My vehicular history.

This just may be the most boring post I've ever written. Consider that fair warning.

When I turned 16 my brother and I began sharing a car. My family has the habit of naming cars, and this cars name was Gray Ray. Gray Ray was a Honda Accord formerly owned by my Uncle and Aunt. It was one of those old school, cool cars with the headlights that flip up. The problem with sharing a car with my brother was that I wanted to drive to school every day and Nate wanted to drive... anywhere else. One day I drove to school and when I went to leave in the afternoon the car was gone. I called my mom, crying, to tell her that the car had been stolen. She informed me that Nate needed to drive somewhere so he'd walked to the school and taken the car. This was the point when I realized that it might be better if I had my own car. I'm not sure my parents would have ever bought me my own car, but as luck would have it the same Aunt and Uncle that sold us Gray Ray were upgrading their second car and offered to sell us their '90 Honda Civic for a good price.

That is when Red Greta came into my life for the first time. When I moved to college she came with me. I fit everything I owned inside of that little civic, a feat that will never be possible again, and then drove to Logan by myself for the very first time. When I was a sophomore in college I was the only person who would park in the first parking stall of our complex because it was a tight fit and my little car had a great turning radius. That same year Greta began doing strange things. She began turning off at stop lights and other inconvenient things. The summer after my sophomore year I moved to Alaska. Greta moved back to my moms house for the summer. It just so happens that my sister turned 16 that summer. She took advantage of the abandoned vehicle and made Greta her own. My Aunt who had sold us the cars passed away that year from a brain tumor and so knowing my sister would be needing a vehicle my Uncle sold us her Subaru. Since Greta wasn't as trusty as she used to be she stayed in Provo with my sister so she wouldn't have to make the trek over the mountains anymore. Valerie Sue Subaru (Sue for short) was very useful and the big cargo area was useful for moving wedding gifts when I got married. Now that I've moved back to Salt Lake and my sister has moved to Logan, Greta has returned to my custody.

So how is Greta these days? Well she no longer knows when the drivers door is open. Meaning when I get out of my car there is no dome lights and there are no warnings when my lights are still on. The most recent problem she is having is the speaker on the passenger side door has a short. When I go over bumps the speaker turns on and off. When I only have sound in one speaker I have to turn the radio up, which just makes it that much scarier when the sound suddenly comes back in the second speaker. I'm nervous that one of these days I'll hit a pothole and the speaker will never come back on. Today the speaker went out and I wasn't even going over potholes. So while we house-sit we are saving money for a house, but there just may need to be another big purchase some time soon.

What no one likes to see on their car

There are many things that people don't like to see on their car when they approach it; dead cats, bird poop, gangsters, meteors etc.... One thing that never makes people happy is when they see a florescent envelope under their windshield wiper.

Imagine my dismay when I had 2 students tell me they noticed a hot pink notice under my windshield wiper. My first thought was actually "Creepy stalker high schoolers! Why do you know which car is mine?" Not only was that my first thought but it was actually what I said out loud to them. They then pointed out to me that I have a name badge hanging from an air freshner hanging from my rearview mirror. Which is true. So it was my own fault that they knew it was my car. Since they obviously were right about it being my car I had to think hard about why I would have a ticket. They said that they didn't want to get in trouble so they didn't touch it to figure out what it was for. Since they told me this as class was starting I couldn't focus on the lesson as I mulled over the possibilities of why I would have a ticket. The class began brainstorming for me, "Did I have a Kearns high teacher sticker to enable me to park in that lot?" No, but I have a Granite sticker that lets me park at any school in the district. "Was I not completely in my parking spot?" I'm pretty sure I was when I left my car....

Luckily the lesson plan that day involved watching a little Oprah, that left me a little time to run out to the parking lot to check my car. (Don't worry I have an aide in that class to help the special ed kids and she's an adult and completely capable of watching the children. The only requirement she had was that I check her car for a ticket too) I get to my car and sure enough there is a bright pink paper with "Salt Lake County Sherriff" on the back. I grab it and flip it over to read my offense. There was a list of possible offenses including overnight parking and not having a permit. The box that was checked however, was the "other" box. The offense? "Please check for dead cats."

Turns out the students who warned me of the ticket are enrolled in a criminal justice class and one aspect of that class is to patrol the teachers lot. After finding my car (stalkers!) and telling their teacher (the school resource officer) the cat story he approved the warning. So they knew all along what the "ticket" was about. (They also reminded me that my license plates expire next month.)

Do you Twitter?

Some of you may know that I love watching Ellen DeGeneres. She's my girlfriend. Only not really cause you know...... But anways, she has been talking about twitter a lot recently and she is collecting followers on twitter. So I've been considering getting an account, purely because Ellen told me to. Do you people have twitter? I've looked around the site but I'm not REALLY sure how to work it. I'm not sure if this trend will stay but I'm thinking I may become a twitterer (tweeter? twizzle? Couldn't they come up with something easier to say?)

Parent Teacher Conferences

Even though I am "just a substitute" I was asked by the school secretary to stay and sit at my teachers table for parent teacher conferences. The teacher I am covering for needed to be out of town so she couldn't go in like she originally planned and so since I know all of the kids and how they are doing and I am the one giving them their grades anyways...... I went. It made for 2 very long days but since they fed us before it was fine. I heard several funny and odd comments from parents and since I haven't updated my blog for awhile I thought you ought to hear them too.

One of the other teachers that I know, is a new teacher, and she happens to be just one year older than I am. She and I were standing outside the cafeteria waiting for the doors to open so that we could take our seats. It was getting close to time for the conferences to start and parents began lining the hall. One father kept looking at the other young teacher and myself. I thought he was just amazed that we both looked so young to be teachers. Finally the reason for his staring surfaced when he just blurted out "Which one of you two is the mom?!" He then picked for himself and asked me, "Are you the mom?" That's right. I'm a 22 year-old mother of a 23 year old. We laughed and explained that we were both just young teachers. He agreed that made much more sense.

I have one student who likes to argue with me no matter what I say. This frustrates me to no end. Especially since she was one of the first students I met before I started subbing at this school and I had planned on making her my go-to student. I quickly learned that wasn't going to work. I understand she has some home isssues, and she brought her neighbor to PTC's which I think is great that at least SOMEONE cares about her education. Well her neighbor happens to be the PTA president. She also seems to know a lot about this girls day to day activities. She knew all about me, plus some.... You see the student told this woman that I HIT HER! Now those of you that know my student teaching experience may think this is possible.... but I did NOT touch this student. I was furious. So there goes my letter of recommendation from the PTA president of that school. Even the teachers around me commented on what a weird experience that particular conference was.

I had a couple students whose parents didn't speak english and so the kids would translate what I was telling them. One students mother began talking to her and the student kept agreeing with her mother but then didn't ask me any questions from what her mom said. I finished the run down of her grade and asked if her mom had questions and she said, "Nope, but she wanted me to tell you that you have really pretty eyes." That was kind of random, but nice. So what did I say back? "Thanks, I grew them myself." Sometimes my oddness surprises even myself.