Hello Hotlanta, nice to finally see you

This Week's Quick List:

1. "It's about to be a WHAT? Girl fight!"
Two weeks ago, one of my students got in a bathroom fight (BIB - brawl in bathroom - as my mom crafted). He went to the bathroom and never came back. Assuming he had fallen in, I went looking for him and found him with his shirt off ready to throw punches. Anywho, this week, I was walking downstairs to get my students from cafeteria (where the students meet before class) and I walked into a girl fight. I tried getting the onlookers to line up on the wall to break up the crowd, but the fight was too enthralling. Even I was interested. Luckily, a faculty advisor had kicked off her shoes and was in the rough breaking up the girls. The main reason these fights occur is that students from several different middle schools attend the Long summer school program so there are many territorial fights.

2. Being creative in the classroom.
As many of you may know/have experienced/learned, I love being crafty and creative. Nothing excites me more than throwing together a scrapbook, homemade card, etc. So it's been a little frustrating because my vision of being a creative and cooky teacher hasn't come to fruition. Until this week! On Thursday, we conducted a "tone and mood investigation" complete with "top secret" files. Instead of passing out poems for them to investigate, I had the poems taped up and they had to break the seal to conduct their investigation. They then had to submit their conclusions about the tone and moods to me, the lead investigator. Not to toot my own horn, but it was pretty durn cute.

3. Lingo
Most of the boys in my class refer to each other as "shorty" which sounds like "shawty" and sometimes even "shaw". I also like when they use the phrase "act a fool." Don't be surprised if I start dropping these phrases, too.

4. Weekend adventures
Luckily, I have befriended Grant, an adventurer. My adventures with Grant started with a cantina last Friday in which I bought him a jalapeno margarita on a dare and he drank it. Jalapeno margs apparently equate to weekend adventures, so Grant and I tackled two of the most touristy ATL spots this weekend: Coca Cola Factory and Aquarium. I'll let the pictures tell the story:



Welcome to the world of Coke, a museum with Coke memorabilia out the wazoo, a continuous loop of Coke advertising and loads of facts about how Coke dominates not only its industry, but the world in general. Humility was a scarcity in this place.



With soda products from more than 60 countries, the museum's best feature was the tasting room. Testers are guartenteed to get a stomachache, especially after super sweet products from Africa or the bitter products from Italy (Beverly from Italy was the worst soft drink we sampled). Luckily, Asia's soft drinks are extremely bland and watery, so I would rehydrate and cleanse my palate with those!



Grant enjoyed the sampling. And the sticky museum floor.



Though I loved sampling the Coke products from around the world, I loved the American Coke room at the end because we ran into my friend Michele and her sister. Surprisingly, I hadn't even had some of these drinks; you can tell I'm not a pop drinker!



In my Public Relations and Marketing classes, we studied New Coke, the infamous PR/Marketing blunder of Coke's in which Coke released a 'new Coke' that was instantly hated by consumers and thus pulled from shelves. But, what I never learned in my classes was that it was called Project Kansas!



After our refreshing Coke adventure, we experienced the Georgia Aquarium - the largest aquarium in the world! It was incredible, to say the least. There is something so soothing about watching fish swim in giant tanks, especially with the dimmed lights and soft music in the viewing room; I could have napped there, but that would have been weird for the other tourists. I took this picture in the tunnel that went through their largest tank.



Penguins! The penguin exhibit allowed us to crawl under the exhibit and pop our heads up in plastic cylinders to view the penguins up close and personal.

5. Quotes of the week:

Me: "We are short one student, so Brice, Mandarius and Montrio, can you three work together in a threesome over here?"
Boys: (Erupting with laughter) "A THREESOME?!?! Noooo!!"

Lesson learned: 8th grade boys don't respond well to the word 'threesome'.