Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Thankful

Today I brought my United States History class to a welcome home ceremony for some local soldiers (they were in Afghanistan for the past year). It's one of the greatest things I've ever witnessed. There was so much joy and emotion - everyone made it back safely :) Wow! A great day to be an American! Sometimes it's hard to tell if things make an impact on high school students but today I know made an impression on them.

AMAZING! I'm so thankful to have brave, courageous soldiers serving our country and protecting us and our freedoms. THANK YOU!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The first break

We just about made it to the first break of the year -- three more days of work. Life sure is good. :)

I don't really have a post in me but here are a few randoms
  • Dave worked this weekend but he's on his way back so I have a date tonight :)
  • I scheduled my first formal observation with the principal the other day. It's going to be on December 1st. It's nice to get those over with and relax and enjoy being a teacher.
  • Did I mention we have a contract? We settled a few weeks ago and it's the first one since I started working at my school. It wasn't the best but it sure is nice having one.
  • I have two assignments left to complete for my online class. One is due next weekend and the last one the following weekend. It'll be nice to have a month or so off from doing that kind of homework.
  • What's with this weather? and the apples on the trees. Has anyone noticed that - no leaves left but tons of apples still on the trees?
  • Evenings this time of year are so cozy. They're long because it gets dark so early but I enjoy that when I'm inside and warm...
  • Have you started your Christmas shopping? I've been working on it.
  • I'm jealous of Katz, Heidi, and Greta. They're going east for five days on Thursday. They get to see David, Peter, Jim, Lynne, Braedy :) :), Bob, and Maria.

ENJOY your week!!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Happy Opening Day

Oops, it's been awhile. I've been really busy but today I have some free time so here I am...

For a minute I'm going to tell you what I've been up to in the last week. Wednesday was Veteran's Day and our school puts on a ceremony for the local veterans and community as a whole. That's one of the jobs of the high school social studies teacher, so that means me. This is my second year doing it and I really wanted to make sure it was heartfelt and meaningful so that the veterans could see that so many of us are really appreciative and thankful to them. It's a big task because you don't want it to be "so-so" or "okay." Needless to say, I was completely focused on that until it was over at noon on Wednesday. It went really really well. My students did an awesome job ~ I was so proud of them. There were many different pieces that had to come together to make it successful and all of the practice and preparation was worth it because it all did come together.

That was the big thing for the week, but once that was over I had to focus on training some of my students for a presentation the principal wanted for some parents on Thursday and Friday. Then I had two more presentations to do on Thursday afternoon and parent-teacher conferences were Thursday evening and Friday afternoon. Plus all the regular teaching, preparing, and grading. I was exhausted on Wednesday, hit a wall on Thursday, and by Friday my head wasn't really into it anymore.

Then Dave came home :) It's been a great weekend!! He was away for two weeks this time but might be here for longer than a few days (I'm crossing my fingers).

Michelle was up here for a week with the babies. It was so wonderful coming home from work to hold them and visit with Michelle. She went back today.

Now, happy hunting to anyone who is going out.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Week 9

Tomorrow's the last day of the marking period... 1 down, 3 to go :) But that means that my mile-high stack of things to be graded has to somehow disappear and end up as scores in my gradebook. Students have been scrambling trying to turn in work, projects, or tests that they've missed since, oh, about September 8th. Every time I feel like my pile is going down, it goes back up. I'm definitely getting somewhere after some quality time marking with my green pen and I'll gladly put it away after this weekend.

Except not for that long because it'll be a new start and I should (at least try to) keep up.
That's all for now.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

... : )

Dave and I went on a "date" to NYC on Saturday. We were in Illinois visiting his sister and her family and we flew out early yesterday morning and got back late yesterday evening. It sure was a whirlwind day but so awesome!

Central Park in the fall. It's the first time I've seen it with the colored leaves -- beautiful!


I got to show him lots of my favorite places including this, the Brooklyn Bridge. This was our first stop - we walked across from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

I also received an awesome phone call on Friday night. Jim and Lynne had their baby!! A week early and everyone's doing great. I can't wait to see the little guy but I'm not sure when it's going to be.

What a great weekend!