Unexpected Compliments

Today was a busy day in the crazy world of kindergarten. We have a lot going on to wrap up the school year... squeezing in last minute units and curriculum content, beginning the final rounds of testing in math and language arts, organizing the classroom for summer vacation. My classroom was a busy little place today with all the kids working hard and getting things done. Come lunch time, I had been so busy I couldn't believe it was already 12:30! I had just sat down to catch my breath when another teacher called my name...

I looked over at her in the teacher's lounge as she began to tell me a brief story. She started with, "So I met with Kim today..." Kim Brown is our awesome principal who hired me almost two years ago. She is a fabulous principal, so involved in our school and community. You can tell that she truly cares about not only the students in the school, but the staff as well. She is a big reason I decided to take the job at Brookfield. But that being said, she is still my boss. And this is the time of year when decisions are being made for teaching positions for the upcoming school year. Kim uses the principle of seniority when determining teaching placements every year. So if for some reason the school budget requires us to cut teaching positions, I am one of the first teachers to go, as I am the youngest teacher in my school and have been there the shortest amount of time. Needless to say, losing my job is something that crosses my mind every now and then, especially in today's economy and with our projected budget for the 2009-2010 school year. I haven't stressed about the possibility, but I have had to think about what I would do if any such thing occurred. So when my co-worker began this story with "So I met with KIm today...", my heart started to race a little...

My co-worker goes on to tell me that her and Kim were discussing setting up an interview with her daughter this summer. Her daughter is currently finishing her student teaching and will be looking for open teaching positions in Fairfax County for next school year. My co-worker explained that as she was requesting an interview date, my principal began sharing how she typically handles hiring season for potential candidates. Allegedly, my principal began explaining that she doesn't usually and rarely likes to hire teachers right out of college. She stated they always look so young and typically don't have a clue what they are saying or doing. (Meanwhile, while my co-worker is telling me this story, I'm sitting there thinking, hm... why is she telling ME this?!) Then she says, "Kim then said but not like Heather McDonald. She came in all cute with that blonde hair. But when she opened her mouth, she knew what she was talking about".

I thanked my co-worker for sharing that story with me and felt great for the rest of the day...despite the craziness! Sometimes it is nice to be reassured that other people (especially your boss!) notice you doing your job well :)

Take a minute to give someone an unexpected compliment this week. You never know- it just might make someone's day!

Kindergarten Moment

My job as a kindergarten teacher results in some very busy moments, very stressful times and rewarding feelings of accomplishment. But one of my favorite perks of the job is the "little funnies" my kids provide me with on a daily basis. This is a brief story about one of those such moments that reminds me why I love my job so much...

I was working with a small group of boys and girls at a table in my classroom. We were playing a word game where the students took turns rolling a die on a gameboard. On the various faces of the die, there were a variety of letters. The gameboard was divided into squares and in each square was a word ending. For example, some of the endings were -ed, -at, -ight, etc. Once a student rolled the die on the board, they had to check to see if the beginning letter they rolled would make a word if it was paired with the ending it landed on. One example might be rolling the letter R and combining it with the ending -ed to make the word "Red". Needless to say, my students are still learning how to read, so identifying real words versus pretend words is a little difficult for them to do independently. The game comes with a big "key card" that has every possible real word combination typed on it. When the students are unsure if they have made a "real" word, they are to check the key card and see if that word is included. If it is a word, they get a point. If it isn't a word, they pass the die to the next person.

So, one of the little boys in my group rolled the letter "L". It landed on the ending -ake. He was unsure whether or not the word "lake" was a real word (as he was an ESOL student), so we grabbed the key card to check his word. As he's searching the card for his word, he is talking aloud to himself. All of a sudden, another little boy in my group starts going "awwwwwwww, awwwwww", not as in "that's so cute aw" but as in you're in trouble "awwww". I turn to him and ask him what the problem is and he begins insisting that the little boy looking up the word lake is saying something bad. So I'm sitting there, trying to figure out what the boy who is talking to himself during his word search is saying to see if it was inappropriate language when the other student continues his "awwwww". I listened to the boy searching and heard nothing inappropriate, so I asked the tattling boy what he had heard and he said very loudly so the entire class could hear, "HE SAID WHAT IN THE HELL!" The boy who was searching for his word and is being accused of saying bad things turns to me with this shocked look and says, "Ms. McDonald, where is the L?"

I burst out laughing because this sweet little 5 year old was simply muttering to himself "where is the L, where is the L?" during his search for the beginning letter of the word lake and his classmate heard an entirely different thing!

Gotta love those kindergartners :)

The Best Post Season In All Of Sports

It's the age-old debate for die-hard sports fans: What sport has the best postseason?

As a die-hard myself, I have engaged in countless discussions with people about this very subject. I am what some would call a sports fanatic. I love football, basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, swimming, gymnastics... you name it, I'll watch it. In fact, I'll most likely have a favorite team or player in that sport as well. Because I am such a sports lover, I have been to and witnessed almost all sports' postseasons. However, I had never personally experienced what some people vehemently argue as the best postseason in all of sports... the NHL hockey playoffs.

Now, I am not an avid hockey fan. I'll watch a game, mostly because Andy is obsessed, and I'll cheer for the Capitals as they are my home team. But I have always argued strongly that hockey isn't a passion of mine. I have had several people inform me that I am missing out. According to many, including one not so subtle boyfriend, hockey has the most exciting and intense postseason in all of sports. Now, I have always felt very strongly that college basketball heralded the best postseason. March Madness is an incredible month-long playoff where hearts are broken and dreams come true. But I can also make arguments for the immense amount of pride rooted in college bowl games and the nerves that surround the NFL playoffs in January. But hockey? I never even considered it...

Unit Wednesday night. Andy and I went to the Capitals first playoff game of the 2009 season at Verizon Center in Washington D.C. where the Caps took on the New York Rangers. Now I have been to several Caps games before, but this was a different experience entirely. Every single person in the arena was wearing red. Full grown men began growing their "playoff beards", refusing to shave until their team was eliminated from competition. Girls and boys alike had shaved Mohawks in their hair to imitate their favorite players, such as Mike Green. The energy was so intense you could feel it in the air. The noise was at a whole new level. I was impressed to say the least. The game itself was so much fun, cheering and yelling with an enormous crowd. Washingtonians sure do take their hockey seriously.


Rob and I, Andy's friend who gave us the free playoff tickets




Andy and I cheering for the Capitals




With my boys. Annandale Highschool Alumns


While I had a great time at the hockey game, I still believe that March Madness in college basketball takes the cake for the best postseason award. I don't think I'll ever find anything in sports to be as intense as win and go on, or lose and go home. And the incredible upsets, intense pressure, and school spirit that accompanies March Madness just can't be beat. But then again, that's just my opinion. You may choose to disagree :)

We Will Prevail... We Are Virginia Tech

Today marks the 2 year anniversary of the Virginia Tech school shootings on April 16th, 2007. It is still to this day, two years after the fact, unfathomable for me to wrap my head around this incident and how it has affected not only my life, but the lives of my Hokie sisters and brothers.

People have always told me that there are certain moments in your life that you will remember forever. My mom used to describe in uncanny detail what she was doing and feeling and thinking when she heard the news that our president John F. Kennedy had been killed. During my lifetime, I have had two such experiences that will forever be ingrained in my mind. One was September 11th, 2001. The other, April 16th, 2007.

I remember driving to Roanoke, VA from the Virginia Tech campus early in the morning on April 16th. I was in a carpool with a group of other fabulous teachers who were student teaching at the same elementary school as I was that spring. I specifically remember thinking what an odd day it was because of the weather. Although it was mid April and spring had sprung, it was unusually cold. Snow flurries fluttered through the early morning air. The girls and I discussed how crazy the weather was during the 30 minute car ride.

I remember getting to school and going through our normal morning routines in the classroom. I was student teaching in a fifth grade classroom at Morningside Elementary. Sometime that morning, I went to the back of the classroom to check my cell phone. I am not sure what prompted me to do so, as I keep my phone on silent when I am at school so as not to interrupt my class and no one ever called me when they knew I was teaching anyway. I was startled to see that I had received about 10 text messages and many missed calls. I knew something terrible had happened right away and panic set in. Did something happen to my parents in Northern Virginia? Was my apartment in Blacksburg on fire? Did something happen to one of my roommates or one of my friends? It took me a moment to collect myself and open one of my messages. The first one was from my boyfriend Andy who was attending school at Clemson University in South Carolina. The text said "shooting at VT. 2 people dead". I went on to the next text. "more shootings. more people dead". The next several texts were from my friends at other schools and my former VT friends who had graduated (I was in graduate school at the time) asking if I was okay and if I was safe. I was trying to be as discreet as possible about reading my messages in a classroom full of 5th graders and my supervising teacher. It was very difficult to react in that environment. I didn't want to upset my students or create a scene in the room. It was hard to put on a front and not react immediately to this terrifying and confusing news.

A few minutes later as events continued to unfold, the principal of Morningside Elementary (a Virginia Tech alumn herself) intercomed all of the Virginia Tech student teachers to report to her office. All 5 or 6 of us met in her office. One of my friends and fellow teachers was visibly upset, crying and needing comfort from us. I remember feeling so confused because I did not have any information about what was going in and I didn't fully understand why she was so upset. I didn't understand what was actually transpiring on our beautiful campus at those exact moments. The principal proceeded to inform us that there had been several shootings on the Virginia Tech campus and there were several people killed. A million things ran through my head. Shootings? At my school? Not at my beautiful Virginia Tech campus. Are my roommates okay? How could this have happened? Why did it happen in those classrooms at that time, and not in one of mine?.... Who would do this?

I remember watching the news coverage in the basement of the school. We sat in a tiny room and watched the chaos unfold on T.V. for the rest of the day. I called my mom and my dad just to hear their voices. I contacted all of my friends and roommates to ensure that we were all okay. The thing that sticks out the most to me was watching the death count continue to rise as the hours passed. 2 dead...4 dead....10 dead.......... 32 innocent lives taken.

On this April 16th, I spent my day in a different classroom, in a different city, with different students. But not once, not even twice, several times throughout my busy day, I stopped to think of those 32 lives taken from us too soon. When I got frustrated today, I found myself thinking how lucky I am to be able to feel frustration. When I got angry, I found myself thinking how much I wish those 32 people were still around to get angry about things. We all take life granted and sometimes it takes a tragedy to remind us that sometimes we should just be grateful for being alive and well and HERE.

I may not have known any of the 32 victims personally, but those 32 people were still my sisters and brothers... because we were all Hokies. I remember them today and always...

Quarter of a Century...

So...

I have been debating for some time whether or not to begin a blog. I have many great friends who use blogs to share about their exciting lives, their enthralling travels, their fabulous families. I have debated about it for some time, always thinking I have absolutely nothing important to say or share that people would care about. After all, I lead a very simple, fairly boring lifestyle here in Northern Virginia. I'm not a party girl, or a world traveler. I'm not married, nor do I have children. I don't feel like I have anything to share that others would take the time to read in their free moments.

But, I am currently on the brink of turning 25 years old. 25. Wow. I have very mixed feelings about turning 25. I realize that I am actually the very LAST of my best friends to turn 25, as I am the youngest in our group, but I am still having a very hard time coming to terms with it. I'm not quite sure what it is about officially being 25, but I feel like everything from here on out is going to change. Soon, I can no longer even debate whether or not I can be considered in my low 20's. At 25, I will no longer be considered "just out of college". I will no longer think of highschool as "just a few years ago". The other day, I even saw on that T.V. show The Doctors, that a woman's fertility begins it's decline at age 27! Don't get me wrong, I am NO WHERE NEAR ready to begin talking about children, but it did take me aback a little bit that I am almost at the peak of my fertility. I mean, I feel young. I feel like I am maaaaybe 22? I barely recall how I have even gotten to 25 years old. I feel like I just graduated from Virginia Tech! And that was 2 YEARS AGO!

I know birthday's are supposed to be a time of celebration and partying, and I am sure that we will ring in my 25th year in a grand old fashion... but I will still feel a little sentimental about my childhood years. I miss going to Mom and Dad to fix all my problems and paying for all my things. I miss non-alcohol related dance parties and New Year's Eves in Rachel's basement. I miss playing soccer for my WAGS teams and at Annandale Highschool. I miss seeing my best friends in the hallways at Annandale Highschool or across the Drill Field at Virginia Tech. I miss worrying about stupid things... like homework and tests and whether or not my hair looked good.

Anyways, as a quarter of a century looms, I am hoping that this blog will provide for me a memory keeper of how great my life is from 25 on. So here's to hoping for the best of things to come as I turn 25...