Henry Builds A Cabin

I haven't been updating much, since I'm trying to keep any student teaching experiences pretty far from the internet. And since I teach every day, and then come home and work on lessons and grading the rest of the time, I don't have a lot of not student teaching related experiences to blog about.

I do have a little bit to share today. My students are just finishing up a book on Henry David Thoreau and Walden, and I was searching the internet to try and find images to show them, when I stumbled upon this piece of greatness:

This is one in a series of picture books intended for 2-3 graders. They are to serve as a basic intro to Transcendentalism. Henry is a bear who wants to build a cabin in the woods, and his friends Emerson and Alcott think he's silly (as in Ralph Waldo and Louisa May). The summary on Amazon shows it hits on 3 of the 4 main points of transcendentalism (simplicity, nature, and self-reliance...it's missing the spirituality bit). Do I want to buy this and read it to all future classrooms as an into the literary movement? YES! Do I want to buy this and read it every single day to myself? YES!

Graduation is in 8 weeks and then who knows what will happen! So far, the plan is to ride a bus to New Jersey to visit Eagle around January 12th-ish, and be there for her birthday, and then visit American Girl Place and then Camp Reunion! It's too early to be counting down the days, but it certainly is something to look forward to!





This is the first post that has been tagged with "bears." How did that happen??

Student Teaching in a nutshell

I haven't posted much about student teaching in case someone tracks me down via my blog, or if my students creep on me. But a lot of people keep contacting me via internet and asking, so I'm posting it here! Mostly, it's fun and the part that sucks is school starting at 7:15. If you want to ask me about it, though, feel free!

Yea, I miss my mattress. And my boxspring.

I've been home from camp for a while now, but I've been super busy getting ready for school and student teaching. School starts tomorrow :)


One of the first things I did when I got home was go on an adventure with Bart, Lizzy, and my mom to the zoo, where there was a Dinosaurs exhibit, and a POOP exhibit.

This was basically the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life.


Lizzy was pretty determined to look as though she was having a terrible time in every picture...

...until we decided to look like mean dinosaurs.
And then there was the poop exhibit!

The poop exhibit wasn't nearly as exciting as I wanted it to be, but there were a lot of really funny puns everywhere, my favorite being "No Winnie, just poo."

At the zoo gift shop, I bought a really fantastic card for Eagle made of Poo Poo Paper. It's kind of a really awesome concept, and probably the best thing I've ever sent to anyone. When I mailed it, the lady working at the post office said "oh this is pretty, what is it made of?" and I decided not to tell her it was made of poop.

In the process of writing this blog, Natalie introduced me to a hilarious website called Catalog Living. It is the funniest thing I have read in a really long time. Basically, it shows ridiculous pictures from catalogs and tells the story of the people who live in those houses. Fortunately for Andrew, they spend a lot of time mocking decorative balls. "While Gary and Elaine were in the kitchen getting popcorn, the brave yellow sweater attempted its escape."

Although it seems like we just met, you're the one I won't forget

I could do that thing where I summarize summer week by week, but no one would actually want to read that. I could tell a million stories about funny things the kids said and did, along with funny things the staff said, but that may be a lot of "you had to be there" sort of moments. But since Andrew was so upset that my last post was less than satisfactory and now I feel obligated to post something about the past two months of my life, I'll say this:

It's no secret that I love camp a lot, but it became really obvious this summer just how important camp is to my life. It was by no means a perfect summer. It was stressful as always, plus temperatures in the triple digits, and at one point, for the first time in my entire camp life, I was actually a little homesick. But I got through all of that, and I am now entirely sure that this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. This summer I took a lot of risks, and I really changed for the better. For the first time in my life, I feel ok with myself and with where my life is going. And that's what's really important.



And I've been thinking maybe somewhere down the road
After all our stories have been told
I'll sit and think of you, you
The dear friend I once knew
Shot through my life a shooting star

home home home

Lots to say about camp this summer, but I'll save it till later.


All you need to know now is that I am safely home in CFalls, and wishing I was still in Oxford.

Mullet with headlights. Over surprised guy.

I really should be sleeping or cleaning or packing or something, since I leave on Sunday and I'm no where near ready, but instead I'm sitting here watching the funniest thing I've seen on the internet in a long time.

Oh, google

Dear Google,
I know you like re-invented the internet, and control like half of the universe, and have basically changed the world, but really, this is the coolest thing you've ever done. Ever.





ps, guess who finally learned how to take a screen shot? lol