To Kill A Mockingbird (my 9th grade class is reading it) Huckleberry Finn (my 11th grade class is reading it) InDesign CS 4 For Dummies (I'm a total dummy--my yearbook class uses the software) Twelfth Night (we are having a Shakespeare company visit this week, so I need to know what's going on...) Thank GOD my seniors are doing a huge research project right now, or I'd have a few more titles to add. Do you think I have time to read for my own pleasure right now? I teach FIVE different language arts classes!

I'm currently reading Huckleberry Finn. I'm going to be teaching it to the 11th graders soon. It's perfect timing for the reading, since the new "whitewash" is taking over headlines.

Congrats! This is great news! Also very awesome! I'm a little jealous! Again, very awesome! It seems that too many people don't stay married for that long anymore. Today, I'm happy about a few things: I had fun at my second cousin and his wife's baby shower. It was a small gathering, so it didn't go for too long, and I was happy that I went since not many people showed up. I am happy I was able to take my doggy out to the dog park today. She had fun and now she's tired. I'm happy that I'm getting laundry done early this weekend--on a Saturday--instead of doing it later in the weekend. I usually do it on Mondays becuase I don't have to work most Mondays, but this week, I have a 2-day weekend.

I'm really digging this chick!

^I've never read it. I've shown it to my 9th graders before we start studying poetry though. I make them read "Oh Captain, My Captain!" before we watch it. I just showed it to them--it seems. We finished the poetry unit right before Christmas Break.

I finally saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on New Year's Eve. It was good. I LOVE Up. I own it, and I think it's a great movie. I've watched I.Q. this week too--I think it was very interesting. Loved it.

I've just read all three books in the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Great books. They're young adult novels, but they really were books I just had to keep reading. Hunger Games Catching Fire Mockingjay. I'm currently reading King of the Mild Frontier, an autobiography by another young adult author who lived in the Boise area, Chris Crutcher. We are going to see him speak in May, and I'm trying to get a few more of his books under my belt. I read him when I was in junior high and high school and I loved him.

I got a few pictures with my 10x zoom camera and my tripod. The moon was red/orange when I got them. It was too flipping cold to stay out much longer than the time it took me to get the pictures that I got, so I didn't get more than one stage. Whatever the result, I'm happy with them. They're better than most people got.

I needed a job. I love my job though. You don't like Shakespeare? Boo!!! >

I'm working full-time now! I have a job! I'm trying to get more classics read, but sometimes you have to face the facts and admit that some of them are just BORING. I'm reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens aloud to my English classes right now. I'm not sure what they think of it...

I don't think I ever got past the first chapter or so. ...and I'm an English lit teacher! (I will NEVER assign that book to students, ever! Melville has short stories that are a bit more...engaging...that we can study instead.)

Just finished. I liked it. Just finished this one too. I liked it too. Finished this one too, didn't like it much. I may have to re-read it. I had a bit of disconnect with the characters. I'm now working on this one:

Recently, I've been reading a lot. I read Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. LOVED it. I've also read A Separate Peace by John Knowles--it was a novel I could read again, but I didn't love it. Another one I've read is Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. I liked this one a lot. It's about a girl who lived in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. I'm working on Stones Into Schools by Gregory Mortensen and Silas Marner by George Eliot.

^YUM! I made 6 loaves of zucchini bread this morning. I'm planning on freezing a few. I meant to give some away, but I forgot them and remembered only when I was 20 miles away at my mom's house.' Speaking of: I got to play with my niece today! I taught her how to roll down a hill. We took a walk to the park becuase we heard a train coming (she loves trains), and we ended up staying becuase she had a lot of fun running around. We rolled down this long hill; she laughed so hard I was sure she was going to hurt herself. I just got home from visiting her. I'm beat.

Currently, I'm reading many things that I've read before, as I'm teaching not one, not two, but FOUR separate English classes. The novel I'm reading is Grendel by John Gardner. Love it!

One of my co-workers told me that a lot of our shared students talk about how much they love my class. That means I'm doing a great job!

For sure! I have made it without the chicken for my vegetarian friend. She loves it. Here's another one I got from the Today Show--Giada De Laurentiis is the person to credit the recipe with. I always put more bread crumbs than it calls for, more tomatoes, and more cheese. I'm a cheese girl. I never cut the tomatoes. They deflate and they're fine. Oh, and sometimes, I can't find yellow cherry or grape tomatoes, so I don't use them--I just double the red ones. Pasta Ponza recipe Pasta Ponza Ingredients Butter for greasing2 cups (12 ounces) red cherry or grape tomatoes, halved2 cups (12 ounces) yellow cherry or grape tomatoes, halved1/4 cup capers, rinsed and drained1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus extra for seasoning1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning1/2 cup Italian-style seasoned breadcrumbs1 pound ziti or other short tube-shaped pasta1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 ounces) Pecorino Romano cheese, grated1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley Directions Place an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter an 8 by 8-inch glass baking dish. Set aside. Place the tomatoes, capers, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in the prepared baking dish. Toss to coat. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the tomato mixture. Drizzle the top with olive oil and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until the top is golden. Cool for 5 minutes. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and reserve about 1 cup of the pasta water. Place the pasta in a large serving bowl. Spoon the tomato mixture onto the pasta. Add the cheese and toss well. Thin out the sauce with a little pasta water, if needed. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and serve immediately.

One of my Led Zeppelin friends asked about this recipe today. I usually let the people eating the stuff add their own sour cream (fat free at that) and cheese, and I always add more spices. It's delicious! WHITE CHICKEN CHILI RECIPE INGREDIENTS: 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 onion, chopped (small onion) 3 cloves garlic, crushed 1 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers 2 teaspoons ground cumin 1 teaspoon dried oregano 1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper 3 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth 3-4 cups shredded cooked chicken breast 4 (15 ounce) cans drained white beans 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese 1 Med. container sour cream Serves: 10 DIRECTIONS: 1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Slowly cook and stir the onion until tender. Mix in the garlic, green chile peppers, cumin, oregano and cayenne. Continue to cook and stir the mixture until tender, about 3 minutes. Mix in the chicken broth, chicken and white beans. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. 2. Remove the mixture from heat. Slowly stir in the cheese until melted. Serve warm Note: I thickened the chili by adding a water/cornstarch mixture when the soup came to a boil.

90! THANK GOD. My car's a/c has died, and my 110 mile round-trip to school yesterday was a killer. It was 110 at my school yesterday when I got into the car to come home.

We just finished watching 2012. THEN, we watched a Nova special called, "What Are Dreams?" Now, we're watching some crap that I can't follow. Crazy stuff--some random low-budget British thing that's a Doctor Who knockoff.

I've posted this everywhere, so this (until now) has been the exception. I SIGNED A CONTRACT FOR MY FIRST FULL-TIME TEACHING JOB THIS AFTERNOON! I was interviewed on Thursday, they offered me the job on Friday, and today I signed my contract! Whoo! It's a small, new(er) rural school that will be a 110 mile round trip drive, but the drive is reasonably easy. I hit the freeway, and once I get out of Boise, I have been able to set the cruise control and go with it. I get of the freeway after about 20 minutes and the rest of the drive is on a state highway that is BARREN. I will have only about 75-90 kids--max. I am going to be THE high school English teacher (10, 11, 12, college prep 12). The school is a junior/senior high school (7-12), and there are only 150 kids in the whole school. I'll have about half of them. I will also be the yearbook advisor, I think, (that's not set in stone, but they did say that they wanted me to be the advisor). It's on a 4-day work week, meaning that the only Mondays I have at school are in-service days, and there are ONLY SIX of those. Though I haven't seen my classroom yet, I have a sneaking suspicion that there may be Macs in the room... (the district office had NO PC's...) My pay is low, but that's becuase I'm a brand-new teacher--much better than many of the school districts who are cutting teachers' pay because of financial emergencies, and much better than my friends who have a year's experience and they're searching for jobs because the bigger districts have cut their jobs entirely. My pay is the same as it was for first year teachers this year, and that's crazy becuase many of my friends have had to take a $4-5K CUT. So in short.....YAY!

I turned OFF Open Season 2 a while ago. What a horrible, horrible sequel. I can't even express how lame it was--it seemed like 2-year-olds wrote the script, and no one put any effort into making it--don't do it!