birdsofthunder

I've heard it said about practically every major city, in the US at least as well as in a few other places. Someone will jokingly say, "Welcome to [Place]! If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes!" Or similarly, "Welcome to [Place], where you can experience all four seasons in a day." I've heard it said about California, the PNW, the rocky mountains, the Midwest, and the east coast. Even when I did a study abroad in Austria, an American expat made the same joke about Vienna.

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The only place I've really been where the phrase doesn't really apply is Las Vegas, though during monsoon season it can be true. It can be 110⁰F and sunny one moment, then there are inches of rain

My family has no strong cultural ties to any group, country, ethnicity, or religion. My ancestry is "American white mutt" - there's some of just about every Western European country in there, with *maybe* the most prevalent being Scotland or England.

My family tree is actually really well researched and is about as filled out as it can be, and the most recently that any direct ancestors of mine emigrated to America was the 1830s from Scotland, with the vast majority of my ancestors coming here in the early 1700s from all over the place. Genealogical records I can access from before the 18th century are not very informative beyond a county of England with a birth year or simply "Amsterdam,

Hello!

I'm an English teacher and I want to do a short writing project with my students between Thanksgiving and Christmas - I'm looking for a good picture book (preferably one that rhymes!) about Christmases (or yuletide/winter holidays) around the world. Everything at my local library is checked out and I would like to know for sure if a book is good before I give in and order it on Amazon.

The idea is that I read the picture book with my students, and then they write their own page describing their yuletide/winter/christmas traditions. There are a few interesting options I've found online but I can't find any previews of most of them to see if they're what I'm looking for.

Any and all

I'm teaching Thoreau's Walden to my juniors next term as part of a unit on identity and living purposefully, with a focus on taking a step back from all the unnecessary things that stress us out (social media, the constant flow of news about tragedies and anger, etc.) and instead focusing on what is within our control and appreciating the beauty of the world around us. The final project will be a reflective personal narrative they write after I make them sit outside for an hour (in my area as long as they have a jacket they'll be fine outside in late November, and I'll bring blankets and such for kids to sit on and wrap around themselves) with no electronics, not even a watch, and simply

Yesterday (Friday, last day before spring break), one of my students (ninth grade, high school) in my second period asked me for advice on how to get this boy in her last class of the day to leave her alone. I asked her some questions and this boy spends the entire class period staring at her, follows her around the lunch room, and has tried to follow her home after school, but luckily her cousin picks her up every day. He's attempted to flirt with her/ask her out and she's deflected, even outright telling him he makes her uncomfortable and to leave her alone, but he still stares at her and follows her around every day. She doesn't know his last name or what grade he's in, as the class she h

I'm an English teacher and a writer, and I love historical fiction. My grandfather played the french horn in the 8th Army Band during the Korean War. He died in 2015 and the ONLY records he left behind that even mention the war are a few letters to his mother and a couple photographs. My mom and aunt are helping me put together the information I need to submit in order to get any/all of his military records from the National Archives. The story I'm thinking of writing, based loosely on my grandfather, is focused on a young man who is drafted into the war, makes it into the 8th Army band, and uses music as his solace during his time in Korea.

I want to research the Korean War, specifically t

"Why don't you turn it in and find out?"

Kid, there's a reason I'm not a math teacher. I have no fucking clue what your grade would be. I have a million other students, I don't know ANYONE'S grade off the top of my head besides the kids who get 100% on everything or those who have never turned in anything. If I didn't have an LMS system I'd set up an Excel spreadsheet to do the math for me (side note, the one credit Excel class I took in college was probably the most useful course I ever took).

I'm just glad my district lets me fail kids. I have a few students (including the one who inspired this post) who are angling for at least a 30% each term to qualify for summer school - any lower a

***apologies for any typos or things that don't make sense. It's late at night and I can't sleep, and I'm listening to the Goblet of Fire audiobook

Barty Crouch Sr. is a man of details, of politics, a professional. He knows Arthur Weasley, as seen at the Quidditch World Cup. Yet, he doesn't know Percy's name, his own assistant, calling him Weatherby. Why?

Later in GoF, when Hermione is ranting about how Crouch treats Winky, Sirius tells her, "If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."

By the time of GoF, Crouch has fallen a long way from his political prime. He's the head of a department, but in the end just another suit in

I have two classes of ninth graders that simply will not talk in my class, besides 3-4 students in each class, out of around 30. I teach English. Sharing writers notebook? Same 3 kids every day - if I refuse to call on them, I get nothing. Here's a question, discuss it with your table partner? Silence. I've tried popsicle sticks with life savers as rewards (I'll even let them pick the flavor!), sitting with tables and partners and giving them direct prompts, and requiring each set of partners to share their answers with the class. With the last one, I get a ton of "I don't know"s and "what [other group] said" and even when I say "okay you have 30 seconds to think of an original answer while