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Currently Reading: Educating for Life, Seeds of Hope, Seventh grade literature

I had a roughish week at school this week. I may or may not be allergic to Yakima, but whatever the allergy, I have had a migraine for almost four complete days now. This used to happen every now and then at Rutgers, but it's a little bit more of a problem when you have to be pleasant to students for 8 or 9 hours a day. One of my kids said to me this morning, "You look really tired, Miss Appert. Is your headache still bad?" Thank goodness it was only a half day.

My kids are doing well. I had to give my first detentions this week, and it was not fun, but I think it also convinced them that I wasn't a complete pushover. There are some disadvantages to being the only middle-school teacher under 60. We did a scripture scavenger hunt in my Religion classes today, which was a huge success, and also served the purpose of helping them learn how to look up things in the Bible. Getting them to read the Bible is one of my biggest challenges this year. It was pretty gratifying today that one of the girls I've been having the hardest time reaching stayed in at her break to chat with me. She had one of those really obnoxious brainteaser puzzles that she wanted me to solve, which I eventually did, but it was even better to just talk to her outside of class.

I miss my family a lot. My nephew and brother-in-law are running a half-marathon this weekend in Philly, and more than anything I would love to be there and cheer them on. I miss taylor ham (no one here has ever even heard of it). I miss rain. I miss my nieces and nephews. I talked to Meg on the phone today, and I could hear Phoebe in the background and I really just wanted to go home and see all of them.

I really do like it here...I just have to figure out what is giving me this headache...