Stuff, in General

Well, I followed Jeff to another site.  You'd think I have all the time in the world on my hands with the amount of messing around I do on here.  I just never go to bed.  Anyway, here's my "Simpsonize Me" Tena.  I find it a little offensive that the only chubby girl choices were a girl in a minidress and another girl working out with weights.  I choose to think of that weight in my hand as some kind of weapon... like... "I may look cute with these strawberry blonde curls, but if you get in my way, Sucka..." Uh, yeah.

The rest of this week is pretty busy.  Tomorrow night is choir, Thursday night is Fairfield Area Community Theatre board meeting, and then Friday after school, I'm leaving with Jason and Suzanne and the kids for the weekend.  Friday night, we're staying with Jason's mom in Jefferson.  We're leaving the kids there on Saturday and heading up to Mankato, MN, to Minnesota State University to see our friend Stephen in their production of Miss Saigon.  I love that show so very much... I can't wait!  Plus, 2 of the interns from this summer season at the Sondheim Center are also in the show, playing Gigi and Ellen (my favorite part).  I think the weekend is going to be a blast.

I'll have a little recovery time on Sunday, and then I'm headed to the Iowa Talented and Gifted Association's state conference with another Fairfield teacher for two days.  It's always a really good conference, and Bertie Kingore is going to be one of the keynote speakers.  She's a leader in the field of differentiation, and that's such a big thing in my district right now.  I've sort of taken on as a personal mission to make sure that my fellow faculty members have some knowledge of how to differentiate for students on the higher end of the scale.  No Child Left Behind is pushing so hard at the low end of the scale, I feel like my students sometimes get shafted.  In general, I think our country's philosophy is to EMBRACE MEDIOCRITY.  I owe my students more than that.  I'm hoping to get some really good strategies from the conference to take back to my building for staff development.  It's part of my IPDP (Individual Professional Development Plan) to do a minimum of 4 staff development meetings with my faculty over the next two years.  I am such a glutton for punishment!