Tag: work

What the F…..ebruary?!?

Um, what the heck happened to February. Usually this is the longest month for me and it drags like a dragging thing. But it has zipped by (Flowed by, perhaps, to maintain the alliteration) and ends tonight. Sheesh.

I blame the few sunny days that we had this month. Normally Feb is gray and bleak and rainy and icy. But we had several sunny days and even some snow. Today we had a 2-hour delay, which was wonderful since it was Parent/Teacher conferences which means we’re there until 7pm (or later for some teachers). I even got to meet two of my students’ mums tonight.

As you can see, I didn’t post at all in February, until today. Mom even e-mailed me wondering if I was going to let an entire month go by uncommented upon in this journal. I had decided on my walk home tonight that I would finally post. And here goes!

I’d like to promise that I’ll be more vocal during March, but I dunno if I will. I guess we’ll find out on the 31st!

The 1200

I don’t pay much attention to what number of post my (now admittedly very rare) LJ posts are, but I just happened to notice I had 1199 entries under my belt before I started this one up. So, yay for number 1200!

So, what have been up to since I turned 42? Well, Amy got home safe und sound. School’s been pretty normal (though the cold & flu season is going on). I finally got caught up in grading. (The catapult research papers were a bit long in the tooth when I finally graded them.)

Yesterday, we had a sunny & almost warm day – nearly 50F. Dad grilled us New York strip steaks and they were so tender and very tasty. I was able to take half of mine home & tonight sliced up 1/4 of the leftovers to put on my salad. Yummy.

Also yesterday, I did my semi-regular trip down to the Bookery for my Doctor Who magazines. When I went to Jeet India afterwards (as I always do on said trips), the place was GONE. Just an empty space in the strip mall. Very sad. So I decided to get fast food Thai at Tik’s Thai Express. Good pad thai, tasty crab rangoon, and only so-so satay. Had the leftover pad thai for lunch today. (The good news? When I checked at home, it turns out they’ve merely moved locations. Will get to Jeet next time I’m down there!)

Decided to give the 2D version of The Hobbit a try today (before it leaves the theaters). Was surprised to see other folks in the theater. Still a very fun movie, though I think I prefer the high frame rate. Wish they’d do 2D at HFR.

This week is supposed to get bloody cold. Tuesday to get no higher than 11F. (My sister says MN is to have a high that’s -2F tomorrow. Brrrrr!) Wonder if we’ll have a delay on Tuesday with the very low wind chill temp. (It’s happened before.)

At any rate, those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, keep warm & drive safe in the snow/ice. Those of you south of the equator, keep cool! (Dern that climate change!)

Hooray for Miami County Foundation!

The Miami County Foundation (MCF) is a local (to me) agency which does everything it can to donate money/scholarships to nonprofits/students. Their nonprofit grants are awarded twice a year with grant deadlines in August and February. I had previously written (and received) two grants from them in the past.

Sadly, the last time I had received a grant, they didn’t have much money to award, so they asked if I’d be able to use even just a portion of what I requested. I said sure! I had written a grant to buy 12 electronic balances for the chemistry lab. They were able to give me funds to buy 2. Believe me, it helped. And when we kitted up the new laboratory a year later, I got 4 more electronic balances, which works rather well for us.

Well, a couple of days before the grant applications were due this time around, MCF informed us that they had had a windfall and would be able to really help nonprofits this time around. So I scurried to write up another proposal, this time for 4 new Vernier LabQuests and some probeware to go with them and to suppliment my existing equipment. Yesterday I got the good news – I got the grant (and all of it this time around)! I had the requisition written and submitted within half an hour of receiving the e-mail. 🙂

The acceptance ceremony will be in November and our superintendent wants those of us who received a grant (we had 4 groups in the school who did, including new band uniforms for the marching band – oooooh!) and I’ll be happy to attend. (And that’s saying something, knowing how much I dislike having a sub in my room. Heh.)

So THANK YOU to Miami County Foundation for looking after the nonprofits in your county! And thank you for supporting chemistry and physics education!

The End of Summer

I know that summer doesn’t really end until September something-or-other, but Labor Day (coming on Monday) is the symbolic end of summer in our neck of the woods. So here we are at the end of summer.

We’ve now been in school a week (well, a 4 day week for the students) and I think it was a good week. Thanks to some diligent work by our new guidance counselor, most of the kids eligible to take the chemistry course for college credit are doing so. (She was still chasing kids and their parents down today – applications had to be faxed by noon.)

This is the start of my 20th year of teaching and the start of my 14th year at Newton. Woo! And I feel like this might be the most stress-free starting week in memory. (Well, I do have a crappy memory, and I know last year had mucho stress with the new chemistry curriculum.) So perhaps I’m getting the hang of this teaching lark!

I was working late today, but I really wanted to get a number of things done before the weekend so I can just enjoy the 3 days without thinking of school. And then the folks and I headed off to Troy Streets Alive to check out the Downtown. We sampled bourbon chicken from LeDoux, looked at the wares of the various artists stationed around the square, bought some olive oil from Olive Oasis, and then headed off to Kuzzinz, a bar & grill I’d not been to before. In honor of my successful first week, I had a woo woo with supper and a brownie sundae for dessert. Very yummy!

This weekend is one of my favorite festivals – the Heritage Festival in Piqua. Dunno when we’ll go other than “not tomorrow.” We’ve got a wedding reception to go to tomorrow. (The wedding was held in another state, so they’re holding a second reception here for family that couldn’t get to it.) That works for me. Wedding receptions are usually much more interesting than weddings. 🙂

And so it begins (again)…

Well, only 1 more teacher work day before the kids join us at school (their first day is Tuesday). We had Open House last night and I had a few visitors (par for the course). And I think I may be ready for school!

Just about every time I’d think I was there, I’d remember something else, but when I left today, I realized that the only thing I need to do yet is post the first week’s schedule on the white board. The stuff will clean easier if I don’t leave it up more than a week, which is why I didn’t put it up today.

Anyhoo, lesson plans are done and uploaded to my web page, notes are prepared and uploaded to my web page, first day paperwork is printed, administrative paperwork for 1st period is laid out on the desks with 1st period’s books.

Here’s hoping this well-prepared start will bode well for the rest of the year!

Summer Winds Down

I have had a fabulous summer. Many days of sitting & reading with my kitties (Lucy’s on the chair with me right now, in fact). Time spent riding my new bike. Walking in the woods. Vacations to Chicago and Minneapolis. Plenty of family time with the folks.

Sadly, summer is now winding down. Our first day is next Thursday and the kids’ first day is two weeks from yesterday (on Grandma’s birthday). I’ve been popping into the school getting things ready, though not in earnest yet. And today I went to a meeting to start my training as a Mentor.

This will be the start of my 20th year teaching and this year I shall be a mentor to a new teacher – woo! I hope I will be a good mentor. I’ve met the new teacher and already answered some of her questions. I think she’ll be a good teacher and I hope she has a great year at Newton!

Anyhoo, I’ve got more smartphone bragging to do in a future post, including the nifty accessories I’ve gotten for it. (Going to try out a case when it finally arrives, possibly Saturday.)

Oh, and in a side note (only related because the other item in the package with the case will be the final Sylvester McCoy Doctor Who DVD), I’m quite pleased that from now until The Hobbit premiers in December, I’ll have new Sylv stuff to listen to each month thanks to Big Finish. (With The Hobbit now being split into 3 movies, I hope that Sylv’s stint as Radagast the Brown will be in the first flick still…)

April Showers

Here it is, the last day of April, and we’re getting rain! We didn’t really get a lot of rain in April, so I hope that doesn’t mean bad news for our local farmers. However, it did mean we had many fine weather days during the month, which I really appreciated.

Saturday, however, was an exception. Saturday was our annual Garage Sale Day in town. So of course, the temperature was chilly (barely got to 50F), the rain was near constant, there was sleet or hail or some form of ice balls falling from the sky. Glad I didn’t have a garage sale.

But the good news about Garage Sale in town is Bowman’s Texas Tenderloins. They always park their vending trailer at the main intersection in town for the garage sale and (probably) make a killing. So I invited the folks around for lunch. We all got Texas Tenderloins and fries (mom and I stood in the rain waiting – it was just a fine drizzle at the time), and then returned to my place to eat.

Wanting to show off my new Blu-Ray of The Sound of Music (the 45th anniversary release), I put it on. I figured we’d watch the starting bit, and then stop the flick. But no, we watched the whole thing. Ah, such a fine movie. That made the third time I’ve now seen the movie in a month. (Watched the flick, watched with commentary, watched with the folks.) I’ve still not watched all of the extras from the set – will probably put that disc back in later in the week.

School is zipping by. Only 11 days more or so for seniors. Wow. I have the schedule up on the board for chemistry’s exams – 4th quarter exam (I write), lab exam (IU writes), final exam (IU writes – or rather, buys from the American Chemical Society or something). A lot of testing at the end, but I’m just impressed that I’ve hit all of the material before the year is out.

Hope y’all have been having a lovely spring (or fall if you’re below the equator)!

Elation

Ah… I no longer have the feeling that I’m drowning. The first quarter ended last Friday, and today was the confirmation of grades. And I got it done. Phew!

I’d say that this first quarter was probably the toughest I’ve had since my first year of teaching. Not due to kids or discipline – loving the students this year (as usual) – but because of the new dual enrollment chemistry course. It’s been interesting and I hope I’m doing my students a good service in my instruction. Next Friday is our fall meeting to see how things are going and I’ll definitely have questions to ask. 🙂

But other than the avalanche of work that I’ve been doing of late, it’s been a fun (and fast) school year. Tomorrow is Halloween dress up day, and Friday is a day off for kids and a work day for us. Thankfully I’ll have the time to work on my chemistry class and my storage room then. So looking forward to Friday for that reason.

Anywho, as I was walking home today, I was almost giddy. With the weight of Quarter 1 off my shoulder, and the lovely (but cloudy) autumn day, I felt as positive today as I’d felt in ages. It was good. 🙂

Hello May! What a surprise!

It’s already the third of May (with tomorrow being Star Wars Day – it’s too soon!) We have the last cafeteria calendar for the school year (with the three June dates stuffed on the bottom row). The senior countdown is less than 20 days (I think it’s 15). Time seems to be soaring at this point.

With that in mind, I’m running out of time to collect moolah for Relay for Life. If you’re interested and haven’t donated yet, check out my previous post for details. I’m just $25 shy of my goal. (Mom’s actually hit her goal, despite what her webpage says, but donations to her page are just as beneficial to the American Cancer Society as donations to mine.) Maybe next year I’ll be more on the ball and shoot for a higher goal. 🙂

Thank you so much to those of you who donated to the cause! Mom and I really appreciate the contributions. (Greg, if you didn’t notice, mom wrote a personal thanks to you on the previous entry. Since she was anonymous, it was originally screened, so I don’t know if it was forwarded on to your or not.)

With physics doing current electricity, chemistry making molecular models, and advanced problems in science doing the Mentos & Diet Coke reaction, things are exciting in science at school. Go science!

This Thursday will be my last weigh-in for our current session of WeightWatchers. Dunno if we’re doing it again. I’m just under 2 pounds shy of my 12-week goal. Maybe if I eat nothing until then, I’ll lose those last 2 and then get my money back. Yeah right, me not eat? Who’s kidding whom?

Anyway, hope things are a little less rushed for my flist. June’ll be here before I know it!

Festival Season Continues

Autumn is my favorite season. I love the cooler weather, the changing leaves, the holidays, and the festivals. The past several weekends have seen me out with the parental units going to various festivals. The Fort Loramie Lake Festival, Minster’s Oktoberfest, the farm festival which was just across the street from the Lost Creek Garden & Antique Show (which was where we were today). Lots of fun and often yummy food. (Mmmm, brats mit kraut from Oktoberfest!)

The weather’s been absolutely lovely the past several weeks. Apart from a couple of days of rain, the majority of the weather has been Open Window Weather. Today was downright hot with temps in the mid 80s F. Tomorrow will be too. Mom’s taken to saying “Another day in paradise!” which she’s been saying pretty regularly since May. Anyhoo, the kitties and I love Open Window Weather. Especially when the morning is chilly and the comforter is comfy and the cats are draped over me AND we get to sleep in. (Like, say, this morning.)

I’ve had a pleasant time of late with my reading. Thanks to recommendations from friends on LJ and Twitter, I discovered the Hunger Games trilogy. I finished the final book last weekend. When the series goes to paperback, I’ll probably buy it for keeps. (Yay for libraries!)

The New Building Issues at work have been getting solved. My projector finally shows all of the colors (which it had never done) when projecting the computer image. Considering I do my classroom notes using the interactive whiteboard, this lack of complete colors was annoying. But I finally have Red and Green to go along with black, blue, and yellow.

I’m still arguing with the interactive whiteboard software. It’s not what I’d been using last year (in order to equip everyone with interactive smartboards, the school had to go the more economical route of Eno boards instead of Smart boards. But Smart’s software is a hell of a lot better than Eno’s or the RM Easiteach which we have), but I’m making it work. Easiteach, which is closest to Smart’s Notebook software, does have a new version, but it went about 10 steps backward and 2 steps forward. Looks like the upcoming patch will help some of it, but I’m using the older version until it works. (And thankfully we found out the problem which was causing my handwritten notes to turn to gibberish if I switched to another page of notes…)

If I could just get over the inertia I seem to have acquired – I just can’t seem to start any new projects or finish any current projects. I’m sure it’s a mild bout of depression, but I’m trying to battle it out. I was quite pleased with myself when I actually bought ingredients to make chicken noodle soup today (my first attempt) AND actually cooked the soup! Tastes pretty yummy too! Got 8 more servings left, five are freezing, the other 3 in the fridge. Who knows – maybe tomorrow I’ll sand my front door (which has been on my To Do list for months now).

Hope y’all are having some good weather and nice times! Viva Autumn! (Or for you upside-down continents, Viva Spring!)

(PS, I accomplished another task! I wrote an LJ entry! Woot!)