Cloning Lancelot

This week in between the impeachment of the Illinois governor, President Obama's doings, and the birth of octuplets, there was a news story about a couple who spent $155,000 to clone their beloved dog Lancelot. Apparently Lancelot was a very special dog to this couple, who own nine other dogs, four birds, several cats and sheep. So special that they decided to freeze the dog's DNA when he died in 2008 of cancer, just in case they wanted to clone him.
Now, I am a dog lover, and to this day still have a hard time talking about when we put our family dog, Frebbles, down when I was in high school. Frebbles, an English Springer Spaniel, was a very special dog to our family and losing her was one of the hardest things that we could have gone through. We often talk about how there would never be another Frebbles, and honestly, I don't think I would ever want to try to replace her by cloning her. Frebbles was a very unique dog and trying to create another of her would take away from how special she was. Instead of creating another Frebbles, I bought two English Springer Spaniels with Adam, and my parents bought an English Springer Spaniel of their own. Now our three dogs are not Frebbles by any means, but we love them just the same.
I just think about poor Lancelot's life. For the next decade or more Lancelot is going to be trying to fill the paws of the previous Lancelot, having to live up to the expectations of his owner.
The couple has said that they will love the dog regardless of whether he is exactly like their first Lancelot or not. Well, if they have that attitude, why didn't they just go to a local lab breeder and buy a yellow lab. They would have taken a gamble at whether the dog would have been like Lancelot, but at least they would have saved themselves $154,500 in the process.

You know you're from northern NH when...

I grew up in northern New Hampshire and it was cold there in the winter all the time. For 6 years or so I worked at the Mount Washington Auto Road and at Great Glen Trails in the winter. One freezing winter morning as I was walking into work one of my coworkers said to me, "Hey April, did you hear it was colder here this morning than at the North Pole?" And it actually was colder than the North Pole. It was a Wednesday, and I remember that because the Mount Washington Observatory crew was scheduled for their weekly switch...but they couldn't go up the mountain because the hydraulics on the Snow Cat had froze...that's cold. Walking to school, or even from the back parking lot into the school was always fun. I actually told someone recently that it's not cold until you step outside and your breathe gets taken away and all of your nose hairs freeze instantly. Or my all time favorite was when my hair was wet and the wind would blow, and then my hair would be frozen sticking straight out off my head!
And then there was the morning that my sliding van door (because I was wicked cool and drove a brown Dodge Caravan with wooden side panels) was frozen open and I pulled on it so hard I ripped it right off the van...
So this morning when I was coming into work I said "I know it's -20, but it doesn't feel like a cold -20." (like there is a warm -20) I guess the difference today was that there was no wind, thankfully...but growing up in northern New Hampshire tends to make me thankful for a warm -20 that lasts a day or two...instead of a week or two...

DIBELing

Today we had to DIBEL our students. DIBELing is an acronym for something, but basically it is a one minute reading test. The students read a short story for one minute trying to read as many words as they can. After the minute is up they have one minute to tell the teacher everything that they remember from what they read. The students read three different stories and then I average their scores for their final words per minute score. Well, all but five of my students reached the benchmark of 105 words per minutes (in September the benchmark was 95 and by the end of fourth grade it is 118). Two of the five that didn't reach benchmark scored 103 and 104 words per minute (man does that stink or what?). In September I had 11 of my 19 students hitting benchmark, now with the bar raised I have 14.
Now you can take a few things from this. 1. I totally rock at teaching reading (hahahaha yeah right). 2. Realize that most of these students read as quickly as possibly and have no freakin' clue what they read about. 3. Take the test for what it is...another somewhat effect way to measure growth. Did I see the growth in my students? yes, so I'm happy about that. But I now I have to teach the students that reading a bunch of words quickly means absolutely nothing (except when DIBELing) if you can't tell anyone what you just read. Who needs to read for pleasure anyway right?

Out of the mouths of babes...

For some people who may not know I am currently in my first year of teaching a fourth grade class in central New Hampshire. From time to time I will have to share some of the things that my students say to me because honestly, it really blows my mind what they come up with.
The week before winter vacation one of the other fourth grade teachers had two relatives coming to visit her for lunch at the school, one of the relatives is a dwarf. In order to try and alleviate some of the staring and initial shock of having a dwarf in the school the teacher asked us to have a conversation with our students about her relative.
Right before we were going to lunch I sat the students down and began to speak with them about the teacher's relative. We spoke about how we should react and what my expectations were, and then I asked the class if anyone had any questions. Right away one of my students raised his hand in the way that showed he thought he really had an important question, so I called on him, and he asked...."Does she (the dwarf) have magical powers?" I just looked at him and had no idea what to say...and finally I answered "No, only the dwarfs you see on cartoons have magical powers."
After school I was telling my mom the story and she said well at least he asked you and didn't go up to the girl and ask her if she had magical powers...

An attempt to keep in touch!

Adam and I are, well, horrible at keeping in touch with friends and family.(I must say that Adam is a lot better at keeping in touch than I am.) I figured that maybe I can start a blog and update it at least once a month in an attempt to let people know what we are up to. Hopefully, those of you who care to know what we are up to will enjoy reading the blog and send us a few comments now and then to let us know you care!