i actually relaxed

wow! this vacation was amazing. i have the rest of today (it's 3:13 pm) and all of tommorow, and then i go back to school on tuesday.

at the beginning of the week we celebrated our dad's birthday, which was really fun. we went to a favorite dim sum restaurant in SF Chinatown and then took him to the new DeYoung museum in Golden Gate Park. he hadn't been yet so we though it would be fun. these days, lots of family time is spent with nate and his girlfriend, and jesse and i. we have all become great companions and we have a really good time together. so that was really nice.

over break, i swam every day except the sundays (there is no swim practice on sundays) and rode my bicycle a lot of days, too. it was great being so active! i also got to spend time with all of my immediate family members, in a relaxed and chill way. i baked four different treats (mostly for potlucks and other occasions0 and also cooked dinner at least one night.

on wednesday, i got really freaked out and stressed. i felt like i needed to do all of this work but at the same time i don't exactly feel motivated to do schoolwork over my vacation. i had done a little work at that point, but not much. so i did a little work. on wednesday night and then on thursday evening, i had a few conversations which reminded me to put things into perspective. i was reminded that i am on vacation, i need to enjoy my vacation and chill, and also that whether or not i do a lot of work, there will also still be a lot to do when i get back to school-guaranteed. something about this vacation is making it VERY difficult to go back to school. but somehow, i did relax and i was able to enjoy about 4 days of vacation stress-free (and work-free and guilt-free). but it appears that now, at 4:22 pm, it might just be time to get something done.

spring break (almost)

I have about 100 more teaching minutes in the classroom until spring break--but I'm not teaching today. My kids are hanging out, playing cards, listening to their ipods, and watching a movie. I just sent a somewhat reactionary referral out for a new kid in my class. He is constantly touching girls and insulting people, and it just went too far. He was pissed and cussed on his way out. I don't really care--I just got really sick of it all.

On a lighter note--I am super stoked for break. We are bike shopping for Jesse, going to dim sum and the De Young for our dad's birthday, going to Grass Valley to shop for wedding rings, having a book group meeting at our house, and then my swim team is having a meet that I am swimming and volunteering at. I'm stoked! And all this with no work!! I mean, I will be doing a lot of planning and some grading, but in general it should be a relaxing week. I have an extra day off, too, for Cesar Chavez which should be great.

Got my wedding dress--it's very pretty!!! Email me and ask if you want details.

Asian/Pacific Islander Culture & History Assembly

a full 50% of the students at my school are Asian-American or Pacific Islander. most of the outreach and diversity stuff that we do (assemblies, presentations, lessons) are about the African-American students or the Latino students. as i'm sure you all know, i believe deeply in honoring all of my students and their cultures. however, i do feel like my API kids get short shrift a lot of the time.

in January, there was an Asian History Assembly scheduled for the week after we got back from christmas break. when i asked if it was happening, the word was that if someone stepped forward to coordinate it would happen. of course no one did. the day passed.

today, there was supposed to be a Latino History Assembly. about two weeks ago, i was at my committee meeting when we realized that the assembly was coming up and nothing was prepared. we discussed that maybe we could turn it into the asian history assembly, so we got permission from the higher ups to do so.

it's one thing to say that you're going to have an assembly. it's another thing altogether to plan one. when they announced at the staff meeting 8 days ago that we were going to make the assembly into asian history, i (for some reason that i only partly understand) volunteered to be the coordinator. okay, the real reason is that i believe that students should feel represented and there are so many asian cultures at our school that should be celebrated. so i worked with the counselor, and about 30 students, to pull an assembly together. here's how it went:
1) slideshow from a colleague about asian-american women artists (it's women's history month)
2) Six different students sharing little bits of information about their culture (food, language, sports, what is unique, favorite holidays). this was: Mien, Cambodian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, and Tongan (although there are actually 13 Asian/PI cultures represented at our school, these are the biggest ones). Each student was accompanied by a powerpoint slide that said the name of their culture, had a flag, and pictures of food, clothing, and customs from their culture. I changed the slide each time the student rotated.
3) Vietnamese Hat Dance. Coordinated by one of our counseling interns--the girls had straw hats and traditional Vietnamese outfits and beautiful music.
4) A Cambodian sixth grader talked about her experience immigrating to the United States all alone.
5) Two Tongan 6th graders did a dance, and then one of them sang a traditional Tongan song a Capella. I was on the phone with these girls at 10 pm last night, trying to make sure that we had the music for their dance. Luckily, it was on itunes so we got it all ironed out! These girls were gutsy and awesome.
6) Chinese Jumprope. (okay, when I first heard about this, I said "Is that like "french" toast?) We ultimately decided it didn't matter if Chinese jumprope was actually Chinese . It turns out that it is. They also had some great music.
7) the Crazy Clown Walkers--a group of Asian boys breakdancing. This was coordinated by another counseling intern. Great Music!

One of my students "MC-eed" the event and was great. We did the assembly three times (for the three different grades) and for two of them there was barely any adult talking at all--the 8th graders were incredibly respectful and great, and the 6th graders only had to be quieted down by an adult once. The 7th grade assembly was in the afternoon, so they were a little rowdier. But I know that they liked it. My MC student was awesome, too. In general, I loved that it was so student-driven. Kids listen to adults all the time (or they're supposed to). This assembly allowed them to watch their peers, and if they were performing, to show off their skills and culture. It was kind of a hodge-podge, but I've gotten a lot of compliments from my colleagues and the administrators about the assembly. Especially considering that we did it on short notice and I ran the AV all day, it was very successful. I'm so relieved that it came together, and it was really all because the kids were so polished, ready, and together. They were proud and knew what they were doing. Maybe I'm biased because it was my assembly, but I really felt like it was a lesson for all of us. Have lots of music and action, visual as well as audio if people are talking, and don't make the kids listen to people drone on and on forever.

i was sooooo proud of them all, and just really pleased with the whole thing. I'm glad that we did it. I hope that we accomplished our goal of acknowledging and honoring some of the myriad asian cultures at our school. And I finished my first assembly!

Procrastination: Beautiful & Evil

for a reason that i cannot understand, i have been sitting at my computer doing everything except preparing for tommorow for the last hour and 15 minutes. my bedtime is 10 pm. it's 9:45 pm. since 8:30 (maybe even longer?) i have been sitting here writing emails, ordering school supplies, reading emails, reading other teachers' blogs, reading other friends' blogs, reading the news, checking the weather, listening to music, burning CDs....hmm, i think that's about it.

work was incredibly stressful today, and has been for a few weeks. it was fine, just stressful. there is way too much going on in the coming week, which is amazing considering that spring break begins on march 22. you'd think that the week leading up to spring break wouldn't need to have two assemblies, open house, and district testing, right? wrong! i do not control my time during school or after school next week. on the bright side, that means i don't have to plan as many lessons. the flipside, though, is that what lessons i do plan will be a little bit hap-hazard and i'll have a harder time staying organized with all of the disruptions. it's a double edged sword, because the kids and i both like it when the week is broken up a little by different activities, but it is also really difficult because it disrupts the classroom and their learning.

okay. that's it. it's 10. i must go plan.