21 Things You May or May Not Want to Know About Your Teacher

1. I once separated the top half of my ear from my face/head in a freak slippery-new-tap-shoe accident.

2. West Virginia University is my alma mater. I earned both my B.A. in English and my M.A. in Secondary Education there, and I’m proud to be an alumna. I had an incredible, intellectual, and transformative experience at WVU.

3. I’m #obsessed with fresh mangoes.

4. Speaking of obsessed, Hamilton. That is all.

5. This will be my 4th year teaching in WV and in Berkeley County, but my 12th in the classroom. You could say I’m a senior just like you! (Like, super super duper senior.)

6. I taught at South Hagerstown High School and Smithsburg High School in Maryland before finding my home at Spring Mills.

7. Sometimes I enjoy eating entire bags of potato chips for dinner, specifically and preferably Dill Pickle Chips or Tostito’s Hint-of-Lime Chips.

8. I unabashedly love Game of Thrones and I don’t care how annoying it is.

9. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers is the first book that changed my life. It scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had.

10. Where the Red Fern Grows is the first book that made me cry. I was a little kid when I read it. I remember holing myself up in my playroom while my parents watched TV (I was an only child for 11 years, ok, give me a break), and crying a big wet spot on the rust orange carpet in there.

11. John Steinbeck is my favorite writer of all time and Of Mice and Men and East of Eden are my favorite books of all time. Both are beautiful and masterfully told.

12. I’ve had this meal at David Chang’s restaurant in NYC and I’ve made this meal from scratch in my own kitchen. It’s SO easy, and you should totally make it, too.

13. Confession: I’m not really into travel.

14. Confession 2: I’m one of those freaks without pets. (But soon to change if my kids have anything to do with it.)

15. Speaking of, I have two little daughters, Addy and Lily. They are the absolute apples of my eye, and even though they are only now showing up on this list, they are and will forever be number one in one million ways.

16. I believe in making your own happiness, creating your own contentedness, and living mindfully in the present.

17. My favorite word used to be disingenuous, and then it was plum, and now it is remarkable. Please don’t psychoanalyze that.

18. For my least favorite word, please consult the 2015 SMHS yearbook. Hint: it’s a colloquilism for potato. Ugh, I’m gagging just thinking of it.

19. Here are a few of my favorite ladies-man lines from Shakespeare:
“Madam, you have bereft me of all words.
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.”

20. Students say either Zooey Deschanel or Tina Fey would play me in a movie. What does this mean?

21. Sometimes – I play rap music really loud on my way to school, I harmonize with the last few notes of Happy Birthday, I’m still required to recite the names of the Beatles for my dad (an important skill from my childhood), I shamelessly dance to Justin Beiber with my kids, and I still jam out to CDs I had in high school.

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Mrs. Hilliard

AP Literature & STEM Academy Teacher at Spring Mills High School | Believer in the small, beautiful thing | WVCTE http://www.wvcte.com | Contributing writer at https://movingwriters.org

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