skies are going to clear up so i can take pictures

Now that I am in possession of a camera AND batteries AND a memory card, the skies are gray and gross. Isn't that just the way life is.

I have had two, count them TWO, dinner successes. Well, of course eggs and stuff always work out for me, but I mean trying out actual recipes that my mother sent along with me so I could eat actual meals with more than one food group in them. I made honey chicken with rice last week and it was delicious, and tonight I made sweet and sour meatballs and rice and it was also delicious. I am so awesome. Although, have you ever MADE meatballs? Pretty much the most disgusting process of all time. I can now understand why my mother does not eat ground beef after smooshing it around into the shapes in which I eat it. You have to roll it up into little balls, like you're making cookies, except instead of yummy dough cookies it's gross meat cookies with leftover blood still inside. And for some reason the ground beef I bought from Save-On was different than the ground beef I see at home - it's all rolled up in strings instead of in crumbly bits. Like beef shoelaces, or brains. So basically I was making cookies out of bloody shoelace brains.

(It's a good thing I made the meatballs yesterday and ate them today, and then wrote this after I ate them, because I just grossed myself out.)

I started giving lollipops out in my glass for random good behaviour, and what that means is that I am a GENIUS. Intermittent positive reinforcement is the BOMB, you guys. Every time one of my students says anything or sits properly, "Can I have a lollipop?" And I give them a stern look and say, "No. I will give out the lollipops randomly for awesome behaviour." For example, a boy in my grade nine math class who'd never understood rotations before randomly was able to get it (through no fault of mine, it was just a random epiphany), so I gave him one. Then in Science it started raining and all my kids were fascinated by the rain falling on the kids outside, so I let them watch for a couple minutes before returning to work, and one girl said, "That's like abiotic rain interacting with biotic kids," which is what we were just learning about! So I gave her one. And then I accidentally rolled up my overhead screen all the way and couldn't reach it with any of my improvised tools, so one boy volunteered to stand on another boy's shoulders and get it down for me, so I gave them one for being creative and helpful. Now all my students are trying to be creative, helpful, properly-behaved epiphany-havers. It's great.