Mrs. Baragar is the tiny teacher who packs a lot of punch.  When she wants to she can blow you away with her “teacher voice”.  However, no matter how loud she can yell, she can be patient and kind as well.  The funny thing is that Mrs.Baragar is actually more like you students, especially with video and computer games.

The first question I asked was what she does in her spare time, she told me “I like to play on the computer, do scrapbooking, gardening, playing video games, and ride on my husband’s Harley.”  Wondering what games catch a computer whiz’s imagination?  Well, she likes to play “Age of Empires”, and “The Sims”.  Mrs. Baragar also likes to play on the website addictinggames.com. She told me “I like to play Bejeweled and,” she paused and looked for her other favorite game, then said, “Pacxon.”

The next question I asked her was if she had any pets. She said that she has “1 stupid cat. Her name is Sparky, and we call her that because she thinks she is a dog. What she loves to do is play mousy fetch but can become somewhat of a jerk especially when she has it and wants you to throw it. Even when she is asleep as soon as we say mousy she comes running to play with her little toy mouse.”  So although she calls her “stupid” she means it in the most loving way possible! I then asked her what scares her; she said “chickens and moths and pretty much anything that has wings.”

She told me that when she was a little girl she used to live out on a farm that had a lot of chickens; many childhood nightmares later, this created a lifelong fear of poultry.  As for the moths, well, come one, they’re just creepy, plain and simple.

I asked her about the most exciting thing that’s happening in her life right now and she said “Hopefully I’ll get a baby girl from China in 2010.”  I can only assume how hard it would be to contain that much excitement for so long.  We’re all rooting for you Mrs. Baragar!

On a less serious note, I asked what the latest movie she had seen was.  She told me it was 300.  She didn’t specify whether it was the love story or the action that appealed to her.  Judging from her video/computer game choices, I’m guessing it was the action!

I then asked her about her favorite movie actor and actress.  She said “my favorite actor is George Clooney not cause he is a good actor but cause he has gray hair!” she thinks that gray hair is “hot”. Then she said that she couldn’t think of an actress so I told her about Wanda Sykes, and after telling her a little about Wanda Sykes she said “I will say her cause Cody said so!”.  Who knew I could be so influential?
 Now if you are in her class she loves to play around in Photoshop by merging two pictures together, for example: George Bush and a pig.  So look forward to seeing who she can mutate this year. 

I asked her about her dream job and she said “I want to work on the computer and have a quiet room with no noise.” So if you are reading this in her class, actually be quiet for her and maybe she’ll give you free time.

Next, I went to the topic dear to any teenager’s heart…food.  I asked what she loves to eat and she told me “I eat at Earl’s and order Hunan noodles or go to Boston pizza and order a vegetarian pizza.”   I later learned from an secret source that her real weak spot is Dairy Queen Blizzards.  Now you know the easy way into her heart. Something that may surprise some students is the fact that she is a vegetarian.  Maybe it all stems back to the chicken phobia?! 

The last question I had for Mrs. Baragar was what was her favorite memory of all time? She said, “Riding with my husband on his motorcycle all the way to Ontario.”

By the end of this interview, Mrs. Baragar revealed just how complex she truly is.