Monday, October 29, 2007

fall, finally

Its finally gotten down to reasonable temperatures. It was 37 as I drove to work this morning and leaving the door open is significantly cooling down my apartment (which is still hanging out in the 70's without the heat ever going on).

This weekend brought parents. Friday night should have been Phantom of the Opera accompanied by organ in the music hall in town, but it got inexplicably canceled. Saturday was rainy, so we decided to go shopping in 3 states (Newburyport, MA, NH liquor store and Kittery, ME). Sunday provided entertainment via our musically and rhythmically talented students, interspersed with boredom via politicians announcing all the hard work they put into building our school. Either way, its nice to be officially open and construction essentially over.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

electric

That title makes me think of the electric slide...

Since I live alone and have nothing better to do, I've been working really hard to drop my energy use. I now use less than 4.1 kwh per day. I can't seem to find averages, but I read someone's blog who was trying to get an apartment smaller than mine down to 5. That makes me feel accomplished!

Monday, October 22, 2007

late october

Yesterday I got a sunburn while regretting my choice in attire (long sleeve shirt and closed toed shoes).

Today I had to stop every single one of my classes to tell them that it is necessary to bring a pencil to class and get out paper when I write something on the board.

Are you really very sure it isn't August?

Saturday, October 20, 2007

life keeps coming

Last weekend saw 5 women living in a 1 bedroom apartment, mine to be exact. It was fun filled but left me rather sleep deprived. This week had my brain feeling scrambled. Between a trip to the library, PSAT testing and an assembly I hardly had any time with my students in the classroom. Somehow I still managed to create a pile of grading for myself though. This weekend has been beautiful- sleep filled with amazing weather. It was in the 70's today so I went for a bike ride and appreciated the colors that come with fall. Late afternoon brought a rainstorm to rinse off my dirt-covered car and mother nature followed it all with a rainbow.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

an entire year

Today one of my students asked if we could play video games on the TV I have in my room. When I said no, he asked if we could during the last week of school. It hit me then, I'm teaching these students for an entire year! June is a really long time from now and I'm the only one teaching them math from now until then. I hadn't realized that I'm in this for the long haul. It appears I'm doing well though, I've covered all but one section of the list I got today of 1st quarter topics. Granted it would have been great to have that list before school started, but at least me making it up as I went along coincided with what the veteran teachers thought would be good.

This weekend is a mini-reunion! Four MHC '07-ers coming to stay in my 1 bedroom apartment. It should be fun times.

Friday, October 05, 2007

weekend, extra large

Yay three day weekend! Its well deserved, but I'm also really excited about whats going on at school and look forward to getting back. Two of my classes started group projects which are decorating the classroom walls and another class is about to start the computer portion of the curriculum.

The best part of my day truly proved to me that I'm an adult. Linens 'n' Things is having a Columbus Day sale, so I went to pick up a comforter. I got a gorgeous $100 set for $40! My bed looks all shiny and nice; especially with the ruffle on the bottom to cover my wire frame. Too bad it was 90 degrees out today and I really won't want to sleep with that on the bed tonight.

I know I'm not too much of an adult because I couldn't drive past Friendly's without getting an Oreo Friend-z. I had a gift certificate which clearly needed to be used up! It did an excellent job of ruining dinner, which I am currently totally unmotivated to make.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

tension

The three day weekend is coming, but not quite soon enough. Tension is running really high at school- among the students and staff. Teachers are building up frustrations at a lot of circumstances beyond our control which leads to them either blowing up at students or venting to me. Students are snapping over little things- two boys started cursing each other out because they were both too lazy to take three steps to retrieve a textbook. Then two girls tried to rip each other apart (literally- pile of hair found on the scene afterward) because one said something about the other in my class. They were considerate enough to wait until they got to the end of the hall before attacking so they wouldn't mess up my classroom. And this was all before lunch! Needless to say I got a bit of an adrenaline rush between anticipation of fights and actually pulling the girls off each other.

I can't wait for Saturday- I get to spend the whole day outside pounding a hammer or something like that. Productive release of energy.

Monday, October 01, 2007

when did Monday happen?

This weekend was awesome. Fun-packed (and therefore lacking in sleep) but completely refreshing. Friend visit, day of outdoor manual labor (Habitat), dinner party and an Italian festival complete with bocce tournament. Plus, I still managed to get enough grading/planning done to be ready for Monday. Monday never happened though. Part way through my first class I got the message that I was due at training for a computer program. I had 2 minutes to tell the substitute how my day works and what he should do with my classes before being whisked off to the computer lab. The training took an entire day and was mostly a waste of my time. I missed team meetings and some sorely needed time at the copier during my prep. I ended the day wondering what had happened. I still feel like I'm floating in time warp. Tomorrow is Tuesday, but it will be more like Monesday- the overlap of everything that should have happened today and that needs to happen tomorrow. Life keeps me on my toes!