Go Fish

Luck struck again.

Maybe.

My hubby and I ran in the second annual Strides 4 Kids 5K this morning, which was a beautiful morning for a run. Almost as soon as we arrived several of the folks we know who help run it teased us, "Are you going to be as lucky this year?" Last year we won bread for a year from St. Louis Bread Co. and a night's stay at the Lumiere Place in the raffle. We assured them that we had used up our store of luck for the next decade. Apparently not--my bib number got pulled again for a prize! This year, however, luck had a sense of humor. I don't like to eat fried food much, but I won 5 meals from Captain D's while two brawny guys each won 10 free sessions of yoga at a local yoga studio. Go figure.

Proud Parents

Ben and I are now proud parents, although I didn't want to say anything about it until we were absolutely sure. We became positive yesterday. And it's a boy and a boy and a boy and a boy...and maybe a few girls in there, too. But with the pH, we think there are probably more boys than girls. That's right, our Kribensis fishies did their dance, and yesterday was the first time we saw the babies.

There they were, a little cloud of probably 40 to 50 wee ones (2 mm long?) swimming around along the gravel under the careful oversight of mom and dad. As strange as it sounds, it was adorable. Kribensis are a type of dwarf African cichlid and are known to be good parents, and we got to see this in action. The young parents have been taking turns watching over the kids and leading them around the tank. The most interesting part was their reaction to us cleaning the tank.

Here is a clip of the parents with their babies sitting on the doorstep to the house. The babies are the little specks wiggling around. You'll get the idea after only a few seconds, but the whole clip (about 2 min.) is there for anyone who just loves to watch fish.

We had been planning on doing it yesterday because it will be almost a week and a half until the next time we'll be able to do it again. (We also had planned to transfer them out of the quarantine tank into the larger tank. Then we found babies, and plans changed.) The babies in there made cleaning significantly harder--we didn't want to accidentally siphon up any fry. With the removal of the house decoration (the "cave" in which the parents had settled them in for the night), the babies got scattered from their school. Soon enough, we could tell that mom and dad were looking around for them and gathering them in a dip in the gravel. But we didn't see exactly how they did it until the tank was put back together and there were just a few stragglers that hadn't made it back to their hiding spot. The parents were hunting around for any extras when we saw them find the last few. When an adult found a baby, he or she sucked it into its mouth to later deposit back with the group. Animals never cease to make me marvel.

One problem: we won't be around for a few days. This is fine for the mature fish, but not so good for little ones. Oh, well...we don't have very much tank space anyway. So, if they do survive, does anyone want some fish in a couple of months?

The End...Sort Of.

I missed my deadline. Obviously, nothing got posted in May. *sigh* Oh, well. I don't feel quite so guilty because what needed to get done did. Yeah! Yesterday was the last official day of work for the school year. We finished up our faculty meetings, made sure all of our grades and reports were in, and checked out for the school year.

I am no longer a first year teacher. Yeah!

Unfortunately, the end was not as clean and sweet as everyone had hoped. The economy has impacted our enrollment significantly, which means that our budget has shrunk. A LOT. In order to deal with the shortfall, the school president announced that they laid off four of our staff members this week. I don't know how it is at other schools, but here our staff members are definitely part of the family and much beloved. Hopefully things will get better soon.

In the meantime, I am just happy that I have a job. So, while this school year has ended, it's now time to get working on the curriculum for next fall. Unfortunately, I have so much fun thinking about what I shouldn't have ninth graders read (how about the unbridged Moby Dick?) that I get distracted from figuring out what they should read...

It's that time of year.

Tomorrow is the first day of May. That means two things: 1. We're one step closer to the end of the school year. 2. If I'm going to continue my once-a-month posting pattern, I have to figure out something to write about. Well, other than getting really sick on Saturday and still feeling like I'm in a fog Thursday night, I haven't been up to too much. "School" just about sums it up, and school, as noted in number 1 above, is rapidly wrapping up (yeah!). This also means summer reading assignments. *sigh*

I don't remember having summer reading assignments in school, but then again, it has never taken too much to get me to read. The hundreds of books in our house attest to this. However, I know that won't be the case with all my ninth graders next year. This led me on a great hunt to find the perfect book for them.

In years past the rising freshmen have read Chaim Potok's The Chosen. The student reviews were not stellar, and this year's teacher was none too happy with it, either. I read it, thought it was really good but not thrilling for students (there are NO female characters, for one), and kept looking. Between this quest and the independent reading books the sophomores could choose this semester, I've done a lot of reading: over 5,000 pages since the beginning of January. This has included 15 full novels and the first chapters of multiple other books. I've found some great books...

Unfortunately for me, I haven't found anything that fits as well into the freshman curriculum that fits thematically and is an appropriate reading level. The time for searching is over, so my students will be jumping into The Chosen--about two days before they come back to school in the fall. Again, *sigh*. I'll have to go bury my sorrows in a good book.

Obsession

Okay, I have to admit that I've recently found a website that, for me, is a bit addictive. I'm trying to stay away from it because I know it could be bad for my bottom line. It doesn't help that Ben encourages me in it, however. The site is aquabid.com. It's kind of like eBay for fish lovers.

Some of you may not know this, but I'm absolutely in love with bettas. Really, the fact that we have three fish tanks (one of which will probably be upgraded to a larger size) is all due to this fact. It started when the betta I rescued at the beginning of grad school grew old and passed on. Well, instead of simply getting a new betta, the hubby and I tried to replace him with other fish and bigger tanks. In order to not bore everyone with the history of our fish tanks, I'll just say that it didn't work, and now I have a new betta (a lovely little veil tail named Walter Mitty). I'm also thinking about getting another one for my collection. However, as Ben put it, I've moved from the soft stuff into the harder stuff.

Aquabid.com has put show-quality bettas within tantalizing reach. I'm willing to pay the price for the betta (about $20-30 for these guys), but I just haven't gotten to the point where I can rationalize spending the shipping price on top of that. But in the meantime, here is my fantasy collection:

Male half-moon red dragon betta

Male silver black dragon half-moon betta

Male black yellow half-moon betta

*sigh* Some day...

Oh, by the way, I found out what I will be teaching next year. I'll be the freshman English teacher. Hopefully things will play out that I'll get to teach art again soon, but in the meantime it will be a creative challenge.

It's alive!

When I started this blog, I thought I would post a few more things about my art. However, that hasn't happened. Last summer I felt so burned out from grad school that I had no desire to make art. Since I started teaching, I have lacked the time or energy to make much beyond examples for my students. As a follow up to my last post, I thought I'd show you one of my example puppets.

I simply scanned it because I was too lazy to figure out a way to photograph it well. My first puppet was an alligator that I'm quite proud of, but it was too big to fit on the scanner. I guess that means that you will have to just come to visit me to see it.

Anyway, presenting my bug-monster:

"Bug-monster," 2009. 10" x 8." Posterboard, tissue paper, pipe cleaner, and brass fasteners.

Sometimes I feel really lucky

Some days, it is all I can do to get up and go to school without having a nervous breakdown. Every time I start a new lesson, I never know if it is going to "work." Frankly, as a first year teacher, they usually have plenty of room for improvement. That wouldn't be such a big deal if I weren't a perfectionist. But I am. *sigh* However, today as I took pictures of my 6th graders' work, I felt pretty dang good.

It had been a bit of a crazy day. The mascot and a rookie from the St. Louis Blues had come to visit the 6th grade, which ended up cutting my class in half. I got them AFTER the visit. Last period on a Friday afternoon...oh, the potential for chaos! However, the kids were fantastic (this is one of my favorite classes). Last class they performed shadow plays, complete with original puppets, props, scripts, and sound effects, and today was not going to be the day to start a new unit. So, I didn't have much planned, but they settled right in to a creative drawing exercise that I had given some of my sophomores earlier. No need to say that young'uns were more creative. While they worked on that, I set up the screen from the shadow plays, handed back the puppets, and took pictures. My students were so charming, holding their figures tight to the screen to be photographed and playing in the light.

Some of you may have poked around my profile and seen the link to the blog I set up for them. It's just a place to stick links for them to follow so that I don't have to have them type the addresses. Anyway, I've posted some of the pictures. Check it out and see why these kids are super.


This photograph is of the screen sitting on our dining room table. This is before I installed the cloth on which the shadows are viewed.