Today we attended the big pep rally. That means that our day was pretty close to shot as far as learning goes. When we got back my partner and I were going to swap classes for math and reading/science for 40 minutes or so but the other teachers decided they were going to give their kids a recess time even though we were past that time of day so we did too. It's a good thing I gave them the recess though because I held them all in my room during Friday free day for PE because they really need to catch up on this reading that they haven't been doing despite the fact that it counts as 25% of their grade.

I lost another student today. She told me this morning that today was her last day. That stinks because she's my best student with the best grades. That always hurts..especially when it comes to standardized test results.

The kids were so thrilled to go to the pep rally. I was watching some of them when the cheerleaders came out and they were clapping their hands in hyper excitement and jumping up and down in their chairs. It was seriously kind of amazing how excited some of them got to see the cheerleaders and football players and stuff. The cheerleaders and football players were both trying real hard to impress the kids. The cheerleaders kept doing flips and holding each other up and throwing each other in the air. What's the point of all that anyway? What does that accomplish exactly? Does throwing someone in the air somehow create some wind disturbance that makes for better football throwing conditions? When the football players came out several of them spent about 10 minutes ghetto dancing at the entrance to the gym. Congratulations, you just impressed some 4th graders.

Some other random sights at the pep rally included about 4 or 5 guys in these costumes that were just nothing...just these colored blue and red blobs of material with no face or eye holes or anything. I'm still trying to figure that one out. At one point they were all tackling and falling on each other and wrestling around on the ground. All I could think of is that must be what it looks like when crayons mate. Another guy was wearing a cow costume and there was a group of girls dressed in 50's getups. No idea... I thought for sure there was going to be some kind of skit from the 50's involving a cow and giant crayons but it never materialized. I guess that's just how they dress at pep rallies these days.

This afternoon one of my kids started crying so I took her out into the hall to ask what happened. She said another girl at her table called her "mean." WHEW!! I'd cry too! Then she said that it's just a bad day for her. I asked her why and through crying gasps of air she told me that her best friend "broke up with her." Whoa! Am I in a Seinfeld episode? I was tempted to ask if that friend was Keith Hernandez but I refrained.

Tomorrow I take the second half of my teaching certification test. Wish me luck.

Out.