three random things that made me smile today.

1. seeing one of my kids crack a huge grin with a mouthful of gold teeth
2. recognizing that i have grown quite fond of the paper machie likeness of chris brown that sits at the front of my classroom
3. one of my girls stated, "you love this class, huh?"

quotes of the day...

sergio: ms booth is ta-mal-ay. what a ta-mal-ee??

and

me: crystal. i want to keep you in this class, but you are going to get frustrated sometimes, and you're going to have to deal with it in ways other than yelling and calling your group members names.

crystal: ms. booth. you need to stop smiling.

dancing lizards make me laugh.

happy birthday joshy.

the birthday boy himself.
yes, he is wearing my headband.

as a celebration of this boy, who is basically one of the girls, we went out to a new italian restaurant.

SUPER good food, about which we were SUPER excited.

She & I shared a pecan crusted chicken salad and spaghetti, chicken parmagiana & lasagna platter. it was fabulous.
until...

we finished. dont be jealous. we were practically professional eaters.


and yah. in case you were wondering, operation summer body starts tomorrow.

shots, betrayal, mary jane and THAT LOOK.

i dreaded shots growing up, and ive always thought about how awful parents must feel as they hold their babies down so they can get their vaccines. my friends with kids have talked about that confused look of betrayal. THAT LOOK that continues even after the alcohol swabs & needles are disposed of, and how after the vaccination, they can't help but cry right along with their little ones.

i dont mean to be dramatic. i dont have any babies, but i have my kids, and today, i got THAT LOOK. 2nd block rolled around and my room reeked of weed once again. we've had kids drinking and smoking weed in the bathroom lately, and have been instructed that if we smell it, to call campus security to come identify and remove the student from the classroom. i smelled that distinctive skunky aroma, and so i called our guys and told them where i smelled it and who i thought it might be. they sniffed around, but when they found it, they instructed the offenders to "come with us," as they were escorted out, my kids looked at ME. i assume it was similar to THAT LOOK. like it was my fault. like i had betrayed them by seeking to have their dirty, unhealthy, illegal habit uncovered.

it was an interesting moment.

this song...

makes me smile

on the inside.

snow play getaway...

these pics are from our snow play getaway up in the mountains, arnold, CA to be exact, over presidents day weekend. there were about 20 of us YSAs and it was a smashing good time. some of us went boarding and skiing, others of us just played in the snow, napped, lounged by the fire, played games, had girl talk, sang kareoke (sweeeeet caroliiiine....bom bom bommmmmm)and ate and relaxed. props to my friends, especially sheila, for throwing such a rocking party.


my friends are so creative.


goal #1 of snow weekend: make a snow angel.


togetherness. tender.


goal #2 of snow weekend: make a snowman.


please notice that goal #2 did not include successfully wrapping my body around the snowman. and as you can see, i was not successful in my non-goal oriented attempt.


posing in the snow before we tried to sneak away from a snowball ambush.


more togetherness after dinner.


family. and the only ones that made it the full weekend. we are hardcore. kind of.

quotes of the day

quotes of the day.

rickey: JB. happy valentines day. will you marry me?
me: ummm....yah. i dont think so.

stephen: um...ms booth. i thought i should let you know i just saw a rat running through the hallway this morning.
me: ew. how big was it?
stephen: you know. smallish. (with a hand gesture)

i love the city.

happy half way to a hundred...

here's a half century shout out to the raddest guy i know...










...my dad.

quote of the day

"dont worry baby! you know we got you!"

i love my campus security.

more gems.

what is one of your hobbies? clean my room. --andrew, 10th grade

What are you the most proud of? Why? I am the most proud of myself for being the only one in my family to make it this far in school. --miguel, 11th grade

"my friends are backstabbers. i can't trust none of them. my family is nothing like, or even close like the brady bunch. my street family, i love them & thanks the lord that their in my life. all we do is laff, cook, clean. everything a famileis suppose ta do. my interest is "wus good for the weekends." my hobbie i can't tell you. sports...all i do is walk from here to there walkin is my sport i guess. extra curricular things are not me. i dont do things like that. goals...i guess try to graduate. get a good job. try not to get kicked out this week. =] dreams....i dont have any.
--alejandra 10th grade

my favorite football team would have to be the dallas cowboys, but not because they were doing hella good this year like some people that i know. i have been a cowboys fan for as long as i can remember even when they were doing bad i was still a fan. i became a cowboys fan because of my dad. --roberto, 12 grade

(letter dated 1/28/08) i have a boyfriend right now his name is noe we just started to go out on 1/23/08. i'm very happy with him.

i promise to do my best to be on tme. but its not that im lazy and i dont want to wake up early its that i work from 5 pm to 12 am and i don't get home until pretty late. --tricia, 10th grade

if you had a million dollars......... buy hella of stuff

who is one of your heroes? why? my mom, because she raised me by herself

a BIO POEM is another activity i do at the beginning of the semester. they have to draw a picture of themselves and then answer a number of questions about themselves in 3rd person. here are some excerpts:

who wishes to see: the biggest hot topic in the world
who has lived in: terror
who enjoys: sexual healings
who gives: bootleg dvd's for $5
who would like to see: a wite white shark
who gives: love to the homies
who has lived: in a foster home
who gives: a dam
who fears: dying yung
who fears: snakes and my daddy
who enjoys: softball and posten it wit da patnas
who wishes: to be a good mother and good wife
who feels: thankful for all the things he has
who is: a koo person
who wishes: all volience would stop and all rapists and killers would go to jail
who finds happiness in: life.

he is...

darling. sigh.

down by the bay...

a glorious day off spent in a glorious way...

taking pics in half moon bay.



and finishing up with the bowling bonanza Super FHE.

what more could ya ask for?

say it with a sign...

details finally. the wolves won! it was rad. they played well, shot well and beat the warriors! going into this contest they were 5 and 34. hardly an impressive record, i know. anyways, freethrows were punctuated with screams like, "put mark in!" and "give maddog some minutes!" at one point, it seemed that even coach wittman was glancing up in our direction. what can i say? some of my friends know how to utilize their vocal cords. one such poster toting friend ran down the flight of stairs to the court exit screaming, "mark!! MARK! mark madsen, look up here!" donning a poster that read, "seriously mm, how can you resist?" surrounded by large, incriminating photographs of me. she got his attention, and from what she said, he saw and paused for a moment to read the poster. she was accompanied by another friend and poster that read, "hey maddog, throw this girl a bone." with arrows pointing to the pictures of me. (NOTE: he also brought sharpies to the game #1 to make sure his arrow placement was accurate regardless of where i chose to sit in relation to the poster, and #2 in case any other stellar poster ideas came to mind.)

others in our party kept quiet, but poster waving also proved to be a slight nuisance to the spectators sitting behind us. (i really am sorry about that.) even though my favorite player did not get any minutes, it was awesome to watch the wolves play AND get another W. this, however, was clearly one of the most embarrassing events of my life. BUT it was great to be surrounded by friends who put so much time and effort into being a part of it. for the record, i had nothing to do with the creation of these masterpieces,
and pleaded that they not accompany us to the game. i, however, lost that battle. i was assured he wouldn't see them anyways. that, however, also turned out to be false. ah well. i have wondered about his response to my well intentioned friends' desperate pleas on my behalf. i usually get pretty embarrassed until i remember he is probably used to adoring fans (and their friends) making public fools of themselves at his games. regardless, it was all in good fun, and while it was super embarrassing, i wouldn't change a thing.

quote of the day

(front of card) "the fact that we don't have dates on Valentine's Day...(open card)...is just further proof men are idiots."

(hand written) Thanks for making me feel better when I found out Berkeley boy had a girlfriend. It is so good to have friends to talk to anytime and that are so funny and cool. And it really made me feel good when you guys said that she was sloppy and looked like a dog."

this is a note inside a card from our Relief Society president. the last line is my absolute favorite. i laugh every single time i read it. and i just laughed again when i typed it. it's that good.

its a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

mrs. darcy.

im pretty sure stuff like this needs to happen in real life.

"three, two one......one, two three...."

"...what the heck is bothering me?"

ever see that family matters where carl is going through some anger management course, and he utters this "3,2,1..." statement?

yah, well, i think i've mulled these words over in my mind about a thousand times. today.

between ants, being super sick and my windshield getting bashed in, these past few days have been mildly hellacious. at best.

hey booth...

i was busy getting things ready in between classes today, and one of my darling kids came up to me holding a paper with very serious look on his face. "hey booth, what is this?" i looked at the paper he was dangling in front of my face long enough to see it was his W2. i explained to him what it was, and what he needed to do with it. this boy has told me more about his life, his family, his home then probably any of my other students. he has had it pretty rough, but is making it, slowly but surely, on his own. i dont know why this small question had such a big impact on me, but it did.

any questions?

"ok guys, listen up. it smells like weed. i'm not asking for a confession. all i know is that it is not me. i would prefer that none of you were involved in such things. it makes me worry, it's not good for you and it's not smart. if you are involved in such things, i advise you to stop. it is totally unhealthy. don't come to my class high. i know that you make your own decisions, and so i will only ask one thing...whatever you are involved with outside of class, please do not come to my class smelling like weed."

there is so much marijuana usage on campus, security & admin can't do much about it. i mean, we can call them to the scene so they can sniff it out, if its bad enough, but other than that, its a he said, she said game. with all the privacy laws, i doubt ill ever see the day a high school resorts to random drug testing. im sure kids smoke right on our campus. its sad. aside from all the scarring visuals of "this is your brain on drugs" commercials from the early 90's and truly beginning to understand what these harmful substances do, it is frustrating.

THC, the active "drug" in marijuana, inhibits long term memory function, making it virtually impossible to retain any information digested while under its influence.

what i wish i could get my kids to see is that coming to class high and expecting to learn is the equivalent of trying to eat if your lips were sewn shut. duh, guys. its not rocket science.

oh wait. lets back the truck up a little. now that i've taken a moment to think about it, i dont think many high school students have equated attending class or school in general with learning. boo. thats ok. we'll get there. ill focus on that when my classroom doesn't smell like weed.

quote of the day

"it was fun for a few hours. its kind of cool when someone is crazy about you. until you figure out they are just CRAZY period." my little sister, Kristin.

i dont watch enough CNN to be familiar with Glenn Beck as a commentator or otherwise. but in this video he gives words to many feelings i have experienced over the past couple of days. i appreciate him very much for it.



another short video from BYU, about the work of our beloved prophet.