Wrap-up

I just looked back at what I was talking about the last few times I blogged and realized there were some cool things that happened at the end of the school year that I haven't mentioned.

The seniors finished :) Well, most of them. They had a big service learning project to do before they were done and after lots of hard work and many extra hours, it turned out pretty good. I learned a lot for next year (the biggest thing is to start it as soon as the term begins and finish as early as possible) so hopefully next year's project will be even better.

We had ZERO snow days the whole year, but to make up for it in the end, we had a power outage day in May (on a beautiful day, no less) and one again in June. It was like a dream having two beautiful spring days off! I got lots of yard work and painting done on my two extra days off.

My students tested well in March so it was fun to get the results back. I told the 11th graders that if the average ACT score for the whole class was higher than last year's average, I'd give them a pizza party. They did it! and collected on the pizza party one afternoon.
I coached a team at a Local History competition and we placed 2nd! I was so proud of my students! The best we had done before that was 7th or 8th so we were really pumped.

Year Three was definitely better than my first and second years so we will see what Year Four brings. If the tenure laws don't change in Michigan, I should have tenure after next year, and I also have to renew my certification to become a Professional teacher (rather than the Provisional teacher I am right now). The tenure thing doesn't mean too much but the re-certification means that I'll have paid thousands of dollars to a university while spending (way too much) lots of time working on higher learning.

Back!

I've tried to post a few times from my phone but that hasn't worked for me. I guess that's my only excuse for taking three months off. Wow, three months.

Happy first day of Summer! Hopefully you're somewhere that is getting summer today. I am - it's 90 degrees here.

It should be a wonderful summer being off for three months, but right in the middle of it I have to take three courses for my Master's Degree. :( I've been looking at the syllabus for each class and all the work I have to do for just one class is looking overwhelming. Not to mention adding the other two. Shoot. The fun starts on June 27 and lasts until August 5th. It doesn't sound right (looking toward the end of the summer), but I might start to really look forward to August 5th.

Aside from that, it's almost our first anniversary. In some ways it feels like we've been married longer than a year because some of those stretches when we were apart went by r e a l l y
s l o w l y. At the same time, a YEAR already?!

We're going to New York for a couple of nights this weekend before we head home for a two week vacation (full of getting stuff done like home repairs, making wood, and tons of homework). We're hoping to camp for four nights in the middle of all that but we'll see. I just may bring my school books with me for some "leisurely," entertaining reading material.

I hope you're all enjoying "summer!"

Mañana

(Tomorrow)

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow and I'm already hoping this week will go by quickly. That doesn't sound like a very good combination already.

Tomorrow we start a new term so I have some new classes. That includes one that I've never taught before so it means lots of work. I'm going to complain for a minute. It also includes a class that has 90% of the senior class. Booo-hoooo. Remember when you were a senior? You thought you had it so rough and couldn't wait until it got to that one very important day... I'm not talking about graduation, but the last day you had to go to high school. The last day you had to put up with school (for now anyway).
Well, I can tell you (from a few years' worth of experience) that the teachers were probably looking forward to that day even more than you. Senioritis? Really? Do you want to pass this class (and graduate)?

Maybe it's been too long for me to remember "what it was like" being a senior. Whatever it is, I don't care... Those seniors still have (at least) one more class to pass before they can collect that diploma and move on. If you're in my class, you still have a lot of work left before you're done.

On a much more lovely note, we leave for our vacation in 11 days! :)

I attempted bread again and it's better but not as good as I want it to be. I think try #3 will be next weekend.

One week down, one week left until my hubby's home again. I try not to think about how long he's gone for during the first half of it, then really start counting down during the second half. It's starting to feel long so I hope this week goes by quickly!!

I'm always counting down to something. I don't set out to do it or anything but I always find myself thinking "only _ _ days until _ _ _ _." Or "Wow, I can't believe _ _ _ _ _ _ is only _ weeks away!" or whatever.
I'm not counting my life away or anything. I don't think. It's just the way my mind works.

That being said...
This is exam week, which means Friday off! Even better: we're 2/3 of the way done with this school year!! I looked at my calendar the other day and realized between now and May, I only have three regular (as in I'll be there all 5 days) weeks of school.

Caribbean vacation: we leave in 17 days and cruise in 19 days! Woo-whoooo!!
It's snowing right now. I hear we're supposed to get a "significant" amount on Wednesday. I'm not sure what that means but probably more than one inch. Shoot. It makes that number up there (17, 19) that much sweeter!

One of my goals

I like bread. More and more I can't find bread at the store that I like so it's been a goal for about four or five months to start making bread. I don't have a bread machine but I have a Kitchen Aid mixer and today I finally put the hook to some use.

Here is the result...



It was alright. Dave liked it (or at least he said he did). I learned a few things so maybe next time it'll be better... It's actually probably better than store bread but Dave's mom's bread is so much better. So is my mom's (when she makes it). And everyone else that makes their own bread.

My ultimate goal is gluten-free bread. I'm looking for a good recipe!

Hiatus

(Crazy thought) This winter is going by really quickly. Somehow.
Tomorrow's March already. We're finishing up our second trimester this week with exam week next week... that means we're almost 2/3 of the way done with the year. It's been a great year and I have some new challenges coming with the start of the third trimester. I'll be teaching a math class for the first time at this job. I'm really looking forward to that but I know it's going to be lots of work.

Dave was traveling a lot at the end of 2010 and beginning of this year. He's been home quite a bit since the middle of January, though, so it's been really really nice! He's leaving again in a couple of days and I'm not looking forward to it. The good thing about the end of the school year coming up (quickly) is that over summer I'll be able to travel with him again.

Speaking of travel, in a few weeks (at the end of March) we're going on a Caribbean cruise vacation! Seven days of cruising plus a couple days in Florida :) :) :)

Hope you're enjoying the sun these days!

'Tis the Christmas Season

We don't have Internet so I get online rarely. Therefore, this is the thing that suffers. Well, everything I used to do online suffers.

Are you ready for the holidays? I wish we were on vacation already but unfortunately we go until the day before Christmas Eve. Two years ago we had two full weeks. This year a week and a day. What do you say, should we do some free days this week? Forget about the lessons I have planned... "Slack off?" I think about that but when it comes down to it, I can never do it.

Dave's gone again. He was home for Thanksgiving and the first couple of weeks of December. He's supposed to be back late on the 23rd or early the 24th. He had problems on his way there last week. A four hour drive ended up taking about 17 because of road closures and a blizzard. I'm really hoping nothing like that happens on the way home so he'll be home in time for Christmas.

Merry Christmas, all!

Politics & Mice

I might as well warn you in advance: this post is about government/politics/history. If you're not into that, maybe just skip to the bottom for a pretty humorous tale about some mice.

I generally dislike politics. I think most politicians who have been in government for more than a few years are dishonest and power-hungry. I think being in Lansing or Washington will make anyone lose (or change) their vision and their connectivity with their constituents....
Anyway. I'm happy for the *change* that's happening in our government and I'm cautiously hopeful that fresh, new faces and minds that haven't been (too) corrupted by politics can help out our state and country. Like I said, though, cautiously hopeful.

I don't usually talk about history/government on here because I don't think too many people really care about that stuff, but I'm going to add a couple more things to what I said above. In US History I've been teaching about the Great Depression and the New Deal. Have you ever heard of the book "Lies My Teacher Taught Me" or something like that? I brought that book up with my students while talking about the New Deal because I teach a side of that era that I only learned on my own, outside of any history or economics class. I feel it's really important to talk about with the students, too.
Contrary to popular opinion, President FDR (Franklin Roosevelt) did not end the Great Depression. He actually made it worse. If you made $200,000 or more during that time, your income tax was 94%. His programs caused unemployment to drop for one or two years, but then to skyrocket up to around 25%. He thought that competition caused the Great Depression, so he did his best to eliminate it. Yes, eliminate competition. During World War II he came up with some more "New Deal"-like programs that he wanted enacted once the war was over so that the Depression wouldn't continue. He drafted ideas to make government bigger and more in control of people's lives. FDR died before the end of the war and when his VP Harry Truman took over, he proposed all of FDR's ideas. FINALLY, after 12+ years of the government making the Depression continue, Congress said NO. They lowered taxes, allowed companies to make things for consumers rather than for the government, and our market returned to a free-market economy. (The framework for this free-market economy was set up in our Constitution.)
This caused the depression to end.

If you're still reading and you pay any attention to what the government has been up to over the last few years, you might think the same thing I thought. Wow, government now is remarkably similar to FDR's time. and the decisions the government made then caused the depression to last for over a decade.

Returning to what I said earlier, I'm cautiously hopeful that the new crop of lawmakers entering Washington and Lansing know the lesson of FDR's effect on the Depression and go the way of the 1946 Congress and say no to new taxes and laws that create more government control. Then we might return to a free market economy where the government isn't involved in every big (and small) business, unemployment will go down, and our economy will be doing well again.

MICE STORY
Heather's been staying with me because Dave's been working out of town. The other night Liz was over and we were making some cookies. Liz started laughing and pointing and jumped up on a chair. I looked and saw the (almost-dead) mouse sitting in the corner of the kitchen, watching us and leaped onto the counter. I admit I might've squealed a little... Heather was in the living room and wanted to know what all the fuss was about, so she ran over and promptly jumped onto another kitchen chair.
[I don't mind spiders, ants, or almost any other bug. Chipmunks don't bother me. But there's something about mice. Yuck.]
After a couple of minutes of laughing and freaking out, Liz and Heather managed to get the thing into a bucket. [It seemed dead but moved its head and blinked its eyes once or twice.] Heather threw the whole bucket out the door. Since I didn't help in getting the thing out of the house, I was in charge of retrieving the bucket. I have to say, I handled that job quite well. It was still in there and I think it was dead this time.

Fast forward ten or twenty minutes. I was packing to go out of town and had to find a bag. We've been organizing and putting things away lately so I had to look a little for the right bag. Jokingly, Liz said she'd come with me and be on the lookout for mice. I found my bag in one of the spare rooms almost right away. As I was turning around to leave the room, Liz told me to slowly walk out the door and don't look toward the rest of the room. I thought she was kidding so I looked anyway and sure enough, another mouse! This one was dead, mid-stride, in its attempt to scurry across the room. This time I helped getting it outside (but again it was mostly Liz and Heather). I think Heather and I both had a really tough time sleeping that night. Every little noise could've been another mouse. :S
You might be wondering why we these mice were dead/almost dead. Before we moved in I saw a mouse a couple of times so we've been putting Decon out. Every week or so I have to put another one out because it's gone but this was the first time I actually saw a mouse since we've been in.