Fall

As one of my beautiful friends Sammi wrote,
"There is something about the fall air that just refreshes my soul." Yep - so incredibly true. It smells different. You can feel the coolness of the air coming down from the mountains. The leaves start changing colors. The humidity gradually decreases. It becomes jeans, tshirts, and flip flop weather.

Thursday was officially the first day of fall so in honor, here are my top reasons for loving it.

1) God's beauty is shown all over with the changing colors
2) The air gets sweeter and cooler.
3) I start craving warm cookies and hot chocolate
4) Hot tea becomes a must in the mornings
5) Candles make an entrance
6) Winter smells of gingerbread, pumpkin pie, and peppermint floating around in the air
7) Football.
8) Home Alone and Elf start making appearances
9) Sorry if this is too much information, but I absolutely adore snuggling. With cooler weather comes more snuggling. Grey appreciates it :)
10) Grey also is a dear and allows me to put my ice cold feet on his back so he can warm them up. In case you can't tell, he spoils me :)


EK! I'm so excited!!!!
Below is a picture of Michigan State's campus during my infamous tattoo trip 3 years ago IN THE FALL!


:)
-B

Realization

This is why I am where I am:

During the second week of school, the kids had taken a test (during a 90 minute block) and I was trying to get them to start on a fun activity introducing the next unit. They were being miserable - absolutely miserable. I couldn't get them to cooperate or do anything that I asked them to do. I finally threw my hands up in the air and asked them why they were being so miserable. I had one kid who looked at me and in front of the whole class said,
"Ms James - even when you're yelling at us, you're still giving us more attention then we get at home."

That was it.
Even when my days are horrible (like last Friday when I had a parent come down to the front office yelling), I still have to realize that Jesus has me in this high school for a purpose. I need to love on those kids like their mommas would because for some of them, I'm the closest thing that they've got to a parent.

Doesn't it break your heart?

I'll never ever ever forget what that kid said to me.

Holding Fast

This week has been rough.

Starting with last Friday, I've had something happen in my classroom every day of the week that has just left me standing there asking myself what in the world I've gotten myself into.

Last Thursday, one of my classes was particularly rough so I had warned them that come Friday, no fun and games, no partner work, no "cool" activities - just straight lecture, notes, and practice. Friday, one of my students decided to announce that she was bored and that my class was no fun. Yeah, ok. I was bored too but oh well. :) I gave them a review sheet for their test at the beginning of the next week and for the next 20 minutes, she refused (down right refused) to do work. I asked her to get to work several times and she just said no. (I'm still fine at this point, I can handle this.) She then got out scissors and paper and started cutting strips of paper to make a fan. She took her delicately made fan and started waving it around the classroom. I walked over to her and stuck my hand out asking for her fan. She refused to give it to me and again I asked her for it. Still no. So, (my bad) I went to grab it. That tipped her over the edge. She then stood up, started yelling at me, and even threw a few choice words in there. I went to call her mother in class right in front of her (got no answer) but that apparently pushed an even bigger button of hers. At that moment, I called down for an administrator to come down and escort her out of my class. No one came. Yikes.
What a way to end the week huh?

Every day this week, I've had someone blow up in my class yelling curse words at me because I've apparently done something silly like:
1)assigning 7 math problems for homework (apparently 7 is too many)
2)taking a kid's test from him when I caught him cheating
3)Assigning lunch detention to 4 kids who randomly walked out of my class on Wednesday and never came back (it should have been an automatic day in ISS but apparently lunch detention was bad enough)
and other random "my bad" things.

Thursday, I was so frustrated when I got home that by the time I got ready for bed, I still had not cooled off. Jesus and I had a long chat though about what righteous anger was and I went to bed happy.

Come Friday, I was fine. In fact, Friday morning, I had a total God wink by seeing a beautiful sunrise on my way to work. Friday was going to be a good day. It's the day before the weekend, we had a pep rally at school, and I was going to get to see Grey after! :)

Was Friday a good day? No. I had a fight occur in my classroom that completely tipped me over the edge. By tipped, I mean, crying uncontrollably from 12-2 during my planning that I didn't get to have because I was covering someone else's class. (Those kids were scared at all the tears coming from my eyeballs.)

It was a rough day. By the time Grey got to my apartment, I was curled up on my bed trying to sleep (at 6:45) because I had a horrible headache. To give you a mental image of what Grey saw when he looked at me, as soon as I got up from the bed, my nose was so full of snot that it started pouring out. So I had to hold my hand out and catch it all. My face was bright red, my eyes were puffy, my lips looked like I had red lipstick on, I had glasses on with a half up ponytail that had fallen out. To make matters worse, my so stinkin sweet hubby to be simply looked at me and said, "Have I told you today how beautiful you are?"

Yep, I lost it...again. More puffiness, more redness, more snot. He's awesome.

Aside from that though, I've really been struggling, especially after this week, of whether or not this is the place for me. I really love my students and I've already seen multiple times how this is such a mission field (the fact that my fiance and I do not live together is just unheard of to my students). However, on the inside, it's really tearing me up. I want them to succeed in life so badly. I want them to respect their parents and myself and have goals that they desire to attain. Teaching is hard. Teaching lost high schoolers is even harder.

My only saving grace has been the fact that I am a sinner just like my students. If my loving God can have an unlimited amount of patience with me, why can't I at least try to do the same for my students?

All week I've had Mercy Me's song "Hold Fast" stuck in my head:
To everyone who's hurting
To those who've had enough
To all the undeserving
That should cover all of us
Please do not let go
I promise there is hope

Hold fast
Help is on the way
Hold fast
He's come to save the day
What I've learned in my life
One thing greater than my strife
Is His grasp
So hold fast

Jesus has His grasp on me. It is only by his mercy and grace that I will make it through this year. It is only by his mercy and grace that I will be able to show love and patience DAILY to my students. It is only by his mercy and grace that I will be able to come back day after day and give it all I've got.

So please pray for me that I would have continuing patience and love for my students, that I wouldn't become quickly frustrated with them when they do things that I've deemed as stupid, and that I would represent Jesus to my lost world of students.

Stories from the first two weeks

1) Monday August 16th - the kids came. By Wednesday, I was miserable. I had one girl in my geometry class who was an absolute pill. I thought about quitting. Every time I opened my mouth, she had some smart comment to make. I moved her seat. She never stopped trash talking me. We had mini conferences - she was still horrible. By Wednesday, I threatened to call her mother. She finally stopped. Thursday, she came to me with a schedule change taking her out of my class. Thank you Jesus - you truly answered a prayer. :)

2) I have an interesting student in one of my classes who insists on standing up for me when my other students are talking. I'll ask them to be quiet and he then turns around and does the annoying, extremely loud and pushed, "SSSHHHH!!!" :) I have to contain myself from laughing before I kindly thank him and then tell him that I've got it under control.

3) This past Tuesday was miserable. I have another kid in my second block class who is huge and mean. I've had mini conferences with him and moved his seat two or three times to keep him from talking. He is mean. Have I mentioned it? After second block on Tuesday, I sat at my desk and cried for a good thirty minutes. High school kids can be brutal man...brutal. I decided that I had HAD it with this kid, so after getting myself under control, I called his mother and told her (nicely) what a pill her son had been. He's been much better ever since. However, when 4th block rolled around, my face was apparently so puffy from crying that one of my students came up to me and asked me what the matter was. I told her that I had just had a bad day with a couple of my students. She pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, leaned in real close, and said, "Ms James, who was it? I'll take care of them, I'll go beat them up." I laughed and told her that everything was fine, it had just been a bad day. She then leaned in once more and said, "No really...I've got your back. Tell me who it was."
:)

4) My kids insist that I'm at least 28 years old if not in my 30's. I guess that means that I am acting much older and experienced then I look/feel.

5) We were doing a lab one day where the students needed to cut something with scissors. Since it's a rough class, they're not allowed to cut things by themselves - I've got to go around the room and cut everything for them. (This rule was imposed by myself). So as I was walking around, I was cutting this one girl's paper when the girl in front of her WHIPPED around and said to me, "WHAT YOU DOIN?" I said, "uh...I'm cutting her paper?" She said, "That's fine...I just don't trust people with scissors." I said, "yeah, me either but don't worry, I won't cut you." She proceeded to lean towards me and say, "That's right cause I'd cut you back (with a smile of course)." I responded with, "Hunny, I most certainly don't doubt you."
She's another one of my rough ones. :)

6) It's understood that when you enter my class, you should be prepared to put solutions up on the board and explain them thoroughly to the whole class. I asked a kid on Wednesday (of the first week so August 18th) to come up to the board to write up a solution. He refused and said he didn't feel well. I said fine, but he owed me one the next time he was in class (in case he didn't come to school because he was sick). He agreed.

You know what? He hasn't come back since. It's been 6 school days and because I've checked, I know for a fact that he has been in every other class on his schedule BUT mine. In fact, I SAW him today and said, YO BUDDY! Where ya been?! I've seen you now, so you better be in my class today. He said, Yes m'am!

You know what? He wasn't in class. The problem is that I've written him up for skipping but the administration is trying so hard to help him pass that they're not giving him ISS or anything for skipping. In fact, I can't even mark the kid absent anymore.

7)My kids have found out that I have a fiance (insert high school girlish giggle here). One day as the class was leaving, one of the kids said, "You livin with him?" I stopped right there and said, "Heck no, not until marriage." I MIGHT have mentioned something about morals...If I'm fired, it will probably be for that reason. But anywho, when I said it, I honestly heard a few gasps in the room. One of the girls came up to me and said that what I was doing was really hard and that she was proud of me.
Yep...not so hard, because I've got Jesus!

8)In the same class as mentioned above with the interesting SSSHHHH kid, I have two students who go out of their way to take care of SSHHHH boy. They talk to him, invite him to do group work with them, etc. They did something so wonderful today to SSHHH boy that it completely melted my heart so I decided to call their parents and let them know. I got on the phone with the first kid's parent (we'll call this kid julie) and told Julie's dad about how wonderful she was and how proud I was of her for making a special effort towards SSSHHH boy when hardly anyone else would even stand talking to him. Julie's dad stopped me and said, "Are you talking about my daughter?" I said, yes sir. He said, "Julie Bangledash?" I said, yep! He then replied with, "You've got to be kidding. This is absolutely wonderful news - she never does anything good. Thank you so much for telling me!" We then hung up the phone, me stunned of course.

Moral? I'm going to try and call my parents more often to tell them about how wonderful their kids are. :)

Two weeks almost done and I've survived! :)

More to continue later...

This
Psalm 125:1-2
Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be shaken but endures forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the Lord surrounds his people
both now and forevermore.

and

This
Isaiah 43:1-5
But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze
For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush and Seba in your stead.
Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you,
and people in exchange for your life.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
I will bring your children from the east
and gather you from the west.

will get me through the next couple of months. :)

From Bubble Wrap to Ceilings Rotting

Franky Lynn had a grand ole time in the cardboard box and bubble wrap...I think she would have lived in there had I let her! :)


Then Oliver got jealous...


Franky Lynn got stuck...


Then I made homemade whole wheat pizza crust


With half Alfredo sauce and half basil pesto (I was experimenting)


I put random toppings on it (feta cheese, jalapenos, turkey pepperoni(only on a quarter of the pizza), sun dried tomatoes, and spinach and baked it


And don't worry, I got my veggies in with Sauteed Spinach and Feta (that's an ENTIRE bag of spinach on my plate...GO GREENS!)


And while the pizza was cooking, I thought about Nora


And then the pizza came out of the oven!


And then I opened my own pizza shop...
SIKE!

And then the roof over my tub cracked and water started pouring out so I had to call the emergency maintenance guy and he whacked a hole in my ceiling...


He made a big mess...


And I'm waiting until Monday for them to fix it :)

Tomorrow's my first day of school! AH!

Love,
B

The past week...

has been filled with so much stuff! As I write this, Oliver is currently batting the computer screen as the letters move across the page. :)
To catch you all up, I moved to my apartment on Sunday. We'll get there later, trust me. However, on the way up there, Franky Lynn got so excited that she decided to puke in the cat carrier (which contained both she and Oliver) and then BOTH of them proceeded to step all in it. I myself was trying not to gag since I saw them NUMEROUS times step in the puke and then lick their paws to try and clean it up. Don't worry blog readers, we gave them a bath and here are pictures to prove it. Incase you can't tell, Oliver hated it. :)






As for my apartment, things are still being unpacked but here are some pictures to give ya an idea of what it looks like. The apartment itself is really big with a lot of storage. It was also the only apartment complex that offered washers and dryers in the apartments so that will be a huge money saver.








Dad and I have also been setting up my classroom by painting walls and bookshelves, hanging curtains, and just putting decorations up on the walls. I'm really happy about the way it looks...I just hope my kids like Clemson. :)









Whew! That was a lot...Hopefully you all feel up-to-date with my life. :)
As always, here is a picture of my beautiful niece!



-B