak English as a second language, and I'm concerned he won't give it with fidelity. Lol. Even though I made this clear to him, he was still in and out of the room like 4 times... and then at one point, I shit you not, he BURST into the room to yell, "DID YOU GUYS SEE A MOUSE?!" a couple times, because apparently there was a mouse running in the pod outside of the classroom. I was literally doing a timed oral reading with her and she was in the middle of reading out loud. This is an adult man who KNEW what we were doing and we were the only people in that room so it wasn't like he was talking to anyone else. What I do know is that if the ELL coordinator was there observing, she would have lost her shit at him for like trying to ruin the test.

2nd block has been going really well, I pushed about a third of my kids into 2-step equations even though they continue to struggle with remembering inverse operations, and it's been going really well. I forget how much I enjoy teaching at the front of the room with a group, calling on each student in turn in order to give them all practice. In my first group I somehow got not just Ben and Kayly, but Ashawn and Konmeng too! It's like, I got so used to dealing with behavior issues and it being impossible to work with more than 1 kid at a time that I let it fall to the wayside. But I'm gonna keep pushing it toward the end of the year because it's so fun.

I finally did my cognitive observation on Jeremy's little sister, and she is really interesting. She doesn't qualify for Developmentsl Delay but I needed to get an observation on her. She just appeared to tune in and out when she pleased and was generally hilarious to watch. I got the cutest picture of her when I stopped to ask her wtf she was thinking about (I got a giggle and "nothing!").

I couldn't wait to get home to Steve, who is thoroughly enjoying his coasting to a week off. I told Tealie I planned to call in the Tuesday after Memorial Dsy so we could have a long weekend, and I'm so excited. Steve has never just had relaxed free time between jobs really, having only worked at Rainbow, and then Thomson Reuters, which he was laid off from (as has been a large percentage of the company by this point).

I was really in the mood to hang out outside for a bit, so we took Ben's book outside to read while I knit. It ended up being too bright for Steve, who, for no logical reason, refuses to wear sunglasses. He insists that the world is less vibrant and is tinted. I have tried to explain the transitions lenses... *transition*... so you don't notice the shift and it really isn't dark! But still, he refuses, and I ended up reading aloud for awhile until the sky became cloudier and Steve had gotten used to the brightness.

Remember the apple tree in our backyard? It's got beautiful blossoms.

Soon after we started reading, our neighbor's dog came outside. He's about a year old, and he's a Rottweiler, and people are really weird about dogs, so we haven't interacted with him much. But he seriously wants our attention every time he's outside. He huffs and puffs through the fence holes and stares intently at us for long periods of time in between bouts of exploring his yard. We've had bad luck with people like... getting MAD when their dogs come to us, so it's pretty safe to say we're wary. But today he started whining so pitifully that I had to chance it. I furtively started tiptoeing across our yard, CONFIDENT that the dog would start barking the second I got close. To my great surprise, not only was he silent as I walked up to him, but he IMMEDIATELY sat down in a submissive posture for me to pet his back and head, and then got soooo excited for me to scratch his head and neck and just really wanted contact. I talked to him about how I was so happy he was so lovey but I was afraid of us getting in trouble (not sure how our neighbor feels about his dog standing up against the fence), but I couldn't NOT give the pupper some of the love he was desperate for. Eventually I went back to Steve and the reading and the dog (I THOUGHT his name was Roscoe but I'm not sure about that) merrily went to play.

Dinner tonight was Naf Naf. Hummus bowl with couscous, falafel, all the fixins (including extra pickles because they have the BEST pickles), and Naf fries. Soooo gooood. While Steve was a darling and got that, I started playing ITG, dying out my new Fitkicks. Steve, Ben, Dmac and I are all "sock" ITG players. Many ITG players of course play in shoes, but those of us that have our own pads will modify them so the arrows are more flush as opposed to recessed in the pad, making it easy to play in socks. My problem with playing in socks is that my feet require a lot of annoying specifics, particularly when it comes to slipperiness. If it's too slippery I fly off the pads and can't get stable, and if it's too sticky I can't move fast enough. A lot of people in our ITG Facebook group love this type of kind-of-shoe, and they're cheap, so I thought it worth it to give it a try. So far my thoughts:
Pros:
-satisfying tapping to hear the rhythm
-good traction but not too much traction
-Steve and I can switch off because his pay doesn't affect the pad slipperiness with the shoes
-I can see theme being so much more consistent and so much annoyance will be reduced with trying to find the right socks for that day

Cons:
-I often rely on my socks for fast songs once I get going, and sort of fudge it. I've always known this wasn't the true way to play, but of course it's a hard adjustment
-kinda similar but different, because the soles are rubber, if I don't pick up my feet, the rubber will drag and it will fuck me up
-even though I bought the smallest size, supposedly for 5.5-6.5 feet, there's enough room that when I play, my foot slides forward and my big toe gets pushes super hard against the front. I eventually was able to play fine with two pairs of socks on, filling out some space in the shoe and also providing more cushion, but now both my big toes are throbbing and the toenails are sore. Boooo.

After my blood sugar settled, I had a decent ITG day, getting two new 98's, including one that had previously been a 95! Usually my improvements are small and inconsistent, so improving a song I'd been struggling with for so long with such a big leap really made my night.

The other thing that super made my night was brought to us by the amazing and lovely Steve. With me leaving SPPS, I have to turn in the computer I've been using for 4 years, as well as the iPad. Steve had suggested I get a tablet instead of a laptop and I thought it was a good idea. I was upstairs getting ready for ITG, and I couldn't find the shirt I wanted to wear. I saw my suitcase sitting on the bed, still mostly unpacked from when we went to Madison last weekend. It was put on the bed several times this week by Steve, and I just assumed he moved it when cleaning and would put it back on the floor when it was bedtime. Today I decided to dig through it to see if my shirt was in there. What did I find?? A BRAND NEW IPAD!! It's the 256Gig 10.5 inch 2017 version, which is precisely what I wanted. I'm sooo excited to get a keyboard case for it to turn it into a mini laptop, but I've been of course having fun with it, getting it set up and apps installed and whatnot. He wrote me the most adorable note to go along with it, and talked about it was an anniversary present but he just couldn't wait (our anniversary is May 29th). He was getting us food when I found it, so I couldn't attack him right away, but I might have gotten tearful with joy when reading the note and bursting with love. Definitely top 3 love notes. Oh man. This boy.