Free Writes

Every Friday is journal day in my English Class.  Since we're pretty much done with the school year, I let them do a free write for their last journal.  When I make my students write, I try to write as well, so I told them they could assign me something to write on since I'd been assigning them what to write all year.  They came out to be pretty fun.

Here's first period (the prompt they gave me was "turtle"): 

They dropped me out of one container into another.  My eyes searched for an escape.  Must be an escape, must be an escape.  My wings hummed as I sped off in one direction.   I slammed into an invisible wall.  Ouch.  I shot off in another direction.  I smacked into another invisible wall.  What the?  I did it again, and again.  Invisible walls all around me! And a lid on top!  They can’t do this to me!  I need to be free!  To fly across the wide world.  I only have 24 hours to live! 

                I land on a little leaf to rest, and rub my front arms together.  At least there were a lot of plants in here.  But why would the humans put me in a cage?  They don’t find us very interesting…in fact, usually they try to swat us with large plastic death machines.  I couldn’t trust the humans. Still, it was nice to rest for a moment.

                Just then, I felt a presence behind me.  Whatever it was, it was a slow mover.  But it was big. Not as big as a human, but still a threat.  A shadow fell over me.  I needed to move.  I zipped out of the way, just as two jaws clamped shut where I had been not a second before.  Buzzing around the air, I looked down at my enemy.

                He was large, green, and was covered in some sort of protective armor.  His head moved in and out of the armor, and his eyes watched me, greedily.  I remembered as a maggot being told about these creatures.  Tur-tles, there were called.  Well, surely I could outsmart a turtle.  From what I remembered of the stories, they were stupid creatures and could not match our speed and cunning.

                I began to dart to and fro, across the cage, trying to make it dizzy.  It didn’t move.  I laughed to myself.  “What a stupid animal!”  I began to fly closer and closer to it, taunting it.  It couldn’t catch me in a million years!  I came in for my lowest swoop yet.  But this time the turtle did move, and it…

                “Hey Mom, you were right,”  little Timmy said, “the turtle did catch the fly.”

                “Yum.” Thought the turtle.

Here's second period (they wanted me to write about them):

                They were savages, coming into my classroom like a hurricane.  Their faces were covered in colors of what I hoped was chalk, laughing like hyenas.  I was afraid.  One by one, they burst in. First came Carsen, the destroyer. Tate, the troublemaker soon followed.  I began to feel outnumbered as Cayden, the demolisher and Alex the inquirer thundered in.  Braxton entered, brimming with energy, with mischievous Vincent not far behind. Taylor and the Bailiees entered with beaming smiles.  They are so sweet, but so good at distracting me from my lessons.  Macoll is there to keep things in balance, but she is outweighed by Carter’s devious plans to keep me off topic. 

                Soon everyone is in the room and I remember that although I am afraid, I do love these students, even with their tenancies to distract me. Chandler patiently waits for my instructions while Marissa smiles quietly.  I notice Shaniqua has hurt herself somehow…I’m always sad when my students are injured.  The ever curious Shawn asks me about my awesome red jacket (which is epically awesome…I bought it in China….long story), and I struggle to get the class to focus.  Poor Parker’s face is coated in red chalk, making it look as though he got a gnarly sunburn.  Makaylee has green in her hair.  What a colorful class I have!  Bianca, who recently told me she’s a Peruvian (which makes her my favorite Peruvian), sits quietly by Lauren…who is obsessed with Costa Vida. 

                “Pull yourself together Emily!”  I tell myself.  Get these students on task!  Sydney, who I sometimes call Squidney, sits attentively, although I can tell she’d love to be out playing some kind of sport.  Sara has already started to write, she’s a super fun writer, while Josh and Chevin just want to get started so it can be over with (which is how I used to do a lot of school work).  Levi is probably planning on writing something Zelda themed, and I can’t wait to see what Mason writes about because I never know what he’s thinking.  Sweet Abby and Lilianna are ready to begin…they’re always prepared, which is nice for a teacher.

                I finally get them quieted down and they begin writing.  I gaze across the classroom at the trees Aurora brought for The Tempest.  Happily I realize…I have an awesome 2^nd period.

And last but not least, 7th period (they also wanted me to write about them, but only about 11 of them were in my class at the time): 

                The end of the day.  The students file in, noisy, as usual.  I sigh, in exhaustion.  It’s been a long day…a fun day…but long.  I’m ready to go home and eat Chex Mix…or maybe some popcorn…possibly some graham crackers with frosting on them.  But I couldn’t afford to think about that now.  The students were getting ready for the class activity, if I lost focus now, they would walk all over me.  They’d get me off the day’s topic and have me talking about cheese…or something even worse.  No…I had to put on my game face.  I could handle one more class period.

                I just about had everything in order, when it happened:  Mr. Jackman came in the room, asking for students who needed to make up testing.  BLAST!  Over half my students in 7^th period needed to make up their end of level testing.  I stared, dejected, as most of my students followed the assistant principal out of the room. I looked around the room and counted those who remained.  There were eleven.  Keegan: the troublesome one.  Jaycie( with an “I” ‘E”): the gentle one.  Other Jaycee: the sassy one. Tyson: the one who gave me a sucker. Mary: the enthusiastic one.  Jessie: the athletic one.  Bailey: the sweet one.  Layla: the kind one. Jimmy: the mischievous one. Brighton: the diligent one.  Anika: the bright one.  The odds were in their favor.

                They tried to convince me to play improv games, but I’m not sucker (even though I was eating one).  I set them to writing their Journal assignment.  This was English class after all…we don’t fool around!  I put them in two rows, with pencils and paper in hand.  Eyeing them with suspicion, I told them to get to work.  At first they gave in to their impulses and talked with each other…but that was no way to run a writing session.  I dinged my bell of doom, bringing down the silence.  Portable 6 was my dominion, my realm, my dukedom.  No student would overthrow my reign!  Unless, you know, they asked nicely, or had a firearm.

                I told them that they could give me a prompt to write on.  Since I was making them write, it was only fair that they give me something to write.  They told me to write about them. So, I sat down at my computer, opened a word document and began:

                “The end of the day.  The students file in, noisy, as usual.  I sigh, in exhaustion.  It’s been a long day…” 

Remember that time the SWAT team kicked us out of our apartment?

It was our last day living at our apartment.  We'd been steadily moving out all week and we'd reserved that day to completely clear it out and clean.  Living in South Salt Lake, you're used to seeing cops around because you know at least a few of your neighbors are doing something shady, so when Soren started hauling boxes that morning and saw four cops walking our way, he wasn't too alarmed.  His next trip of boxes, he noticed the cops were pulling out fire arms and one was loading a large shotgun.  I was stuffing things in boxes in the apartment when Soren stuck his head through the door in awe and excitement:

"Em, something's going DOWN!  There are four cops out there with big guns!"

I was in moving mode, and I was living in South Salt Lake, so I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Huh. I wonder who it is?"  Secretly, I wanted it to be our next door neighbor in Apartment X because of his smoking habit and how he stunk up the whole building (which was a non-smoking building, I'll have you know), but it wasn't.

Soren headed back out with another load.  He was gone a long time.  I figured he was chatting up some of the neighbors, and continued with my packing frenzy.  A few minutes later my phone started to ring.  I looked at it and thought, "Really Soren?  You'll calling me from the parking lot?  Is this what cell phones have reduced us to?"  But I picked it up anyway because I love him.

"What's up?"

"Hey, you need to close the front door, turn off the ipod, and climb out the window."

"What?"

"Where are you in the apartment?  I can't see you right now.  I'm looking through the bedroom window."

"I'm in the living room."

"Okay, well shut the front door, turn off the ipod, and come climb out the window."

"Oh...okay."

I trembled a little as I walked to the front door to close and lock it.  I expected some wild criminal to come running through our apartment, waving a gun around his head.  This did not happen.  My heart was pounding a little as I moved from the front door to turn off the ipod.  Soren helped me shimmy through the window where I saw Juliet O'Hara standing by with her firearm.  She escorted us around the building.

--- this is Soren typing now. ;)
When I came out with my last load I was greeted by four policemen leveling their guns at my head. I'd never had a loaded gun pointed at me before. It was an interesting experience. It was kind of like the experience having the principle's office call me out of class. "Did I do something wrong? Maybe I did do something... What was it?..." But instead of having those thoughts go through my head while walking down the hall, they were concentrated into a split second.  They quickly realized I was not "their man," they lowered their weapons, and motioned for me to get out of the way.  They asked if anyone was still in the apartment, and told me to call Emily and have her climb out the window.

(Back to Emily)

Following this bit of excitement, we went and got lunch.  So here's what was going on:  the man in the apartment directly across from us, Apartment Y, was resisting arrest, and had locked himself up in his apartment, and the cops were trying to get him out.  We hoped the affair would conclude quickly so that we could get back to moving.

After eating some delicious Iceberg french fries and one of their giant shakes, we went back to the apartment.  The police were still staking it out, so we decided to stake them out.  We sat in the back seat of my dad's truck, Soren was studying for his final, and I was trying to over hear what the police were saying.  One of the cops was on the phone, and was meandering about as he talked.  As he neared us, we silenced ourselves and listened:

"Listen, I'm a man just like you are a man.  No...yeah...I understand that...I understand that.... I want to believe you, but I can't unless you come out here and talk to me.  You do know what I'm talking about.  I can't tell if you're lying to me unless I can look you in the face...."

Soren and I looked at each other:  we were totally listening to a police negotiator.  It was a long conversation and eventually Soren had to leave to go take his last final.  I sat around in the truck, hoping to catch some more action.  It was pretty quiet though, and after a while, they let me climb back through the window into our apartment to continue packing.

I was able to get a decent amount done and then Soren came and joined me, but pretty soon the police approached him again and said they were starting to evacuate the area so that they could "do what they gotta do."

We took a trip to the storage unit, and were kind of bummed about it because we figured we would probably miss the big show down.  After all that build up, we wanted to see the police take the guy down.  But as we rounded the corner to go back to the apartment, we realized we hadn't missed anything.

There were 5 or six more cop cars, an ambulance, a fire truck, two RVs, a SWAT team, K-9 units, and all the other bells and whistles.  The entire complex had been evacuated and taped off.  Talking to one of our cop-buddies, we were finally able to learn what had happened.

So tenant of Apartment Y had attempted to rape one of the tenants upstairs.  He had also supposedly threatened another tenant with a knife.  He had then locked himself in his apartment, and had threatened to kill people.  It was a pretty serious situation.  We decided we couldn't do any more moving that day.

What ended up happening was they bombed his door, went in and pulled him out.  When we went back to our apartment the next day, we saw that Apartment Y's door was covered with a big piece of plywood and we discovered that our door was substantially damaged by the shrapnel.

I guess this is why we're getting out of South Salt Lake.

Here's more info if you'd like it: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/57840244-78/amp-lake-salt-keller.html.csp

The Napkin on the Beans...A Story of My Childhood

There are 3 things you have to understand:

1.  I am not a picky eater.  I was a good child.  I ate my vegetables.  I ate my meat.  I ate my starch.  Most children at my delicate age took one look at the mass of spinach on their plate and turned up their noses, as if to say "Mother!  How darest thou place such wretched filth upon mine plate?" But not I.  True, I did not like onions, cucumbers, peppers, and a few other measly items, but for the most part I ate what was put in front of me.

2. Casey.  Casey was the delightful blonde boy next door.  Like me, he was quite grown up (nearly 4 years old) and he was handsome and charming as could be.  He and I had many adventures together that we spoke of in hushed tones: leaping off the Unopolis's porch, rolling in the dead grass in my father's trailer, and meeting Barney (yes, the purple dinosaur himself), just to name a few.  I longed for the next opportunity to frolic in the backyard with him, and whenever that next opportunity came, I seized it.

3. Rachel.  My older sister.  Rachel was already a teenager, so she was practically a million years old.  She was older, wiser, cooler, and nicer than practically anyone else in the world.  But she also had an iron fist, and could dominate us younger siblings with said fist.

Now that you understand these 3 things, I can proceed with the story.

It was a lovely summer evening...or spring...possibly autumn...it didn't really matter as long as I could romp in the yard.  Rachel had been given the arduous task of looking after me.  I used all of my 4-year old wiles to make her see me as the perfect little sister I was to ensure I could do as I wished later in the evening. Such wiles included: making adorable comments, letting her play with my luscious blond hair, smiling a lot, and eating all of my dinner.  My plan was going perfectly...until I looked out the window.

There was Casey...playing in the back yard.  He laugh, he giggled, he smiled.  He was calling me from the prison of the kitchen to the great outdoors.  I was practically done with my dinner...I only really had my lima beans left...but who has time for lima beans?

"Raaaaaaaayyyyyyyy?" I batted my blonde eyelashes.  "Can I pleeeeeeaaaaaasssssseeeee go outside and play with Casey?"

The iron fist came down. "You have to finish your lima beans first."

My soul was crushed.  FINISH MY LIMA BEANS!  I had, like, 17 whole lima beans on my plate!  Who knew if Casey would still be in the backyard 17 lima beans later?  I hung my head in shame and disappointment.  "Okay." I mumbled.

I stabbed one lima bean with my fork...a little violent, I know, but the lima bean deserved it.  My little hand guided the fork to my mouth. The bean squished between my teeth.  In a rolling motion I ground the lima bean to bits and shoved it down my throat with my tongue.

I had to take a rest.  That took forever.  16 more lima beans to go?  Casey was on the swings now.  I wanted to be on the swings.

Then, the miracle came. Rachel suddenly excused herself from the table.  As she meandered down the hallway, away from the kitchen, a little light sparked in my brain.  An idea!  A plan!  Rachel would have no idea what hit her.  Glancing from one side to the other, making sure no one was near to witness my genius, I picked up my napkin.  With the precision of a surgeon, I placed the napkin on top of the lima beans.

Perfect!  She would never know!  There was absolutely nothing suspicious about the delicately placed napkin on my plate.  Before Rachel got back I slid out of my chair, threw open the back door, and bounded down the steps.

Casey greeted me and immediately we began to play.  During the first few minutes of our revels, my stomach clenched uneasily.  Would I be found out?  Would she suspect?  Would I be called back in to finish the villainous lima beans?

I paused a moment to look in the window.  Rachel stood by my plate.  I gulped and braced myself for the iron fist.  But she didn't look up at me, she didn't even frown. Instead it looked like she was...laughing.  Laughing?  Laughing at what?  She must have been fooled, and in seeing how wonderful her little sister was for finishing her lima beans, she couldn't contain her joy!  Oh Rachel!  Your poor, weak, grown-up mind, falling prey to my ingenious 4-year-old trap.  I smiled and turned back to the swings.

My parents came home, and still no mention of the lima beans.  Success.

Casey and I played into the evening...and all was right in the neighborhood.

The Evolution of the Monster

So as many of you know, my life for the past few months has been monsters, swamps, witches, and living trees.  For some crazy reason, I decided to put on a play at West Point Jr. this year.  I put on J. Omar Hansen's "The Horrible Monster of Danky Swamp."  Omar was one of my professors at BYU-Idaho, and I actually acted in Danky Swamp during my Junior year there. Deciding to put this on was a little risky because it would be the first play West Point had put on for many years.  It was hard to go through all the set design, sound design, light design, and rehearsals by myself, but it was totally worth it because I had amazing students to work with.  I also had awesome support from my parents, Soren, faculty members, and community members.

The most challenging/fun part of the project was building the monster.  The monster in the production I was a part of was operated by one actor who was harnessed into a structure that sat on his shoulders with the monster head on top.  I wasn't sure I wanted to try to tackle that and I also wanted to incorporate more actors, so I decided to do a Chinese-dragon style monster instead.  This way, I could have 3 or 4 actors play the monster, instead of just one.  So, I gathered a dryer box (courtesy of Charlie Fuller's Appliances), a bolt of free shiny green fabric left from the previous drama teacher, chicken wire from Home Depot, extra fabric from Joann, two hula hoops, paint, and glue, and got started.  I had no idea what I was doing.

Here's the dryer box.  At this point, I had already cut out the mouth

This is his back.  The fabric is greener and shiner on the other side.

Here's the start of the chicken wireing

Chicken wiring all done.  He went for a test drive this day with the actors.

Soren came and began the paper mache process for me.  It was a big help.

This was the first primer coat.  I was amazed how far I was able to stretch the paint.

Here the paint was pretty much finished.

I finally got the back attached so the actors could use it even though I still had to finish sewing the little scraps of fabric onto him...the little scraps were to hide the actors' feet more and to give him that "swampy" feel. 

This is a picture of the finished product, courtesy of Black Hat media.  I was really pleased with how he turned out.  the cast named him "Gus." 

Here's a front view of Gus, with Lily the tree and Becca the Witch.

Me being eaten by my creation.

It was such a fun experience.  Unfortunately I had to send Gus's head to the dump when I finished, but I still have his back.

Heart Attacked

Last week, with the stress of the show and my Grandpa Kay's funeral, I was feeling pretty blue.  Just in a sort of funk...you know?  And to make it worse, on Friday I was told that our Primetime activity would be to have the students "heart attack" other teachers.  I was not excited for this for 3 reasons: 1.  I didn't think the students would be into it.  2. It's hard to control your students when you send them galavanting across the school.  3.  I had to read all the messages my students wrote in case one of them decided to be mean and write a teacher an unkind note.  Another thing I wasn't excited about was the fact that I was going to be in the Library with my class that day and I didn't want to have to conduct Primetime from the Library.  But oh well, I thought,  it'll probably brighten some teacher's day and that will make the whole thing worth it.

When I introduced the activity to my students, I told them they were going to be secret agents.  Their mission was to write a message to their favorite teacher, sneak through the school, attach the note the the teacher's door, and then sneak back to the Library, all without being seen.  Of course I wasn't being serious about the secret agent thing, but it seemed to get them in the spirit.  I proof read all of their notes and sent them off.  I only read two notes that were for me and as I sent my class into the abyss of the school, I thought to myself, "*sniff*  I hope I get a few notes on my door."  

Pretty soon my agents started returning.  A couple of them had army crawled through the halls, which I gave a thumbs up to.  A couple students came running in and said, "MRS. BARKER!  You've got to see your door!"  Apparently, my door was covered in hearts.  They told me I might have a real heart attack when I saw it.  A few students from other classes even came in and gave me their notes personally because they didn't want theirs getting lost in the shuffle.  They were so sweet.

After second period was over, I headed back to my portable for my prep period.  I really did almost have a heart attack.  Notes from students almost completely covered my door.  Some made it onto the metal of the portable and a bunch got taped to my window.

This got me out of my funk real fast.  I felt so loved and appreciated.  I really work at an amazing school and I have amazing students that I love working with.  Students kept telling me all day that I was clearly the most loved teacher in the school since I had the most hearts.  (I just kept telling them that I taught a really fun subject and that's why I was so popular...if I was a math teacher I probably wouldn't have gotten so many.  Not that math teachers aren't mind-blowingly awesome.)  

It's moments like these that make being a teacher worth every moment.  It's all about the students.

Story Time Again

Here's another story I wrote a while back.  This one was fun because the teacher put a prompt on the board, and he gave us about 10 minutes to write a story based on the prompt.  I ended up expanding and editing my story and it turned into this:

By the way, the prompt was:

The third bell rang and then…

            My muscles cramped in the tight space and I was getting light headed.  The smell of gym socks made my stomach to turn.  YUCK!  I tried to shift positions, but no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t move.  Luckily, a soft breeze drifted through the small slats in the metal door.  It was the only thing saving me from going nuts.

            “Dave,” came a squeaky voice, “Are you okay, man?”

            “Let me think…hmm…I’m stuck in a locker Brian.  NO I AM NOT OKAY!”  I was getting a kink in my neck and my shoes were glued to the Pepsi coated floor.

            “No worries.  I’ll get you outta there; just give me your combination.”

            I took a deep breath.  “16-11-32, and hurry up.”  I could hear him fiddling with the dial.  Time dragged on.  How long could it take to open a locker?

            “Um... I think it’s stuck.”

            Not now.  “It’s the freaking Pepsi I spilled yesterday.  You’ve just got to jiggle it a certain way.  Try again.”  People scurried past, trying to get to their classes, talking, laughing, shouting…no body seemed to notice or care that there was a freshman stuck in a locker.  But why would they care?  Things like this probably happened on a daily basis.

            “It’s no good, dude. I can’t get it to budge.”

            “Pull up slowly and then push it down hard.  It’s not that complicated” I said through clenched teeth.

            “Yeah, but I-”

            “What are you, an idiot?” I interrupted, my temperature rising, “I never thought you were too stupid to open a freaking locker! I’m going to run out of air any minute and all you can do is stand there.”

            “I’m-trying-to-help-you!”

            “And you’re doing a great job except…wait…I’m still in the locker!” I snapped.

He was silent for a moment.

“I’ve got to go to class.” He muttered bitterly.

            “What?”

            “I’ve got to go to class.” He repeated.

I was stunned. He wouldn’t really leave me here would he?  “Oh come on!  Just try the door one more time.”  He mumbled something I didn’t catch and started to leave. I panicked. “Brian.  BRIAN!  Don’t leave me.  I-I didn’t mean it!”

            “I’m gonna be late.” He said flatly.

The third bell rang and then, he left.  I could hear his footsteps moving away from the locker. No, please no!   

“Brian you weasel!” I yelled after him. The halls grew quiet. I was alone.  “Okay,” I told myself, “It’s okay.  You’ll be fine.  Someone is bound to walk by eventually, right?”  I tried to concentrate on my breathing. I’d never felt so claustrophobic. It was hard to keep myself under control.  This was torture of the worst kind.  I was reduced to a captive lump of flesh and sweaty gym socks.

How did I get myself into this situation?  I didn’t even know. I wish I could claim that some big mean bully had shoved me in here.  I wish I could claim that it had been a dare.  No such luck.  I put myself in this locker.  Not on purpose, of course.  One minute I’m trying to grab a paper from the sticky floor, the next I’m tripping into the locker as the door shuts on me. Yup, I’m that uncoordinated. 

Some would call it bad luck.  Me, I don’t believe in luck.  I do, however, believe in karma. When you do something rotten, it always comes back to bite you. Am I a bad kid?   I must’ve done something awful today, even before I insulted the one guy that could’ve saved me. Fate doesn’t just deicide to throw a guy in a locker for no reason.  I guess this means I need to change my ways.  Okay, okay, I’ll repent already. “Somebody let me outta here!”

Beauty and the Beast

Tale as old as time...song as old as rhyme...Beauty and the Beast...

is over.  

For those who may not have been aware, my new teaching job at West Point Jr. involves doing the school musical.  Lori Hayward, the choir director, chose Beauty and the Beast to be her last show, and I got to be her assistant.  Next year, she'll just be doing the music and I'll take over as director.

It's been a fun ride:  we had a fantastic cast, an amazing set, awesome costumes and props, and a great parent support group.  Lori did all of the big costumes including Belle's gold gown, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, and Madame (the Wardrobe).  I blocked all of the scenes involving fight choreography, the "Beauty and the Beast" dance, Gaston's song "Me," and various other scenes. I was also in charge of props and the Beast's costume. Here are some pics: 

This is one of the props I built that I'm the happiest with.  It's Maurice's invention...and it makes bubbles.  I built it out of a bunch of junk I bought at the DI for about $14...and then another $21 for the bubble machine. It worked every night.

This is our Beast.  I made the wig out of two separate 1980's rocker wigs.  I trimmed the top one and put it on top of the other and sewed them together.  I then added in pieces of other colors of hair.  I made the horns out of molding clay, wire, and paint.  They're stuck to the wig using the wire and hot glue.  The mask is made out of different pieces of a latex werewolf mask glued to a masquerade mask.  I added eyebrows and paint around the eyes.  He's also wearing a beard that I sewed some fangs to.  The hands were some monster hands that I painted and sewed fur to.  It looked pretty awesome on the stage.

This is our Belle looking at the Wardrobe.  All of the costumes Lori did were superb.
 

Now that it's all over, I have to get ready for the next one that we'll be putting on at the end of February:  Dr. Omar Hansen's The Horrible Monster of Danky Swamp.