Slice of Life 21

I spent most of today thinking it was March 22nd. I also wished my students a happy weekend. Oops.

After school I ran home, grabbed the dogs, and drove to Belmar. I met up with a bunch of colleagues who were going to play frisbee golf. I brought the dogs for socialization and it was great! They did great. Kells met my colleague’s 3 month old puppy and she was quite happy. She’s going to love starting puppy class next week! She then drank a gallon of water at the end. Navan was great , too. It was a fun afternoon with lots of different exposures for Kells and good practice for Navan.

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Slice of Life 20

Happy spring! My students are well into Slice of Life, and as of Friday over 70% of them had blogged every day! I’m so impressed with their work during this project.

But school aside, we are officially in spring. It was 60° on our afternoon walk, the sun was shining, and the birds were singing. We explored a new trail and enjoyed some vitamin D. Now this is NJ, so we will likely still get some cold days (it was freezing this morning), but the days are longer and they are getting warmer!

Slice of Life 19

Here’s a list of things I accomplished today:

• 7am 2-mile walk with the dogs
• 8:45am-12:30pm taught two classes. From 9-11 I ran my SAT class, and from 11-12:30 I ran my HS English prep class. Both classes are virtual so I don’t have to travel.
• 12:30-1:30 hang out with the dogs and enjoy the blue sky (and cold weather), pick up Panera for lunch, make my grocery list. Watch the first games of the day.
• 1:45-3pm grocery shopping at Aldi and ShopRite. Why were the stores so crowded today?!
• 3-4:30pm unpack the groceries, feed Kells, put the corned beef on the stove for dinner, spend more time outside while the robot vacuums clean the floors.
• 4:30-6pm watch more basketball. Plan for the week.
• 6-7pm walk the dogs and explore the new trail we found down the street.
• 7-7:30pm bathe and dry both dogs after the very muddy and bramble-filled walk. Oops. Chris peeled potatoes for dinner.
• 7:30-8pm eat dinner. Watch the FDU vs FSU game.
• 8-10pm entertain the dogs and continue watching the games.
• 10-?pm watch the last few games agd check my brackets.

Slice of Life 18

Me to my students all the time: “Don’t stay up all night! Sleep! When you don’t get enough sleep, your body can experience fatigue, decreased cognitive function, mood changes, health issues, a weakened immune system, and an increased risk of being in a car accident. Plus, everything seems much worse when you are tired.”

Me last night at 12:30am realizing people are live-tweeting the set list for opening night of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour: “oh, I’ll just wait few minutes to see the next few songs. Oh, someone is live-streaming the show on TikTok? I will see what it looks like for a minute.”

Cut to 2am when I am still watching a livestream forty songs into Taylor’s set list.

It as worth it. 😂

Unfortunately, watching the livestream only convinced me that I need to go to this tour, so it looks like I’ll be buying resale tickets in May for the NJ or Philly show. I may even go alone!

Slice of Life 17

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Happy March Madness! Happy Swiftmas! What. A. Day.

I’m exhausted from the longest week ever. Somehow Daylight Savings Time was only last weekend?! It feels like 3 months ago. March is really a weird month where time doesn’t exist.

I’ve watched 32 basketball games in 48 hours and can’t wait to watch FDU and Princeton play again later this weekend. What a gift from the basketball gods. The madness!

Slice of Life 16

I’m definitely not one of them. 😂

What a fantastic opening day so far! The Furman win was awesome, but the Princeton win was just incredible. I love seeing another New Jersey team blowing up brackets (including mine).

This weekend is one of my favorites of the year: St. Patrick’s Day and the opening weekend of March Madness. There are basketball games on for over 12 straight hours today and tomorrow. There are upsets, great stories, and shining moments. Let’s go!

Slice of Life 16

We are halfway through the month which means we are halfway through the Slice of Life Challenge! I’m so impressed with my students this year: almost all of them have written a blog post every day so far!

It’s also almost St. Patrick’s Day. This week, I’ve made a few loaves of Irish soda bread and a batch of Guinness cupcakes. Many people may not think of St. Patrick’s Day as a holiday with a food heritage, but I certainly do. Tomorrow I’ll make Guinness beef stew and on Friday I will make corned beef and cabbage (even though it’s not an Irish meal but rather an Irish American meal). My mouth is already watering!

Slice of Life 14

Why are the bird feeders so quiet? I wondered. A quick glance out the window provided the answer!

I believe, based on his or her big feet, this is a Cooper’s hawk. It’s really hard to tell them apart from Sharp-shinned hawks, but the sharpies usually have petite feet.

After grabbing this picture through the window with my phone, I grabbed my real camera. Unfortunately, the movement scared the hawk away. Even more unfortunately, I don’t think he or she got a meal. I’m being overrun by invasive starlings and wouldn’t mind if the circle of life stepped in a bit. Hawks gotta eat, right?

Slice of Life 13

March is the longest month for teachers (and probably for students, too). Why?

There are no days off. No holidays, no 3 day weekends, nothing. My district doesn’t do 1/2 days, so it’s just a full month of straight school.

The weather is weird. We haven’t had any snow this school year, but man do we have rain. It’s raining today and will continue tomorrow. In March, we usually add in some wind, too. Today we are at the beginning of a nor’easter storm!

The clocks change and we lose an hour of sleep. Why are we still doing this? I love getting more light at night, but I hate changing the clocks. Let’s just stick with the current time.

Have I mentioned there are no days off? And there are no subs! But kids and teachers always get sick in March, so it’s not fun.

Somehow, we still have a month until spring break.

Slice of Life 12

*sigh*

I love-hate March. Rutgers being snubbed by the committee and left out today was a huge bummer. I keep reminding myself that situations like this were nothing more than a pipe dream just a few years ago, so being a (hopefully) top seed in the NIT is better than nothing.

But damn. What a heartbreaker today. Rutgers is 35 in KenPom rankings while ASU is 68 and Pitt is 77. Rutgers won at #1 Purdue. Rutgers won 7 games against teams in the tournament. I know, I know – the Q3 losses. The selection committee seems to have gone against what it has stated in the past: they value metrics and Q1/Q2 victories. Based on this bracket, it’s more important to avoid bad losses than to win meaningful games. This is why 95% of bracketologists missed the call on Rutgers- they were using the usual metrics to make predictions

Ugh.

Let’s kick some butt and win the NIT.