Well, not even that. More like 16 hours. We had a fabulous party last night planned for me by Theresa and Nathan. It was great. First, Nathan picked me up and we went to dinner at Cazba. Alanna, Ryan Fisher, Erica, my sister, and Misty joined us. I got some great presents. Some hair products from Erica, a $20 gift certificate to Office Depot from Alanna, a gift certificate to the Spa from Ryan. Dinner was fun.
Then we took off to the Cafe' de Paris, where we were met by Joe Wilsey, Becky, Theresa, Courtney, a little styrofoam cup from Chris Garcia that had "Happy Birthday, Elisabeth" written on it, and an entire cake made out of my favorite treat from le Cafe', le Royale (YUMMMMMMM). It's made of chocolate mousse and this stuff called feuilletine that tastes like the chocolates I bought in Salzburg when Jennifer and I were traveling around Europe in 99. I've got to go back to Europe sometime!
A ton of other folks showed, including Fairy, my parents, both Teruel-Mathieus and some other folks from Church. I got home late, stayed up later, and now I'm so exhausted I'm not sure which direction to go . . .stay here at school and work, or go home and sleep. I think the pressing work will ultimately win out.
Ryan sent me pictures he took today. Thanks, Ryan! Here they are.
I have a hellific eighth period class. I mean it. I have two kids who have serious attention-getting behaviors and I have no idea what to do about it. I can't reward them by putting them outside the portable and allowing them to go wandering around the campus . . .sending them to the office makes me look incompetent . . .What to do? I can't sweep them up into my fantastic teaching strategies because the stupid class is a "learning strategies" course. What's a girl to do? WWSD?
Right after school I would have cried, but I have settled for sitting here typing my woes onto my blog while I swig Diet Pepsi Vanilla. Which of the two did the trick? I think it's the typing, but Bob Dole would swear it was his "little blue friend" who made me feel better, the ice cold Pepsi-Cola. (Say it with a Bush accent and it's funnier.)
Well, I'm almost ready to start grading papers and to get my unit plan into shape. These aren't bad kids, and I don't blame them for being resistant. I can't give them a good reason that they're in my study hall except that their ISAT scores were low. This class is supposed to give them a leg up so they can pass other classes, but how can I help kids pass classes who don't want to pass? I'm working on unit plans/lesson plans but I can only do so much in one week. (I at least have read our major text, though!)
I have hardly ever been so flattered in all my days. That party was awesome. I think so many people came because Theresa planned it and everyone likes to be in on a surprise, especially when there's free cake involved! It was awesome. A very memorable birthday!
Oh. By the way, Misty is moving too. To San Francisco to be with Tim. She's moving at the end of the month. Didn't I tell you? If I truly find a connection with someone like I did with Sara and Shawn (both individually. How rare is that?) and with Misty. . .(The loveable subject of my favorite "crazy neighbor" stories. She's such a hoot!) they move. It just has to be. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe God is populating the states with my favorite people just so I'll get the lead out of my rear end and move somewhere. After today's eighth period, I would move just about anywhere to get away from my two loveable hellions!
They're good kids. I just have to believe that.
What else to say? Nothing. Except this job is stretching me like taffy on some of kind of torcher rack. I'm stretching, but it hurts, and it takes a lot of energy and time and frustration and saying to yourself, "Yeah. That wasn't so good. But I'm working on it." when that situation you never anticipated comes up and you don't handle it the way a truly smooth professional would. I just find myself hoping that I'll be a smooth professional next year.
Another really great analogy for how I feel about this job is . . .y'know when you're on the workout machine and you've hit the really high level and you've been going for like a minute and there's still 3 minutes left before the exercise will get any less intense? Your legs start to hurt and you're breathing hard and you wish you didn't have to strain so much, but you know it's for a greater good, so you just keep steppin' or peddling or whatever. You just keep going even though it's hard to maintain that level of effort . . .because you know you need to. I feel like I'm stuck on level 25 and it's been 5 minutes and I have 35 to go but I keep going because I know that the good my body will get from the exercise will ultimately be worth the strain.
Well, it's time to get off the computer and start some serious unit planning. Then some serious grading.
Have a good day!
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