Dear The Internet,
Hi! It’s me, Amanda. You may have heard of me. I have a blog. I spend time on Twitter and Facebook. In general, I’m a huge fan of yours. I appreciate how much knowledge I can discover in a very short period of time. Many of my evenings are spent with you, reading or finding recipes. You also make me laugh. I appreciate you.
However. Continue reading
>Grade Two:
W: You’d have four more than you need.
Mr. J: Oh yeah! That’s right! High five, buddy!
W: (high fives J)
Mr. J: Actually, high four, because you’d have four too many.
W: No.
W (in gym, yelling rather loudly): HE SAVED ME! J SAAAVED ME, Mr. J!!!!!!
M (to T, who is doing a presentation on Germany): If you traveled there, would you take your cat with you?
Mrs. B: You should give things to your mom on mother’s day. Like diamonds. Give her diamonds.
Me: Yes, shower her with diamonds.
J: Wouldn’t that hurt?
A: My mom’s last name is Brito.
J: WHAT?! Your mom is a burrito?
Ja: Man, I’m letting out a lot of toots today. They don’t really make noise. Mostly silent but deadly.
Kindergarten:
Me: Ew, that shark liver looks pretty gross.
I: Actually, it’s not too gross for me. I’m a scientist.
Principal (to student): D, did you call him a moo moo cow?
D: Well, um I… I…
Principal: Did you call him a moo moo cow?
I have plenty more, I just can’t think of them at the moment.
>A firefighter almost started a fire in my house. I’m not joking. A magazine, a hot burner and a blonde are not a good combination.
Sweet potatoes and marshmallows are a very surprising combination. So are radishes and peanut butter, but no one believes me.
A guy I thought was gay (I was pretty convinced of this) is getting married. To a girl.
This conversation in kindergarten today:
“I’m going to be a ninja when I grow up.”
“You mean for halloween?”
“No, for real. I’m going to be a real ninja.”
Luke’s doody story.
I received my first piece of jewellery from a boy. It’s made of white pipe cleaners, but it is still special.
The Backstreet Boys song “That’s What She Said”.
A card I got in the mail that says: “Some days are hopscotch kind of days, some days are waiting to get nailed at dodgeball kind of days. I hope today is the hopscotch kind.”
The kids who are most excited to see me and hang off of me at outdoor play are all boys, and all from another classroom. Yeah, that’s right. Four year olds dig me.
>Today at kindergarten I made two new friends. They are from another class, but these two ridiculously cute little boys would not let go of me the entire time we were outside. At the same time, two of my favourite boys from my class were yelling for me to play spider tag with them. I essentially had four boys fighting over me at once…I am the playground PRINCESS.
>-shovels
-rakes
-axe (to crush the rocks)
-light (we decided on mining hats)
-food AND CHOCOLATE AND CANDY!!!!
-robots
-robots made out of rocks that we crushed with the axe
-buckets
-wagon to pull the robot in
-a spaceship
>HOookay, it’s been awhile. Let’s recap:
Wednesday:
WOOOONNNNDERLAAAAAND! I had a blast! I’ve never been on “real” rollarcoasters before, so I was in for a treat. I have to admit, waiting in line for the first ride was terrifying. Especially since Annie told horror stories of her friend peeing on that ride. We were accused of “line jumping” by the power-tripping loser working at the Bat and were afriad we’d get kicked out. But we didn’t. We went on every upsidedown coaster, and I think I smashed my head/ears on the shoulder bars enough times to do some sort of damage.
I was quite nervous waiting for most of the rides, and had huge doubts while strapped in waiting for the ride to begin. Luke telling me that someone died or fell off the ride sure comforted me, though. Highlights and favourite rides included the standing up one (although, I feel like I almost fell out of the harness while upside down), Top Gun, and Italian Job. Unexpected favourites included the Minebuster (the all wooden one) and Drop Zone (I almost backed out of this one, but ended up loving it). The absolute worst part of the entire day was the Jet Scream. The shoulder thingy was way too tight and was quite painful. The lap bar pressed on the bladder region. And the ride was slow and swinging, and I almost puked. That could have been due to the fact that Annie, Ian and Luke were making puke noises. Yum.
Other highlights of the day include: 7 tye-dyed shirts, several mullets, rattails etc, Ian having a nap on the pavement in the parking lot, the candy store, waiting in line for french fries for longer than we waited for most rides, fanny packs and crocs galore, gluten free food at the Outback (a BROWNIE! even). Also, say Jax X out loud. What a dumb name.
Thursday:
Kindergarten Graduation was fantastic. I cried a little when they sang the love grows song. I feel so attached to these children and I’ve only been with them for two months. When (if?) I’m a teacher, I expect a whole lot of waterworks at the end of the year.
The Rwandas are home from Rwanda, and D is back from Uganda!
C-leb, Krispy, Jedwards, Emily and I went to see Nancy Drew. Surprisingly good and cute and fun. Ned is a dreamboat. Padfield played his CD release concert and was fantastic. Some rasta guys played some good tunes, then The Runaway played some, too. I enjoyed the hip hop-o-dizzle. Richard thinks my shoes are darling.
Friday:
Breakie at the Crossroads with Maja. That place is so Christian and unbelievabley menno. And they have gluten free bread. I bought some more darling shoes. I also bought some Thai soup. Thai is my friend. I’m tired, so my sentence structure is waning. I’m being bored. I apologize.
Josh came over to pick up some chicken today and said the following (Annie, get ready…):
“So, I hear you have some meat for me.”
>This past weekend was a blast. Youth mini golf was a huge success. Apparantly if you mention golf, it gets a bunch of the guys out, which in turn gets a bunch of the girls out. I realized how much I miss the driving range and how every year I say I’m going to go up to the Tob to hit a basket every week, but only go once the whole summer. I don’t want to say that this year things will be different, because it probably won’t be.
Saturday was Dr. Julie and Grahamburger’s wedding. Unbeeeelieeeevabley beautiful ceremony. The music was…just…so perfect. So centred around Christ – which a wedding should be – and just plain FUN. They busted out a red honky-tonk keyboard. I think I may have drooled a little. Everyone looked gorgeous. I got to play with babies for the whole reception, and then the babies went home or fell asleep so we got to DANCE. Not serious dancing, but crazy grade 7/8 dance party dance. I’ve never really been to a wedding dance before, so it was a blast. Ridiculous amounts of fun!
Today I designed a t-shirt for Adam Padfield:
This week looks like it’s going to be a good one, too. Kindergarten on Monday. No grade six on Tuesday, which means time to make jewellery for people. WONDERLAND! on Wednesday! Kindergarten graduation on Thursday, followed by Nancy Drew, Padfield and The Runaway concert. Mom day on Friday. And then hopefully another good weekend. It’s my last in Waterloo before the lake.
I’ve had such an awesome past two months that I’m actually dreading the cottage. I don’t know what the new employees are like – hopefully better than last year’s – and Susan is back. Oh Susan. I’m looking forward to working with Chrrrrrl, Doods, Kristen and Spencey again…we shall have fun. I have mixed feelings about this whole deal. Ahh why does it have to be so far away (and with limited internet access)?
>Strange weird mother: “Hi, I’m Claire.” (looks at my nametag) “Oh, Miss Amanda. You must be faculty, then.”
Me: “Um, no I’m just a volunteer.”
Vicky Brown from WMB: “So, do you have a child in kindergarten?”
Me: “Um…what? Noooo no no no. I’m just a volunteer.”
Could it be, the reason that I was at the volunteer appreciation breakfast, is because I AM JUST A VOLUNTEER?
>Today in Kindergarten, I was put in charge of making some props for the musical (School House Rock). I enlisted the help of some of the kids from the other kindergarten class to make the entire solar system with me. One little guy, Andrew, was particularly delightful and made me laugh enough that he deserves a post of his own.
Every twenty seconds or so, he said, “Oh boy, this is starting to look FANTASTIC! We are really good at this! It’s like doing a puzzle. I’m good at puzzles. This looks FANTASTIC!”
In between remarking how wonderful he was, he said, “I like bugs. When praying mantises mate [Amanda stifling laughter…it was unexpected, OK?] the female bites off the head of the male. Isn’t that weird? [more stifling] I think it must be for protection or something.”
“Wow, I’m having a GREAT time! What a special art project. This is just so great!”
While washing his hands (this one is my favourite), he asked, “Is this soft water? At home, we have hard water and the glue would be washed off by now. This must be soft water.”
side note: We were making planets. You can bet there were lots of Uranus jokes. I can’t tell you how ridiculously funny it is to hear little kids talk about Uranus and be completely oblivious as to why Mrs. Bateman and Miss Amanda are cracking up. Haaaa, cracking! Uranus is blue. And it’s on a tilt. You should get that checked out. OK, I’ll stop now.
>…but tonight it WAS!
We just had the BEST thunderstorm. Hail the size of marbles, thunder, lightening, lights flickering, leaves stuck to the windows, trees almost falling over…ohhh it was juicy! and marvelous! Then…THEN (ok, I was excited) Dad calls and tells us to look out the window. Lo and behold, there was a huge rainbow. A full arc. Bright, colourful, distinctly roygbiv, and so lovely. Wonderful. Just…wonderful.
I called Lydia (a close family friend, neighbour and the kindergarten teacher I help) to tell her about it. We are doing a rainbow unit in kindergarten next week, so it was fitting. As is the picture of a rainbow that one of the kindie kiddies drew for me on Monday.
I’d just like to say that I love when things that have the potential to be wickedly awkward, turn out to be quite lovely. It makes me smile. A whole lot. :o)
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