ZAP! ZAP!

Today I learned of a new, disturbing, hilarious game that elementary schoolers can play. Now, despite my interest and intense questioning about the game, I am still a little unclear on the rules, so if I get anything wrong or leave something out, please do let me know.

The name of the game, I guess, is "ZAP!". What happens is, a group of boys gets together and they each get assigned a time. Then, they hold out their hand, and the other boys write the names of girls in their classes on their hands. The point is, or at least I am deducing, is to get a date, although when I asked if they thought they were just a bit young to be dating, they said yes. Obviously I just don't understand this game.

Anyway, each boy has until their assigned time to ask out each of the five girls. Whichever girl(s) say yes, they have to take on a date. You can see my confusion again, when it was again reiterated that none of them really wanted to go out with a girl. There was some dispute as well as to how many girls actually needed to be asked. Apparently they didn't review the rules before playing. Some boys said you have to ask all the girls before your allotted time, and whoever has the most girls say yes, wins. Other boys said that you ask until a girl says yes, and if you get no "yeses", then you lose. Here's where more of the confusion really set in.

Also, why is this game called "ZAP!"? Why are they playing this? Why are they telling me about it? What are the rules? What is even going on? How would you like to be girl #5 on any of these hands? Or the parent that has their son come home and tell them that they have to go on 5 dates this weekend? Wha-at?

How to Get Hitched: According to Kindergarteners

Kindergarteners say the darndest things.

Today I wore black hose with my purple dress, and this apparently shocked some of the little munchkins. "Miss!" They said to me in awe, "Miss! You are turning into a black person!" "Miss! How did you make your legs black? Why are you turning black? Can I be black?" Imagine their confusion when I pinched the hose and pulled it away from my legs. I tried to tell them it was just tights, but I don't think they all bought it. A friend of mine this evening said I should have messed with them and told them that yes, indeed, I was turning into an African American and that hopefully the metamorphosis would be complete by Monday. I think that's just cruel, though.

About 30 seconds later, one little girl asked if I was married. When I said no, I am not married, she told me that I should get married right now. The little boys at her table agreed wholeheartedly. Then I wouldn't be "Miss", I could be "Mrs.", which I guess is way cooler. The group of 5 year olds then devised a plan for me to meet my "Mr." All I need to do is not really look where I am going and look really busy. Then I will bump into a man and he will say "Sorry" and we will fall in love. Then we can get married and be happy forever. I wonder how many cookie-cutter romantic comedies these kiddos have seen?

I still think their plan is pretty funny, although I might think it was more funny if I wasn't having such big issues with Joe right now. I am really on edge. Believe me, it is hard to be disconnected from the man you love and your best friend at the same time. Bummer for me, I guess, that they are the same person. I always thought of it as something awesome in the past. Luckily, I have many supportive friends (THANK YOU ALL!) that have done a wonderful job of helping me keep a positive attitude in the week long silence between the Twin Cities and Madison.

Maybe I should start shopping for Jennifer, my future pet bald eagle.

Awesome Pet Names

So as you may or may not know, I am currently student teaching at the elementary level. Luckily for me, I have the opportunity to spend my mornings in an entirely ELL kindergarten. We are currently studying animals, which is super fun since I get to make animal noises and ask silly questions (which, to my amusement, my students have to actually consider) such as "Which is bigger? The mouse or the lion?" or "Is a rooster a big or small animal?"

Anyway, getting to the point of my story, the kids had homework. They had to go home and cut out pictures of animals they would find in a pet store and make their own "pet shop" picture with labels. One little girl, we'll call her "Dina", came up and shared her pet store that had a cat named Sassy, a dog named Chica, a canary named Pretty, and a mouse named Little. Now the point of the labels was for them to write things like "cat", "mouse", "hamster", "dog", etc. but this girl is pretty shy, so we didn't say anything.

Next up for sharing time comes a talkative young fellow - we'll call him "Douglas" - who loves attention of any kind. Anyway, "Douglas" has an eagle, a cat, a little dog, and a beaver in his pet shop, which I thought was a rather interesting collection of pets. They were correctly labeled as the animal they are. When he was done sharing, he was asked to sit down. "But wait!" said Douglas, "Don't you want to know what I would NAME these pets?" Naturally, I said yes, and I am sure glad I did.

My new favorite names for future pets:

Dog: Juicy Sharkboy
Cat: Clawripper
Beaver: Hamster
Bald Eagle: Jennifer

Progress Report 1 on Becoming a Dirty Dancer

As you may have read earlier, I have recently begun my journey to becoming a Dirty Dancer. No, I could never aspire to be Baby or Johnny/Swayze. I would be content at being as good as those crazy people in the background of the exercise video. The only thing I'll do different is wear real clothes (or at least my pajamas).

Now, granted, I took a weeks vacation to sunny Cozumel a mere one week into my new Dirty Dancing routine, but I am disappointed to say that I think I have not improved since day 2. Apparently, my learning curve starts out steep and plateaus rather quickly - or immediately.

I don't know if it is the super awesome Dirty Dancing exercise video or all the swimming and snorkeling I did last week, but I am beginning to feel better, and I swear the beginnings of the love handles are starting to dissipate, much to my relief. Unfortunately, at this point, I don't know if I should attribute it more to one activity or to the other. Or maybe I need to be Dirty Dancing AND snorkeling on alternative weeks. This could prove difficult/unpleasant given the current temperature of Minnesota lakes. Also, most of the lakes are muckier than the waters of the Carribean, so I don't know that it would be as visually appealing of an activity.

I think for now I will stick to continuing my failed attempts at the video. Maybe I just don't mesh with the peppy blond lady on the dvd. Maybe I should just skip the next level and find another one taught by that guy. Maybe my problem is that she keeps telling me to be sexy and improvise, and clearly I cannot improvise or even act sexy, let alone be sexy. If you were here, you'd hear me sigh.

If this tape fails me due to my lack of dance abilities, sexiness, and coordination, you'll see me next month out snorkeling in Schwartz Pond.

I'm a Geek

What's more fun that sitting around at the cabing playing crokinole for hours? Doing crossword puzzles! I've tried my hand at making my own, and I must say, it is probably not my calling. Also, you can now see what a geek I really am.


Crossword Puzzle: Geekery

or

http://justcrosswords.com/Geekery_custom14280.html

Spring Break Adventure

I must say that I had a rather splediferous time in sunny Cozumel. I sat by the pool, sat by the beach, sat on a boat, sat in restaurants - I did a lot of sitting. I also spent a good amount of time snorkeling. Because of this, I burned my shoulders, but I'll get over it.

Snorkeling was a lot of fun. I went three times in three different places. The first time I went across the street from our hotel with my father and sister. There were many little fish, but the current was pretty strong and kept sucking my little sister out to sea.

The second time I went snorkeling, I went out at Chankanaab park. That time I had my own personal (and kind of cute) guide. This time I saw different reefs and many, many fish. There was a barracuda, and despite the insistence of my guide that they don't bite humans, I've seen their teeth and I wanted to steer clear. We also saw the giant Jesus statue that is under the water. It was cool, but it also creeped me out a little bit to swim over it, since Jesus was looking up with such anguish, reaching his arms for the sky. The guide also did this thing where he clapped his hands under the water and these little fish came and swam all around us. That was cool.

The third time I went snorkeling was off of a boat a little further from land. This time was pretty cool as well since there were many more corals and plants to sea. There were many fish and schools of fish as well.

Besides snorkeling, I also swam with the dolphins out at Chankanaab. It was so ridiculously cool! I thought I would be more nervous, but to be honest, the seagulls scared me more than the dolphins. Naturally I have photos and video footage as proof of my adventure. After swimming with the dophins, I also got to get in the water to feed lettuce to some manatees. That was pretty fun. Again, because I am silly, I was more afraid of putting my hand near the mouths of the manatees thant the mouth of the dolphins. I was just so surprised at the way their mouth opened that the first time I jerked my hand away. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was very cool to see their nails on their fins. I learned, also, that they have "fingers" inside of their front fins that help them grasp things. That was cool to watch as well.

Needless to say, the trip was great. Too bad I am back in 50 degree weather and getting ready to go back to work.

Time for more Vitamin D for me!

Man am I exhausted! The change of weather is taking a toll on me, unfortunately. I love coming home from work and sittin gin the sun on the front porch. After about a century of winter, my body is relishing all the vitamin D and natural light. In fact, I am already a little less translucent than I used to be. Unfortunately, this weather change is waking me up at night.

Luckily, I am going to sunny Mexico next week and I'll be soaking up even more sun! YAY! Hopefully I'll be sleeping a lot, too. My 9th and 10th grade gym/health teacher told me you can never "catch up" on sleep, but I think that it is worth it to keep trying.