2/11/09

I had a great birthday!  My day started with waking up to streamers and balloons from my roommates, and Nicole made breakfast (chocolate chip pancakes) for us and some friends.  Yum.  When I got to school, here's what I saw:

Last week sometime, my students enlisted the help of another teacher and the custodian, and I guess they just assigned people what they needed to bring.  They had Capri-Suns, cupcakes, an array of chips, candy, and popcorn.  I got balloons, silk flowers, a plastic vase, and quite a few cards.  So sweet :-)  It was a very interesting balance to try to show my students that I was very thankful and that I thought it was so sweet, but that I also still needed to discipline the kids that tried to take advantage of the fact that it seemed to be a "fun day" from the beginning. That was not easy, but it worked out okay.  There were only a few kids who pushed the limit, and for the most part, everyone was in a great mood, and it was a great day.  

After school, I came home and my roommates had invited my friend Cary over, and we all ate Lilly's Pizza.  Yum.  When I went to Community Group, we all stood around outside (because today was SO amazing outside... 75 degrees!).  When we went inside, they had arranged some brownies and ice cream, along with a lovely picture of me:  

This all started when Cary and her husband Jason decided to get rid of a large picture of him at our community group's Christmas gift exchange.  It has been passed around a few times, and now I get to decide who the next recipient is, and I get to put their face on it!  Fun.  Now I just have to find a place for it until then.  Maybe on my desk at school.... 

I am thankful for all my wonderful friends and family who called and wished me a happy birthday.  I have really been missing my mom these past few weeks, and this morning I found myself feeling an overwhelming sadness, even in the midst of such wonderful people and blessings.  I know it's not a bad thing for me to miss my mom, but I am thankful that God showed me that if I focused on how sad I was today, I would miss out on the joy of seeing the family of God care for me and love me.  It was a conscious fight all day long to choose to focus on the here and now instead of on what I don't have, but I am thankful that God showed it to me first thing and helped me all day.  

"What do you have that you did not receive?"  1 Corinthians 4:7

Thank you, God, for the many undeserved blessings you showered down on me today!

Today

2-hour delay today - kids come at 10:45.  Very exciting for all teachers and students.

In reading - we have 6 laptops for the kids to use.  It's very difficult to monitor the use of the laptops while trying to teach a reading group while trying to answer questions about latin stems while trying to keep 3 kids from literally shocking other kids with fake Juicy Fruit purchased at Spencers.

After lunch - one of my lovelies decides he can leave the classroom without asking me.  I don't realize this for about 10 minutes.  A kid goes to find him and brings him back.  I write a discipline referral.

Later after lunch - 4 kids swarm my desk to ask me questions.  In the midst of the confusion, one kid knocks my macbook (my own personal computer) off of my desk onto the hard tile floor.  I yell at them all to sit down.  A blood vessel in my eye bursts.  This is true.  I wait about 3 minutes before I check to see if my computer still works.  I pray this whole time that I will react appropriately regardless of whether or not it works.  It does work.  Praise God.  

After Math - another teacher comes in to let me know that one of my kids was playing with a $100 bill in class.  This is not the first time that has happened this year, both times it's been boys in my class that have these big bucks.  ***(we found out later that one of them actually traded it to the other one for his cookie and bag of chips...  Jacob and Esau?)

After school - a student brings me papers to grade.  This is the news that brightens my day a bit.  3 girls from another class chose to write about me for the last writing assignment.  Here are some of the sweet (and funny) statements they made about me in their writing:

Student #1:

"She is smart.  She is nice.  Although, she can be a little mean when your getting on her nerves, but other than that she's still nice."

"She dresses cool, she's sporty, outgoing and hip."  Ha!  :-)

"Ms. Christie is a great reader, when she reads the whole world stops idmmedieity."  (that word is supposed to be 'immediately...')  "She knows when to punish you and when to love you.  She knows when to act silly around you."

Student #2:

"Ms. Christie is so magnificent and pretty!"  (this one makes me giggle, because I imagine she had a list of words she wanted to use that were 'big words.')  

"Ms. Christie has beautiful shoes."  This one makes me confused, because I pretty much wear the same flip flops every day...

"Suddenly she is very kind."  Hahahaha, again, trying to use a "writing term" but not using it in the right way.  Precious.  

"She loves when I ask questions about math.  Sometimes when I really understand it she is very excited.  She is never creul" (cruel) "and she believe in me."  :-)  sweet....

Student #3:

"You are very special to be in her clas.  But she makes you take your shoe off if you ask her for a pencil.  But she is still a spectaculart teacher."  

"She helps you when you need it.  An she give out candy to.  I love candy.  How about you?  Don't you like candy?"  This one makes me laugh because I honestly don't give out candy very often.  But maybe I did one day - she obviously remembers it as a very motivating part of being in my class....

Now you have been on a virtual field trip of my day.  Hope you enjoyed it!

Spot Conlon

My all-time favorite movie is Newsies.  If you haven't seen it, watch it.  If you still use a VCR you can borrow it from me.  I've probably seen it at least 100 times since I discovered it on the Disney Channel in 7th grade.  My friend Amber and I would rewind the tape over and over again to learn the dance moves (yes, dance moves) and sing along.  Ridiculous, but so much fun. My first TV crush ever (beating out Matthew Lawrence from Brotherly Love and Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains) was Spot Conlon, the tough kid from Brooklyn who sort of saves the day in Newsies.  Here are some pictures for everyone's enjoyment: 

He's about to save the day.

He's saving the day.

He's happy he saved the day.

Here are a few Spot quotes from the movie:  

"I say... that what you say... is what I say."  

"Never fear, Brooklyn's here."

Talk about your Oscar-winning writing... 

If I haven't made a good enough case for the movie, I'll go ahead and do some name dropping. Christian Bale is the main character, and it's one of his first noteworthy films.  That's right, I consider this film to be worthy of note.  

Now, the main purpose of this blog post was not so that you would learn to love this classic (although that will be an obvious by-product of reading this).  It's because I recently found out that "Spot Conlin" is more than just a name.  It is found in the Urban Dictionary and the verbatim definition is:

Spot Conlin:  (n) Brooklyn; (v) To beat someone up or to use a slingshot.

Who knew that my first fictional crush would turn out to be so famous that they put him in the Urban Dictionary as not only a noun - "I live in Spot Conlin territory", but also as a verb - "Look my way again, and I'll Spot Conlin you."  Looks like I chose my first entertainment crush well.  I mean, no one goes around saying, "I'm gonna Zac Morris or Jason Priestley you."  Now, it is important to note here that Spot's last name is actually spelled Conlon, but in the urban dictionary, they spell it Conlin.  Maybe spelling things a little different than the original is the urban way.  Like getting your hair done at Kiki's Krazy Kuts or something.  I'm not sure.

So, in summary... 

Looking for a movie to watch this weekend?  Rent (or borrow) Newsies.  Starring:

Christian Bale

Bill Pullman

Ann-Margaret

Robert Duvall

Praying in Faith

There is a war going on in my mind.  I don't know how to pray in faith.  I know that it is biblical to pray expectantly, in faith, knowing that God desires to do good to His children.  

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"  Romans 8:32

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.  Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for afish, will give him a serpent?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"  Matthew 7:7-11

My pitfall is this:  As soon as I pray, asking God for whatever I may be desiring, I immediately go to the thought, "He probably won't do what I've asked, because of all those other times my prayers weren't answered the way I wanted them to be."  My mom dying really shattered a portion of my prayers for a while (it's still not quite healed).  I had never begged and pleaded for anything so much in my life, and yet, it was not God's will for her to live.  My "petition" prayers became non-existent after that, because I believed that since God will do as He pleases, why should I even tell Him what I want?  I don't want to live or pray this way anymore, because it is unbiblical, but I don't quite understand the balance of knowing that God wants us to pray and to ask Him for what our hearts desire, but also recognizing that ultimately, what He has ordained will prevail.  Help!  Thoughts? Scriptures?  Books on the topic?  I would appreciate any advice that anyone has to share about this, especially if you have wrestled through similar issues.  

The interesting thing about this blog post is, I literally just finished typing the top part up to this point, and I decided to flip through my Valley of Vision book.  In it, I just read a prayer called, "The Divine Will."  Here is an excerpt that has given me insight into the very topic I was asking about just minutes ago:  

"Help me to pray in faith and so find thy will,

by leaning hard on thy rich free mercy, 

by believing thou wilt give what thou hast promised;

Strengthen me to pray with the conviction 

that whatever I receive is thy gift,

so that I may pray until prayer be granted;

Teach me to believe that all degrees of mercy arise

from several degrees of prayer,

that when faith is begun it is imperfect and must grow, 

as chapped ground opens wider and wider until rain comes.

So shall I wait thy will, pray for it to be done, 

and by thy grace become fully obedient."

So ironically, in my asking for help to understand how to pray in faith, God has answered.  :-)  

I love Him.

Please let me know any further insight you may have on this topic, as I will still need all the help I can get in understanding.  Thank you!

Random Collection of Quotes and Funnies

I think I want to start blogging a "Song of the Week" based on whatever song that I hear my kids singing throughout the day.  Last week it was the song Bon Qui Qui sings on a Mad TV skit.  "On the mike is a queen, now listen to me sing..." Today it was, "It's a hard knock life..." all day long. Somehow, I don't think they've seen Annie... they are probably familiar with Jay Z's version.  ***I'm adding this sentence a few days later... I found out that they listened to the song in their music class when they studied Broadway, which explains why everyday students were singing it - it's an easy song to get stuck in your head. :-)

Today, one of my students walked up to me (always in front of the entire class when it's something controversial...) and he said, "Ms. Christie, check out my shirt!  It says, 'RIP' and that means, 'Rest In Peace.'"  "I see that," I said back to him (Nicole Wilson will be so proud of my choice of words there).  "Whose picture is on the front?" "Tupac."  It took everything in me not to say, "Are you sure he's really dead?"  Rap artists are probably not what the taxpayers are paying me to teach or hold debates about...

Conversation from the other day:

"Ms. Christie, can you help me get my watch on?"

"Sure, here you go..." (I proceed to fix his watch.)

"Thanks.  I'm not perfect at watches."  

Funny story from the other day:

"Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" (during the first part, I was very distracted, so I don't exactly know what she said) "and then I woke up and I had a Jamaican/French accent."  That got my attention.  "A what?" I asked.  She repeated herself.  Then she proceeded to say, "I forgot my book today" in a very British accent (as well as a kid can do a British accent when it's supposed to be Jamaican/French).  I said, "Don't you mean, 'I forgot my book, Mon?"  She didn't get my joke.  Not many of them get my jokes.  She talked in the British voice for the rest of the day.  :-)

Happy Port St. Joe Thanksgiving

It all started out well enough... I made it to the airport, and had just checked my luggage in, and I realized that I left my phone in the car.  One of my neighbors, Panama, had dropped me off already, and I didn't even have a way to ask him to bring me my phone if I wanted to.  Thankfully, God has been recently revealing to me how much I rely on technology on a daily basis, so I (reluctantly) asked God to help me see this as an opportunity to be able to just be, me and God, no need (or ability) to communicate with anyone else.  

As I was checking in, also checking in was a single mom with 3 of the most obnoxious kids I have been around lately, which says a lot, when you consider my profession of choice.  It goes without saying that they were on my flight.  As I was walking to my gate, I stopped at the California Pizza Kitchen, which is of course, where they stopped to eat as well.  When I arrived at my gate, they arrived at my gate too, with the youngest one singing loudly about how he was going to drink the toilet water.  Really.

The upside to my wait was that they called me to the desk and they had my phone!  Panama had noticed in the car and brought it back.  Thanks!!  I had already begun to dwell on the practical implications of not having my phone - the only numbers I have memorized are Nicole Judd and Nicole Wilson.  I don't even know my dad's new phone number.  So, it worked out well that I was able to get it back before I left.  

On the plane, the turbulence was so bad and so sudden, that the flight attendant spilled my water all over my library book, and the rest of it went all over the front of my pants so that for the rest of the flight, it looked (and felt) like I peed all over myself.  Nice.  

Due to the weather, our flight was late departing from Raleigh, so we pulled up to the gate in Atlanta with only 30 minutes to spare before my next flight departed.  This actually gave me only 15 minutes, since these days they don't let you on the next flight any later than 15 minutes before the departure time.  Something about security... Of course, I was in almost the last row of the plane, so I had to wait for EVERYONE else to get their bags and stop and reminisce about in flight stories with people and talk baby talk to every single baby on the plane (of course, they weren't really doing this to such extremes, but it felt liek it to me).  Once I finally got off the plane, I only had about 8 minutes to make it to my gate.  I turned into crazy running girl - like something from Home Alone with "Run Run Rudolf" playing in the background.  I don't think Jes Peters reads my blog, but I wanted to shout out her quote, "Running with a backpack!" to let people know.  I ran and ran and ran, and ran some more - up and down a few escalators in which I literally had to climb over someone's suitcase, because he just would not move.  I asked first, and he said, "You can try," so I did.  This whole time all I could think of was Gena and her story about missing the flight to Scotland because she stopped to tie her shoe.  I kept saying to myself, "DO NOT STOP.  DO NOT MISS THIS FLIGHT BY 3 MINUTES."  Atlanta to Panama City flights are hard to come by in the evenings.  I finally made it to the gate, sweating and unable to breath (this paints a nice picture).  I made it to the gate at 8:23 pm, and it was supposed to depart at 8:36 pm.  They let me on the plane, and I made it safely!

On Tuesday, I woke up right after my dad left for work, and since I don't have a car here, I called Ms. Vicki (she was my mom's best friend, and I consider her a good friend of my own as well...) and she came to get me, and we caught up and talked for a few hours until my dad got off work for lunch.  

My dad and I went to Pepper's, the local Mexican restaurant.  Roberto seated us.  This is a very important piece to the story.  After we sat down, my dad says, "Alicia, I have a story to tell you about him... When I was getting my haircut about 2 years ago, Jolene* told me that he died.  The whole town mourned his death, because everyone knew him.  Everyone talked about it for weeks, and he was greatly missed."  At this point, you can imagine I was confused, seeing as how Roberto was the one who welcomed us into the restaurant.  My dad continues, "Well, last month on Halloween, I was walking down Reid Avenue, and there he was!  He wasn't dead!  He just left town for a few years, and came back."  Ha!  This little anecdote portrays the very essence of Port St. Joe.  For 2 years everyone thought this man had died, and he actually just went to Miami for a few years.  Oh, what a magical place I grew up in.  We talked to Roberto about it for a minute, and we all laughed a lot.  I told him since he had such a good experience, I am not thinking about pretending to die to see if anyone misses me.  Then I realized I would be sad if no one did, so I changed my mind.  (I am greatly resisting the temptation to write about that one episode of Friends right now...)

Wednesday, we drove up to Tallahassee to visit with my Granny, my aunt Susan and her husband Gary, and my uncle Carey.  I hadn't seen any of them in about a year, so it was good to catch up.  Later that night, I caught up with some of the Geoghagans, and then I went back home to continue the 30 Rock marathon my dad and I tried to complete by the end of the week (we were unsuccessful at watching the entire first season - but Christmas break is coming, so we'll continue it then.)

Thanksgiving Day was good - we went driving on the beach in the morning, and then we ate lunch with Glenn, Vicki, Bill and Ruth, and then on to another house for dessert (very, very yummy).  I got to meet the infamous "Johnny and Moses," my dad's new kids.  Well, not really, it's sort of like a "Big Brother" program, and they like to hang out at his house.  They are really sweet kids, and they were really excited to meet me, which I thought was nice.  

This morning, we ate breakfast with most of the Geoghagan family (minus Mr. Dennis) and most of their significant others (minus Benjamin).  We had a great time laughing at old memories, and we relived a few hilarious moments from Rachel's wedding in May (Katie singing bass, just to name one) :-)  I enjoy that family a lot.  

My Florida Thanksgiving was great.  I have so much to be thankful for!  

When We've Been There 10,000 Years...

My mom's been with Jesus for 4 years today.  It seems like so long that I've been without her on this earth, but I am reminded that it's such a speck of time compared to eternity. She's only been in heaven for 4 years, but even after 10,000 more, she'll have no less days to sing God's praise than when she'd first begun.  I am encouraged by that, even though I miss her terribly here. 

This is what I read from my Daily Light book this day four years ago - it brought great comfort to my soul then, and I want to remember it again:  

~It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

~Has God forgotten to be gracious?  Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?  

~I said in my haste, "I am cut off from before your eyes"; nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried out to You.  

~Shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them?  I tell you that He will avenge them speedily.  

~Wait for the Lord, and He will save you.

~Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.

~You will not need to fight in this battle.  Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.   

I am so thankful God rescued my mom from her sin, and even though her life was filled with trial after trial, He rescued her, in His time, and took her home to be with Him forever.  He is so good.