my birthday

Yesterday was my birthday and I decided to celebrate I'd take 28 pictures of what I saw throughout the day. I didn't make it to 28 (in fact I only got 6), and I missed a couple of good ones because I'm not used to taking pictures, but here's what I saw.
 

I woke up at 6:00 ready to go, so I decided to go. This is what I found while I was driving around.

This is what I looked like while driving around. It was obviously too early for me.

 

This is where I was headed. I decided to take a hike while I was up. It was just a mile, but it was really nice to be outside and moving early in the morning. 

Later on Brandi, my roommate, and I went to The Commissary in Germantown for lunch. The hierarchy of ribs I've had is now Corky's, The Commissary, Rendezvous.

After lunch I went to the yarn store and had to share this with y'all.

 First, on the right, you maybe can't see it, but this woman isn't actually wearing the sweater-shirt she's "modeling". I think she just put her arms in the sleeves (somehow) because you can totally see the green shirt she's actually wearing sticking out on both sides.

Second, on the left, who knew Vanna, aka Bigfoot, was a knitter?

Later on my roommate made me a birthday cake, and she, Petr, and I played games. This is what we looked like after playing games. I don't know if Petr recently joined a gang or what, but it was obviously too late for all of us to be up.

 Let me just say that when I was little and we stayed at Uncle Bob's house Kellie and Kathy totally taught me how to suck my nose in like that. I think they would have been proud.

All-in-all it was a really great birthday, I think maybe I'd like to do it again, maybe next year, around this time? Hopefully I'll be able to get the other 22 pictures I missed today before then.

resume

I'm never quite sure what to count as my first job. Can I count delivering newspapers at who knows what age I started, or was my first real job working at the Prairie Inn? In the course of my life I've done a lot of things to earn money (not even counting all the jobs I did at home for extra change/cash).

We've always talked about how versatile the Baird girls are. On a road trip a year or two ago, my younger sister and I decided to compare the number of jobs we'd had. We named jobs for something like an hour. She won. Last week my older sister told me I should write down a list of all the jobs I've had.

Because both of my sisters have blogs and their own illustrious work history (and hey, you ladies are two of the approximately four people who read this blog . . . if my sisters-in-law happen to still follow my blog, I'd LOVE to see your work history too, I'll bet it'd add a little spice to things), I'm throwing down the gauntlet. I challenge you to list your work history. You can be as detailed as you want, but I'd like to at least see a position title or description of what you did. I say you can count anything you were paid by another person to do as long as it wasn't immediate family (i.e. you can count selling your rock collection to strangers, you cannot count selling it to parents, you can count babysitting for aunts/uncles, you cannot count babysitting me . . . did anyone ever get paid for babysitting me? did we even have a chance to babysit cousins for $? no clue, but lest there be confusion that's the rule).

I'm compiling my list right now and, I'll warn you, it's kind of big. I'll try to post it later on this week or earlyish next week. I want to give y'all time to compile yours without cheating off mine.

quilting

I made my first quilt! For a Relief Society project we decided to tie a quilt for a local women's shelter. I picked out the fabric and sewed together the easiest quilt top I could think of (with Brooke's advice). We needed to make a twin-sized quilt. We put it on a quilting frame unlike any I'd ever seen before and then taught a bunch of the sisters how to tie. We didn't even get to roll it once before the end of our activity. 

I came back later to tie it while watching Chariots of Fire (dun dun dun dun duuuuuun dun) and finished most of it. Then I took it down to Aunt Brenda's in Little Rock during General Conference and she helped me bind it. I think it turned out pretty good, although the one picture I've still got of it probably doesn't do it justice.

Visiting Teaching Adventures

To protect the innocent, and not embarass myself too much, please know that I have waited some length of time to post this story, you'll have no clue who was involved, which means that any incriminating details in this story will remain strictly between my visiting teaching companion (whom you do not know) and me.

So, at some point in time, my companion and I went somewhere to visit someone on our visiting teaching list. It happened to be after dark in an area we were unfamiliar with. We arrived at the dwelling place of said someone and proceeded to the door. There happened to be some kind of spooky things in the yard and the windows, but we were confident the address was correct so proceeded without caution. The light on the porch was out, but we rang the doorbell anyway. No one answered. We knocked. No one answered.

We were about to write a note and leave when a car pulled into the driveway. Great! we thought, she's here! We could tell there were two people in the car, a man and a woman, but because it was so dark we couldn't actually distinguish features. Instead of getting out immediately, they lingered in the car and suddenly I realized, we were probably witnessing the end of a date. I was super interested in who the someone we visit teach was going out with, but turned around and faced the door, telling my companion what I thought was happening. She agreed and we started discussing plans.

We couldn't be sure that they saw us, it was after all dark. We didn't know if he'd walk her to the doorstep or not. There was a covered grill on the front porch, we could have hid under that. There was no way we could  return to my vehicle as the driveway they'd pulled into was between us and it. There was obviously no one in the dwelling place, so we couldn't retreat that way either. We decided to just wait it out. As a minute turned into five we couldn't help feeling we'd made the wrong choice. Finally, the woman exited the vehicle and started coming toward us. I didn't know if she'd seen us or not, but I didn't want to scare her and could tell now it wasn't the same someone as the someone that we visit teach. We quickly exited the front doorway and called out to her. She was surprised, but I think she was more surprised at how loud I was yelling (like I said, I wanted her to know we were her) than at the fact we were there. She got us straightened out and we were, in the end, able to find the someone we visit teach and visit teach her.

what I've been doing lately

This is how I've been spending my time. This particular proposal is to translate a children's book from English to Russian. I still haven't had any bites (which means I probably need to make more adjustments to how I do it), but this is what I'm trying to make happen right now. Ready or not, freelancedom here I come.

I just thought you might be interested.

Probably all of my readers already know, this summer I taught adult GED classes. The middle of August I came back from the reunion/Kyle’s wedding just in time to make the graduation. This top picture is me, introducing one of my students as our next speaker. 


I had some pretty great students who were SUPER excited about working on their GED. About ½ my students were able to take the test (the other half were disappointed, but committed to keep working). At the graduation we had all kinds of awards, and those who took the GED got to wear a cap and gown. There was no money flashing (you know how I love that), but I loved the ceremony. All my students came to the ceremony (I was the only teacher who had that happen :), and it was just a really fun time. This is the best picture of I got with all (but the one walking across the stage) of them together. My cameraman was great, but I don't think I gave very good instructions.

We had some pretty sweet awards, thanks in part to Karen who helped me brainstorm. Some of the best were as follows:

• For the guy who liked to do his work in his head: Proof Positive That the Human Brain is Better Than a Calculator.
• For the woman who absolutely loved to point out which tree branches were obtuse and which were acute following a geometry lesson: Most Able to Find Her Angle Anywhere.
• For the guy who wrote a really great essay on a subject he was apparently very familiar with: Most Likely to Pick Up a Girl Based on Writing Skills Alone.
• For the woman who gave birth one night after class, did some homework in the hospital, and was back in her seat the next week: Most Dedicated in the Face of Labor; She Really Delivers.

Finally, in unrelated news, I finished making my skirt! This happened just in time to wear it to Les Mis. Although the picture's a little goofy (most of mine are) I think it turned out pretty cute.

This is the third skirt I’ve made in my life.

The first was a bejeweled denim skirt I made in Rock Springs. Mom made me practice modeling on the catwalk and standing up straight, imagining a string was pulling out the top of my head. I think I got second prize at the county fair . . . maybe third . . . maybe just half a certificate. I kind of liked the skirt, but the sewing, and definitely the whole posture thing really got on my nerves.

I finished my second skirt about three years ago during my second knee surgery. I think I’d started it about four years before that. It’s bright green, the hem is kind of crooked, but I figure you don’t really notice because the bright green stripes are on the diagonal anyway. You can catch me wearing it on St. Patty’s Day, if there’s a sudden change in temperature (cold to warm), or if I’m out of clean clothes.

I bought the pattern and fabric for this skirt a year and a half ago (I’m getting better). I was supposed to do a sew-a-long on this awesome craft site. It was going to be INCREDIBLE! But, as luck would have it, each time I checked the site for the first steps there was nothing new. Apparently I was lucky enough to hop on the band wagon at the exact time the blogger decided to hop off. So, after WAY too many hours working on this “easy” pattern (okay, legitimately, it probably is easy, it’s just I’m super novice at sewing so the “easy” for me is like Algebra to a third grader), I’m pretty pleased. I’d convinced myself that if it turned out uber (sp?) ugly that it would be healthy for me. I just needed more experience on a sewing machine. While it’s possible my vision has become blurry in the process, I think this might be a little more than a “it’s the last possible thing in my closet that doesn’t smell like dirt” skirt.

I just got tickets to Les Mis! In Memphis! In a week!

That's it. Just excited.

my first 5k

On Memorial Day I ran the Chik-fil-A 5k. I've done 2 races in my life. A swim/run biathlon while at BYU (thanks for counting my laps Brooke!) and the Tour De Donut (a bike race) last summer. Because of my broken toe earlier this year I hadn't been running too much, but last Thursday I decided I thought I could run 3 miles, so now was as good a time as any to try it out. My official time was 28:53. I don't know where I placed overall, there were more than 2,000 runners and I think I had to pass about 1/2 of them before I could find a good pace. In my agegroup there were 162 ladies and I came in #33. I'll take that for my first run.

 

 

This summer has been a great one, and while I won't try to give y'all the 411 on everything I did, I think I will include proof that I went somewhere I'd never been before.

Stay tuned for more updates. I think I've officially made my return to the blogging scene and plan on saying my peace, amen a little more often.

adventures of boot

Just over a month ago I was playing frisbee and right in the middle of it all, for absolutely no reason, my big toe started hurting like CRAZY. I thought I'd strained my toe somehow but didn't know how. I left the field feeling pretty inept, and limped around for the next week on it. After six or seven days I thought it was getting better. It still hurt, but not near as much.

Just over a week ago I stubbed my toe. It hurt. Real bad. So, I went to a podiatrist who took x-rays, poked around, asked me questions, printed a shoe list, and told me to try a boot for two weeks. So, I'm trying a boot for two weeks. These are the adventures of boot and me.

I wasn't sure what to think at first.

But, I got over my misgivings. And since then we've been doing everything together!

We went to see the Mississippi. This is the view on the way to Memphis. Please notice the tree near the bottom left. It's almost covered with water. That's not normal.

This is what the river looks like when it's trying to get onto the interstate.

I was a little nervous.

But boot really took it like a champ.

Boot has a calming influence on me. We've done other things together, like go to work, go on dates, paint houses, say prayers, make dinner, everything. Boot tried to drive once though, I put my foot down there. There have to be some boundaries.

I can't tell if my toe's getting better or not. When it's in the boot it feels fine (unless I try to move real fast or something). When I take it off, most of the time it hurts, but sometimes it's okay. I'll go back to the podiatrist in a week and see what she has to say. Until then, boot and I are minding our p's and q's.

18 days. Those were the first words another teacher said to me as we walked into school this morning. That means 3.5 weeks until the end of the school year. That's CRAZY! I can do 18 more days.

We took our End of Course test today. All of the 9th graders were in desks in the gym. I wish I could have had a picture of it, but it reminded me of the BYU testing center. I was impressed with how well behaved they were, and I'm pretty hopeful about what's going to come out of it. Hopefully I'll know how my students scored in the next week or two.

To finish out the year we've got an interesting mix. I've decided to show my students Stand and Deliver this year, I'm not sure if they'll be able to relate to the students in the film, but I hope it will be inspiring. We still have to do a monster unit on factoring, and then we'll finish with a practice ACT. I think (and hope) it's going to be jam-packed. I feel like my lessons keep getting better and better, classroom management is still a sore spot, but I know now I really like math.

I'll be teaching a GED program this summer and am really excited about that. I'm still not sure where I'll go or what I'll do after the summer, but I am thinking remedial math at a junior or community college sounds like a great idea. 18 days. Yeah, I think I can do that and I think my kids can too.

You'll never guess what came in the mail yesterday.

I purchased this online a couple weeks ago.

The official description is as follows: "A country music star must turn an obnoxious New York cabbie into a singer in order to win a bet."

I know it sounds riveting. Just wait until you see the cover.

I'm SOOOOOO excited about this. There's no guarantee that I'll actually want to watch it more than once so I'm planning on inviting a lot of folks over to watch it with me, maybe next weekend? I think it's going to be epic. With Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton BOTH singing, how could it be anything but? :D

Here's a quick update on stuff that's been happening around here:

• Yesterday 2nd period got 100% on their exit ticket--factoring quadratic equations--not a real easy topic.
• My student mastery has improved about 10% in the last month and a half. We're getting better.
• I've consumed an entire box of pop-tarts in the last week. A big box.
• I've been asked to teach GED courses this summer.
• I still fight to keep my students focused. A lot.
• One of my students was booked.
• Two students from the school debate team are in NY right now competing in the National Tournament.
• I got the girls in my Russian class (who rarely speak) to sing the chorus of a Russian rap song.
• I've accumulated 18 sick days.

my new lamp

I started this project over spring break. I covered the lamp in burlap. I got the idea from this lady, who did it for a project on Crafting with the Stars It took a lot more time than I thought it would. Isn't that always the case? I kind of like how it turned out, not wild about it, but think it's pretty cute. I finished it during General Conference this morning. Hooray for projects during conference! :D

а что если я люблю русский рэп

I've been working a little on a project with my Russian students, trying to give them access to Russian culture. We've been talking the past couple of days about Russian music and so last night I got on the Internet and started looking for Russian rap music. I found some. There's plenty scandalous, but there's also some pretty good (?) stuff too. I think I might like Russian rap. Maybe a lot. Here's a link to the video that I showed my students in class today and they loved it, the girls especially, but everyone was pretty enthralled. It's by Джиган (Jigan?), who was the Ukrainian Kickboxing Champ twice, and features Юлия Савичева (Yulia Savicheva)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc3e_7qEAuA&NR=1

The second link I'm attaching is a bride rapping to her husband. It's a really cute video, my guess is a videographer caught it at the wedding and then put it together for them. I like it tons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4CeqBcFmgQ

Maybe that's what I should do next. Maybe I need to become a Russian rapper. It'd be tight.

Heal the Hood

So, we normally have very few whole-school assemblies because our students, when bored, will find something interesting to do . . . but yesterday was an exception.

A group called Heal the Hood came and put on a program. While the students got a little loud and weren't perfect, they really were interested and it held their attention better than anything I've seen. They had several young black rappers, dancers, singers, speakers who they seemed to connect with pretty well.

Imagine my surprise when I, unwittingly, became part of the program. One of the RnB singers was really playing to the crowd during his first song. He came out with a towel over his head to conceal his identity. He was walking around giving roses to students while he sang. He ended up climbing the bleachers where I was sitting and started singing to me. He then sat down, put his arm around me, and winked. . . um . . . meanwhile my students think this is possibly the funniest thing they've ever seen and I start turning real red. I was later informed that the bright red hue I achieved was visible in even the farthest reaches of the gymnasium. Everybody noticed. There were pictures taken to commemorate the event. Which may or may not end up in the yearbook. Or on the Heal the Hood website. Or on the front page of the New York Times. Have they started publishing that in color yet?

Anyway, I was sufficiently embarrassed, but think it was a good experience for everyone. In case you were interested, this is the man who serenaded me.

I had a student offer to bring me a flyer he got from him after the show. I asked him if he'd frame it for me :D

show & tell

I have 27 days until my students take their End of Course Exam. I've had trouble keeping my students engaged for an entire period all year. This week I've started including some kind of fun things (frequently unrelated to math) that take only a couple of minutes to share (if that) but, hopefully, will capture my students attention so we can work like there's no tomorrow.

I've had mixed success with it. The experiment is 4 days old. I'm curious to see what will happen next week. I'm counting on increased student engagement.

Some of the things I've been finding are seriously funny or interesting, so I thought I'd share them on my blog. I added some links on the right, it's called Show & Tell, and plan on sharing some of the things I've been sharing in my classes. I hope y'all think they're as cool as I do.

Today, I'm feeling like kind of a big deal :D

Teach For America has several communities where you can reach out for help, give advice, share resources with other TFA teachers and alumni. It's a little like Goodwill, you can find some really great stuff if you look hard, and sometimes you get lucky. For the last year and a half I've been frustrated by all (what seem to me) sub-standard resources folks upload I've had to sift through to find anything worthwhile. I decided I wouldn't upload anything unless I really felt like it was fabulous and would help someone else. Today is the day I finally posted on the Algebra content community.

That being said, the resources I posted are probably not fabulous. I posted an upcoming lesson plan to get some feedback and, hopefully, to make it better, but I put in a lot of effort to try and make it good so that someone else could pick up some good ideas. Maybe, after feedback, I'll be brave enough to post it in the resource exchange so that it can contend with the other resources and be a great find for someone else. We'll see.

I hope that y'all understand what I'm trying to explain. If none of that made sense, the short version is that I should be getting some feedback on a lesson plan I think is good, and I hope to make it great so I can share it openly with thousands of other teachers.

It's all part of what I do here in Memphis.

My 2nd year of teaching is 3/4 of the way (plus 1 day) over. I don't know where I'll be in another 9 weeks, but I'm feeling pretty good about getting this quarter started. Spring break was good for me. I worked on lots of projects (most of which are only partly done), slept when I felt like it, read when and what I wanted, made some killer ribs. I'm sure I'll be ecstatic when summer comes around, but for now, I've come to terms with and feel really good about finishing out the school year. That said, I guess I'll go work on lesson plans :)

Why (and when) you should eat tuna.

I think I just became tuna's biggest fan.

I don't know when it all started, probably with the ACT. At some point in time my mom told me that tuna fish helped your brain work better and she fed it to me before taking a test. I'm certain I did well on the test because I've eaten tuna every morning I've had a big test since. It worked on the ACT, it worked through college, it worked on the 6-hour test day while taking the PRAXIS after driving 2 hours through a blizzard (not even making that up). That day was the first time I tried to eat a whole can of tuna. Plain. With a fork. I think that's the most effective way to get the tuna to your brain in the right quantity.

A month ago I was taking another PRAXIS.

The PRAXIS is a series of standardized teacher tests that you have to pass in order to become a licensed teacher. Basically it shows folks that you're smart enough to teach. I think this was the 7th PRAXIS I've had to take . . . I'm not actually sure, when I started I only thought I'd be taking two, but every couple of months I hear about another one I'm required to take . . . but I think that's another subject for another day.

At any rate, I was taking this test, so I grabbed my can of tuna, for some reason I was only able to eat half the can. I got to the center a little late, sat down just before they read the instructions and I started my test. I'd studied a little the week before, and knew how much time I could spend on each question. I tend to start tests a little slow and speed up as I go. I was pretty concerned, however, when I'd only made it through half the question and I'd used up all the time I'd allotted for the first question. I decided to finish my sentence, be real strict with my use of time, and come back to finish if I had time at the end.

My plan was working pretty good, I was coming up with decent answers to the questions, the tuna was doing it's job. Imagine my surprise when, after complementing myself on a particularly intelligent answer, I looked down to see I'd answered it in the wrong spot. Not only was my essay not where it was supposed to be, but it was keeping me from writing what I needed to in that spot. I erased like a mad-woman, rewrote that and flew through everything. I spent 4-min. at the end finishing the part I'd skipped and had a right hand that seemed to be stuck in pencil-holding position.

Fastforward to today. I received a certificate in the mail declaring that I, Rachel, had not only passed my PRAXIS, but I'd scored in the top 15% of all people who take the test. I blame it on the tuna. Imagine what could have happened had I eaten the whole can.

Happy Valentine's Day!

6 years ago today I was in New York, holding hands with a man, at the top level of the Empire State Building. That was a good V-day, actually it was a great one. I haven't seen the man since that day (sigh). . . . Actually, I hadn't ever seen him before that day. He was kind of a stranger. I don't even know if he liked me . . .

6 years ago today I was flying to Russia to begin my time there as an LDS missionary. I wasn't really holding hands with a strange man I'd never met, it was more like shaking hands. I did a lot of that in those days. I didn't ever set foot in the Empire State Building, but I'm sure at some point in my plane trip that day I was level with the top floor of the Empire State Building. It really was a great day.

I won't wax too eloquent right now about the things I learned and loved there (although I learned and loved a lot). I will say that I love God for the things he did for me, and everyone I love, while I served a mission. I am confident that God wants good things for each of us in life, and Valentine's Day 6 years ago was the start of a really good thing for me.

It's official. :D

3 Days

Over the break I worked on some plans to help my struggling (read food-throwing) class behave a little better and learn a lot more. Monday I ended up with bbq sauce on my board. But the last 3 days have been a little different. My students are still disruptive, they still don't pay attention for the most part, but my board's been clean. This is the longest consecutive streak I've had with a clean board for 2 months. Now, it's possible part of the good luck comes from a high number of students still being absent from class. It's possible the cafeteria stopped serving sauces, fruit, and condiments to freshman. A lot of things are possible, but I think it's possible I'm making some headway. At least, that's the one I hope it is.

In unrelated news, I finished my M.Ed. 1 year and 2 months. That's how long it took while I was working 70-80 hour weeks. I'm a little bit proud of that.

Finally, because it's a phenomenon that makes me laugh, I have to mention the new fad I see at school. It seems everyone got one of these for Christmas. Now, it is slightly cool to have headphones in your sweatshirt. But the way it looks for someone to have sweatshirt strings hanging out of their ears is just plain strange. I guess that's the way we roll here though.