Bug Attack! (RE-POST from 7/11/15)

 I've been enjoying the final weeks of mountain biking, and it reminded me of this blog post from the summer. Ah, the summer . . . It seems so long ago now. Have fun rereading this adventure from 7/11/15.

My husband, Dan, and I spent the fourth of July hiking and mountain biking. But (surprise, surprise!) this is not a post about my debilitating fear of heights.

Bugs hate me . . . or maybe they really like me. Either way you look at it, they are annoying. And, no, I don't wear a bunch of perfumes and lotions when I am being outdoorsy. Bugs do not hate/like Dan as much as me. Maybe my sweat is sweeter. I do sweat a lot.

A typical scenario after any given outdoor adventure goes like this:

"Becky," Dan will say pathetically, "look at this bug bite."

"You call that a bite?" And I will reveal about five or six bites on the back of my shoulder or my calf or underneath the seam of my sports bra. "This is a bite!"

The bug bite ratio in our relationship is about five to one.

I am pretty sure I have built up immunity to West Nile by now. They should probably think about using my blood to develop an antidote.

And I always douse myself in bug spray before venturing into the great outdoors.

Over the fourth, the fun started when I was adjusting my backpack. I felt a strange pinch and something with a hard shell on the back of my neck, right at my hairline.

"Dan," I said fairly calmly, "I think something's on me."

"Whoa!" (When Dan reacts with a shocked, "Whoa!" not a smirk, a stifled laugh, or a snort, I know it's bad.) "Hold still."

I, of course, did the exact opposite.

I threw off my pack and jumped around, shouting, "Get it off me! Get it off me!"

The thing that eventually came off of me looked something like this:

"This is not a good start to our ride," I remarked. 

By the time we stopped for a water break, three bugs had flown into my mouth, two had landed on my legs, and one had landed in my ear. The bug spray was not working.

"I think that bug might still be in my ear. It's awfully itchy," I said.

Dan pretended to examine my ear, "Nope, bug free."

"Yeah, you know nothing, Jon Snow . . ." I grumbled.

The next day, we went hiking, and Dan spent much of the time shooing away the flies that kept circling my head.

"I think this fly thinks you're a horse because of your ponytail."

"Great."

"At least you can flip them away with your ponytail . . . just like a horse."

"Thanks, Dan."

When he swatted my butt for the fifth time, I turned around and said, "Are that many flies landing on my butt, or are you just swatting it for fun?"

"A little bit of both," he replied with a grin.

 

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

Funny Kid Stuff (or So Begins the School Year)

The first thing I realized a few weeks ago, as the summer drew to a close, was that I would have to stop swearing so much. I develop bad habits when I am not around children. But I am glad to report that nothing has slipped out yet, and I have been back in Elementary School Teacher Mode for almost four weeks now.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that my job is entertaining at times. And I have once again collected my share of interesting anecdotes over the first month of school. Here are a few of my favorites to start off the year.

1. Just Making Sure You're Aware, Mrs. Duggan . . . 
I was standing outside my classroom door, which happens to be next to the boys' and girls' bathrooms, when a kindergartner wandered up to me.

She announced (not in her "inside voice"), "I have the boys' pass, but I'm using the girls' bathroom because the other pass is gone, and I REALLY have to go potty!"

2. When in Doubt, Call Me Mommy . . .
I have my name posted by the music room door, and I was showing the second graders where to find it because kids tend to forget my name from time to time.

One little girl had her own solution to this problem.

“Once I got confused and called you ‘Mommy.’ Remember?” she said.

3. Take the Bucket With You . . . 
During the first week of school, the kids started dropping like flies. You know the stomach flu is going around an elementary school when children walk to the nurse's office, carrying a trash can under their chins.

4. No Laughing Matter . . . 
As I was heading to my car after school, one little boy walked past me with his mother.

He greeted me with, "I think I got centipede poop on my nose!"

His mother immediately said, “You were just told not to say that word anymore! That is not funny! Do you understand me? You are not being funny!”

I actually thought it was a little funny. But I also don't have to listen to him talk about poop twenty-four-seven.

5. Philosophical Discussions About Underwear . . .
I was reading Froggy Goes to School by Jack London to my first graders. In it, Froggy goes to school in his underwear, but then he wakes up and discovers that it was just a dream, and all of the kids in the class breathe a sigh of relief.

This year, one of my boys was very concerned, “But what if it was real?” 

"It wasn't real though. It was just a dream," I explained.

"But what if it wasn't a dream? What if it was real?"

"I guess he'd be pretty embarrassed. I think his mom and dad would stop him before he got on the bus. Don't you?"

"I don't know . . ."

6. More Truth To This Than You Think . . .
I always get the most interesting answers to the question, "Why are we learning music?"

This year, one of my students responded with, "Just in case we want to be 'magicians' when we grow up."

That's actually more accurate than you know, kid . . .

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

How I Really Survive My School Year (RE-POST 9/15/12)

This is a blog post I wrote during the first few weeks of the 2012 school year. I plan to publish a new "funny kid stuff" piece after Chess the Musical is over. Stay tuned!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote quite a witty post, if I do say so myself, on How I Survived the First Week of School. Of course, as witty as it was, I left out the real way I survive my school year. And really, it's less about survival and more about why I chose my career. (It sure isn't the mad-crazy-huge paycheck I get every month.)

Here are a few anecdotes that remind me why I love what I do. These happened over the last couple of days. Just think how many of these cute little stories I accrue by the end of the school year.

What's in a name: 
One little girl told me she was named after a wildflower "because sometimes I'm kind of wild."

Animal lessons: 
My student teacher called on a kindergartner who told him, "Do you know that lizards are hard to catch with your big hands?"

"Yes," my student teacher responded as though it was the most normal question in the world.

The observations of children:
One teacher told me that she was standing in front of her classroom projector the other day. The image that was being projected onto the screen, and incidentally onto her face, was green.

One child called out, "You have lettuce on your face!"

Pointing the finger:
A second grade class had to return to the risers the other day when they couldn't handle one of the activities.
One student said, "Everyone is causing trouble . . . except me!" 

Teacher titles:
When I tell them my name is Mrs. Duggan, what I am actually called is like a lesson on Theme and Variations. 

• Mrs. Doostan
• Mrs. Doogie
• Mrs. Doodans
• Mrs. D
• Music Teacher
• Music Guy (This is what the kindergartners call my student teacher. I am Music Teacher. He is Music Guy.)
• Mrs. New Teacher (This is what the first graders called a teacher who filled in for our PE teacher at the last minute on Thursday.)

Where did you get that idea?
Maybe we teachers make it look too fun, and kids get the wrong idea about our profession. One of my sixth graders told me that he has already decided to be a teacher when he grows up. But his reasons weren't quite as altruistic as I hoped.

"Great pay and summers off," he said.

Boy, is he in for a rude awakening. Neither of those things are true. Neither of those things make the profession worth it.

Here is why I do it . . .
One of my students, an immigrant from Africa, wanted to join choir so badly this year. Unfortunately, his parents have no way of getting him to school by 8:00 a.m. His father leaves in the family car at 5:00 every morning, and the little boy has no way of getting to school other than by bus. (The bus doesn't usually get the kids to school until right before the bell.) As my student told me all of this, his eyes welled with tears. I wracked my brain as to how I could get him to school in time for choir. Deciding that driving to the opposite side of town and picking him up myself at 7:00 a.m. was probably not the best option, I told him to jump off the bus and run to my room as soon as he got to school the next morning, even if he was a little late for choir. On Thursday, he showed up to choir twenty-five minutes late, but we still had twenty minutes of singing left.

His ear-to-ear grin is what really makes my profession worth it.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.

The Night I Learned to Play Chess (RE-POST from 8/8/15)

Enjoy this re-post from 8/8/15! The production I reference in this blog post opens next weekend. If you are in the Boise area and would like to see it, tickets are available online at www.mtionline.org.

 

Once upon a time, a kid I used to babysit tried to teach me to play chess. Because he was eight and had the attention span of a Labrador puppy, he just laughed at me when I didn't remember all of the crazy rules.

Fast forward twenty-plus years, I have been cast in a musical called Chess about a Cold War chess tournament between a Russian and an American (Boris Spassky vs. Bobby Fischer, anyone?). My character in the show is the American player's "second," a sort of assistant who researches opponents and helps prepare strategies. And if the first player dies (I guess a chess match can last so long that the game outlives the players), it's up to the second to finish the player's chess commitments.

Disclaimer: I am going to make light of something that I have realized some people take very seriously. I might even simplify some definitions. A while back, I posted a glib Facebook message about two guys playing chess next to me in a coffee shop, and I immediately received how-to-play-chess links and words of caution about orienting the chess board correctly on stage because apparently chess aficionados care a lot about these things.

So . . . no angry e-mails about how I truly don't understand the chess experience.

"I should teach you how to play chess," said (guess who?) none other than my husband, Dan, when I was cast in the role.

He was much more patient than that eight-year-old I babysat.

He taught me terms like en passant, promotion, check, and checkmate, none of which I execute successfully yet. Sometimes though, I yell out "En passant!" mid-game just for fun.

He taught me "white on the right," meaning that the white square should be to the right of the opponent playing the white pieces, and the queen is on its own color for both players. How's that for orientation, friends?

There's also this thing called "castling," and it sounds totally dirty but it's not because . . . well . . . it's chess, and as the American player says at one point in the musical, "I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine." (Get it? Chess players are too cerebral to bother with . . . you know what?) But "castling" is my new code word for "sex."

I've also gained a perspective on some of the vocabulary in the musical. I've learned the arbiter is a sort of referee.

When one character refers to a gambit (an opening in which a player makes a sacrifice, typically a pawn, for the sake of some compensating advantage), are we talking about a literal gambit, or are the people the sacrificed pawns in this case?

A chess game is divided into three parts, an opening, middlegame, and endgame. It just so happens that "Endgame" is also the title of a four-part song at the end of the show. It signifies the end of the chess match, but it also serves as a metaphor for the Russian players' psyche when he has to make an ultimate, definitive choice.

I learned how to move each chess piece, which is much more complicated than checkers.

Dan quizzes me before each game on each "character"—Dan: "chess piece"—and how it moves.

Me: "This is the horse"—Dan: "knight"—"and it moves in an L-shape, two squares to one, and it can jump over 'characters'"—Dan: "chess pieces."

Me (after the game): "That was kind of fun."

Dan: "It takes a lot of strategy. I can only think one or two moves ahead."

Me: "I can only think of how to get away from you and, even then, I'm not so successful."

So far, Dan has beaten me every time.

 If you are in the Boise area this fall and would like to see Chess the Musical, here are the dates:

September 10-12 at 7:30 pm & September 12 at 1:30 pm

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan.