Teacher Getting A Lesson

I absolutely love my husband! With a little persuasion I have managed to talk him into creating a history lesson for moi!

A little background information about Sam. Yes, he does have a name other than "hubs!" Ha! I met him back in undergrad at UK. It was our senior year and we were introduced by his sister and my mom who worked together. It was a total set-up. I had no idea that he was going to be there and he said he didn't have a clue either. I thought I was meeting with my mom and a friend for dinner and to go over some information about joining the local Junior League. I also had to babysit right after dinner. So I met mom and her friend at the restaurant and we were chatting and eating an appetizer when Sam walks in with his sister to join us. I had no idea and was so mad that my mom had done this! At the time I had a boyfriend I was seeing that my mom was not really a fan of, so you can understand my surprise and shock at what I was living in that moment. I just remember being really frazzled. He sat diagonal from me and was pretty quiet, until...my mom mentioned that one of my classes was always getting cancelled and she mentioned, jokingly, that she couldn't believe it was cancelled all the time and wondered if it was true.

I remember that very moment as he stopped eating and met my eyes dead on and said, "What's the class?" I told him it was this silly history class all about the Roman Empire. The professor was constantly cancelling after we had already arrived to class. That is when he said he was in the SAME class!

Folks, it was a class of like 25 people because it was a 500+ level class. I have a history minor and he was a history major. He sat in the back of the classroom and I sat in the middle (literally just two tables ahead of him).

That was it for us! We chatted a lot about the class and the frustration with the professor (who continued to cancel classes AFTER I had already arrived to class an was at my desk--thanks TA's for putting a sign on the door AFTER we were all seated and not telling anyone in the room). He said he told his sister he was going to marry me one day that same evening on the phone. He said he vividly remembers it and she thought he was crazy.

The next day when I showed up for class he was waiting for me sitting outside of the classroom on the couch. I knew he was waiting for me (girl intuition and all) but also had a boyfriend and didn't want to even go there. I think I knew he was something special then. I just recall him standing up when he saw me and I gave a wave and went in the classroom to my normal seat next to another boy. The whole time I was chatting with my other friends (who were pretty much all guys) I felt eyes on my back and could see him in my peripheral vision.

You'll never believe what the professor did that fateful day...yep, class was cancelled! As I walked out of the classroom AFTER he had already left he caught me in the hallway. I continued to make my way out of the building as he continued to talk to me. He asked for my number and I gave it to him while also mentioning I had a boyfriend. Apparently that didn't deter him as much as I thought it might.

He called two days later (he said it was a good thing to wait because he didn't want me to think he was too stalkerish) and asked me out for coffee. The funniest thing about this is that I don't drink coffee. Well, I do, I drink the cold "fake" coffee drinks like frappachinos, etc. but this was a local coffee shop, they didn't have any of that. So we both got a coke and talked a lot.

The rest is history! I broke up with my boyfriend a week after I met Sam. We dated for 9 months and then were engaged. We were married in 2009.

It is a pretty crazy story to tell. I had always heard of the whole love at first sight, but never really experienced it. I knew when I met him he was something special. He says he knew that night I was going to be his wife.

Okay, enough of my sappy story. The reasoning I was telling you all this is because my history major husband (who went to law school and is an attorney now) is OBSESSED with the Roman Empire. That was his specialty in college. He doesn't even read "fun books" y'all! All he reads are history books, most of them about this time period. He loves it!

I did manage to persuade him to read The Hunger Games last year. It took a lot of persuading but he relented and really enjoyed all three of them.

One of the units that my 7th grade colleagues taught last year was Hunger Games. They taught the novel and looked at how history was altered. When I met with them this past week they mentioned wanting to go into some more of the Roman Empire with the kids so that they could really see the allusions that the book draws from and make those connections. So little 'ol me mentioned that hubs loves this stuff and I could see if he might be able to help. Needless to say, we were all really excited.

So Sam has agreed to create a historical PowerPoint for me to draw comparisons between Hunger Games and the Roman Empire. Because he has also read the book he started getting really excited and telling me even more connections that he had found when he was reading the books last year that he thought the kids would enjoy. There are a few things that are not middle school appropriate and more suitable for high school discussions, however he has completely agree to help me out!

I am stoked!

We do not plan on teaching this unit until December but I have his creative juices flowing and I want to also pull a lot of informational texts to go along with this historical information.

I probably don't even have to say it, but our Saturday Night Movie was Hunger Games.