Witty Responses

Last week was a short week due to Labour Day Monday; shorter due to two teaching days and two testing days.

However, it just seemed extremely busy... probably because of things starting to pick up since we're in week two of the school year.

In terms of the blog title today: Thursday and Friday consisted of reading test. Essentially, every year, we test our homeroom student's reading levels. The reason why we need two days is because it takes around 30 minutes per student. There's one particular reading about natural disasters that asks a question about how you would personally feel if you were a survivor of a natural disaster. 

Most students that read this passage would say that they would be scared, and try and look for family members. However, I had one student comment that she most likely would die and therefore had no feelings. That comment surprised me, and I wasn't sure how to react to it.

But I had to admit, that it was a clever answer. 

Besides the reading test, in karate today, we were going over personal introductions. It's something I use to refresh my memory of my students, because I would forget how old they are, or even like today... forget some of their names... Besides their name and school grade, I asked each of them to state something they did over the summer. (I think I used favorite ice cream flavor last year).

Anyways, one student stated that he went to the hospital over the summer. I automatically responded by asking why he went to the hospital. 

He pauses to think, and the scrunches up his face into a slight scowl and said "It's none of your business!" I actually laughed mentally, because he was definitely right. 

Sometimes I wish I was that witty when I was their age! =P

New Personal Best and Failing Gracefully

For the past couple of weeks, I've been doing squats on Saturday and deadlifts on Sunday. I find squats to be more draining, especially with a greater fear of failing and injuring myself (from my injury in February) compared to deadlifts. If you can't deadlift, you just drop the bar.

As for this weekend, I switched up the two: deadlifted yesterday and squatted today. I was nervous since I wasn't feeling in top form from deadlifting. Therefore, instead of doing 5 x 3 sets, it was more for PR (personal records) and hypertrophy training.

Since I've been doing two plates for the past month or so, I was able to achieve a PR of 265 lbs. I tried doing 275 lbs twice, but I needed assistance halfway through both times. Nevertheless, I've never touched this amount of weight before, so I was pleased with my progress. Hopefully in six weeks time I'll be able to achieve 275!

After reaching PRs, I worked my way down to a single plate, in which I started hypertrophy training: repping as much as I can without resting. Even though it was only one plate (135 lbs), it felt extremely grueling. On my second set, when I tried to go past ten reps, I failed.

I dropped the bar on the safety rack as I failed and rolled onto my back. Compared to the last time I failed, it was much more graceful. Last time, I refused to drop the bar, which made it difficult for my spotter... and of course caused a bit of a commotion, with others coming to my rescue. I think I almost injured somebody as well with the bar... =/

At least lesson learned! I must say that my failure today was one fluid motion. =P

I was actually touched today that I almost had tears in my eyes!

First week with the students! It has been extremely busy due to getting back to the swing of things. This is my first year teaching four science 8 classes, making it more difficult than I thought it would be with scheduling. I see some of my classes for the double, which means that some of my classes are slightly ahead of the others. Small thing that I'll just have to get adjusted to.

Other than that, my new homeroom has been pretty awesome! My previous three homerooms have been really good, but this is the first year where all my students got a lock for their locker. And this was accomplished by the third day of school!

I was really impressed.

But what impressed me more was that majority of my students brought a book cover for their textbook, when in previous years, less than half of my class would bring one in the first week of classes.

And with that, I was touched. I didn't have to remind/haggle my students.

Seemingly small, but it meant a lot to me today.

Hopefully it means that this year will be a good year! =D