So Much for That

Remember here when I said this week was going to be a Blogapalooza? Yeah, well, that clearly didn't happen. Why? Well, let's review how this week went.

Monday- Over the weekend, we discovered that a student has Tourrette syndrome. The catch is that the parents don't want anyone to know or talk to the kid about it, so his teacher had been getting on him because of his singing outbursts. Well, as I discovered this weekend, making a big deal out of the situation makes it worse. So Monday was spent talking to other administrators and the teacher about the issue.

Tuesday- Report card update didn't happen as planned, so I spent hours on e-mail and the phone with the database people. Now, we have a full-time database administrator, so why was I the one making these calls? I have no idea but it still irritates me that people can't do their own jobs. The good part of today was that I got to have lunch with my friend.

Wednesday- We finally got report cards printed. Well, I did. My admin still couldn't generate them, so I had to print to PDF and then she physically printed them and took them to the post office. Unfortunately, on my way home I talked to my husband and he said Ginger had been throwing up all day. Oh no! I left a VM on the vet tech line, but by 10:00, they still hadn't called me back. So I called the office again, went through the front desk, and ended up at the office by 10:20. I was there until midnight and Ginger had to spend the night because she had something in her tummy. The x-ray couldn't tell what it was, and all the toys were accounted for. I didn't sleep well that night.

Thursday- I woke up at 6:00 and called the vet right away to check on Ginger. The tech said there had been no vomiting overnight, and that the vet would x-ray her again and call me soon. By 7:30 the vet called and it looked like whatever had been in her tummy had passed. Thursday was actually a normal day! There were some other folks from my department around, so I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I did get some work done. I also finally made it to the bank... something I've needed to do for days. I picked Ginger up on my way home, and we had a quiet evening at home. $600 poorer, but at least everyone was ok.

Friday- My day started with getting up at 5:00 to give Ginger her medicine before we started our feeding schedule for the day. When I walked into my office, I immediately got a phone call from a mother who was livid about her daughter's summer school grade. The kid got a B-. Um, hello. That's a good grade in the upper school. She even began threatening to withdraw her kid from school because clearly a bad grade in Ethics means her kid can only get C's in "real" classes. Let's not acknowledge that the course was taught by the head of the Upper School and was this child's first foray into high school classes and expectations. Then my afternoon teacher talked to me and said she thought she had food poisoning and might not be able to teach. I didn't have time to teach her class! I had to take care of a bunch of stuff because I leave for San Antonio and a week-long conference. Thank goodness she was able to keep it together so I could get out of town.

Saturday(today)- I have not really gone outside yet. It's way too hot. I think I heard the news say it was almost 90 a few minutes before 7:00! At home I've been doing 1000 loads of laundry, starting to pack for tomorrow, and just getting a little more quality time with all my furbabies. DH should be home soon too. I'm thinking about getting takeout from the Shaved Duck for dinner. He's been craving pulled pork and coleslaw. I've heard their mac'n'cheese is really good too. I also need to grab a few things from Target. While I've been working at home today, I've had Cake Boss on in the background. I've never watched that show before, but it is pretty entertaining. In one episode this crazy bride comes to the bakery the day before her wedding to see her cake. She HATES it, so what does she do? Grabs icing and starts putting random icing blobs all over it! OMG. I couldn't believe he didn't scream at this girl AND made her a new cake. When he dropped off the new cake, the bride wouldn't even talk to him. What a bitch. I'm amazed by how much they all fight though. It makes Charm City Cakes look sooooo calm. :)

Don't know how much I'll post this week, but hopefully I learn a lot.

Confession

I am a teacher. Everyone thinks teaching must be so great because you get summers off. Guess what. I've never taken a summer off. For years I ran a horse camp. That was fun, but I just got tired of all the drama.

Now I run the summer school, and I am loving it! I was thinking about that as I drove to work today. What would I do with three months of vacation? I honestly can't say. I would like to think my house would be spotless, my husband constantly treated with gourmet dinners, and my butt finally kicked into shape because I spent hours at the gym each day. In reality though, I think I would probably just end up blogging a lot and watching many episodes of the original 90210. I'm such a loser. I just get a lot of pleasure out of my work. It really is a career for me.

The pace of summer school is definitely different though. Way more laid back, no grading, etc. Plus this week I've been working on getting all moved in to my new office. I'll take lots of pictures in the coming weeks to show you the finished product. I wish I had taken a few of the original state of affairs. It was disgusting. I bet I spent 12 solid hours just cleaning the place. ::shudder::

Bonus Time!

So I get a bonus next month. Go me! While the majority of it will certainly be allocated sensibly along with my sizable tax refund, I have decided that a fraction of it needs to go towards something(s) fun for me. My friend Joline suggested purses and shoes, but the reality is that I have lots of those. I do need new running shoes, but those aren't exactly fun.

Anyway, I know that I will be visiting Angie for something shiny from their Lagos collection. I always wear a watch and spend a lot of time on the computer, so I'm thinking about something like this.


Or maybe this.


But, I may not stop there. Have you seen the Toy Watch watches? Yeah they're trendy and all, but I have to admit that I like them. A lot. So I may head over to Nordstrom too and get one. It will have to depend on how it looks on me, but I do think it would be fun. And I could pretend it was a practical choice since I wear a watch every day. Ha!


Just as a side note. I went to the Nordstrom web page, and what is in the cover rotation? Yeah, the watches themselves! It's a sign. I only wish a smaller jeweler carried them so I could shop local for it.

Quick Work Vent

In Chemistry, I gave kids the option of choosing a take home test, in-class test, or project. I outlined that the take home would require synthesis of information and explanation of concepts, the project would be environmental chemistry, and the in-class test would be a normal test. Almost all of them chose the take home test. Fast forward to this week. I handed out the test on Monday. Unfortunately, the day the test was handed out, I had a meeting at the Science Center and another teacher was in class that day. Well, he let the kids start complaining about how impossible the thing was. Well now that whole section is freaking out and saying that they can't possibly complete it and asking to take the in-class test. I'm saying no because I don't think that's fair to the kids who have been prepping for the test properly all week.

Now, about the test. Guess what? All of the problems are from their problem solving packets! Do you think any of them have bothered to look at those? No way! How do I know this? Because none of them have said it, and when they've come complaining to me, they don't have them with them. All I can do is give them tools, and if they chose not to use them, well, then they are just not all there.

I do love my job. And I do like my students and think they are, overall, good kids. But the laziness that I see and unwillingness to stretch their brains even a little is appalling.

Work Vent

We decided to do a project instead of a final exam in Biology this year. We began discussions of this before spring break and started talking about tentative plans. We set deadlines that included having a procedure and materials list by the end of school today.

Of the 5 Biology teachers, guess how many have done work on the project this week. Two! One of them is me. Of those same 5 Biology teachers, how many do you think have kids who have completed procedures and materials lists? You guessed it, 2 again. I think a third may have made some progress, but he has not been communicating with us at all this week.

This one stupid woman just sent an e-mail about how her kids will never be ready to start experimenting next week and what are we going to do about presenting at the end. I am in serious need of a margarita right now.

Review

I got my review at work today. This is the first time I've had a formal review process. At my last school, well, let's just say things were a little looser. Anyway, the meeting went great! My paperwork was awesome, and the only real criticism was about lab setup, but it is something I can easily change and improve on.

Overall, a good day.

My Day

5:45- Out of bed, about 30 minutes late.
6:30- Out the door, right on time!
7:00- Arrive at work and get a little grading done.
7:30- First meeting until 8:45.
9:00- First class.
12:30- 30 minutes for lunch because of student meetings. Lunch was spent talking about registration issues.
3:10- Last class finishes.
3:30- Out the door to go home, let out dogs.
4:00- Home, dogs go out, computer gets opened again. More work.
6:00- Make dinner, play with puppy in last of the daylight, finish dinner, eat.
6:30- Back to work.
8:45- Finish work and alumnae volunteer stuff. Begin answering e-mails that have come in in the past 5 hours.
9:00- Blog and turn off computer.

How many hours was that? I even had to cancel my workout at the gym. Boo.

I Enjoy Being Right

It looks like I'll be teaching AP Biology next year. The woman who was teaching it is not happy about the fact that I'm ready to put my stamp on it pretty much today. A small e-mail skirmish began this morning regarding my feeling that the students really need to have a meaningful summer assignment if we are going to get through all the material. J, the current teacher, wants to go on assigning a fluffy science type book that they can all talk about on Opening Day. Well, the Science Department Chair came right out and stood behind my take, and J is caving already.

Being right makes my day a little brighter. :)

Pop Quiz

I've gotten half a dozen e-mails at home today asking me how to do the following problem.
Given that you can dissolve 50g of sugar in 100 g of water, how many grams of sugar can you dissolve in 200g of water?

::blink blink::
Really? I mean, I try to not make judgments about my student's intelligence, but this is ridiculous!

Sorry, had to vent somewhere.

7:02

Today, I arrived at work at 7:02 a.m. Guess how many decent parking places were left? One. That's a little creepy. We are all such early risers!

Now I'm off to the all staff meeting to find out what our raise will be next year. Last year there were no raises because of the economy. As my friend said, I already got a raise based on how little I made last year.

Back at Work

Break felt way too short. At least this is a 4 day week, and we have MLK day off in a couple weeks. PS, it is ridiculously cold. On my way to work this morning, the ambient temperature was 9 with a windchill of -11! That's right NEGATIVE 11. Ugh. The high for the whole week is supposed to be 26 or some such thing. I am dreaming of a burst water main or something. :)

In related news, a new semester has started, and I feel like the new kid all over again. I teach a couple sections of each class, and everyone else has been teaching these classes for years. They reference activities and stuff without me having any idea what they are talking about. It's like the Charlie Brown teacher thing when all the kids here is "wha wha wha wha." Oh well. It will all right itself once we get rolling.

I hope everyone had a very happy New Year and is staying as warm as possible.

Job Interview

No, I'm not quitting. Despite the stress and exhaustion I'm feeling right now, I do like where I am. In fact, I like it so much that tomorrow I'm going to talk the the Head of School about the possibility of taking a more active role in the summer academy.

My current desire is really to move in to administration and make a bigger difference than just being another faculty member. I'm young and obviously very new to the school. That being said though, I have good ideas and fresh insights that I think could be great. We'll see. I spent some time yesterday talking to the person who is stepping down from the post.

Any spare vibes would be appreciated.

Fascinating

We're doing an activity on the history of DNA. It is a scavenger hunt on the timeline of DNA's discovery. One of the questions asks about the first test tube baby, and the kids asked if test tube babies existed anymore. They were shocked when I told them that we just called it fertility treatments now. Kind of fun!

They then proceeded to tell me what the envisioned test tube babies being.

On pictured them like sea monkies:


Another thought it really was like this:

How to Process

I don't even know how to process, so please excuse the impending verbal diarrhea. We just got our student evaluations back. Overall I got good reviews, but some of the comments were just ridiculous. (Yes, I get it that I'm letting teenagers get under my skin.) There were definitely some kids who made constructive comments, and I will do my best to listen to them. Others though really just indicated that they either a. hated me, or b. thought that everything I did was crap. One kid even said I was "unfit" to teach them. Now, if you look at the percentages, this is a very small number, but I have no idea how all this information is processed.

The reality is that I try my best and work hard to help all of these kids. Do I think Chemistry moves too fast for most of them? Yes! What can I do about it though? There are 8 sections, and I have to stick to the same syllabus as everyone else since we give the same exam! Would they rather I slow down and then they not have all the material for the final? I'm just frustrated and worried because this is my first year here and I don't know what will come of these.

I really do think I generally do a good job, but I'm irritated and hurt right now.

Church

Church last night was amazing. I mean, I am always happy when I go, but last night was one of those nights when I really felt like the minster was speaking to me. He's currently working on a sermon series on parables. That's interesting but not totally noteworthy. However, he was talking about making commitments and following through with them. He spoke about how OCD people say yes to everything, and then feel so overwhelmed that everything they do is halfway. That is so me. I cannot say no, and I run around feeling overwhelmed all the time. I was crying in my car the other day about this exact problem! It felt so good to hear someone else talk about the problem, and I really left feeling a sense of peace.

Am I still overcommitted? Oh yeah. But I feel a renewed strength in terms of approaching everything with all my heart and then remembering to say no when new tasks are presented to me.

Happy Monday!

Parents and Their Kids

I've used this post title before, but perhaps it should become a regular feature. We had conferences for the past day and a half. One boy started off the year in a bad way. He wasn't doing his homework and his grade after the first month or so was an F. Recently though he has been busting his butt and trying to improve. In fact, he did a presentation in class earlier this week that was OUTSTANDING! Nevertheless, starting out with such a low grade means that his current average is still in the D's. The conference starts and I am praising this kid for all his recent work. Mom is pleased, kid looks like he's basking in the praise, but dad is sitting at the back of his chair with his arms crossed. About 7-8 minutes in to our 10 minute conference, dad speaks up and says something to the effect of his kid should be doing better since he was on track to take calculus in high school etc. He then says that if his son doesn't get an A in my class "he isn't my son." WTF? Who says that to their kid? In addition, who says that to their kid in the middle of a parent-teacher conference?

I told the dean about the comments, and he asked me to e-mail him the information because they were "tracking that type of behavior." It sounds like there is a real fear that dad is abusive and the school is trying to stay organized. I just wanted to hug that poor boy. I hope he knows that he can trust me and that I want what's best for him.

Random Musing

After high school, I worked at Burger King. I was a manager,and the pay was pretty good for that point in my life. After college, I waited tables at Bennigan's. Again, not exactly upscale, but I made good money.

Well, I took some time off after grad school and before I started teaching. I looked for jobs waiting tables, and my first criterion was that I refused to wear a name tag.

Why was I thinking about this today? Well, the school I'm teaching at now requires all adults to wear a nametag. So basically I have totally backslid in my job requirements. Ironic I think. Happy Monday!

Yup, I'm still here

I'm not going to lie, I love my job, but I cannot wait until volleyball is over. I miss having time at home with my family, and, as geeky as it sounds, I miss blogging.


This week has been the worst ever. Tuesday was long, there were problems with our busses leaving our away game, and one of my players got hurt. Then Wednesday I was in a departmental meeting all day. Yes, it was super long. I thought it would be a positive experience overall though, and, at the end of the day, things just got horrible. Finally, last night our new puppy's foster mom called and said that he probably has a parasite. He is under treatment for it, and he doesn't show any signs of being sick, but I feel sorry for him. It also makes me so mad that people are so irresponsible with their animals. The mother dog as so infested with parasites that she passed them on to her puppies. It is just so wrong.

Sorry for the downer post. Hopefully I'll be able to return to my perky self soon.

Random Tuesday

Little blog, it's been a long time. I've missed you! Lots has been happening, and I just haven't had any spare time. Here is some randomness though.

• There is an adorable doggie who gets walked every morning. One day I may try to steal him on my way to work. :)

• Speaking of work, I LOVE my job!!!!!! I am busy as sin, but I am happy.

• I saw a car with a wheel broken off in the middle of a parking aisle at Target on Sunday. How does that happen?

•I never have time to get to the gym. I thought I had found a way to do Tuesdays and Thursdays, but this week we have games both days. ::sigh::

• Our first vball match is tonight. Go Rams!

Week 1 So Far

I started my new school this week. Things are going pretty well so far, but I feel totally overwhelmed.

Monday we had new faculty meetings from 8:00-12:00. They served breakfast. Then from 12:00-1:00 we had lunch. From 1:00-3:30 we had various meeting with department heads and other business type folks. At 3:30, I then moved on to volleyball tryouts. Those lasted until 6:30. At that time, all coaches had a dinner meeting. So, if you're still with me, that means I ate all three meals on campus! Whew. Long day.

Tuesday I had time with my mentor. We thought we would be able to use the time to lesson plan (she teaches the same courses I do,) and work on various questions I had. Well, we met with the Head of the Upper School who gave us a HUGE list of people I needed to go see. There went that morning. So I worked on all that until 12:00, then had lunch. At 1:30 I had a meeting with the activities person, and at 2:00 the volleyball staff met to review the players from the day before. Day 2 of tryouts ran from 3:30-6:30 again.

Wednesday we had the first all faculty and staff meeting of the year. This was both embarrassing and hilarious. Embarrassing because I had to get up in front of the ENTIRE school to be introduced. Hilarious because of something the Head of School said. She was polling people on what they had done over the summer. As she mentioned activities, she had people stand. The activities included things like going to the beach, seeing friends and family, etc. Well, at one point she asked if people had had a baby or volunteered to help make a baby! The whole room fell apart. The Head turned about a million shades of red couldn't go on for a while. It certainly broke up the monotony. After that meeting, I got my textbooks for my classes and then had 30 minutes to work on my practice plan for the last day of volleyball tryouts. The afternoon was spent in CPR training, and we finished volleyball tryouts at 6:30.

Phew. That is a long few days. What I really want are some hours to work on lesson planning and finishing my room. I'm also pissed because my weight is up this morning. I'm sure that part of it is stress, but part of it is that I haven't been eating as well this week because I've been so busy. Damn. I'm off to work out with my trainer though, so hopefully I can get back on track.