Serious Bummage

The thing I've been dreading for over a week now has finally happened. Was so stressed out I had to get a fix. Yeah. Spearmint gum. At school. And I may not spit it out when my conference period is over.

They dissolved one of my classes. Just one, mind you... not two. So I know have a schedule that looks like this.

Period1 Conference
Period 3 ELD 1
Period 5 English 3/4
Period 7 Reading

Period 2 ELD 1
Period 4 ELD 1
Period 6 Conference
Period 8 Reading

So I'll have three different classes to teach on odd days and two on even days. And I'll have conference at the beginning of the day rather than in the middle.

New books, new curriculum, new students, new standards, new department.

Did I mention I hate sophomores. Really. Now I have three classes of them.

Goody. Blowing off steam. Deep breath. In. Out. In. Out.

Conversations

Just had a heart to heart talk with Miguel and Eduardo, two rather immature Latino students in my seventh period. It was more a clarification than anything.
"This is what I want. I want you to sit in your own seat. I want you to read during silent reading, and I want you to do your work. What do you want?"
"Umm... I want that. Yeah, I want that too," Miguel says after Eduardo leaves.
"How do we get that?"
"Dunno."
"Think about it. We already agreed to switch Eduardo. Will that work?"
He thinks for a moment. "Yeah. Yeah."
After further prompting I finally ask, "So what are you going to do on Wednesday?"
"Sit down, be quiet, do my work and read."
"And what happens if you don't?"
"I get dentention?"
"Then?"
"ACE?"
"And then?"
"Referral."
"Good. See you on Wednesday"

Hopefully that will work.

Other than that I think I got myself in trouble on Saturday by singing a song with a duck, kangaroo and orangutan in it in front of Ken and Rob. If you know the song, you'll know why they were so shocked to hear it come from my sweet tempered mouth... even if I'd already had a very large vodka and orange.

Kick My Own Butt

Yeah, so it's been almost a week since I've updated... so you might want to settle in for the long haul.

Saturday started itself off with shoe shopping and Wimbledon and finished itself out with a birthday party for at The Palamino. It's a restaurant with a nice bar in Westwood. We stopped at a Ralphs and picked up a small cheesecake and strawberry shortcake for the party. We were still early so we ordered drinks. We told the waitress that the food should go on one bill, and the drinks should be picked up by the individuals as they went.

I had a great time watching the football game, chatting and Ken-watching... which I think is a sport in itself. He delighted in shouting "Bush!!!" as often as possible, encouraging Liz to do the same. Ken likes the thought of a female Democrat yelling Bush whether it's USC football's Reggie Bush or otherwise.

I finally met the ice skater and company and saw some people I hadn't seen since Liz's last party. When the bills arrived... there were two... one for food and one for everyone else... and of course, most people had cards. The others were rather upset that she didn't farm it out to separate checks, so the manager spent about 20 minutes straightening out the mess.

There was an 18% gratuity added to everything, and others were grumpy about paying it, as the waitress had been ignoring them. The waitress lost out on any extra I would have put it when I paid separately. I guessed about $15 but it was only $11 and change. Still, everyone managed to get untangled and be upbeat about it.

On Sunday we went to Ikea for meatballs and furniture. I bought a dresser for Lizzie, a narrow Billy, a wide Billy, and the pieces to make a bookshelf for school. We unloaded with no injury, managing to cart them upstairs, then headed back to Mom's to deliver the truck. I could tell she wanted to go out to dinner so we headed off to a quaint little Mexican place around the corner. I had fajitas that could have served three. The takeout box was completely full when I left.

So we get home and I decided to start putting the dresser together while watching Jane Eyre. Lizzie promptly begins to doze. Now it's not hard to put together IKEA furniture. They have rather clear wordless directions... but I managed to put the plastic floor guards of one piece on the top, rather than the bottom. So when I tried to put the top on, there was a little plasticky thingy blocking the holes. Of course the left side stuck when I tried to lift it and smack, the desktop fell on top of my foot, and cracked one of the support boards. Undaunted I iced it and then went back to work, cursing little plastic doohickies. I promptly backed up onto a hammer and took a centimeter of skin off the bottom of my foot. I stopped to bleed for a moment but DAMNIT I WAS GOING TO FINISH!

And I did. Lizzie and I dragged it into the back bedroom and stuck the drawers in. Spiffy.

Monday was reserved for Bookcase I - Narrow. It went together with no personal injuries. Watched Brother Bear then headed off to Nikki's house for dinner and organizational meeting. I'm so not the perfectionist. I hope we pull this off without getting down each other's throats, but it was quite civil.

On Tuesday I took the train out to Downtown and met Lizzie on the way. We went to our favorite Happy Hour spot and had 3 drinks each and lovely appetizer type food and dessert. Analisse met us and then we headed off to see Little Shop of Horrors. It was great! I had a serious problem repressing my lip movements. The puppetry was uber cool. I love that musical.

Lizzie took my car on Weds. because hers is doing a weird fishtailing thing. Upon her return we headed over to Mom's to watch the season finale of Amazing Race. SOOOO glad that Chip and Kim won. Just wish idiot head and annoying mouth hadn't come in second.

Thursday was marked with my first class of Beginning Your Novel. Yeah, it sounds a little cheezy but it includes info on format, marketing, and submitting... so hopefully it will be useful.

Then there's today. Woke up with just enough time to leave the house. Tired.

One Upped on the Celebrity Front

So I thought we were so cool spotting local ABC 7 newscaster Ric Romero at my mom's birthday dinner. Never mind that we couldn't figure out what channel he was on, but still, when dining in Westminster/Huntington Beach, one does not often have celebrities parking next to them.

Then Liz got home. "Guess who I saw a movie with?"

Bob Hope?

Nope.

And not just one... but two cool stars.

Miguel Ferrer - who in a quick IMDB search confirmed was the cool boss on Crossing Jordan and the voice of Tarakudo in Jackie Chan... which if I remember correctly is the big floating disembodied head.

and...

wait for it...

Viggo.

Man. Am I green?

At least my fingernails are... with sparkles.

I want Viggo for my birthday.

Birthday Madness!

First off - Feliz Cumpleanos para mi mama y mi amiga Liz.

Secondly, I want to strangle my 7th period reading class. They're all ansy and bouncing off the walls.

I've got a serious case of Jekyl and Hyde. My eighth period class is good natured, quiet, and they ACTUALLY GROANED when I told them Silent Reading was OVER. "Can we read some more???" I wanted to hug every single one of them. I felt like smacking most of 8th period today.

Started reading this book yesterday and was tempted to mail it to Mel before I even finished it. It's called English as a Second Language by Megan Crane. It's about a girl who goes to get an MA in England because her ex says she can't. The first few pages she could have been talking about Canterbury (She went to York). I'm anxious to finish, but have, you know, like birthday parties and things to go to.

New and Improved

Just added a link to Neil Gaiman's Blog... because he's cool. I really do need to pick up American Gods again. I know where it is... it's in the closet. I've seen it. I keep thinking I need to finish it, since you know, I got it signed and all... but it's been so long, I'll have to start from the beginning. I think what happened is I brought the book back from Canterbury, and then school started and it got stuck away. Every time I open the closet I think... gotta read it... and never do. But I'm going to do it now. I promise. Really.

Sandwiches

I've always been one of those odd people who've eaten their sandwiches in pieces. I think a lot of it may be due to the trama of biting into one too many with mustard or mayo squishing out. Mom would never remember that I hate them. It's not as if you can really scrape it off without taking the sandwich apart and doing major surgery. I even avoided hamburgers for the longest time because if Mom didn't forget, the restaurant would.

So it's a little convenient, but I'm sitting here with a proper lunch of seven grain bread and ham slices... eaten separately, of course. Oh, and cheese... string cheese. This way, I can hopefully be not starving by 4 as usual.

Planning

SWOTD - Empezar - to start.

Sometimes I think I should learn a bit faster that the beginning of the school year is crazy. Maybe because I was the kind of student that was paranoid the first month of school about having everything the way the teacher asked for it, I really can't understand when I give students a homework assignment and find that like 2% have actually accomplished it.

I am becoming a better teacher though. I now PLAN for only 2% having completed it and provide alternatives accordingly. 3 Subject Notebooks for example, I purchase cheaply in mass quantity, despite the raised eyebrows from the Big Lots and Walmart personnel. I also left time for most students to rotate through my silent reading books even though I told them to come prepared.

I think teaching is 50% planning, 30% back-up plan and 20% thinking on your feet.

New School Year Madness and Al Capone

My classes are beginning to fill up, slowly but surely. I had 5 students this morning in Period 1, compared to one on Thursday. I seem to be going at a rate of one per period.

This weekend was an interesting experience. I hauled myself out of bed to take the metro downtown to volunteer for the Los Angeles Triathalon Registration pick - up. It was quick and easy... except for the stupid rule regarding no eating or drinking.

Mapquest said the Hyatt Regency was a 1/4 mile from the downtown metro stop... it was actually across the street. After changing into our pale green t-shirts, we proceeded to verify their name, distance, age, what wave they were in, start time (all participants needed to be in T1 before 6:30), color swim cap which they could get from the table behind them, luggage tags for T1 and T2, sticker for their helmet, sticker for their bike post, bib that must be pinned in all four corners (don't pin or pull the tab) or wear a race belt. I gave them a neon orange snap bracelet to get them in and out of all transition areas and told them to have a good race. I must have said that info at least a hundred times. Yup. It'll probably be etched permanantly in my head for all time.

We walked over to CPK on Fig and 7th and both ordered our usual. I also took the server up on his offered Strawberry Margarita. It was cold and yummy. We went our separate ways as Lizzie walked to USC and I went back to Long Beach. Ken had dropped out of the game on Rob so he had an extra ticket at the last minute. Liz told me he felt guilty, but hey, totally understandable. Besides, I would have missed Mr. Rocker Man on the train. He was talking when I got on and didn't stop. He stood at the front of the train with an overly large set of headphones around his neck and a pair of drum sticks in his pocket.

At first I thought he was a busker and he was going to ask everyone for spare change. Then I realized he was more the born again type. He told us all about the fact that rockers party to much. They drink and smoke and that he was a rocker and liked to party. He then started to give advice. "You ladies out there, if your man goes to jail and asks you for something, don't give it to him. Drop him. If he asks you to pass him some money in a book, or something, don't go to visit him. I went to prison, and it wasn't good. They're all dirty. They have dirty asses. HIV and syphilus. Yes. Al Capone died of syphilus in West Palm Beach Florida. In Florida. Yeah, he died of a dirty ass."

Keep in mind that he kept repeating himself, as new people got on the train. Finally someone less timid and amused as myself got on. "Hey, shut up. Don't use words like that in front of kids. Some people have their kids on this train." After a bit of word bandying, he got off the train. I turned around and mentioned he'd been talking since downtown. The girl across from me gave a sympathetic stare.

The ladies behind me started up a conversation. "Al Capone ain't my daddy. He ain't the daddy of anyone on the train, so why does he think we need to be told. Besides, Al Capone didn't die in no Florida either. He died in prison cuz he was too suspicious of the doctors to treat him. He died cuz he refused treatment. That's why the stupid ass died."

Right.

After the train, I drove to Wally world to pick up some notebooks, and got distracted by the yarn dept. Bought some to make a blanket. Couldn't find cheap notebooks so headed over to Big Lots and bought theirs. Decided to go to the rents for air conditioning and USC football game. Mom was watching the race so I went upstairs. About 5 minutes into the first quarter, I close my eyes for a minute. When I opened them again, the score was 21 to zip.

The game really wasn't all that exciting... we creamed them. It didn't help that I was dead tired. Mom called me down for pizza and I got a second wind. I started to work on my blanket and got hooked on some celebrity poker. Finally left around 1 am.

While Liz was off to her marathon practice and dinner party, I stayed home and caught some Z's. I watched Girl With a Pearl Earring and House of Sand and Fog. Girl was beautiful (especially with Colin Firth doing a lot of his specialty - brooding looks.) House was good, but depressing.

At about 8 Lizzie called and while I only caught every other word, I figured out she wanted me to go pick up the pottery. So much for my entirely pajama day. I got our napkin holder and spoon rest from Color Me Mine then headed over In N' Out for dinner. Yum.

Liz got home in the middle of Jack and Bobby, and afterwards she put on a movie about a Mormon Missionary meeting a group of gay neighbors. It was good - for what I saw of it. I couldn't keep awake so I headed off to bed before the gay guy managed to seduce the Mormon.

Why I love Fark

I love Fark. Fark is my friend. Just finished reading the coolest article. It's about Paris and the catacombs. Read it. I promise it's cool.

So it's fifth period

And I just finished a stint as signpost directionmaster. The 100 building is shaped like a V. I stood at the point and students shouted out room numbers as they rushed like chickens with their heads cut off. Several of my former students (from Rogers even) who are seniors and juniors were also getting lost. It's scary to think of my little 8th graders who are no longer little.

My ELD 1 classes are small... too small. Hoping fanatically they give them some time to fill up. I have two Cambodian students and they are going to try and put them in the same classes so our single college aide can help them both.

I pulled out my ELD flashcards and went over the alphabet. One of my former students could even alphabetize the cards... in Spanish even. I mean the things have little color codes on them as well, and he still needed help. Yikes.

I have one more conference period and then my reading classes. Hoping not to have a trio of annoyance as in last year's class.

Whoah

Just got a serious case of Back to School Googlies. That's where your stomach tightens and you can't sleep. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get the rest of my stuff done and have a smooth opening day on Weds.

Today we avoided the heat... not as hot as yesterday though. We started off at Barnes and Noble before heading over for DAMN! I just realized I left my CPK in the car! Shit.

Yeah, well after CPK we headed over to The Pike, the new entertainment complex over by the Aquarium of the Pacific. We saw Princess Diaries 2, which was seriously cheesy, and not half as good as the original, but I liked it.

After that we headed over to Color Me Mine and painted the two things I'm missing in the kitchen... a spoon rest and a napkin holder. We get them back on Thurs, so I'll let you know then how they turned out.

Right. So soon we will have everything a kitchen needs, including a long handled lighter so we don't set our polished finger nails on fire. And yes... I did... right before I realized Liz had purchased said lighter. Rather scary to see your nail aflame. Anyway.

Severe Weather Alert

I'm sincerely peeved. I heard the weather man say it was going to be in the low 80's today. NOT EVEN CLOSE!!! It was bloody 98 degrees today! That would be 36 degrees to all you C people out there. Right now it's only 29... that's 85 for the F people. And it's nine o'clock.

Liz and I decided to beat the heat and left for Long Beach Town Center where we went to Ben and Jerry's (spilled chocolate ice cream totally down the front of my white shirt) Ross, (where I bought a pretty new dress and a white shirt to change into) Petsmart, (where I bought a big ass bag of catfood and a scratchy toy thingy for cats) Barnes and Noble (where I was good and didn't buy anything except an ice tea) and a movie - Napolean Dynamite. It was cute, but not spectacular.

We thought about ribs, but had too much popcorn and soda to be hungry.

Now I did skip over the beginning of the day unpleasantness. Started off nicely. Woke up, played a little Playstation, ate a bagel. Then I decided I wanted to finish my book and about 20 pages from the end, the room started spinning like majorly in an anticlockwise direction. So I went to lay on my bed, but it got worse. After I threw up, I took a long shower and felt a bit better. The googly feeling in my stomach wasn't quite gone, but the room stopped moving. Liz got home from marathon practice and we watched a movie about a photographer who like young screwed up girls... and as soon as he got them to be less screwed up and they became independent, he couldn't handle it, and dumped them. It was called Guenivere. I liked it.

So that was my penultimate day of freedom.

Yup.

Athene19 joins the club!

So you'll notice to the right a new link... I'll post it here too... just in case you're blind.
This is Athene19's coolio new blog!

Right.

Bedtime now. Gotta get used to going to bed early to rise at ungodly hours for the dredgery called a job.

Other Stuff - Like Wil Wheaton

Yeah, I know I promised to relate some events of coolness. I'm going to try now...

Think all the way back to August 15. Just as I was grabbing the phone to ask for directions... Liz calls me and tells me she told me the wrong address for the bookstore... it's on Sunset, not Hollywood and Vine. By the time I get myself turned around and going in the right direction, I manage to pull into the parking structure right after Liz. After a yummy lunch of Baja Fresh, we walk next door to the bookstore to wait around for an hour or two until the book signing.

By this time I was really starting to do a pee pee dance and was really annoyed when I couldn't find someone to give me a bathroom token. After traversing the bookstore from end to end, I was successful and then went off to hunt down a Guide to Literary Agents. Liz was hunkered down in a chair so I then offered to go get our books from the cars. Liz had to buy her own copy of Dancing Barefoot, as she'd "stolen" mine and read it while we were waiting for HP3 to start.

Side tangent: I get really impatient when someone is sitting there laughing at a book. I want an explanation, dammit! especially if they are reading something I wrote. It's like torturous hell sitting there waiting while someone is reading your material and you aren't sure if it's funny where it's supposed to be funny.

Moving on. Wil Wheaton was cool. He seemed very modest and unassuming, even nervous. It gave him a sort of unpolished charm. He is an excellent reader and his little asides and sort of "yeah right" stares back at the audience were perfectly timed. He'd finished reading from Just a Geek when a guy wanders through the area and pauses to ask the ultimate question from his book. "Didn't you used to be an actor? Weren't you on Star Trek?" Despite just spending the past half hour describing how much this question drove him nuts, he was gracious and didn't miss a beat. The audience giggled and we all shared the in joke as we rolled our eyes in tandem.

Again Lizzie manages to have a longer and more interesting conversation with author at signing than I did (re: Jasper Fforde). She wore her Team in Training bracelets and they talked a bit about marathons. I just got tongue tied and asked if he'd met Neil Gaiman yet. No, he hadn't, but he wanted to. Trying to think back to Neil Gaiman signing in Canterbury... come to think of it, Mel had a more intriguing conversation with him too. Boogers.

Precarious Posters

So, like the Olympic marathoners, I was tempted to kiss the ground after finishing my latest task of hanging posters... though I didn't... shiny as it is.

There are times when being 5 inches taller would be nice. I'm not asking for a Clare boost here, just enough to let me hang posters easily without standing on a stack of books on a chair ontop of a table.

In case you didn't know, the Walls of Wilson are stucko-concrete painted with a (I swear) teflon beige coating. NOTHING sticks to these walls. Masking tape, duck tape, scotch tape, poster tack... you name it. I even tried my British Blue Tack... which is just another kind of poster tack, but works so much better than our American stuff. During the year (usually right in the middle of class) things randomly fall off the walls.

I have found something that sticks fairly well. The 3M command adhesive hooks stay on pretty well, as long as you don't abuse them. I've invented a system where I literally string a clothesline across one wall, supported with a hook at either end. I did this in Grace and Judy's room two years ago, and theirs are still hanging. Mine from last year unfortunately fell down... of course right in the middle of class.

This year I decided to put my fun posters in the back of the room rather than the front... mostly because I need a ladder to reach the other side. I put a third hook in the middle of my new line, hoping for a longer staying time.

I'm sure this is all fascinating to all of you, but I'm quite proud of myself. So there.