4 minutes 31 seconds

The time it took our 4 x 400 time to run the final relay in the 2016 Spring track NEC meet yesterday.  And just like that, the season ends.  Did we have a stellar record this year? Certainly not.  But we managed to improve the final times of every girl on the team who consistently showed up to practice and worked hard.  As far as I'm concerned, this track season was a great one, even if we didn't win most of our match-ups.  I have girls who could barely run a 400 who are now running 2 miles, which says a lot for the girls and for us as a team. 

It is a bit strange to have all this free time looming after school now.  My afternoons have been filled with coaching and homework help since October, and suddenly it's the end of May and another school year is coming to an end.  Sure, we still have 6 weeks of school left, but the end of the year never seems as long as that.  Now that I've got some spare time to do my own running again, I should be back at this too.  I know it's kind of been neglected for the past month-ish, but I'll try to be better at it again.  Soon enough I'll have to start training for Disney anyways, and we all know how much I need to share my training with everyone.  

This was meant to be a short catch-up post, so I'll leave it here for now, and hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon!

Here's a picture from the Sox game today, nothing at all to do with this post, but a picture nonetheless.

Summer time

School is out and it's officially summer vacation.  It's been a day and I've already caught up on every show I missed in the past few months.  So, you know, definitely not going to be a long two months or anything.  I'm sure I can find other stuff to do.  Paint the house, learn a new language, literally anything that gets me moving before I die of boredom.  We'll see what happens I guess.
The end of the school year was quick and a little depressing actually.  This was the longest year ever, but I really didn't want the 5th grade class to graduate.  It was such a great group of kids and I really don't anticipate any other class living up to that for a while.  Now, of course, as a teacher, you're not supposed to have favorites, but of course, we all do.  This group just happen to have pretty much all of my favorites in it.  And yes, my overall favorite in the whole school was in this class too, so that's probably a part of it.  Sure, Ryan thinks I'm way crazy for having a favorite and missing him that much, but it's just something you can't understand if you're not a teacher I guess.   Particularly this student.  He came to us at the beginning of last year with a report so bad you would have thought that he was swinging from the lights and dancing on the desks at his old school.  Hey, maybe he was, I don't know, I wasn't there.  So, from the beginning I was asked to keep an eye on him, you know, make sure he wasn't going to run away or cause problems in the classroom.  He's had a real tough life for a kid, and I wasn't really sure what to expect out of him.  Two years later and I can proudly say that he was nothing like the report we got.  He is a kind-hearted, funny, (sometimes fidgety), friendly young man. I like to think I had a part in that, but who really knows.  I do know that after all he's gone through, to have those qualities makes him very special and I truly hope he doesn't change when he gets to middle school.
Anyways, you spend a lot of one on one time with certain people and they tend to grow on you.  Throughout the school year you connect with the students, learn about their lives, interests, likes and dislikes, and eventually grow to love them each as your own.  Some more than others, sure, but it's hard to let them go when you know you're not going to see them anymore.  After all, they're going to middle school now.  It's a whole new world over there, and a lot of growing up takes place, so really, this is the last time you really see them as children and not young adults.  It's kind of sad.  Once again, this is really something that you can't explain to non-teachers, you just have to experience it to know what I'm trying to explain.
Well, that's basically it.  Nothing new happening in running, so that's the end of that.  Here's a bunch of pictures from the end of the year, so enjoy those.

This is a homework assignment from my little buddy.  I particularly liked his 3rd sentence, as I have the same condition. The 4th sentence made me sad because, spoiler, his mom didn't come to graduation.  Like I said, he's had a rough life.

We made this on the side of the school to cover up some inappropriate graffiti before we held our flag day celebration.

First in Math trophy.  The school was in 1st place for almost the entire year.

Months worth of awards for being in 1st

A reading bulletin board. We had a contest to see who made the best one.  Can you believe I didn't win!?

Running selfies, I ran Horn Pond Mountain to check out the view.

I know the view doesn't look that good in the picture, but it was much prettier in person.

Beefsteak festival.  It was awesome.

Table long flip cup contest

Bread stacking contest, we won.

Beefsteak Betty!

Got my sweatshirt for coaching this year.  It's pretty awesome.

This is the card my buddy gave me.  I know it's only one sentence, but it means the world to me.  That picture is supposed to be me, from the back, as a superhero. Seriously. How could I not love this child?

Spring-ish

The past two days have been nice in the weather department.  I mean, nice enough to be outside without freezing your face off, so that's Spring in my book.  I've been taking the track team out for neighborhood runs when we're not at the actual track so I'm glad the weather is cooperating.  Today I tried to take the girls for a 2 mile run. Key word there is definitely tried.  Out of the 20 girls that are running long distance, 1 made it the entire 2 miles with me.  Yes. ONE.  She managed to come from behind in the middle of the first mile, catch up to the front, and keep up until the end.  What happened to the other 19 you ask?  Well. 3 said they got lost. (We ran in a full circle and then a straight out and back down the street by the high school, so you be judge of that excuse...) 10 stopped at the front of the school and eventually figured out that we were in the back and the other 4 straggled in sporadically with various excuses and two other girls must have missed the entire memo about the course because they ran the same 1.5 loop two times.  Good for them for that ambition, unfortunately, they weren't super fast at it.  At least they got in a good workout.  I was a little irritated at the girls who "didn't know what we were doing" because I felt like that was just an excuse because they didn't feel like working.  As far as I'm concerned, if you're not going to work hard at practice, don't bother wasting the time.  After all, we only have 30 uniforms available, so we're going to end up having to have a bunch of girls sit out anyways.  Just another joy of an urban school district. But, as irritating as it is to see them give up so easily, I will say this.  They keep coming back, they keep attempting the workouts, and they all did the core and the punishment workout without much complaining.  So at least they have that going for them!
Outside of track, day 2 of MCAS was today.  I think my fifth grade friends did fairly well.  It seemed like the entire fifth grade was working straight up to the end of the school day bell, so that's got to be a good sign, right? Before we started this morning I played the Rocky speech from the newest Rocky movie.  You know, the one where he talks about how "it's not how hard you hit, it's how hard you get hit and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. How much you can take and keep moving forward...You have to be willing to take the hits..."  To the average reader it might not seem like it would have made a difference, but I am convinced it home with the one student who I was really aiming it for.  I've never seen him work as hard as he did today.  So, even if it only really inspired that one student, that's enough for me.  Tomorrow the 4th grade is doing their long write.  EEP.  But then there's no school Friday, so at leas there's that to look forward too.  I might try to get in a 6 mile run on Friday morning if possible, as long as it's not raining.  Supposedly it's going to be in the mid-50s, so that would be some ideal running weather.
Still looking for summer work, so if you or anyone you know needs a tutor, remember to stop by my website Gibbs Tutoring.  Right now I'm pretty open as far as scheduling goes, so get in while you still can!

And now some theme pictures.  This month's theme: The Haunted Mansion.  Special focus on forced perspective for buildings.  When I figure that out, I'll add the actual mansion to the background of the first picture.

Beware of hitchhiking ghosts - Phineas, Ezra, and Gus.

Haunted Mansion wall-paper design. So cool.

Never too late

Except when it is.  Boom. Logic drop. That's all I wanted to say.
Nah, I'm clearly kidding. Tomorrow starts the MCAS testing window so obviously I had to at least get in a little bit of blogging.  Even though this has nothing to do with MCAS. Except for the fact that I hate how much of my job is determined by a test that has to be taken by kids who don't speak or read fluent English, have major home issues, and sometimes just don't know how to read at the appropriate grade level.  But that's been a topic of discussion for years already and I don't see it changing anytime soon, so really, what point is there in complaining. Instead, here's a recap of my weekend.
I sat through the first time home buyers class so I could get the certificate needed to process the loan.  The class was ultra boring because it covered all the parts that we've already done.  It's hard to say if it would have been helpful in the beginning, because now I don't know what I knew from before and what I learned during the process.  But, I went and got the certificate, so hopefully everything's fine and we'll be moving next weekend.  Which, if that is the case, means we need to get packing.  However, we have friends coming in for this weekend, so it looks like the packing is going to get done at the last minute the week of the closing.  Ah well, it's not like we haven't moved before. Plus, we can come back and get stuff whenever, it doesn't have to all be taken right now, so that's making it a bit easier. I would like to go order a new bed for delivery by the time we move, but I think we're going to wait.
Aside from the house activities, track is going well.  Today we did hill repeats.  Right now my main goal is to get the girls to be faster at their miles.  I'm not entirely sure what a good mile time is for a high school female, but I'm fairy certain it's lower than an 8:30 minute mile.  Part of me thinks it would be a good idea to offer a reward to anyone who can beat my fastest mile time, which right now is a 7:10. But, what to reward? Also, I don't want to push the girls too hard.  After all, I know what my body is capable of handling during a run, but that doesn't mean that a teenage girl will have the same capabilities.  Especially if she isn't in top shape or hasn't been working out consistently.  For now I'm sticking to hill repeats and sprint intervals, with leg workouts mixed in. Then, of course, we do a core workout for the last 10 minutes or so of practice. But it's been really fun.  Maybe I should have been a track coach or a gym teacher all along.  Except I probably don't want to do that forever.  Even though it would be nice to just workout all day and get paid for it.  I thought by this age you were supposed to know what you wanted to do with your life. How come I still feel like I have no idea if I'm in the right grade, position, subject etc? Where's the easy answer button here? Seriously, who are these people that have it all together and figured out?  Sometimes I think I do, but then I change my mind.  Maybe someday I'll actually have it together....
And now, a picture of whatever I have in my phone.

Nala. Good enough.

Fraction fiasco

As you might know, Common Core is taking over Massachusetts.  I'm okay with this, I like being able to have more than one way to learn a math problem.  But a lot of common core, and incidentally, MCAS, is fractions.  They start in the 1st grade and everything builds on that knowledge.   So you can probably imagine that if you don't get the foundation in 1st grade, you can't really build up in the higher grades.  For a first grader this year, that's not a huge problem.  We can catch those students who don't understand fractions and work to explain/show the concept in a way that makes sense.  Unfortunately, not all students are in 1st grade.  Many of these upper grades began school in the middle of the State Standards/Common Core crossover, and may have missed a key foundation in the lower grades that is now being built upon.  This is most glaringly obvious in the case of the fourth grade fraction fiasco.  I will say that most of the fourth graders have a basic understanding of what a fraction is and can at least use a fraction model, even if they are struggling to add and subtract the fractions.  But, most isn't all, as I discovered last Friday.  Seems I have a fourth grade student who has no concept of what a fraction is.  When I say no concept, I mean, seriously, no idea.  Couldn't tell a half from a fourth, doesn't even know how to recognize a half.  I'm not really sure how this has slipped past us for the past two years, but now that I know this gap exists, I'm doing everything I can to fill it.  Unfortunately for me, everything doesn't seem to be working.  We used fraction models, we made flip books, we cut, colored, and labeled pieces for the past three days.  Then, today, to see if the student was picking up on anything, I gave the 2nd grade end of the unit fraction test.  And, it was a failure.  I hate to say that, but it's the truth.  I'm talking every problem was wrong kind of failure.  No, you didn't read that wrong.  The student got every question wrong.  On a test that just asked to identify shapes with pieces colored in. You know, a basic fraction model.  So it looks like it's back to the drawing board for this one.  I can't have this student try to follow along with the new unit, which is multiplying fractions, if the student doesn't know what a fraction is.  I'm going to try a new approach to this whole situation tomorrow, but if anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'm more than willing to try them at this point.  Anything to get this student to understand what a fraction is!

And now that my fraction fiasco is taken care of for the moment, onto running.  Yesterday it was a lovely 33 degrees, so I ran outside.  Ya, 33 = outdoor running now.  There was no wind so it felt super warm.  It was a nice run and I enjoyed almost all of it.  I'd say 3.98 miles were enjoyed. 0.02 were grossed out as I ran down the road and almost stepped on a disembodied deer leg, hoof and all.  Yes, in the middle of a fairly busy street, just lying around, was the lower half of a deer leg, muscle and bone sticking out of the top.  I have no idea what happened to the rest of the deer, but it's leg is hanging out in the middle of Sylvan St. Needless to say, I was completely grossed out for at least 2 seconds of my run.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be 56, but rainy.  However, I might just go out in the rain and run a little bit, because it will still be nicer than running on the treadmill. 

Track practice is going fine at this point.  Today I timed the girls on their miles, so now we at least have a starting point.  Since I know their general times, now we can work on getting faster.  That means more sprint and hill repeats.  If I can get a few of the girls to meet my mile time, I think we'll be in a good shape.  If I can get them past mine, that would be ideal. Besides the running, we do a lot of core and leg work.  The workout we have right now is ok, but I think tomorrow I'm going to add more stretching in after the mile warm-up, and another stretch at the end.  Some of the boxing trainers gave me some running specific ab workouts to do for core, so that's been helpful.  The girls seem to like the core more than the actual running, which makes me wonder if they're trying their hardest, but we'll work on that.  Our first meet is supposed to be in two weeks, so hopefully the snow is melted enough to make that actually happen.  I'm excited to see what the girls can do. Oh yea, and I registered for the Run to Remember today.  Ryan got a cool sticker in the mail and it made me super jealous that he was running and I wasn't, so I gave in and signed up. The only other two races I really want to do this year are the Lazy Lobster and the Seacoast Running Festival.  I'll definitely do the Lazy Lobster, because it's for Morty and it can be done as a virtual run.  I'll have to wait on the Festival for a bit and see how I feel about it come the summer.

Here's yesterday's run, and some extra pictures

It was so warm yesterday that I was able to run outside in this outfit! Minus the slippers of course.  

And I just really liked how cute Nala looked last night while she was sleeping.  Sometimes I wish I could just spend all day at home with my little buddy(ies).  *Stella not picture, obv