10 snippets and a shrew

I've been told a few times now that I'm long overdue and I agree, so here goes...

10 Random Middle Schooler Snippets

1) I got some water from the water filter/water fountain at school and it was really hot. After I swallowed I said something like, "Ew, this water is hot!" just as a couple 8th grade boys walked by. One very nonchalantly said, "Oh that's my fault Miss Jones."

2)A couple of my 7th grade boys thought it would be funny to scare me one day. No one was in my classroom so I heard them approach me from behind, I didn't realize he was so close. He grabbed my shoulders making a noise and of course I shrieked. I don't think they'll ever let me live it down. He was practically rolling in the floor with laughter at the time.

3) We all eat our lunches outside underneath bandas, which is the perfect place for birds of prey to stalk. Since part of the way is open these "lunch hawks" have developed a habit of swooping down in between the bandas and snatching up lunches right off the plates. Well, I finally had my turn. This particular hawk demonstrated a perfet dive coming in from behind. I only felt the brush of wings and a little extra weight on my plate as he took his booty and soared away. I saw nothing. However, there was a nice group of girls coming towards me at the time who witnessed the whole event. They immediately began alerting the whole campus that a hawk attacked and I almost died. In their excitement, they may have overexaggerated a bit, but they will never forget it!

4)I finally slipped up in my 6th grade class. I do a very good job of never saying shut up or heck or the normal "bad" words, but this one day I lost it in front of the whole class. I said crap. The following gasps reminded me that even though they say those words plus, teachers are not allowed.

5)I just have to relay to you the coolness of teaching in an international school. They other day two of my sweet little 6th grade girls came up to me holding papers for me to view. One was filled with Ethiopian writing, the other Japanese. I'm so jealous of my kids' language abilities. Ethiopian/Japanese speaking English in a school in Kenya. wow.

6)I am now wondering if I ever had the typical middle school hormones. I really don't think I did, at least not to the point of some of my students. The more open ones will come to me saying, "Miss Jones I'm so depressed" "i just feel bad" "I just don't know what's wrong with me" right after bouncing up and down with happiness. Sometime I wonder if they are seriously bipolar?!

The next few snippets are a continuing story...

7) My 7th and 8th grade girls came into Bible class in a bit of a frenzy one day. One 7th grader kept claiming that her 8th grade sister had a dead animal in her backpack. she claimed she had caught a peek a couple times since yesterday and there was a dead possum in her bag. All the rest of the class kept trying to tell her she was delirious.
8)When she seemed so determined and the sister so calm, I walk to the sister with the supposed dead possum and asked if she indeed did have a dead animal in her backpack which was resting at her feet. She smiled at me sheepishly.
9)"Let me see it" I said. And sure enough, to my surprise, there was a small dead rodent in her backpack haphazardly wrapped in a kleenex. Apparently she had found the flattened, very dead animal on the football pitch and stashed it away for joke. I explained how nasty that was considering it was probably disease ridden, so she put it back in her backpack. It wasn't a possum, it was a shrew.
10) I told her she could put it away and later show the science teacher to be sure it was a shrew before she disposed of it. Needless to say the younger sister felt very justified. Of course she didn't want to dipose of it, she asked me quite politely if she could put it in the bushy hair of one of the boys. I said no. After we showed the science teacher we both agreed that if it ended up in someone's locker we might just look the other way. I have no idea what happened to that shrew.