Amber Blair

#thirdgradequotes FINAL INSTALLMENT

This is the last time you’ll have the joy of reading #thirdgradequotes, because next year I’ll begin teaching 6th grade! So for a little Summer special, I bring you a final batch of #thirdgradequotes.

3rd grade girl: I hate Justin Beaver.

3rd grade boy: Just wait until I go through puberty. Then I can make my own Chewbacca costume.

Me: You guys aren’t going to start dating until you turn 16, right?
3 girls in unison: My mom says I can’t date until I’m 25.

Mom: Good thing he knew Xenophilius, right?
Me: Mama, I assure you there wouldn’t have been a second date if he hadn’t known Xenophilius.

Me: Wait, what are those men doing here? (in the Celestial room)
Fellow temple worker: I have no idea. We’re in charge here!

Rachel: Everything fried is infinitely better.

Me (playing a guessing game with 3rd grader): this is usually found in people’s pockets.
3rd grade girl: An eraser!!
Me: Nope.
3rd grade girl: This isn’t going as well as I thought.

Cool Dads

It recently occurred to me that some of the kindest, most beloved men I’ve ever known are school custodians. So on this Father’s Day, I want to give a shout-out to amazing dads with less-glamorous jobs.

I know girls always talk about wanting to marry a doctor or a lawyer, and I myself wouldn’t mind a husband with that kind of paycheck… But tbh I want someone as universally loved as the janitors in my life.

Mr. Giles, the Wasatch janitor, is quite possibly the most popular individual I’ve ever known. He couldn’t walk down the hall without having kids yell, “MR. GILES!!! HIIIII!!!!!” Does your job provide that kind of satisfaction?

At the end of the day, the paycheck doesn’t even matter. What matters is how many lives you touched. And in my experience, school custodians touch a hecka lot more lives than society gives them credit for.

A Political Post

Oh hey, I just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be voting for Pedro. Please consider joining me. I can promise that all your wildest dreams will come true.

On a more serious note, I want to say that I’m truly distressed that our nation has come to this. Two horrible candidates, and we have to choose the lesser of two evils. Tbh I’m embarrassed to be an American rn.

Also, to be clear, I remain solidly in the #NeverTrump camp.

May Book: Quiet

Upon Lucy’s and Kristen’s recommendations, I started this book like five years ago. For some reason I never finished it, so this month I decided to get ‘er done. I’m glad I did it.

I feel like my experience with this book was vastly different from Kristen’s and Lucy’s because they are both introverted, and I happen to be very extroverted. Coming from that different perspective, I can offer my take on the book– I felt like in Susan Cain’s efforts to expose some less-celebrated virtues of introverts, she sometimes made me (an extrovert) feel like a bad person. But that aside, I gained several insights on myself, my loved ones, and past and future students.

1. This world needs BOTH introverts and extroverts
2. A good talker is not necessarily a good thinker
3. Introverted students needs to be accommodated for
4. Listening is key
5. We should try to get everyone in their “sweet spot” (#classroomgoals)

Summer Bucket List

Last week was the last week of school (!!!) and I had the opportunity to stay at school with the kids who didn’t qualify for the Lagoon trip.

Amongst other delightful activities, I introduced them to the concept of bucket lists, and we made summer bucket lists together. #genius

Now I bring you Miss Blair’s 2016 Summer Bucket List:

1. Go to the cabin
2. Have an epic HP party on July 31
3. Finish watching Chuck
4. Go to the Manti temple
5. Attend the Weidmans’ homecoming
6. Go to Elvis and Cynthia’s sealing
7. Hike Timp
8. See a play
9. Get a job
10. Have a fabulous duet recital with all my students
11. Participate in a refugee English camp in Spokane
12. Go to Girls Camp

The Deterioration of High Society

Okay friends. I went to the Utah Symphony yesterday, and it was mostly delightful, but a few pretty serious things went down, and I just really need to vent here.

I feel like I’m generally a reasonably kind, compassionate person. But when I get in a concert hall, I become an entirely different creature, and every little audiencal error (yes, I did just invent that term) deeply offends me.

For example, I don’t normally glare at people, but if your phone goes off during a concert, you better believe I will throw more shade than you’ve ever felt.

Other immensely obnoxious/ disrespectful actions:
1. Opening a cough drop during a performance. #agony
2. Talking. Even whispering.
3. CLAPPING BETWEEN MOVEMENTS. Have you no respect??? Stop being an idiot.
4. Compulsive standing ovations. Come on, people.
5. Texting. #rude
6. Humming along with the music.
7. PDA. Get a life.
8. Cheering/ shouting. Leave the whoops in the stadium.

If we’re going to last as a respectable society (my bad, too late.) we need to get ahold of ourselves in the concert hall. I’m doing my best to educate my 3rd graders on proper concert etiquette, but it only takes one clap to generate a rowdy raucous of uneducated morons. Let’s be the change.

Lifestyle Change

I’m here to announce a lifestyle change I attempted and failed to adopt literally every week of my mission.

It is… Being hydrated. I’ve never successfully been hydrated, and thanks to my new fancy-dancy Hydro Flask, I’m on a path to experiencing hydration.

Unfortunately, that means

I’ve gotta go ALL THE TIME.

So we’ll see if it’s worth it. Michelle Obama claims it is.

Musings on an Incredible Woman

If I could choose one word to describe my Grandma Hall, it would be loving. The woman never stops serving, despite a barricade of obstacles standing in her way. Alzheimers has taken a good portion of her memories, as well as her most of her ability to remember. But despite those challenges, she remains one of the most Christlike people I know.

When I’m at her house, she literally never stops asking if she can get me anything, or bringing me candy or water, or offering other things to ensure my comfort. She is always doing something nice, be it ironing Grandpa’s clothes, or making food, or any other need she observes.

She doesn’t remember that she was the stake Relief Society president for years, but she remembers that she loves the Lord, Grandpa, and all her kids and grandkids.

She took care of me while my mom was doing her student teaching, and I’m sure those were some of the funnest days of my life. I miss the energetic, clever grandma that I grew up with, but I look forward to seeing it again one day. I’m grateful her loving core has remained. I love my Grandma Hall, and I honor her this Mother’s Day.

April Book: Holes

If you’re like me, you read Louis Sachar’s Holes at least once in Elementary school. Since I’m back in Elementary school now, I’ve been rereading Elementary classics, and Holes is the one I chose this month.

If you’re unlike me and pretty much every other kid, and you’re unfamiliar with the story of Holes, I’ll give a quick synopsis.

Holes is about a boy named Stanley Yelnats, who is wrongly accused of a crime and sentenced to serve time at Camp Greenlake– an alternative detention center for juvenile delinquent boys where the days are passed digging holes. The story is fraught with mystery, suspense, comedy, and intensity. Join Stanley as he embarks on a quest to break the curse brought on by his dirty-rotten-no-good-pig-steadling-great-great-grandfather.

#thirdgradequotes

Amber: When was this theory proposed? It was during Mom and Dad’s lifetime.
Kristen: 18…

3rd grade boy: How dare you throw that away! It’s recyclable!

3rd grade boy: Miss Blair, were you alive in the 50s?

3rd grade boy: My heart is beeping so fast!

3rd grade boy: I have a computer game where every time there’s a person named Trump, I eat him.

5th grade boy: Hey Mrs. Blair!
Me: It’s Miss, not Mrs.
5th grade girl: Oh, he didn’t put a ring on it?

3rd grade boy: Everyone knows Kylo Ren isn’t the best-looking kid on the block.

3rd grade boy: Reading sucks!
Me: No it doesn’t! It’s how you get smart.
3rd grade boy: That’s not how I get smart.
Me: How do you get smart?
3rd grade boy: Youtube.

3rd grade boy: O.M.Goodness.