Life in Kindergarten

You would think that since I go so long between my blog posts that I would have something super exciting to say when I get around to writing something, but in actuality nothing has changed that much. I’m still living in Salt Lake, teaching kindergarten at an under privileged school and loving my life.

In honor of my little angels this year I thought I would share some of my favorite kindergartener quotes of the day:

• “Ms. Tyler, I love you so much! Sometimes I call my mom Ms. Tyler; she says it’s ok though because you are young and cute.”
• “I know your secret! You are married to the real batman. You can't tell because he is undercover. It's ok. I'll keep your secret.”
• (After the poor kid ran head first into the slide) “Why won’t you cuddle with me?! Ms. Tyler! I need you to cuddle with me! Please cuddle me! It hurts, I need to cuddle!!!!!!”
• “My mom told me that your real name isn’t Ms. Tyler. You want to know your real name? (He whispers) It’s Melissa! She said I can’t tell anybody, but I think you need to know your real name.”

I’m doing the whole Elf on the Shelf thing with my class. It’s the cutest thing. They really think he is real. They tell me they saw him blink during class or that he flew past their window on the way back to the north poll the night before. I should take some pictures of all the trouble our Fred Jingle is getting into. I just love kindergarten!!

For Halloween I let my kids pick my costume. Since I talk about how awesome Batman is all the time they wanted me to dress up as batman. Of course I couldn’t just be a normal Batman, so I did a Pinterest inspired Batman. My roommate decided that she would do the same but with Wolverine, since she is in love with Hugh Jackman. My students loved it and now they call me Mrs. Batman and I’m pretty sure they really think I’m married to Batman.

Here are some recent pictures of what I have been up to. Nothing too exciting but I’m enjoying my life!

 As much as I do love living in Salt Lake I miss home a ton, especially my favorite guys!!

 This little man is the love my my life. My little nephew Caleb.












I had my first ER visit a few weeks ago. The doctor thought I had appendicitis and told me to go to the hospital immediately. He was successful in scaring me half to death, but he was wrong about my appendix. This was the picture I sent to my mom after the doctor told me I was still going to be able to fly to California the next day!

My roommate and I were excited for the first snow fall, but quickly got over that by the second one. Now we are hiding in our apartment until summer comes again.

Dating Tips from the Creeper Magnet

I know I have been away for a long time but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to post about my most recent dating experiences. That’s right, it may have been a long time but nothing has changed that much, I’m still the Cheeper Magnet.

I was dating a guy for awhile but things didn’t work out. It was a little complicated at first because me live in the same apartment complex, hang out with the same people and are really good friends with each other’s roommates. But when we were finally way done with each other I decided I needed to get back into the dating world. I was very sad to find out that dating did not improve at all while I was away; in fact it has gotten much worse! In honor of the horrible dates I have been on lately I bring to you….

Dating Tips from the Creeper Magnet

1. Have a job and ambition- this has never crossed my mind before because I just assumed it was obvious but boy was I wrong!! Your fancy college degree only impresses for about 5 seconds before it is known how long you have been graduated and that you have applied for not one single job.

I don’t quite understand how somebody could go though grad school with no thought of what they were going to do after graduation. I know some stupid girls do that thinking that they would get married and never need to work but you are a man! Get off your butt and get a job! Yes, finding your dream job can be difficult but apply for something, ANYTHING!! Even working fast food is better than not doing anything!

This brings me to my next tip…

2. The only thing worse than a guy with a college degree living with his parents is a guy with a college degree who is living off his parents! – I would say this is pretty self explanatory. I rather you live at home so your parents aren’t wasting their money paying your rent while you play video games all day every day.

3. If you say you are going to dinner make it a real dinner- If you can’t afford to take a girl to dinner that’s fine. Don’t tell her before hand you’ll do dinner just to take her to a fast food restaurant to use your free sandwich coupons.

4. Do not try to get a girl to come to your bedroom and watch a movie on the first date- If I have to explain why that is creepy you don’t deserve to be asking girls out.

5. Marriage obsessed is a turn off- I always knew girls who were obsessed with getting married but I never knew a guy before. When you tell me 2 minutes into our date that I should be depressed that my younger siblings beat me to the alter like you are, chances are my brain is working over time trying to come up with an excuse for me to need to go home.

6. Good pick up lines are not, “I noticed 5 seconds ago you made it so your boyfriend is no longer in your profile pic, want to go out?”- Come on, for real? I think almost anything is better than that.

7. Complements can be creepy- Every girl loves to be told she is beautiful! I’ll be the first to admit that I probably love it more than most girls. You might be able to tell by the way my kindergarteners yell out “Ms. Tyler you are pretty” whenever I go to discipline them. But let me just say there is a fine line between sweet and creepy and when you start saying it every 2 minutes you are so far past the line, the line is a dot to you! (Yes, that was just a reference to the best show of all time, Friends, in case you were wondering!)

Also, Don’t admit that you had seen her at a party over a year ago but she was talking to a guy and then disappeared, and you had been searching for her ever since. It’s not a complement when you say that on the first date along with all the other creepy stuff you have done.  

8. Get the hints- After no texts or calls back just go away! Don’t sent texts like, “Are you ok? Haven’t heard back from you in awhile.” Do you think you are her mother? The reason she didn’t text you back was because you are a creep and she wants nothing to do with you. Suck it up and move on.

9. Don’t try to turn her into the bad person because she says she isn’t interested- everybody gives me such a hard time because I’ll make up excuses for not going out on dates and not just be honest and say I’m not interested. The one time I took the advice from every guy I have ever known, the guy freaked out on me. I still don’t understand what the big deal was. I was nice about it and I had given him a chance but I wasn’t interested. He seemed like a very honest type so I thought I would go for it. I’m pretty sure even though every guy in the world will tell girls to just be honest, they really rather have the lame excuse.

10. Don’t ask out over Facebook- I can’t believe I have to say this! Ask for her number and then CALL HER!

Believe it or not these are real life experiences I have had the last few weeks. And sadly it’s not even all of them. I’m sure my prince is out there some where and boy is he making me work for it!

Kindergarten!

School has started and I still think it's a little crazy that I'm a real teacher now and I'm in charge of my own class. Things have been a little crazy and I have never felt so drained in my life but everything is going wonderfully. I love my students, my school and the great people I work with. Although it is difficult, I wouldn't change it for the world!!

I'm super excited to show off my classroom! I have always wanted my own place to decorate any way I wanted and to be organized in my own crazy obsessive way and I'm so proud of it. I realized that I did forget to take a picture of one of my favorite parts but I'll do that next week and post about it later. I hope you like my class!

 This is the board outside my classroom. If you can't tell those little people are Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Dr. Seuss book made out of the children's hand prints. I got the idea from Pinterest and the children loved it! 

 Sorry this isn't the best picture because I took it with instagram but it's the only one I have. I decided to name the tables after different Dr. Seuss books. I was going to hang the cover of the books over their tables but I guess that's not allowed at my school so I settled for putting them on the pencil holder thingies. It turned out pretty cute.

 The outside of my door. Not like you couldn't tell or anything. haha!

 Since one of our standards is for all kids to know their colors I wanted to hang up color sings in my class but I wanted them to match the theme so I made this.

 You can't really tell but these are our classroom rules and they are also Dr. Seuss themed. I got them at the Utah Idaho Supply Store. The kids love them and I have found myself saying "put on your elephant ears this is super important to listen to" because of the pictures on one of these posters.

 We did this the first week of school. I read the kids "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and had them color letters in the Alphabet to make our own tree. I made it bright colors so it still fits in with the Dr. Seuss theme even though it's really not. The kids love looking at the letters and telling which ones they colored.

 My birthday wall.

 This is where I display my student's work. Those little hats were made by some of my 6th grade summer school students. A few of them were really excited to help me decorate my room and would stay in from recess to help me do things. It was great. And now every morning I have a group of 6th graders coming in asking if they can do little things. I have really enjoyed their help and I have a feeling that once it starts to get cold more and more of the kids will be coming in begging to help me.

This is my discipline chart. It's my Dr. Seuss-ed version of the old green-yellow-red behavior chart. I thought it was a cute way to fit in with the theme and it works really well.

I have a few more cute things that I'll have to take pictures of another time but pretty much that's my classroom. It's all very organized and clean just the way I like it so I'm loving it. Hope you like it too!!!!

Different kind of racist

For the most part I try to be a really nice, caring and thoughtful person. I hate the idea of hurting somebody’s feelings and in many situations I’ll go out of my way to avoid it. There are always the people who push my buttons to the limit and I just don’t care what they think, but in general I try not to offend people or make them think negatively of me. Which is why I HATE when people get to know me and tell me that when we first met they thought I was a snobby, stuck-up, bratty, stupid, careless, spoiled or whatever other horrible thing they thought of me.

Recently I have had people in a few different situations apologize to me for judging me in this manner. I always ask what I did to make them think so negatively without getting to know me. The response is always the same, I didn’t do anything they just assumed I was that way. I could understand somebody judging me in this negative manner if when we met I was laughing at somebody’s misfortune, bragging about how much I paid for my shoes or something stupid like that but it doesn’t seem to ever be something I did. The response I always get is something to the effect of, “I just looked at you and knew your type.”

This makes me so mad my skin just boils!! If I told somebody of a different race that I just looked at them and knew their type people would jump all over me telling me that I was a horrible racist bigot. But it is ok to look at a blonde California girl and think she is stupid, spoiled and stuck-up? Although I may not be discriminated against in the same way I feel like this is a kind of racism and people who do this are just plain mean!!

The only some what reasonable explanation anybody has given me for their horribly mean judgment was from my “friend” who for the purposes of this post I’ll call Jared (that may or may not be his real name, haha). After we got to know each other pretty well and he realized I wasn’t a bratty stuck-up girl, Jared told me that the reason he thought so badly of me was because I had never gone up to talk to him after we had met in the hot tub of our apartment complex. I asked him if he had ever thought that maybe I was just shy. He told me and I do quote, “pretty girls aren’t allowed to be shy, it’s part of the obligation of being pretty for them to go out of their way and make sure people don’t feel inferior.”

Why would somebody look at a good looking person and feel that they are inferior? It seems to me that somebody who feels that way values looks way to much and it’s more of their own fault than it is of the “pretty” person’s fault.

I’m not exactly sure how I fit into this “pretty” mold but I’m flattered that some people think I do. What I don’t like is the negative judgments some people hold against me without getting to know me. It really hurts my feelings. In every situation the person who told me they thought so low of me was somebody that I didn’t know very well but I did like. I know I shouldn’t hold grudges against people but when I hear that somebody looked at me and judged me I find it really hard to not just think of this person as mean, rude and just plain not somebody I want to be friends with. I feel like when somebody looks at me or anybody else and judges them this way they are hypocritical because obviously they hold those qualities themselves.  

Movies

Can I just take a second and tell you just one thing I hate in a guy? I can’t stand when guys out right refuse to watch a chick flick. I’m not saying they have to watch girly movies, I’m not saying they should watch them, all I’m saying is that I hate when I hear a guy say “I would never watch that movie, that’s a girl movie.” To that I say, MAN THE FREAK UP! If you were secure with your manhood you wouldn’t have that ridiculous attitude. Once in a while it’s ok to watch a chick flick with a girl you are interested in. It’s even ok to like it. I don’t expect my guy to watch girly movies with me all the time, I just expect him to be open to it once in a while if it’s a movie I really want to see or if it’s my favorite movie. I can’t say how many times I sat through a movie I hated just for a guy, why can’t they do the same once in a while?

California love

I’m home again in California and totally loving it! Yesterday I surprised my cousin with a day of shopping. She had no idea I was in town and when she saw me standing at the door she screamed so loud I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to hear again. Then when I told her we were going to spend the day shopping together I was pretty sure she was going to pass out. We had so much fun! I taught her how to walk in sky high heels, although her dad might kill me, and we picked out stuff to redecorate her room. I don't know which one of us is more excited about that. It amazes me how fast she has grown up. She is pretty much a teenager now, it’s hard for me to not think of her as a little girl but since I really only see her at Christmas and summer when I come home she changes so much each time. I think that’s the worst part about living so far away.

My little puppy was so excited to see me too. I was super tired when I got home because I was out at the new Batman movie all night the night before so I fell asleep on the couch. At first she was sleeping with me but then she ran to my mom’s room and was pawing at her legs. When my mom would bend down to pick her up she would run off. After a few times my mom followed her to she what she wanted. My dog ran up to me, gave me a kiss and then started jumping around the living room as if she was saying, “Look mommy!! Melissa is home!! I’m so excited!! Melissa is home!!” She hasn’t left my side since. Even right now she is sleeping on my lap. So cute and I love this little girl so much.

In super embarrassing news… I broke my finger. Haha!  I was playing football with my roommate and some guys from our apartment complex when somebody threw the ball a little too hard. Anybody else would have been fine but of course somehow I find a way to hurt myself. I tried so hard to “man-up” and keep playing but when I got home my finger was twice its size and changing colors. I wasn’t going to go to the doctor but since it was my left ring finger my mom was worried that no guy would ever want to put a ring on a nasty looking finger so I needed to get it checked out. I did and of course in true Melissa fashion my finger was broken. People always wonder why I don’t play sports, this is way. I can’t even try to play without breaking a bone. So now I'm rocking some new bling on my left hand. Good thing I did it the last week I had to teach summer school because its hard to type lesson plans with a broken finger.

Bear Lake Adventure

My wonderful roommates and I decided to make a summer bucket list of all the things we want to do this summer. We made our list into a wall display so we could be reminded of it all summer long. We decided that as we do each thing we would replace the paper with a picture of us doing it and by the end of summer our wall display should be a collection of fun pictures of us together.

We kicked off our Summer 2012 this weekend with a trip to Bear Lake. This little trip was one of my ideas so I was super excited (although kinda sad because Becca was unable come). I first went to Bear Lake years ago for a wedding and was told the town was amazing during the summer and I had to come back and try one of their famous raspberry milkshakes. We decided to make it into a whole weekend trip since we could stay for free with my roommate’s parents nearby.

On Saturday afternoon we rented a pedal-boat. Neither one of us had ever been on a pedal-boat so we thought it would be super fun. The guys who rented us the boat joked about how we would need them to come rescue us and asked us to take a cell phone and gave us their personal phone numbers just in case. Jen and I had so much fun pedaling around the lake until we decided to head back to shore and that’s when the adventure with the blonde kicked in.

 

Unfortunately we picked the wrong day to rent a pedal-boat. The wind made it absolutely impossible for us to pedal against it. Of course both Jen and I are very stubborn and determined so we were not going to let the wind stop us and there was no way we were going to call the guys for a rescue!! After about half an hour of pedaling our hearts out and not going anywhere the guys came on their own to help. Jen and I refused to give up. The guys were cool and sat back on their wave-runner until we could no longer move our legs and humbled ourselves enough to ask for help. Being the great guys they were, they admitted that they knew the whole time there was no way we were going to make it back and had been watching us with binoculars the whole time. We might have been mad if they weren’t such good looking guys but we let it slide and had fun getting to know them as we were pulled to shore.

 

Over all it was a great weekend and we were able to cross more things then we expected off our bucket list: raspberry milk shakes, day on the lake, hike, and meeting sexy men (although that one is an all summer long project). The guys also invited us back to make up for our little mishap so we are looking forward to another exciting Bear Lake adventure in a few weeks.