I'm tired

We want to go on a nice vacation--too bad that means you have to have extra money. We're getting stir-crazy.

I'm tired. Everyday I come home, I just want to sleep for hours. The one day that I'm able to, I keep finding things to do. Argh. I finally made it back to the gym last night. Last week was difficult near the middle to the end of the week. It was good to get back.


I made something really good tonight. It's called Middle Eastern pita pizzas. You just take pita breads (round ones, without pockets) and put garlic (regular) flavor hummus on it and some feta cheese and cook them for 8-10 minutes on 400. Then chop up fresh spinach leaves, tomatoes (seeded), onions (optional) and black or Kalamata olives and sprinkle it all on top of the pizza after it comes out of the oven. It's so good! Mmm!

Counting down

Not counting this week, since it's technically already begun because I've already planned what to do in the classes, I have 4 more weeks with the high school kiddies. I'm happy. These past 2 weeks have been a lot better with them. I think they're finally getting used to me and me to them. That makes for an easier time. I still have a class that I'm a little irritated with but it's getting better. The only thing is..they're done with their workbooks and the test is coming up for the last chapter and then there's nothing else to do. I'm working on getting materials to start with fairytales just for fun. I think the teacher has the Schneewitzchen und die sieben Zwergen...guess what that title is? Snow White and the 7 dwarves. They could watch that as something for a little fun. There's a teacher at another high school that supposedly has materials for doing a fairytale unit and hopefully he gets back in touch with me before it's too late. I found a website with a bunch of fairytale stories on it in both German and English so they could start reading those but as for supplementary activities, I'm sorta at a loss...Oh well. The other classes are a little easier because they have their work pretty much cut out for them because of doing these little Michael and Sabine stories that they have to recite to me each week. We gotta get through those. I'm not too worried about that.


The English class that I teach with ELL (English Language Learners) kids is working on a literary anthology and I have a grand plan for that. Next year Boise High is expecting a sudden huge influx of ELL students from the language academy and so this anthology will be meant to be displayed in the library for everyone to read. The new students coming in will hopefully have a chance to read them and realize that they're not alone in this new, huge school--that they have students already here that have come from the same places as them and faced the same troubles and have the same hopes and dreams. Also, kids from the mainstream culture (aka white kids) will be able to read these and hopefully gain a better understanding of these new students and the ones who are already here. Anyway, this is my proposal and I've written it up for one of the teachers to take to the ELL inclusion meeting this next week and she can talk about it to the other teachers within the committee. Hopefully I'll gain some positive attention out of this. I'm thinking with the sudden influx of new students, they might have to hire another ELL teacher (maybe) and I'm gonna put my name out there to the principal just in case. I did hear though that they'll probably just make some more sheltered core classes (pretty much remedial classes that are at a lower level so that the students can succeed a little easier) but we'll see what happens. :)

Sadness

Bea Arthur died today at the age of 86...It's sad to see "Dorothy Zbornak" leave this earth but she probably lived a nice, long life.


I had the worst waste of time event today. It was a debriefing of our practicum experience. The "highlight" of the day (and that doesn't even mean good) was after we had sat there listening for over an hour to the folks who went to San Antonio for their experiences and watching a picture slide show (twice, mind you--the first time was a quick view and the second time, we had to listen to descriptions and inside jokes for each picture), a few local people got to tell about their different experiences and then all of the sudden, the professor says something along the lines of: "Alright, those of you other people try to make your explanations quick...I plan on leaving at 3:30." Are you kidding me? I had a sudden flood of anger go all the way up and down my body. I couldn't BELIEVE she just said that AFTER we had to listen to ALLLLLLLLLL of their stories!!!! If she had given me an evaluation for this experience/class, I would've totally ripped her a new one...no doubt. She should of thought about her "early" dismissal before the two times of viewing the picture slideshow and ALL of the little stories. What a crock of....poo. I'm never recommending the Boise State Bilingual/ESL program to ANYONE as long as I live. They've just made us mad way too many times...and no, I'm not the only one who's unhappy with this program. These profs need to get their acts together, for real!!!!

Hey!

High school is definitely keeping me busy. We're wrapping up soon but at the same time, it's not short enough...


I come home everyday exhausted. I took my 3rd and 5th periods outside today because it was a really nice day. I almost regretted it. It was nice to get out of the classroom though. Unfortunately, I can't take the other classes out tomorrow and I'm afraid they'll be mad at me but I think it's supposed to be rainy and colder tomorrow (yesterday was a nice day and they were begging me but I wasn't mentally prepared to do it--I can't just drop what I'm doing and go outside without any kind of control--I have to plan activities that'll suit being outside). I'm gonna tell them that they'll get their turn on the next nice day and it'll be all theirs!

Still running along

I ended up running to my weightwatcher's meeting yesterday morning and had to run a little bit harder than normal to get there in time. I left a little after 9am (9:10-15) and got there at like around 9:45ish. I was all huffing and puffing when I walked in to weigh in at the scale and the lady at the scale said, "You look like you've been doing what we all need to be doing!" (My thought was, you're not exercising already?) ha! I ended up losing 2.4lbs for the week and that makes me at my lowest so far. 162! Almost to the 150s! Yay! So your next question would be, did I run back home after the meeting? Well, I contemplated it but....nope. Luckily there was a lady there that is my across the street neighbor and I asked her for a ride home. I was hungry too and so I figured I should exert myself too much more on an empty stomach else I should faint on the sidewalks.



It's Sunday. I hate Sundays because you know what that means? School tomorrow and the whole torture of a week begins again. Luckily we have some events happening at school both on Monday and Friday that kinda help with breaking up the monotony.

I'm kickin' A and takin' names...

...because that's what my vice principal told me to do--except he said the actual "A" word. HA!


Also, in my 6th period, a kid told me that I looked good today. A boy. And then he said, "I'm just saying that for him (pointing to another kid) because he was too embarrassed to say it..." HAHAA! Awkward situation but funny and sweet at the same time. I quickly changed the subject after we all had our laughs and blushing.

In need of a mental health day

I'm thinking about taking a mental health day sometime soon. Long term subs get one day or so (it'd be great if we got 2) to be absent and I'm thinkin' I might take mine soon. I can't decide if I want it to be on a Monday or a Friday. Which one is better? I think by planning this one day off, I will make myself feel much better and be able to face the rest of the assignment in a better disposition....possibly.

An overview of my past weightloss efforts

Today I charted my past weights that I had had since starting weightwatchters. I entered each weight by the months since the beginning (almost 2 years now). As you can see, my weight dropped significantly at the start like all people do when first beginning a weight plan. Then it kinda levels out the longer I was on the plan and then the second big drop was probably about the time I started training for the half marathon during last summer. Now it's leveling off again but I have a feeling I'll have another drop again since I'm starting to train again for another half marathon in June. Pretty amazing to see it all charted out, huh? :)


ps. You can double-click the mouse on the chart image to see an enlarged version.

Happy Easter!

I hope this post finds everybody having a good Easter! The weather is beautiful here and what better day than today for the sun to be shining and only a few clouds in the sky with most of the sky being blue. It's a toasty 57 degrees! Ha! It's still warm though--warm enough that we were able to sit outside and eat our lunch. I made Bistro Chicken Pasta Salad. It was rather tasty...I'll post the recipe maybe. I might make it for the 4th of July in Indiana. Mmm..


Nothing much has been happening lately. We've just been really busy with work and school. I've been pluggin' along at the high school. I have good days and then I have bad days, which is to be expected, I guess. It's been rough but it'll just make me appreciate summer that much more. I've got about a month and a half to go and so only a short time to endure. I'm coming up with new activities for the kids to do in the various classes. My English Learner's class, we're going to be starting a personal anthology of poems and narratives based on their life experiences. I figured it'd be interesting since a lot of those refugees/immigrants tend to have extremely different experiences than what we all have here. One girl told me she loved writing love poems and boy, does she ever! She gave me several pages of poems she'd written and they were very....intimate sounding. They weren't X-rated or anything just poems that illustrate a girl who is very much into love and the whole concept of love. I'm gonna tell her that she can include these poems that she's written in the anthology that we're gonna write as a class. When they're done, and if they've taken their time and made them nice, I'm gonna have them type the poems and stories up and then I'm gonna get them spiral-bound. If there's time, I may even talk to the librarians and see if they will put some of these anthologies in the library for other students to look at and read. Maybe they'll just keep them in the library until the next year, who knows? In my other German classes, I'm gonna continue what I'm doing but there is one class where they're almost done with their workbooks and stuff and will need some other stuff to take up time so I'm gonna do a fairytale unit and mix in some short lesson stories that the Germans use to teach children good habits. Those stories are fun and are often quite violent in order to get the point across. I think the students will like them. Anything with a little violence, right? Haha. There's one story in particular that talks about how one shouldn't suck their thumb or else the man with the thumb scissors will come and snip off their thumb! How's that for a nightmare?


Anyway, Kyle still has a job and for the most part, there are no worries for him. He's starting a project there (a sort of trouble-shooting project) for failed recipes for their um...whatchamacallits....and the group he set up will look for ways to make the recipes better and fix what went wrong. His supervisor told him that he's getting a lot of positive attention from the higher-ups because of this project he's started so maybe this is a good sign! Fingers crossed!

It has officially begun..

The mowing, I mean. I just mowed the front and backyard and then did a little pruning to the trees and bushes. Let the spring/summer of back-breaking mowing begin! I can hardly wait! :) Well at least those will be my exercise points for whenever I don't do any other kind of physical activity...

In the couple of weeks since I've been there...

*I've had kids throw paper and other small objects at a girl with Asperger's and is known for going ballistic...
*Teen boys are extremely rude and crude (language-wise)...
*Had to write up a boy for insubordination...
*Had to give a class a stern talking to because of the way they were treating me the first week...
*Have had many a headache in the afternoon...
*Found out that I have to actually MAKE/CREATE a final for the seniors since they'll be out of school a week before everyone else--that'll be fun...(luckily, it's only about 6 or 7 seniors that I have to worry about and the majority of them are in the same class)
*Starting to understand why teachers were so grossed out by teenagers who were hugging for long periods of time out in the hallway...
*I've been having this feeling that these teachers at this school aren't as nice as they claim to be (i.e. whenever I talk to them, it's like I'm "bothering" them and they always do that half-interested "mmhmm..." and look away--RUDE!)

Lastly,

*Had a student tell me that I was his favorite teacher...


It's been a busy couple of weeks at that high school and I'm being inducted really quickly, thus the reason I haven't been updating as much lately. Don't worry--I think I'm getting the hang of when to plan stuff so maybe I can enjoy my weekends a little more and update more often.