Monday, September 28, 2009

Reminder of last year

Today reminded me of how I felt last year every day. I'm thankful it's only the first time this has happened. I got home around 6:45 (early by last year's standards), with my brain completely fried.

I don't handle stress really well and I was completely stressed out today. I wasted over an hour on a problem that I didn't end up fixing. ergh. Plus I'm struggling with some lesson plans for next week and I'm starting some duties for an advising role that I picked up this year.
It's probably not a coincidence that it's cold and dreary out today but I've been looking forward to these cool temperatures. My classroom feels like a furnace on those 60-70-80 degree days so today was a very welcome relief from that.

On a positive note: two problems I asked multiple times to get fixed last year have gotten fixed within the last week! A screw on my projector screen was loose last year and pretty much every time I pulled it down it got looser. I asked a few times to get it fixed, to no avail. This year the students started getting worried that it was going to fall on me (or them) so they started asking the maintenance people to fix it (so did I). One of our maintenance men came and when he pulled it down, it fell on top of him. (not really on top of him - he caught it before it hit him)
Another computer issue was fixed sometime since I left work on Friday. :)

Monday, Monday, Monday. Almost over. Whew.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

It must be fall

Another photograph from our "hike" yesterday. I told them to try to jump and reach the branch above their heads. When they pulled down on it, all the water from the leaves fell onto Heather.

She looks pretty pumped about it, doesn't she?

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Bad judgement/I don't do mud

I think I learned my lesson this time.
For some reason when I see things raised from the ground I like to get on them and jump off... today a couple of my friends and I were exporing in the woods by a waterfall and I saw a tree that was uprooted down a hill and the trunk/base of it was sticking up like three feet. So I decided to jump off. My problem is I didn't check out the landing area before I jumped... and didn't think about the extra couple feet up I was jumping.

It was going great until I landed on a downward sloping sandy/rocky area. on my knee and hands.

Left me a little light-headed and with a massive knee.

and muddy pants/boots.
I've jumped off of things before and missed landings but none hurt quite this bad. Makes a girl feel young (and kind of stupid) again...

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Dave&Karen


A few people have asked for a picture. This is from a couple weeks ago when Dave was up for a week and a half. Just about three more weeks until he's done south of the border. :)

Monday, September 21, 2009

Two days in a row when I'm talking about quitting...

I guess I'm not going anywhere...

The class I'm taking for my master's degree is online and everything is due on Sundays. I procrastinate so that means all yesterday (beautiful) afternoon I was working on homework. After dinner tonight I had the best intentions to come on and get some of my homework done so even if I procrastinate for the rest of the week, at least I'd have some of it done. I went online, checked out some of the discussion posts to see what I have to be thinking about and got completely confused. I guess technically I'm working on my homework because I'm thinking about the questions and discussions I have to reply to. The problem is that right now I don't get the questions so I can't start writing or replying. I'm all about working on critical thinking skills and higher-order thinking and all that jazz. Just not tonight. Maybe tomorrow?

I'll tell myself that I'm working on it because I'm thinking about it. But when it comes down to it, I'll probably be sitting here on my computer trying to formulate somewhat intelligent-sounding responses on Sunday afternoon. Shoot.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Update

I love rock piles. I'm not sure why; maybe it's because I have some great memories of playing on them when I was younger (middle school at Tina's house). Does anyone else have a feeling one way or another about them? I've been asking people lately (recently I noticed that some are disappearing) what they think about rockpiles and I've been getting different thoughts.

Tonight Heather and I went out to a rock pile and took in the surroundings. It was a beautiful night, some great views, and totally relaxing. Pretty awesome.


On our way to the rockpile we contemplated going to the lake to watch the sunset but settled for checking it out as we were driving down the highway.




I've been thinking about quitting my blog. I just haven't felt like updating lately. I've gone through spurts like this before and come back to it so I guess I decided to keep it and see if I come back around.
School's been good. Like I mentioned before, completely different than last year. I get to see the sun and I'm not living in my classroom. I have a more balanced life than all of last year so life is good! There are definitely challenges that I have to work through but there's going to be some every single year I'm a teacher. I'm still getting used to having homework again. I enjoy learning and I liked being a student so it's okay. Just something new to get used to.
That's all. Pretty boring, I know.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

What a difference a year makes

I'm back!

Last week was the first week of school and Dave was in town so I took a little hiatus from this page. He was up here for ten days and for awhile there it didn't feel like long distance. He left this afternoon for one more month in Mexico (3 down, 1 to go!).

So far I can't believe the difference between a first year and second-year teacher. Last year (if you've been reading this for awhile you might remember) I worked from 7:30am until around 8 or 8:30 every night and on the weekends, had no social life and was just plain exhausted most of the time. Last week it felt like a whole new career. I was done by 4:00 every day, things went smoothly, and I didn't have to go in this weekend. I'm all caught up on my grading and I know what I'm doing during every class this week. :) :)
I put in some quality time the last couple weeks of summer so I'd be ready for these first two weeks so next week won't be quite so easy. But I'm loving it :)