Our math department puts out a survey to all students at the beginning of the year and this morning they are going over their Mathematical Autobiography sheets together as a team. The laughter sucked me right in so I joined them to read through the answers.

The questions are benign enough, but it gives them an idea of what their math experience has been in the past. It’s a quick way to assess how much the students like or dislike math as a discipline. As one who has a little math anxiety, I can empathize with those students who don’t like it.

Some of their questions were:

1) Describe your favorie memory of mathematics.

2) Describe your worst mathematics experience.

3) What characteristics would your ideal teacher have?

It was that last question that nearly made all the coffee in my mouth shoot straight out of my nose. Not so much because of the question, but because of one of the answers from a 7th grade boy. We often joke in education that Spring brings too many meetings for teachers and too many hormonal surges for students. But this is the first week of school so we don’t normally talk about this stuff yet. We’re too busy getting to know the students to know much about their likes and dislikes and their personality types. This kid is already surging toward Spring according to his answer:

Q: What characteristics would your ideal teacher have?

A: Tyra Banks. Fine and sweet like a chocolate covered donut.

The standards have apparently risen since I was studying to be a teacher in college. I don’t recall the class entitled “Chocolate Covered Teaching 101″. I’ll have to go back and enroll in that one. Also, I’d prefer to be a little sticky like a Krispy Kreme, too.

I’m still getting into the swing of things for school and getting coffee prior to arriving at school is my newest routine. It wasn’t in my plans to order something that delectable, but I couldn’t decide and my eye caught the White Chocolate Mocha at Starbucks. Sometimes, I am smarter for my flash-in-the-pan decisions. Because this was heavenly today.

Mallory did the normal things that little kids do when trying to pronounce words when she was very small.

“Wookit me!”

“Wisten da me!”

But it was when she was trying to learn to pronounce her own name that she really threw me off. Surprisingly, it didn’t take me long to figure out that she should probably just sing it. When it finally came to me, I decided to teach her to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and change the word at the end to “Mallory, Mallory, Mallory, Mallory… life is but a dream.”

It worked. She got it. It was very cute and only posed one problem: when she started pre-school she insisted that everyone was pronouncing “Mallory” wrong when they sang it as “Merrily“. They called me to school to have a conference at that point. She caused quite a disturbance insisting that HER NAME BE SUNG IN THAT SONG.

Yesterday she asked me to write “Life is but a dream…” over and over on a piece of paper. Lower case, upper case, cursive, print. Today she took that paper in to a tattoo artist and had it inked on the side of her foot. I say ‘inked’ because I, too, am already ‘inked’ and because I am just. that. hip.

It is my handwriting on my daughter’s foot. And I love that…

When my camera and computer decide to cooperate, I will post a picture so you can wook at it, too.

I’m not making coffee today. Today, I’m going to get back into my routine of buying it. Here’s the plan: go to my favorite mom-and-pop drive-through and get an iced mocha. That’s the plan. You know what happens with plans, right?

It was just about this time last year when I started to write on a blog. Looking back, it appears that I’ve done some growing and learning and yet, I have far to go it seems.

Last year I felt so unprepared for school and didn’t want to even begin to think about the work we had to do to get our students where they should be. This year we’ve finally turned the corner. It’s still hard, but at least there is a lot more comraderie among our staff to work together. I’m not sure how that happened exactly, but it’s a great thing.

Having the naked dream before school starts is usually the indication that I’m not ready. All signs point to YES here because I’ve not had my laptop for weeks now and all of my data and information for my department is on there and I’ve been recreating some of it.

My summer classes are done, but one of my professors didn’t get a final paper so she’s asked me to re-send it. That’s all fine and well, but it’s saved to my laptop.

I would think the naked dream was inevitable, but I didn’t have it last night.

With scheduling conflicts between me and my principal with whom I was to do an internship this summer, I have yet to get in all 55 of my hours. They’ve given me an extension, but that means that while school is in session and my Fall classes start in two days I have several hours to make up in doing administrative work.

Just to round everything out, Richard Cranium has decided to wait too long to pay for Mallory’s college tuition leaving us in a bit of quandry and some back-and-forth discussions with the financial aid office. Because at this time, I really needed that.
I’m certain that it’s no coicidence, then, that this new nervous habit I have of pushing my tongue on the back of my teeth has prompted my dentist to send me to an orthodontist who wants to put a retainer in my mouth. ME. A retainer! At my age! After having already worn braces for 6 years in high school and college. SIX YEARS.

Then, why am I so calm about starting this school year? And why didn’t I have the naked dream?

No laptop, squeezing in extra hours of work, college tuition, and a retainer. I’m guessing it’ll be an interesting year to say the least.