Stay tuned later today as I put down my thoughts about the summit. I’ll leave you with a video that has changed the way I think about teaching in the 21st century…

Video created by Kristin Hokanson.

Next year at work I will be teaching French 4 and 5 honors for the first time. I’m planning lots of cool things for the 5s, including epals. I have already found a class with which to correspond in France and am already sending emails with the teacher.. what fun! I have 4 French movies to watch this summer and teach as well as 2 new books. Yay!

Well, happy summer!

I’m back to work of course and things are going well. It’s been an ok year so far, not too hard. I really like my students this year and that is always a plus. I’ve had many college recommendations to write this year, more than ever. I really do like writing them but they take so long! I still feel flattered when students ask me to write one for them. Other school stuff is going ok too. I am going to be a co-presenter at a conference in a few weeks and that is a lot of work, but we’re getting there. I created the Power Point for it but I have to get my act together on what exactly I will be talking about. I still have 3 more days…

I got contact lenses! That’s the big news in my life right now. They are still new – I got them 4 days ago- but it’s going ok. They are going to take some getting used to, thats for sure.

Benjamin is awesome. He is saying new words and phrases everyday. He is also gaining new perspective on things and starting to mentally put things together. He knows that he is “Ben” and now everything is Ben’s… Ben’s seat, Ben’s shoes, Ben’s food, etc. So cute! He can count up to 20 and puts together 4-5 words sentences all the time. His favorite thing to do is boss me around Mama sit! Mama get down and play! Mama juice! And of course, Dada is his favorite person in the whole world!

Well, that’s me for now.. lets see if I get back within 3 months!

Check out all our hard work! www.medievia.com/newsite.html

YAY!

One thing I know I do well for sure at my job is being organized. The main reason why I’m so organized is because I get really stressed out if I’m not. I just don’t know how disorganized teachers get by There is so much paperwork, emails, phone calles, lesson plans, seating charts, etc etc that you have paper everywhere in addition to the files and emails on your computer. Oh, and voicemail too. Not to mention the 12o or so students I need to teach Anyways, as I tell my students, organization is the key to success.

That being said, of course I’m thinking about better ways to organize. I took my posters down off the walls in June which I hadn’t done for 2 summers. I have a LOT of posters and stuff from France and Quebec that I hang up too. I need to rethink where it all should go! But, this is fun for me, so I’m not complaining. The start of the school year is a nice refreshing start every time. But then comes the rest of the year…

My goal for today is to go in for a few hours with Benjamin and get started. I only have 2 weeks left!!

I got my smock on and sat down with a nice glass of lemon-water as I waited for my colorist. She came out and took me over to a line of chairs facing a wall with flat-screen tvs on it. The tvs were showing make-overs This was the coloring station. It was interesting to me that there were no mirrors here. I guess they don’t want you to see yourself with a head full of foil and dye stuff.

Anyways, my colorist Monica came out and I told her I wanted highlights, but whatever she thought might look good. So we agreed on “warm” highlights and we also had to dye the rest of my hair brown to get rid of the yucky CVS color I put in 8 months ago. So, she began to foil…
“Do you live around here?”, Monica asked. I explained that I lived about 2 minutes away and proceeded to explain where are street is. “What’s the name of the street?” I told her. “I live on that street!” So, my colorist lives 3 houses up on the right! She lives with her parents and has lived here all her life. For the rest of the color treatment she gave me the scoop on all our neighbors. What a small world!

After drying under a dryer and perusing several magazines I received the best hairwashing I’ve ever had, done by Claire. It lasted about 15 minutes and was awesome. She even asked me if I wanted my feet reclined! (I said no)

Enter Brooke, hairstylist supreme. Tall, thin, short blond stylish hair, she could be a model. She was very excited about attacking my shoulder-length hair. I told her I wanted easy to manage, shape, and style. She cut it all one length shorter and then went to work on the layering…. amazing really… much different than SuperCuts. After cutting, she styled and styled and I paid close attention so I could try to replicate it here at home (won’t happen). All she used was a round brush and a blowdryer, and voila! C’est fini…

http://www.medievia.com/soleil/hair.html

I have been growing my hair pretty much from that time until last year. Before I got my hair cut to my shoulders last fall, my hair was all one length, brown, to the middle of my back. When I cut it to my shoulders, I dyed it myself auburn, and that’s the look I have now, except not so auburn since the dye has faded/grown out.

Every single time I’ve gotten my hair cut that I remember has been at a SuperCuts quality place- Hair Cuttery, Holiday, Super Cuts, etc. – all the same – cheap haircut place. So, today, I decided that I’m going to take my all one length brown shoulder-length hair to a fancy schmancy salon and see what they come up with. I just got off the phone and I’m going tomorrow at 5 for a color consultation and cut! Wish me luck!