Truth

I saw an inconvenient truth tonight. Good solid facts mixed in with a bit too much schmalz but overall I give it a big "go see it!" i'm sure jon will agree.

eternal week

and i mean in the eternal suffering sort of way. really i can't remember a week that took longer. parent teacher conferences and principal student conferences can really sap you of all energy. luckily it was a bit easier waking up today than on wednesday - i think only because it really was friday finally. walking out of the gym this morning, feeling good about myself and life i realized how very wonderful it being a friday finally is. it occurred to me that my ability to truly savor the joy of a friday morning is the result of the pure suffering i experienced earlier in the week. you know what they say about opposition! so i grudgingly admitted to being grateful for a tough week - one that i survived and even learned a few things in. gratitude is tons better than bitterness i tell you. tons.

and tonight is marktoberfest - hooray! home made root beer and all the hot dogs you can eat - what a celebration!

More sidewalk art

What's up with funny figures painted on the sidewalks of slc? Do other cities have them too?

My room

Here are 2 shots of my new desks. They represent the view I have from my desk.

parent teacher conferences

i'm tired. really tired. red eyes. dragging feet. drooping shoulders. it's been a really long hard week. two nights of parent teacher conferences are enough to do any body in. luckily, this year, at this school, they hold the second night in our individual rooms so we can get some work done. i thought i'd get some work done. instead i spent about two hours helping some poor peruvian student try to do the most basic of assignments for his other classes. not understanding english can be a real handicap for doing school work. i mean, major handicap. if teachers only had an inkling of what it was like for these kids they might actually give the kids an "a" just for trying. i think teachers should be required to do their own tutoring for students failing their classes - then they might realize where their teaching falls short.

anyway, in happy news i won the lottery yesterday. the legal, in school, who's going to get the brand new set of student desks, lottery. hooray for me! this school is about 30 years old and the desks found in most rooms have f-you written on them or their backs fall off or the seat falls too forward or there are screws poking them from below. basically they are all a hazard. being the newer teacher to the school i got an exceptionally fun batch of desks - over summer teachers go scavenging to try to improve their lot of desks. now my room has bright white desks that all match and are gauranteed to last at least 5 years! i'm just guessing on that life expectancy. anyway, i think i better post a photo of them!

parent teacher conferences

i'm tired. really tired. red eyes. dragging feet. drooping shoulders. it's been a really long hard week. two nights of parent teacher conferences are enough to do any body in. luckily, this year, at this school, they hold the second night in our individual rooms so we can get some work done. i thought i'd get some work done. instead i spent about two hours helping some poor peruvian student try to do the most basic of assignments for his other classes. not understanding english can be a real handicap for doing school work. i mean, major handicap. if teachers only had an inkling of what it was like for these kids they might actually give the kids an "a" just for trying. i think teachers should be required to do their own tutoring for students failing their classes - then they might realize where their teaching falls short.

anyway, in happy news i won the lottery yesterday. the legal, in school, who's going to get the brand new set of student desks, lottery. hooray for me! this school is about 30 years old and the desks found in most rooms have f-you written on them or their backs fall off or the seat falls too forward or there are screws poking them from below. basically they are all a hazard. being the newer teacher to the school i got an exceptionally fun batch of desks - over summer teachers go scavenging to try to improve their lot of desks. now my room has bright white desks that all match and are gauranteed to last at least 5 years! i'm just guessing on that life expectancy. anyway, i think i better post a photo of them!

Sunday at the parents'

I took photos today while visiting the old folks. Dad was attached to his iv - it takes him 6 hours to get his fungicide. He slept through much of it. He's got a toothpick hanging from his mouth due to the nice roast beef dinner we had. The other photo is of my brother-in-law and sister and mother. Ma is reading emails on her laptop. Good times.

Dancing after dinner

So there was a ward dance I also went to tonight. Lynn is head of activities 2 committee so he felt obligated to go. Matt and I are supportive friends who enjoy shaking our "groove thangs" so we also went. I thought the dance was supposed to start at 9. The speakers came around 9:15. We got dancing at 9:40 - lynn, matt, and me. Two guys sat by the wall. That lasted for a good half hour. Finally our numbers increased. I left at 10:45 and the floor was filled with about 20 people. This is a photo of the classy discoball stand. It made me laugh - right there in the middle of the dance floor. Notice there are no people around. When I went to get my phone to take a picture matt and lynn fled in opposite directions for fear of appearing to be dancing with each other. Funny.

dinner party

It's us!

teacher dreams

so julie - do you miss the teacher dreams? this morning i woke up about an hour before i needed to so i went back to sleep. then i dreamed that sacha hogged the shower and made me an hour late to work. for some reason i found myself pushing my rolling bed (like a hospital bed) to school in my red long johns. when i got to school i had some time (due to having a first period prep) so i ditched the bed in a closet and went to the bathroom to change and wet down my hair a bit. apparently i had the wrong time and it was an hour later than i thought. my students came looking for me and it was all i could do to send them out of the bathroom to wait by my room while i changed into some clothes. as i was shooing them this tall beautiful teacher man approached saying he was already planning to fill in for me so i could take my time. we stood in the bathroom door for a few minutes visiting - he of course was entranced by my morning beauty and i was entranced by his blonde hair, blue eyes, and nicely fitting black t-shirt. then the alarm went off.

another day at the gym

so this morning at the gym i did weights. i've not been doing weights since may - hard to justify a trip to the gym during summer time and when i'm conserving gas money. i found that i lost some strength. alternating days of weights with cardio makes the gym a bit more interesting. i do leg weights and upper body weights on different days so that adds some more mix. having first period prep on "a" days makes getting to school early less of a priority.

Barette

One of those days when I ned a barette like the wind and have none. I found a paperclip. It works. Does it make me a nerd?

cold and hungry

for how much i feel like whining about the cold and hunger i'm experiencing you'd think i was some poor pioneer in the willey handcart company. i'm not. i'm just a whiner. i had breakfast. lunch is in another 2 hours. i need to grade a bunch of essay tests - but i spent my prep talking to my buddy trying to convince him i'm a fraud failure. that doesn't do much for the whining disposition - only accentuates it more. i really need to buck up and start acting like a professional teacher who is hot and well fed. i have my hoodie on - the one the ex boyfriend's mom gave me - doesn't help with the disposition. just gives me something else to whine about.

here's a good thing - i went to the gym this morning and supposedly burned 170 calories. that's got to count for something! i need some good gym goals i can accomplish in 20 minutes since i don't want to wake up any earlier than i'm already doing. any suggestions?

McD 2

I know - not your favorite place but I thought there was something poetic about the patriotic touch of the flapping flag with the golden arches. My art for the day.

Last night I attended the fair with mark lynn hoppe and my new friend vanya. I decided next year we should all enter the fair in some category or another. You can win ribbons - and I think cash. Too bad there's not a phone camera category.

The loom

Today I had 3 university students visit my room to observe me. They said I had good teacher presence. Who knew? I guess I did - but it's good to get validation! Maybe i'll keep at this profession afterall.

Tevas

I love them! I gave them up a couple years ago when the physical therapist said I needed orthotics to help my poor pinched back nerve. I've been pretty faithful about wearing those orthotics now for 3 years. My right leg is still a bit numb but I haven't had significant back pain except for last fall when I hunched over a dozen social studies textbooks for hours. Then this summer my feet started to hurt. Orthotics seemed to aggravate them more. So I decided I need to rotate my shoes - not always wearing the orthotics - to give the feet an occasional break. Today I dug out the tevas. They're so cool. At the bus stop my feet were hot so I poured cold water all over them - leaving the tevas attached to my feet. When I walk they bend and I feel like I get maximum push off from the ground. Why did I ever stop wearing them? Who needs arch support? Who needs an extra lift on the left? I need cool free flexible feet!

a bit depressing

i came across this link in my rss feed - now i'm wondering if i should have read it.
http://www.wikihow.com/Dissuade-Yourself-from-Becoming-a-Blogger

How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger
What a buzz all the bloggers are making these days! It seems like just about everybody is pouring their musings into a text box. Are you feeling tempted to start a blog of your own? Here are some ways to bypass the trend.

Steps
Find five completely random blogs, and read them daily for a month. After thirty days, you will absolutely dread your self-imposed requirement to read all that dreck. Any blog you create will most likely be on par with what you've been reading. Don't put anyone through that.
Consider that your voice, even if it is truly a good one, is a tiny peep against the massive wave of tripe out there. The odds of anyone you don't already know finding your blog are low.
Write on a regular basis in Wordpad instead. If that doesn't satisfy your urge, and you feel that you must post your blog online, then you might just be craving attention and validation--which you'll never truly find in a blog. If you give up on your Wordpad journal after about three days, you'll do the same with a blog that just takes up server space.
Ask yourself if you really have the time to commit to a blog. What about that treehouse you wanted to build? Or the book you wanted to write? Or the car you wanted to fix up? Or the restaurant you wanted to take your wife to? Or the new career you wanted to pursue? Instead of writing about pretty much nothing, or whining about all the things you wish you were doing instead, start doing something that'd actually be worth writing about. And if it's really worth writing about, you'll be having too much fun doing it to tear yourself away from it.



Tips
If attention and validation is what you're looking for, know that you will get neither from blogging. As above, very few people will ever know that your blog (or you, by proxy) exists. Of those who do find it, a large percentage will be flamers and trolls, who will only post comments to you about how you suck. The remainder of comments posted to your blog will be sappy treacle, which you won't trust as being sincere anyway.
Consider writing on a wiki instead. Unlike most blogs, wikis like Wikipedia and wikiHow are read by millions of people each month. Several wikiHow authors receive "fan mail" messages every day from appreciative readers. In addition, many authors discover that they enjoy the wiki collaborative writing process more than writing in solitude.



Warnings
The information you post on the Internet is likely to linger for years and years to come, as web pages are archived by "snapshot" services like the Wayback Machine. Once it's out there, you can't take it back. An employer running a Google search on your name years down the line might be turned off by your now documented obsession with your cat.

Naps

Napping on the bus is much easier and relaxing on the ride home than to work. Either way, you wake up a lot to all the sudden braking. That way I guess i'm less likely to miss my stop.

Fries

Normally the idea of mickey d's grosses me out - but this morning the smell of french fries wafted through the air and I couldn't help but wish I had some. The power of salty grease can be irresistable.

Guns

Here I am at the bountiful shooting range. The other photo is the view of the targets - way far away! I did pretty good.

Humming

The bus driver was humming to himself this morning. I think it was "how great thou art" which I loved in high school - it was the grandest hymn ever. I kept listening and I don't think he was really humming that song but at least it got a good message in my head - perfect start to a dearly needed friday.

Yesterday I melted an overhead in the laser printer. I also introduced my students to writing workshop. It wsn't the best day ever. My stake had temple night, though, and a followup chapel meeting. The witness woman puked 2/3 of the way through - but the really good part was the message in the chapel meeting. We were reminded to take on us the Lord's yoke and give him ours. I needed to be reminded because lately it seems I only stress about my own. The second speaker told us about donations to the temple fund and said how the jar of pennies froma group of indian children is of equal worth to the million from some guy in the sight of the Lord. God looks on the heart - both were given with full purpose of heart.

Waiting for a bus

This is my view every morning. It's hard to tell but those red letters on the side of the building "gra ite c binet" are held up with what appears to be strips of masking tape. I guess a couple letters just didn't last. I think the place is abandoned.

it's sprinkling on me.

What's this

I've seen these fellows painted in various sidewalk locations. But what are they for? Anyone recognize them?

Preventive measures

I took an advil, allergy medicine, and daily vitamin before leaving the house this morning. Here's hoping today goes better than yesterday!

mondays that are tuesdays

so what makes a day feel like a monday? right after a weekend. but mostly, just being a bit rough. things don't go as planned and you feel unable to fix it. so what's the solution? i think go to bed and you'll feel better in the morning. it's also a good idea to take drugs if you have a headache - but just headache drugs. speaking of which, i asked my students today what are the hardest trials they have to deal with as teenagers. many of the answers included relationships, especially family ones, and peer pressure. some things never change.

Labor day!

I spent a good part of the morning lounging on the hammock on my parents' deck - a bit of heaven!

Coincidences

This weekend I was hanging with a friend talking about movies. He used to see a lot because he used to donate platelates twice a week. I couldn't help but laugh when I told him my dad gets platelates twice a week. He has cll and his bone marrow isn't making any of its own blood. It sure makes you appreciate all the good donors of the world.

In other news it's a holiday tomorrow - hooray! I wonder what i'll do with myself.