jennifer patel

As we were driving out of the alley Sunday night on the way to dinner, I saw this hawk standing on our neighbor's lawn surrounded by plumage...lots of plumage. He/she didn't fly away right away. As we watched, they stomped the ground with their feet. I usually think of my Dad when I see a hawk because he's the one who always pointed them out to us. But this hawk, straight up, murdered a mockingbird. Not only that, he then was stomping on their remains. I took it as a Sunday night omen. The hawk was Monday and I was the mockingbird. Turns out, today was not the equivalent of being murdered. Monday, check.

A and Jules Casey V went out of town for a school week leaving me alone with Alex for 6 days. Since the work week is crazy hectic and I didn't want Alex to have to stay at school every night until 6 PM, my Mom offered to come stay a couple of nights to help out. When the weekend finally . arrived, we took her out to a thank you dinner at my favorite, family owned restaurant near her house, DeVivo Bros Eatery. They describe their menu as "rustic comfort food". I'm not sure why I like it so much...but it is delicious. They were doing live music that night and a super cute girl was singing acoustic covers of all of our favorite pop songs post the early 2000s...One Direction, Taylor Swift, Maroon Five, etc. She had Alex at Shake it Off . It took him a minute to realize it was Taylor Swift, but then he was like, "I know this song!" Her voice was good...more country western with her raspy tone and she performed her original songs as well. JULESCASEY.CO...

"Meredith rode the bus"... Being at the big school has brought many changes to my way of teaching. At alternative school, I was the department for middle school for my subject. Party of one. Rolling one deep. Uno. Me, myself, and I. This year, I have a teaching partner. We've split 6th grade and we plan together all the fun things we'll torture our students with. Maybe I'm just saying this because Meredith (Mere as I call her just to myself...weird?...Sorry Mere) is the bomb.com, but having a teaching buddy is fun! Aside from not feeling lonely, she is also responsible for reigning in my crazy. Sometimes when planning, I fly by the seat of my pants and hope things fall into place. Having a partner holds me accountable to actually planning appropriately and ensuring that I do not go overboard (or underboard?) on anything. She is also an Aggie and she is way younger and cooler than me. I look to her for fashion trends, current pop culture subjects and the ...

Truth be told, the only reason I bought these was because I needed to spend three more dollars to get school supply deals back in August. When my students wore out my dry erase markers in approximately 2 days, I fished these out of my closet. They work so well! They are bright and they smell 0%. You have to work a little harder to erase (they provide you with this cloth thing), but I use the Expo board cleaner all the time anyway, and it works just as well on these crayons. Also, if you draw at the wrong angle, they make a noise similar to nails on a chalkboard. Different, but just as jarring. It comes with a sharpener in the back, just like a box of regular crayons. For now, they are hidden in my closet. I write the learning targets for the next day when there are no students in the room. They haven't questioned why there are no markers matching the colors they are looking at every day...oh sixth grade observational skills. I want to keep them my little secret a li...

Hello is right. I thought, maybe we'll go to the fair on Sunday night, and most people from game weekend will be gone and we can stay late because we don't have school Monday. That was a really great thought that I shared with a billion other people. It was the most people I've seen there to date. The Beach Boys performed the Sunday night concert (at 5:30 PM after they ate dinner) and they were awesome. Unlike some of their rock star counter parts who sound like they're gurgling glass at this point in life, the boys sounded really good. We walked up a little late because I thought they would play closer to 7. Hearing their music took me to my youth. For the first time in a very long time, I was completely caught off guard by a memory of my Dad that affected me on such a visceral level. I was immediately transported back in time, riding on a long road trip and picking Summer Dreams out of my Dad's cassette tape briefcase. I immediately got teary eyed th...

Alex calls it Tee Tee Oil because 1) He can't say "Tea Tree" and 2) Potty humor rules our home right now I know that I used to get hung up on germs occasionally, but nothings has made me a full out germophobe more than working in a huge, public school environment. At my last school, the population was small enough where I could use a few disinfectant wipes every now and again to get a false sense of security about the germ sitch. Now whenever I come home from work, I feel like I'm covered in a layer of MRSA. It doesn't help that sixth graders have no sense of personal space. I am surrounded by at least 4 of them at any time. They are always hugging me, and touching me, and talking to me so close, that sometimes I have to put my hand out and hold them back so they don't keep stepping forward while I'm stepping back. They are filthy, disgusting creatures who still pick their nose, cough/sneeze in their hands, and put EVERYTHING in their mouths...pap...