I'm Drawing The Line. Period.

Part of being a teacher is relating to my students, and I think that I do that pretty well. I love to see my students "get it" and succeed. I love to have little insignificant inside jokes with my students and joke around with them a little. I love to listen to the stories from my little ones, who tell me many wonderful things about the wonderful people in their lives. But not everyone has a wonderful life. And some students have a rough home life. As much as I cringe inside when I hear the stories of what's going on at home, I try that much harder to counter-act the negative part in their lives. I know that I can never make up for what can only be called a crappy home environment, but I like to try. That being said, let me introduce "Sara." 

Sara is a person whom nobody likes. She is crass. She is grumpy. She doesn't follow the rules. She does things to bother other people - on purpose. She's the one who makes the other kids say, "Gosh, Sara," in their most annoyed voice. Well, leave it to me to develop a soft spot for Sara. One day during class, I asked for a volunteer to come up and help me demonstrate a hand game to go with a new chant I had just taught. I picked Sara, and ever since, I've been her girl. If I see her in the halls, she runs up to me for a hug and says, "Mrs. Rustand! Hi!" (And YES, she says my name correctly!) If I see her after school or on the playground, she runs up to me and shares one of her many stories. I secretly love to see the smile on her face instead of the perma-frown that's usually there!

Today after school, I ran into Sara and she greeted me with the usual greeting and thigh squeeze, only this time was different. After the thigh squeeze, she looked up at me and puckered her lips. I froze. Sara had taken things to a new level and was expecting me to give her a kiss. On the lips. Is she serious?!  

Not wanting to disappoint my sweet little Sara, I leaned over and... air kissed her forehead. Did you really think I was going to actually kiss her? My lips got close enough to her forehead so I could smell her unclean hair, and she seemed to be ok with the air kiss. She air kissed me back and went on her merry way. I narrowly escaped an unexpected situation. 

I've never been kissed by a student before, and I intend to keep it that way. I mean, really. There are boundaries. I draw the line. No kissing. Period. I will give out hugs, pats on the back, high fives, fist bumps, and shoulder squeezes, BUT NOT KISSES. Am I being unrealistic?! Do I need to put it in the school newsletter or something?! 

I'll just chalk it up to another day at school with the kids. 

Spring Break!

Spring break has come and almost gone, and I couldn't be more excited about it! Rather than taking a vacation to a tropical place, I opted for a much more thrilling spring break: writing my final paper to complete my masters. Fun, huh? I suppose I could throw on my bikini and shades and pretend to be on my dream spring break vacation. But I don't think the people at the coffee shop I'm at would appreciate that. The world is white enough already with a new blanket of snow we received yesterday. Instead, I sip my hazelnut mocha and type, type, type. Once school starts again, I only have 8 weeks until summer vacation. 8 weeks! I have a lot of stuff to do before the end of the school year!

Because of the return of winter for what can only be hoped for as it's last hurrah, our weekend trip to Denver got pushed back a day. We're headed there tomorrow and will be back on Sunday. Matt's flexible schedule has already been put to good use when he stayed home yesterday instead of facing the snowy mountain pass between home and the office. But because Matt was home yesterday, he had to work today. It was a little bit like having a Saturday in the middle of the week - welcome, but strange! We spent the day running a few errands and relaxing at home. One day of that is about all we can handle at this point, so I think Matt was a bit relieved to be headed to work today!

Can I just mention quickly how many people we know that have given birth in the past two weeks? It's almost creepy. The March tally of new babies is up to 8! And that's just from the 16th to the 27th. Seriously!

Back to my paper!

My Many Names

Ok, so is Rustand really that hard to learn and say? I've been at Elk Creek for 6 weeks now and some of my students still don't know my name. And it's not just this school! It happens everywhere I go. I really don't think that Rustand is that difficult of a last name - especially since I've been saying and writing 'Julie Rustand' practically since Matt and I started dating 12 years ago! I tell the kids to split it up into two words: rust and. Simple, right? Well, let me give you a run-down of a few names I've been called in my 4 years as a teacher.

1. Mrs. ruh-STAND

2. Mrs. Runstand

3. Mrs. Rustad

4. Rusty

5. Mrs. Roostand

6. MISTER Rustand - hello?! seriously?!

7. Mrs. ... Music Teacher?

And my all-time new favorite....

MRS. WRIST-BAND

Wrist band? Like I'm some kind of workout gear? I about fell out of my chair when I was called that this week by a kindergartner! It was pretty sweet, so I just corrected him and he carried on with his question. I'm hoping that someday in the not-so-distant future, my students will know my name and not refer to me as any of the above! Afterall, I know their names! 

Wildlife Biologist

"Wildlife Biologist", has a good ring to it doesn't it. A bit of an update on my new job. I've been working two weeks now and I love it. I've constructed a proposal to begin live capturing badgers and marking them to collect location data. The overall purpose is to calculate space-use overlap between badgers and ferrets to determine if resource partitioning is occurring, and because it will be really cool to catch badgers. I've also hired my seasonal technician and I've been busy getting together a summer project list. I haven't been able to get in the field too much yet, except one time to help the Colorado Division of Wildlife radio-collar mule deer, but that will change soon. There will be spotlighting for ferrets and badgers, mapping prairie dog colonies, doing bird block surveys, sage grouse lek counts, and the list goes on. I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll have some cool pictures of badgers to post soon.

Photos!

Who wouldn't want to bike down a path headed toward Mt. Sopris?! Man, living in Colorado is such a drag. ;)

Mt. Sopris, in all her glory! (About 12,000 feet.)

Here's the path through the canyon we walked on yesterday. We saw a deer, and kept our eyes open for any big-horned sheep, but didn't see any until we got in the car and started driving down the interstate. Then we saw about 12-15 sheep. I guess they like the soothing sounds of the interstate!

Last weekend, we drove to Independence Pass, just outside of Aspen. We spent the day hiking on the road, and if I remember right, I already blogged about the hike. Here are just a few pictures of our day on Independence Pass! (Note: We looked for Kevin Costner, but didn't see him anywhere. We'll have to get together with him next time we're in Aspen.)

A few pictures of Rifle at sunset - just so you can get a visual of our town!

This is Matt, sporting his new shades! I accused him of trying to be fashionable, but with the huge surface area of the lenses, they are pretty practical. I think he looks good!

Remember the title to one of the last posts? Well, this is the sweatshirt part of it! So how does a new teacher, who has only been teaching at the school for 2 weeks (at the time) end up with an Elk Creek Eagles sweatshirt so soon? Three words, my friends, three words. LOST AND FOUND. Some poor soul at my school lost this sweatshirt at the beginning of the year and I am it's new owner. Thanks to whomever ordered this adult medium hoodie!

300 Sunny Days

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that every day in Colorado is so wonderful when the state averages 300 sunny days a year! Taking advantage of the weather, we went for a 16-mile bike ride this afternoon. There's a wonderful paved path along highway 82 heading south from Glenwood Springs. It must have been an old railroad bed because it's pretty flat - I love it! :) We had a picnic lunch on the tailgate before heading out. Going out was slightly uphill and against the wind (or so I thought), and coming back was slightly downhill against more wind! It was a pretty nice ride, but our you-know-whats will be sore after all those miles on the bikes!

Yesterday, we took a 6.5-mile walk along a path that actually starts in Glenwood and goes for about 30 miles through the canyon. It was a beautiful, blue sky day, perfect for a walk. I walked the same path a few years ago when I did a MS walk with a group of teachers. It would be another good path for the bikes, so we'll have to do that some time. We saw lots of other people walking, biking, and even a kayaker in the river. To top off a great day, Matt wanted to stop at "the Queen" (referring to Dairy Queen, of course), but as luck would have it, their ice cream machine wasn't working. How does that happen? Isn't that sort of the essence of the Queen? No chocolate chip cookie dough blizzard for Matt. Bummer. We settled for a much healthier option - a strawberry banana fruit smoothie! Seriously, though, it's so much fun to get out and do stuff outside when the weather and scenery is just so beautiful!!

Sunburn, Shades and Sweatshirts

Last Sunday (3/1), we went snowshoeing on the Maroon Creek road, just outside of Aspen. It's not plowed in the winter, but they groom it so it's a wonderful walk in the snow. It was actually groomed too much and our snowshoes weren't even necessary! It was so beautiful outside - upper 50's, blue sky, and tons of sunshine. Well, about 10 minutes down the road, we knew that we were going to feel the effects of high elevation and bright sunshine by the end of the day - and we didn't have any sunscreen to prevent it from happening. The results? A brand new Colorado suntan! (De-coded: bright red faces, necks, and Matt's arms from his short-sleeved t-shirt!) We were wearing boots, snowpants, and either a short-sleeved or long-sleeved shirt, no hats, gloves, or jackets necessary. In fact, I was sweating pretty bad! It was such a beautiful day! I'd love to post pictures but we forgot to bring the camera. We tried out a new church that morning and brought our Bibles, a picnic lunch, plus all the winter stuff we thought we would need for the day, but no camera. We stopped at a grocery store to buy a disposable camera, but those pictures can't be put on the blog until they're developed and put on a picture cd. How old school. Anyway, look for those in about 2 months - when the camera is used up and developed! :)

Speaking of old school, I played a gospel song for my 3rd graders this week and asked them what kind of music it was. One kid's response was priceless. He said, "Old school?" I surpressed my giggles and said, "Not quite. Anyone else?"

This week, Matt started his new job - and LOVES it. He has been talking about it all week! He has been saying, "I just love my job!" It's so exciting to see him so excited about his work. And he's so good at it! The drive has been going well (a quick 40 minutes), and he has already interviewed for his summer tech position. I asked him if I could apply, but he said no. I'll have to let Matt share more about it in a future post.

As I'm typing, I'm trying to upload pictures without success. They will have to come later. Bummer.

I've officially made a best friend at my school. She's in first grade and ever since I helped her do the monkey bars at recess one day, she's at my side constantly. She even sneaks her little hand into mine when we're walking down the hall. Actually, that's not uncommon at my school. Kids show their affection often and I've held hands with at least 10% of the school in my first three weeks! Oh, and the little kid hugs where they squeeze your thighs? How sweet is that?

Anyway, more to come with the pictures. Hopefully soon! Matt and I raced up a trail last night to catch some pictures of the sunset. We were a bit late because we had to vaccuum the deer hair off Matt's jacket. That's a new experience for me! Matt was practically wrestling deer on Wednesday while helping put radio collars on some deer. Matt was explaining the process or catching and transporting them to me and it sounded pretty sweet. Picture this: 2 deer, bound and gagged :), hanging from a helicopter all while completely awake. Now that's a ride! Anyway, the result was a ton of fun and a great experience for Matt, but deer hair everywhere.

To be continued...