buried by paper, sick kids, and a video

so today . . . i went back to school after being out sick for three days.

i found myself buried under papers--papers the kids had completed while i was gone, homework folders from last week, evaluations that needed to be completed this week, the attendance sheets, lesson plans to finish up . . . buried. i was seriously wishing i was still home in bed. but i made it to lunch and when i got back from my lunch break, i met ms. jessica in the parking lot. she covers my classroom for lunch time on mondays.

"you always miss all the fun," she said.

"fun" is teacher code for a mess. it is sarcasm. it is one of the reasons i teach kindergarten instead of preschool. there is a lot less "fun" in kindergarten. my students can make it to the bathroom in time. they recognize that sick feeling that means they are about to lose their lunch. they rarely spill. but for some reason, this year we have had a little more "fun" than usual. fortunately for me, it always happens when i am either at lunch, gone for the day, or home sick myself. today it happened while i was at lunch--projectile vomit. it seems that one of the little girls wasn't eating her lunch and wasn't really acting like herself. so ms. jessica sent her to the office where they found that she had a temperature of 101! her mother came to take her home, and on their way down the hall, it happened. and she wasn't even being sent home for throwing up--she was being sent home for having a temperature of 101! the throwing up was just an added bonus.

after the "fun" as they were leaving, her mom said, "well, she did throw up last night . . . "

SEE?!?!?! no wonder i can't get well! i'm surrounded by children harboring germs!!

i came back from lunch and tackled the paper monster that was taking over every available horizontal surface, while the kids played. when i could finally see the desk top again, we cleaned up their toys, and i took a video with my phone (minus one very sick little girl.) they decided to sing their favorite song--the song that feels like needles poking behind my eyes, because they sing it ALL THE TIME!!

but they like it. and they had fun. the good news is, there is sound! (well, maybe that is good news--it is a chipmunk song!) the bad news is, you are seeing the first take, because we only had a few minutes to spare today. actually, it is the second take. the recording didn't start the first time, so when i tried to stop it, it started recording instead. don't laugh--i know that has happened to every single one of you at least once! thankfully the performance could be repeated for the benefit of digitizing it for posterity.

the video is about a minute and a half long. nothing exciting happens at the end--they just get sillier and sillier. and you have my mother to thank for the chance to see the whole video, unedited. because it seems that i can only email 17 seconds of video, which means i would have had to edit. or i could have posted the whole thing on youtube and then linked to it, but i didn't really want to do that either. and then my mom (who has the same phone as i do) said, "try connecting it to your computer with the usb cord."

oh. there's an idea . . .

so here it is--part of my class singing a chipmunk christmas song . . .



they would have gone on all day if i hadn't stopped them. and if you are going to leave a comment about the kids, be nice or i won't post it!

mostly i wanted you to see that the new video update to my phone really works! i think it is amazing--although i did notice that the sound wasn't synced very well . . .

. . . but i'll bet the next update will fix that!

technology strikes again!

so today . . . i am once again stunned by technology.

yesterday i updated my new phone--my beloved palm pre. i don't mean replaced--i mean through the magic of technology, improved the way it works! apparently palm is continually tweaking their operating system, which is new, and so as they make improvements, they make those improvements available to all of us who already own their phone. for free!

i appreciate this. so often when we buy the newest, fastest, coolest electronic gadget, three months later they release something even newer, faster, and cooler. which of course immediately makes us unhappy with the now older, slower, dorkier gadget that we already own. this is called marketing :) but palm just keeps releasing updates to their system, so you don't have to buy a new one. i think this is wonderful!

usually the updates just tweak the existing features so that the phone runs more smoothly and efficiently. but today was THE DAY WE HAD BEEN WAITING FOR! today was the day they released the update that added a video camera to our phone! and they did this totally through software--we didn't have to take our phone into a store to have anything added.

i cannot imagine how this works. the phone does have a 3.1 megapixel camera and flash already on board, but suddenly it is also a video camera. i can't quite wrap my brain around how the software now tells the camera to take video rather than still shots. of course, i haven't actually used it yet--maybe it is terrible. maybe the quality is awful. maybe there is no sound. so maybe i shouldn't be raving about how wonderful it is just yet . . .

i will try it out at school tomorrow. maybe i can get my kids to sing a song or something. although, if there is no sound, that will be less than riveting video. and then, i will have to figure out how to get the video from my phone onto my blog. and you know what mad computer skills i possess ;)

but, if i am successful at 1-capturing video with my phone, 2-saving it, 3-figuring out where it is stored on my phone (because sometimes it seems as though the pictures i take run and hide,) and 4-managing to download it onto my computer (which of course means more searching . . . ) then i will post something so you can see if it was worth all that excitement.

assuming i can remember how to post video onto my blog . . .

my first video blog (i hope!)

so today . . . i'm going to try to do something a little bit different.

my new computer has a built in webcam. (i guess i should stop calling it my new computer, now that i have had it almost three months!) i don't use it very often, because, well i can't figure out how my mom can see me on it live, and who else would want to? but for me, it is a cool, new gadget, and so sometimes i play with it.

i have mentioned joshua several times in my blog. he is one of the funniest kids i have ever had in my class. and because i only have two students now (although i am in a classroom with 15,) i get lots of one on one time with each one. not only do i have more opportunities to talk with them, but i get to hear the conversations they have with each other--which can be hysterical.

the other day we had a few minutes to kill, so we turned the camera on. joshua is fascinated with my computer and always wants to play on it--which i never let him do, because i don't have any games. (but he managed to make one up anyway.)

this was just totally random--no purpose or plan--just joshua watching himself on my computer. my other student, jonathan, lurks in the background and is the one who brings me a book to look at. the video is about three minutes long. you just get glimpses of joshua's personality, because he is kind of focused on looking at himself and the computer.

(ok, i just previewed this post, and for some reason the audio is behine the video. i'm going to leave it on here anyway, because it is kind of fun, but i won't be posting too many videos if this is what happens.)

there are moments when i just love my job, and this was one of them! one of these days i am going to capture him telling me a story--THAT will be entertaining!