jennifer patel

This table was clean for 2 days only...the day before and the day of Thanksgiving. That plate has been cleaned and refilled and cleaned and refilled and cleaned and refilled...WWF (Writing while fat...or full) This week has been a bit of a faux break.  I am so thankful that I got a week off from actual work where I had to wake up and follow a schedule. We also got to spend a little time with our awesome families. I knew though, that I could not sit around all week and do nothing...or things I wanted to do (like watch 48 recorded episodes of Ellen... Oh, I will watch them)... Because there are 2 more major papers due before the middle of December and my house hadn't been deep cleaned in approximately 2 months.  This week, though, was a tiny taste of true freedom coming in about 3 weeks.  So now as I sit in my 65 degree house (supposed to be grading) and watch the rain outside in my awesomely more clean house, I rehash Thanksgiving: These people snapped 4 pou...

This is one of the points in the year when I.Cannot.Even. There are only three days left (now 2) until our first big break and I feel like my brain stays at home while my body goes to work. The students are in the same boat and we are slowly sinking together. One year at my old school during state testing, we had to eat in the room with our students. I just happened to bring leftover Pei Wei that day AND had snagged a pair of chopsticks to eat it with. That was so dumb. I had NEVER done either of those things before, and the students then thought I ate out of Chinese containers with chopsticks for every meal. Because of course I did. Today, history repeated itself and a teacher offered me one of her take out egg rolls at lunch. Even though I was like, "Oh, I can't eat that, blah blah blah, healthy eating, blah blah blah..." I then took it without much contest at all. Instead of eating it in the lounge, I sauntered off to the hallway to walk back to my classroo...

Originally Written 11/13/15 Obviously this picture is terrible...I don't want to get fired! I attended my first middle school dance tonight...since I was in middle school. I didn't have a bad attitude about it as I was definitely interested in how it was going to turn out, but I also had many other things to do tonight. Friday night is laundry/grad school discussion response/paper outlining/reading night. I am so glad I volunteered though, because this dance had everything: * Songs I no longer know * Awkward groups of friends who didn't want to dance, just standing around throwing out the vibe * Boys chasing girls chasing boys chasing girls * No slow dances! * Kids doing the Thriller dance perfectly! * Whip and Nae Nae * A boy who didn't want to be there, sitting against the exit door, hugging his knees the whole time (The same boy the girls scratched on the 'No No List' in the bathroom). * My sixth graders dressed so sweetly! I don't get t...

I just finished up an online writing center appointment for a paper due next week. It was so bizarre. I almost wished to be face-to-face with a bored, grad student, whose face screams, "Your paper sucks!" while they try to give you constructive criticism (in a foreign accent). Instead, I could have been chatting with "Evelyn" from India for all I know. There could have been a group of people laughing so hard they cried at how terrible my paper was...or asleep because it's actually the most boring paper ever. It was convenient, but so bizarre. I've had a lot of ideas...some of them turn out okay, some of them not so much. Deciding that I would be able to handle grad school and work school was a bit ambitious of me, but luckily the end of the semester is near. I really miss all the things. GrayWatch 2015 (where I keep an eye out for gray hair) might end this year. So far in November... I know what you're thinking. And you're right. This...