Middle School Chronicles

I have not blogged in ages because the hinges on my laptop no longer work, so the screen cannot support itself. As such, whenever I use it I either have to use one hand to hold the screen and the other hand to do everything else, or I have to balance it on my lap with one of my feet on my opposite knee and use my foot to prop up the screen from the back. After about 10 minutes this is highly uncomfortable. As it is quite annoying to use my laptop, I've been using Dan's, which does not have all of my pictures, hence the lack of blog posts.

I decided though that it's better to keep track of all of the events in our life than not at all, even if that means it's not chronological. So I still have a bunch of catch up posts to do but till I get around to that, you get to hear about our oh-so-exciting present life.

I got a job at a middle school (7th and 8th grades) here in Provo as an Academic Support Aid. I think I wrote that already. Anyways, I go to 7 math classes during the day and help kids with their homework etc. Middle school is WAY different than I remember it. Sometimes I am just dumbfounded. It really probably was like this when I was in middle school but I just didn't realize it because I only had a partially-developed brain back then.

These kids are hysterical. Please enjoy the following.

-I overhear the weirdest things. Some of my favorites have been: "My hands are sweating 'cause they're so soft!"..."I was SO mad! Like seriously! I went all Hulk on him! Oh man I went Hulk!"..."I wrote on my desk but then I erased it with my tongue."..."If anybody's gonna eat me, eat me now, 'cause I'm feelin' delicious!"

-I was helping a kid solve an equation and I said to him, "Okay, so what do you do to get rid of 9/4?" His reply was, "I don't know...dance?"

-One teacher was explaining to his class what the word "evaluate" means in a mathematical sense. He was comparing it to how the principal comes around and evaluates teachers, meaning he observes to see what needs to be done or what is being done well to determine whether or not the teacher is good. (This teacher comes up with some out-there analogies, I didn't totally follow...) One of the kids had said that in math, evaluate means to solve. So one of the kids shouts, "Wait! So when Principal S. is in here, he is trying to SOLVE you!?"

-I had a kid say to me, "Wait, I forget...is your name Mrs. Church or Chapel or Bishop?" A few weeks later I had another kid ask, "Is your last name Chapel or Temple?"

-When learning about graphs, several different teachers were introducing the concept of the origin (which, if you need a refresher, is where the y- and x-axes intersect, [0,0]). They would ask the class, "Okay, who knows what the origin is?" Multiple kids from multiple classes answered "Prime Meridian." What the heck?

-I am in one teacher's class for three periods (and she's my favorite so I'm fine with that). Every block day she has her kids play a game and they form teams and pick their own names. I look forward to block days solely for entertainment purposes--the team names are crazy. Some of my favorites: Leejofa, Tofus, f-ba?, Circus Afros, Pumpkin 3.14 (haha pumpkin pi), Butterslice, Blackie Chan (created by a black boy), Waffle Slurp, and Bacon Slap. Yes. A lot of times she'll have their team name be the first word out of their mouths so there have also been a lot of teams called "Hahaha," "What?," and "Uhh..."

-I have been mistaken as a middle schooler. Multiple times. Mostly by kids but also by the lunch lady!! Employees pay for lunch with cash but students just punch in their ID number and it gets taken from their account. I went through the lunch line and waited for the lunch lady to ring me up, but she was clearly waiting for me to punch in my number. After a few awkward moments of just standing there looking at each other, she said, "Oh! Are you an adult!?"
I had a student ask me if I'd already taken the math class she was in. I said yes, a while ago. She asked if I was in 8th grade and I said, "No, I actually graduated from college in April." She freaked out and was like, "What!?!? I thought you were like 13!" She freaked out even more when she found out I am married and informed me I look too young to be married. As surprised as she was to find out that I'm 23, I was more surprised a couple of weeks ago when I found out she thought I had 2 kids. I went from being a 13-year-old to being a mother of two.

-One of the crowning moments of my second go at middle school happened last week. I was walking down the hall and there was a group of 4-5 boys, one of which is in one of my classes. As I walked, they followed  me. Every time I turned around, they would pose as statues and trees, flatten themselves against the walls like they were invisible, and duck behind doorways. All the way down the hall. It was awesome.

-Drama. That's all I have to say.

Middle schoolers are so awkward...they ask weird questions, say weird things, and do weird things. And it's crazy to me that a boy 6 feet tall and a boy 4 feet and 10 inches tall can be the same age. And then you can have boys that are 6 feet tall but still sound like they're 8, and boys who look like they're 8 but sound like they're 18. Middle school is just awkward. But awesome.

That's all for now, stay tuned for more updates of both our life and my middle school adventures.