April 21, 2009

1. I’ve been working on, or putting off working on the Altar Guild Schedule for about a week.
2. I hope to finish in about an hour.
3. It’s 12:15am.
4. I hate the Altar Guild Schedule.
5. and….scene.

February 5, 2009

1. Well, it is done and out.  There was a brief moment of screaming last night when I had it, and then realized the daily people were overscheduled, so I had to fix that.  Even more screaming when I actually had it pasted into the email and someone called and I need to make some changes based on their latebreaking info.  But it.  Is now done.  Hooray!
2. Textbook adoption meetingw as interesting yesterday.  Pitches from the publishers.  Lots of free tote bags.  I’m kind of surprised some didn’t just contain cash.  Anywho, next week our committee will meet and try to come to “consensus” on a text and a secondary text.  I thought things were looking good for the book I want, but then things began to fall apart.  I am an advocate for books that represent two different approaches.  One the boring standard encyclopedic text we all admit we don’t use all the time, or even most of the time, and the other a case study based book that we all agree is well written and engaging.  I thought I had them with this arguement (I left out the word “boring”) until there began to be a bit of an argument over which of the two  boring standard encyclopedic texts would be chosen.  There was one advocate for each, and they don’t look like they are budging.  They tried to point out that we all have class sets of the good book (Not THE Good Book, that is a different class) but I really think that every student should have one.  I have one week to try to show them how the lower grade level text can be supplemented for above grade level readers (Which I totally think is possible.)  Or maybe I’ll tell them that I will agree if they hand their class set of the book I want, over to me.
3. I also will need to come up with a strategy whereby I don’t freak out an start throwing chairs.  I mean, it’s not likely I’ll do that, but it is good to be prepared.
4. Couldn’t sleep last night.  Terrible, because I loves me some sleep.
5. We did the scary workout challenge today.  30 minutes 38 seconds. 6 minutes better than last time!

February 3, 2009

1. My little student teacher had a tough class today.  Man I know what that is like.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I can see through her eyes that I have been letting somethings slide that I shouldn’t, and there are some behaviors that I have grown used to, that need to be checked.  Also, of course, they are trying to ring her bells, because she is new.  which is jerky.  She will get through it.  She bounced back quickly and the last two classes were much better.
2. Meanwhile I was running aruond the building like a madwoman, trying to help the guys who are shooting a video about the anniversary of integration in Virginia.  Rounding up kids for interviews, then trying to find them a room for tomorrow, when they will shoot a panel discussion between our kids and 3 of the 4 students who integrated in 1959.  The room that would be best to shoot in has a class the period we need it, so I found him a place to go, into another teacher’s room.  Then raced back to talk to the video guys.  Turns out they need it TWO periods in order to setup. Fortunately my room is free then, but I had to go sweeten the deal with the other teacher by buying him a soda! (Nah, he would have done it anyway, but he needed a dollar!)  Then back to the other place to set up his projector and video so the displaced teacher would have it for tomorrow.  THen off to write notes for the kids who will be in said vid.  Then some random running in circles.  My groovy english teacher friend helped too, and magically we have pulled everything together, but man, what if I didn’t have a student teacher so I could do laps in the school for 2 hours?
3. Further complication is that I am supposed to be out of school all day tomorrow for a textbook adoption thing.  I am really sorry to miss this final event, and I can tell the producer wants me to be there.  I wrote to the social studies supervisor to ask if I could skip out for 2 hours in the middle.  Haven’t heard anything yet, and she can be a little tough sometimes, but I have been sucking up alot lately (on the lookout for materials and goodwill for my school, don’t you know) and it is a once in a lifetime opportunity and quite historical, and I pitched it as such. 
4. The Altar guild schedule still lurks large.  I thought I was all set and then found a person I thought was active who is apparently inactive, so I need to remove her, and redo those days.  My small comfort is that though I am supposed to have it out two weeks before the old one ends, I am still ahead of that window if you calculate that even though the last crew is listed on the 14th, the schedule actually ends on the 20th.  I know, I know, quit blogging and finish!
5. It is quite simply impossible that it is only Tuesday night.  I feel like I have been in school for days.  Monday was the big aforementioned anniversary, with guests coming to our classes, and a special assembly, and it was a great day.  Small steps lead to great change.