The to do list

Stress level is high yet again. Blood pressure is following suit.

To do list:
1. Finish averaging grades
2. Fill in report cards
3. Prepare for district walk-through
4. Prepare for grading of grade book
5. Write Science unit test
6. Complete graduate class paper
7. Prepare for parent-teacher conferences
8. Get substitute for a training on Wednesday
9. Call doctor to get a physical because blood pressure was too high

And these are all things are not part of the usually weekly list like completing lesson plans, detention duty, conferencing on portfolios, and creating PowerPoint presentations.

Which Serenity character are you?

I like that I got Zoe, and Dustin got her husband, Wash...Perfect fit (for all of us.)
Your results:
You are Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)
Dependable and trustworthy.
You love your significant other and
you are a tough cookie when in a conflict.

Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 75% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 75% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 75% Wash (Ship Pilot) 60% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 55% Inara Serra (Companion) 45% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 35% River (Stowaway) 35% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 20% Alliance 20% A Reaver (Cannibal) 0%

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

Weekly Review

The week began with the news that Kelly, my sister-in-law, had to have emergency eye surgery. Luckily everything went great, and Kelly and the baby are doing great. Her eye is swollen, but it is not bruised. My mom and step-dad came into town, and it was nice having dinner together a couple times this week.

School went by quickly. I figure everyday before state testing and the portfolios due date are going to speed by. I wish I had more time to teach everything I needed to. My grade book is due to my principal on Tuesday to be graded. Pretty ironic to grade a grade book. My report cards and parent/teacher conferences are on Thursday. Unfortunately, I have a huge stack of papers to grade before those due dates. I hate that my days off are going to used for work.

This week has been spring break at EKU. It has been nice to not have any homework. Next week I have a big assignment due as well. I hope I can get everything done.

Tomorrow we are headed to Louisville to see The Blue Man Group. I am very excited!

Keep my family in your thoughts.

Please keep my sister-in-law, brother, and their child in your thoughts tomorrow. She is having emergency eye surgery. They are trying to keep the retinal for disconnecting from the eye. It is a complicated because as many of you know she is six months pregnant. They will have to put her under for a couple of hours, but luckily she will be able to go home that day. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Family-filled weekend

Quick run down of this past weekend's events:

Friday:
River Dance with Dustin. It was a great show! Awesome dancers from all over the world.

Saturday:
Joint 75th b-day parties for my grandparents. It was great. Yummy food provided by mom. Lots of desserts.

Sunday:
Lunch with my dad, step-mom and sisters. My sisters are growing up to fast. The oldest is in the height of her middle school years at the age of 12. I believe she is now taller than me and brilliant in school. The little one is 8 and finishing up 3rd grade. She is full of spunk and very proud of her no-hands flip that she can do on the trampoline. My dad is applying for jobs in Germany again. Is it bad that I hope he doesn't get any so that I can watch my sisters grow up?

Success...barely

I worked several hours on my encyclopedia assignment. The downside was that I could not access one of the mandatory encyclopedias from my internet at home. I had to wait until today after school to finish the assignment. Once it was finished and a whoppin' 9 pages, the problem was, the guidelines said it had to be double spaced and only 3-5 pages. Luckily my professor didn't set any other guidelines. So I changed the font size to 11 and the right and left margins to 0.75 inches. After some maneuvering, my final paper was exactly 5 pages. And I got it submitting at 6:15 with a 6:30 deadline. Needless to say I am glad next week is spring break for EKU!

School news is that I had a girl who may or may not have hit, slapped, shoved, and kicked about 6 students from 5th grade. It's a mystery since "no one" did anything wrong, and "no one" started it. I wish "no one" would transfer schools.

On the home front, Dustin and I are going to see Riverdance tomorrow. I am psyched! Also, we are going to my grandparent's joint 75th birthday party. This party is going to be massive with over 100 people. My poor mom is organizing and cooking the meal for it. She is super stressed. I feel for her.

That's about it here. I want pizza, but my diet says no. :(

Too Much Work

This is one of those weeks where I have so much to do, I see no light at the end of the tunnel. Tomorrow I have a huge paper (that I haven't started) where I have to critique three different kinds of encyclopedias. (sounds exciting, huh?) Tomorrow after my lovely faculty meeting, I'll be working on it all evening.

If I don't finish, I have three choices. 1. Skip sleep until it is complete. (This is too hard on my body to do and not really a choice.) 2. Finish as quickly as I can on Thursday after school before the 6:30 due date. Or 3. Take a day off of school to do my master's class homework.

Its pretty bad that I may have to take off work to do more work. Wish me luck...

I am trying to find a different way to relax and release stress. Here's what I've tried: taking a bath, watching TV, reading, making lists, listening to soothing music, and napping.
Any suggestions on something new?

tidbits

Randomness abounds...

I like to mix syrup with peanut butter, and dip blueberry waffles in it. Yummy :)

I'm enjoying watching House on DVD.

Grading open responses gets old.

What's going on?

I honestly never know what to type when I blog. So many blogs I read are interesting and insightful (i.e. Steph and Chris, Erin, Mike, Scott.) However, mine is usually just rants about school. So I'm going to try to stick to what is going on in my neck of the woods, including random thoughts and moments.
So here we go....

The highlight of my school day was when one of my students decided to use a permanent marker and make a mustache on a piece of scotch tape. He then wore the mustache (that honestly perfectly fit over his top lip) throughout my reading lesson. I decided it honestly wasn't worth trying to tell the kid to take it off due to some defiant issues he has. So I told him it looked cool and went on teaching.

Random thoughts...
I like rain in the daytime.
Gingerbread chai rocks.
I need to find a new way to release stress. I keep internalizing it, and it is effecting my body.
I need to connect with my friends more.
Portfolios + 9 and 10 year olds = burn out
Firefly was too great of a show to cancel.

New guilty pleasure

My new guilty pleasure is Grey's Anatomy.

It's Not Easy Being Green.

Dustin got this really great book that has quotes by and about Jim Henson. This one really spoke to me.

"Usually adolescence is a time when kids feel that the world is doing it to them, whether it's their parents doing it to them or their teachers doing it or their other friends doing it to them, and that they are the victim of all of this. Somewhere in here, you have to learn that you're not the victim, but instead you're the one that's doing it. That moment is sometimes a long slow realization or sometimes it's turning on a light switch. All of a sudden you realize that you are the person who has control of your life." -Jim

Boobie Zoo

This is one of my new favorite quotes from "How I Met Your Mother."

Robin: Bras suck. They're so confining and unnatural.
Lily: Yeah, they're like a boobie zoo.

Finished

Last night at about eleven o'clock, I uploaded my final research paper for my master's class. I am FINALLY done with this horrible class. All day I'll be singing,"I'm done with my class. I'm done with my class" to any Christmas tune I hear!

Working Woes

I had a pretty good week where I felt like my students were really learning. Then after school, right before the weekend was about to begin, my bi-polar, fun-sucking boss decided to have a meeting with some of the teachers that ruined my day. Immediately after the announcement of the meeting, I roll my eyes thinking, "Please, let me just have my weekend in peace." She proceeds to talk down to 9 teachers; 4 of which have more experience that she does. The whole stupid meeting was over our preferences in how we want to use laptops in our classroom. And when she asked our opinion, we were told we were wrong (I didn't know opinions could be wrong.) I wish she would just tell us what she wanted us to do and not asked us what we thought. Then our own opinions wouldn't have been belittled.

Now that I've vented, I'm going to have a wonderful school-free weekend (except for my own homework in my master's class, but that is a whole other vent.)

Decorating

I absolutely love decorating my home for Christmas. Dustin and I have spent the past two evenings putting up the tree and other decorations. We have so much that we even have decor in the bathrooms. I don't care though. There is just something about sitting in my living room, the lights from the Christmas tree glowing and drinking hot chocolate next to my husband. It makes me want to skip grading papers, skip doing my own homework, and skip going to school all together. I just want to enjoy my surroundings.

On a side note..... the answer to my vague riddle of people's names changing....

I going to be an Aunt, my brother a dad, my sister-in-law a mom, and parents will by grandparents. Oh, I can't wait to spoil my little niece or nephew! Now I just have to count down to July!

Holiday movies

These are movies I can't wait to watch around the holidays:
1. Love Actually
2. Home Alone
3. Serendipity
4. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
5. Rent
6. Polar Express
7. Miracle on 34th Street (I like the Mara Wilson version... she's too cute!)
8. A Charlie Brown Christmas

Faeries

I have thought for a while of being a teen or children's book writer or reviewer. I love them. Dustin talked me into finally writing down some of my ideas that I have for a faerie world. Maybe one day, I'll write a complete story. Until then, I'll just keep dreaming.

Its been a while...

I realized that I hadn't posted in 4 months. For as much as I love reading other people's blog, I figure I should contribute. What to say today...

School is OK... but very time consuming. I am putting in about 50-60 hours a week, and I still can't keep up. I guess this is just part of the job. At least, I really do have a great group of kids who work their butts off for me.

Graduate school sucks... Besides the fact that I have about 12 hours of homework a week, my most recent set of directions are very unclear. It is stressful when trying to complete assignments and you honestly don't have a clue where to begin. I'll have 15 hours of my masters in Library Science complete after this class is over. I'll still have 25 hours to go.

Most exciting news... I have very, very awesome news to report. However, unfortunately, I have to wait until the weekend if over to disclose. Can you guess? I'll give you a hint... some people's names will change. :0)

Help Name Our New Car

Dustin and I bought a new car! We are so excited! We are still getting used to driving a 5-speed, but we'll get better. My family has always liked to name our cars. Let us know if you have any ideas for a name.

Overwhelmed

Right now I feel overwhelmed with thoughts and feelings. I thought maybe if I typed them all out I could sort through them.

First, I found out this weekend that my grandma has cancer. She'll start chemo August 1. I'm so overwhelmed with fear and sadness I don't know what to do. I always thought of her as a strong, exciting woman. She is so lively and fit. She takes dance lessons at her church, travels out of the country every year with plans to go to Ireland in the fall. And ironically she sews many scarves every year for cancer patients to wear. It just blows my mind that she has cancer.

The rest of my list seems so petty, but I guess they are still in my mind.

I wrecked Dustin's car last Sunday with him, my brother and sister-in-law in the car. Luckily besides some bumps and bruises we are all fine. On the interstate a dog ran out a few cars ahead of us and everyone swerved and slammed on the breaks. Needless to say, I couldn't slam quick enough and hit the truck in front of us. Our car was totaled the truck had a small ping in the bumper. So now, Dustin and I will be looking for a new car soon. We will be tight on money since we've been living without a car payment for a little while. At least Dustin will get to drive a newer car soon.

My dad, stepmom, and sisters have moved back to Elizabethtown from Germany. Holidays just got even busier, if that was even possible.

I'm taking my second degree brown belt test next Monday...One week and counting.

School starts in a month. I'm excited so far. My goal for the year is to be less stressed.