Our spare change bought gas to F2f 2003.

I'm terrible.

I just got an e-mail from my prof. No class tonight, 'cause she doesn't feel well.

Pardon me as I scream WOOOOOOHOOOOOO all through the thread!

I do hope she feels better soon.

I've gotten through one of the 6 manuals sitting on my desk.

Yay, vw! And enjoy your night off from class.

I just got an e-mail from my prof. No class tonight, 'cause she doesn't feel well.

Yay! You definitely have been sounding like you need some down time.

All of that is wonderful, Erin! I can't wait to talk more about this with you, sweetie. I have scads of lessons and units and plans (you'll find in general that teacher editions aren't all that helpful, I suspect--about the only teacher guide I use consistently for lessons/units is Folgers for Shakespeare).

If you haven't already, however, you need to order, own, read thoroughly, and worship Jim Burke's series: The English Teacher's Companion, Reading Reminders and Writing Reminders.

I think they should be standard, required reading for anyone planning to teach secondary English, and they're actually a lot of fun to read through. I've gotten so many great ideas from them.

I also strongly recommend John Golden's book Reading in the Dark, which is a fabulous discussion of how to integrate film study with literature study and Teaching Poetry in High School (even if you're a middle school teacher) by Albert Somers.

Also, a resource for you as a middle school person: The New England League of Middle Schools has great middle school info. My mom is the teacher-in-residence there, and she loves Meet Me in the Middle: Becoming an Accomplished Middle-Level Teacher by Rick Wormeli (scroll down and you'll see it here: [link] ).

Um. I'm going to stop taking up b.org bandwidth now...

I have been living off of spare change for the last 3 weeks. Seriously. I look at change scattered in other people's cars and think "I could buy gas with that..."

I totally thought I would come into this program needing only pedagogy, and be plenty prepared in math.

Then, in my VERY FIRST CLASS, they gave me problems I can't figure out how to do.

This is going to be hard. And fun.

Do you take it? I have. (And you thought the crime obsession came from nowhere.)

When I worked at a movie theater (2nd try at grad school), I bought many a meal using the change found while sweeping theaters. Summers were always better for that, because change falls out of shorts pockets really easily. Or so we theorized.

I should start picking up change. It's part of my learn-financial-discipline plan, which also includes giving up diet cokes, because $0.30 per can times 6 cans per day (and much more per serving if I buy at convenience stores/restaurants/vending machines) comes out to a lot of money over time. A WHOLE lot of money, that could be much better spent on plays, alcohol, cool electronic gadgets, et cetera. Fried egg sandwiches are also part of this plan. ($2 loaf of bread, $2 dozen of eggs, $2 thing of butter for sixish meals. Cheap and delicious! I usually add a piece of fruit on the side that makes it a bit more expensive, though, because otherwise I'd probably die.)