So I'm supposed to be grading. I am...but grading is best done with breaks inbetween. I am online on turnitin.com. Students have to log in with an email address and some of them are just making me smile. When I saw the first funny one I started paying attention. Here are a few I'd like to share with you. How creative we all get with our email addresses!

Reid - youareweird@....
Winston - riceninja@....
Kevin - alloftheabove@...
Anna - ifancyuX3
Youny - loonyuni
Jenny - hyper.howling.wolf (and let me tell you....she is!)
Nicole - foxylemur@....

I just am interested where Winston became the rice ninja and when Nicole decided that lemurs were foxy.

Ok, so my freshmen are taking their final, and I'm trying my darndest to get all this grading done in time. But my eyes are starting to bug out of my head because usually freshmen essays are incredibly formulaic and blech....

so...haha. I present to you an excerpt from Christina's that made me get a huge smile on my face. Her essay was one of the best that I read but there was this excerpt:

"Even though the social class divisions were similar there was one major difference in Hand and Rome. In Han, the pheasants were under the government officials and above merchants. However, in Romee the pheasant farmers were just above the slaves because they were not as wealthy as the Roman merchants. The pheasant farmers in Han were higher up because Han depended on the food they produced to survive."

Ah, those Roman and Han pheasants...

Some of the kids I love:

This day is always one of my hardest days all year. I think it even beats having to be alone on New Years. Today is the day I have to say goodbye to the students I have grown to love so much. Tonight was especially hard. I've had a week already of an emotional roller-coaster, full of constant emails and tears. Back and forth about whether students will pass, back and forth and digging through files for the one who won't...anger from parents. Final projects were due; stress mounted when I couldn't grade them because of the parent situation. Crying because the parents wrote a 2 page email to my principal about how much of a failure I was and how that represented the Newport AP program. Crying because these kids just stole my heart this year.

I always am sad to see them go, but this year I just had an exceptional group. At the teacher tunnel (where the kids walk through to give us hugs, tell us how wonderful we are, and cry a lot)I didn't get a whole lot of encouragement but I saw almost all of my 100 students and though they didn't say much, they cried a lot. And, for the first time in my life, I cried in class. And I cried at the teacher tunnel.

Whenever I have written on here, I've written about my 5th period class. I have never met such a loving, fun, funny, spunky,talented, intelligent and hard-working class. They were the class whose incredible mock Congress, dolphin bill and Christmas-tree bill will forever live on in fame. They are the class who came to class dressed up in costumes for our Nigeria simulation, just because they wanted to. They're the class who spent weeks writing and making a class movie. They are the class who used First Amendment Fridays to ask me about my personal life. They're the class who would tell me multiple times a week how much they loved the class. They laughed together, and in the end, we cried together. Our movie was a hit. It was incredible and it created an even stronger bond in that class. On the last day of class we premiered our movie, complete with red carpet, paparazzi, and oscars. The last award they gave out was to the "Best Producer." They said wonderful things about how they felt in my class and how much they appreciated my production of the movie and the class. I got up in front of those kids I loved so much, having known all week that I was going to cry. And sure enough, when I gave my acceptance speech I choked up. The kids were shocked, especially since Taemin calls me 'the wall.' I didn't sob, but I wrestled with my emotions to try to control them enough to talk. I told them they were right. When I walked in to class last week to find Kyle (the sweetest kid ever)with his pants off in the middle of the room I screeched the class to a halt and yelled at them that the classroom is not a dressing room. The bathroom is. The next kid with his pants of will get a referral. As soon as I'd said it, 5th period bursts into argument, "But Burdick! We're a family!" Though I straightened them out that time, when I gave my acceptance speech I told them that I agreed with what they had said that day; we're a family. A lot of us cried, me included.

30 students were in my room wandering around on Thursday. Most of 5th period stayed all through lunch, dragging their feet about leaving. The Burdick Club, especially Taemin, were in my room after school every day wandering around trying to get closure. I was so stiff because I was so emotional as it was. In the teacher tunnel, i was fine until Andrew came up to me sobbing and I got teary-eyed, then Daniel M came to me, as soon as he said my name he started crying and I broke. I cried too. Amy jumped into my arms and Kyle made me cry again. I may not have gotten the lavish praise I've sometimes gotten in recent years and honestly, i didn't bond with all my kids this year. But the ones I did bond with, will remember me forever (and so will I remember them, especially since 4 of them have plastered my wall with pictures of themselves and changed my desktop background to match).

I had the worst drive ever, right after leaving the teacher tunnel, to drive down to Liz's wedding. The weekend was wonderful and distracted me, but last night it occurred to me how hard today would be. One day I will have a home and a family to come home to and comfort me like the friends I visited this weekend. But right now, what I have is my students. Coming out of graduation really seemed to sum it up for me tonight. I stepped out of the lobby into the elevator, out of the sea of noise and color and into quiet. When I stepped out on my parking level I was all alone. I walked to my car on my own and when my heels should have made cheery clips along the cement, the sound-proofing of the garage muffled my steps. And there was silence, even though I was walking. And I thought it was appropriate, though sad. Every year at graduation I leave behind what brings sound and color to my year and when they leave I'm on my own again, walking off to a quieter, duller life.

I don't hate my life. I love it. I don't want any lectures about how I need to do more things so that I have other things to add color to my life than my students. I just want to mourn this class because I love them so much. And I need to mourn quickly so that I can try to finish up this week...landlords return, i move out, final grades are due, freshmen essays and final, etc.

But it was a good year, though I will desperately miss Taemin's teasing, Jeff's thoughtfulness, Amy's neediness, Rahul's grin, Graham's mumbles, Kyle's joy, Paulina's laugh, Maria's jokes, Megan's thoughtful look, Danny's chuckles, Clyde's expletives and Ben's squeals at me that I didn't hear them. I know it was good. I know that they learned something. I know that for the most part, they felt comfortable in my class.

Reflection: Heartbreak is not happy. But it is now that I have my students gone, that I realize how important it really is to me that someday I have a family. When I ihave something to throw myself into I don't worry about it. But I look forward to the day when I have someone I can love as much and more than I love these kids and who won't go away. I find comfort in that and pray that I don't have to go through too many more of these heartbreaking graduations on my own.

One of 5th period's Globalization Theatre skits. I like it because of the WTO fairy! haha!

We needed a quick review and to deepen our understanding of globalization. Thus, Globalization Theatre: each group got a theme, 25 minutes, 2 sheets of construction paper, and had to create a skit that included everyone in their group. The hitch...one person must be wearing a costume constructed from the construction paper.

I liked this one because they gave it their own theme, and yet...the material is still there!

I am already starting to feel nostalgic. I’ve been taking lots of pictures and videos recently of my classes. I am going to miss them horribly. It has really been an incredible year. I have a wonderful group of students and my 5th period has just captured my heart. I really should write about all the wonderful things we’ve done this year but once I’m out of work and have time to myself I just want to relax instead of write.

But, tonight I was downloading videos and pictures of the kids and I decided 1) I needed to share some of the stories and videos, and 2) I wanted to look back at the videos I had from kids in the past. I realized I had forgotten some kids. It’s sad. I felt really awful. But I had forgotten I had those kids in class! Once I saw them, the names came back, but I couldn’t believe I forgot them. But as I watched the videos, even the classes that had been troubling at times brought a smile to my face. Think how many kids will come through my door by the time my career is over…

Anyway, my kids are doing projects and so far they’re all really interesting. 3rd period is leading the class on a tour of different countries (making a documentary, a travel guide, and then “taking us there” on one day in class). 4th period and 6th are doing individual projects, including a movie written in English, translated and spoken in spanish (with English subtitles!) on Guatemala, a video of the history of British government traditions in stop-action-lego photography (ha!), a breakdown of what would happen if WWIII started tomorrow, a mural, an incredibly accurate-looking National Geographic, etc. 5th period’s creativity and unity is at it’s all-time high again. They’re making a class movie. I’m not kidding. They have directors, writers, actors, set, costumes, camera crew and film editors. Everyone has a part that perfectly fits them. They’ve got a character web and today we started filming. It was a mess, but tomorrow will be better so…seriously, I’ll tell you more about it later. But suffice it to say, it’s incredibly awesome. It’s the story of the CIA overthrow of Mohammed Mossadeq, democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran because Britain didn’t want to lose their oil and we thought he was communist. It includes a weak Shah, an Iranian Princess twin sister who is strong, CIA agents, British undercover agents in the Shah’s household, military leaders, guerilla leaders, a crusading New York Times Journalist, secret documents, and a suitcase full of cash. And what’s awesome, is we’re not making it up at all and I got the kids to read 100 pages of secret CIA documents…

Ok, no more.