August 2004

Happy kids make me smile

Well, we got through our first week of school and aside from little kids getting on the wrong bus, etc. everything seems to be going well. I met with all of my various schools on Friday and I still like my base school the best - so much so that I'll be doing Art Club with them! The PTA will be helping with fund raising and supplies for the club, so I hopefully won't need to worry about that so much.

One thing I noticed as I was walking around being introduced to various teachers & students was how everyone's face lit up when they found out I was the new Art teacher. Now you see, THIS is why K-6 are the best grades to teach. Everyone loves art.

... now I just need to finish all of my lesson plans. :P

Floating Around

Halfway through the first week of school, and I finally met with my supervisor to plan out my next steps. (I'm not blaming her for the delay - she has a TON of work on her plate and I would never want her job.)

Today I passed around sign-up sheets for Art so classroom teachers could pick their best times for me to come in. As they're handed back to me I'll be assigning said times. I'm only going to be in this building for another two weeks after this week, so this needs to be done pronto.

Oh and I finished setting up my bulletin boards today. My principal, supervisor, and school councilor ALL made a point of stopping in and saying I did a good job with them. You can check them out with the links below:

Art is everywhere!
September's Artist of the Month

I'm happier with the "Artist of the month" one because it contains a link to my education website where I go into more depth about the artist. Boo-YA!

That's all for now - I need to get out of here before they lock the doors!

Wingnuts

I just got my hands on a copy of Wingnuts from the good people at Freeverse Software. The concept of the game is simple enough - fly your jet around in a 2D fashion shooting a bunch of robotic planes while the head bad guy yells funny insults at you.

I give you a warning, however: this game is VERY addictive in the "I'll just play one more level" variety.

Last I checked Freeverse offered a demo version of the Wingnuts game along with plenty of other free programs for both PC and Mac. You should really check them out.

35 Minutes!

That's how long MapQuest says my commute should be to my new school. I know that's not entirely accurate, but when you consider that my old assignment was an hour commute, things are really looking up. ^_^

The downside is that tomorrow is the last day before students show up and I haven't seen my building yet. Due to the playing of musical chairs I spent the last 4 days as an Art teacher for a different school roughly an hour and a half from my apartment. That school's Art stuff is all ready to go now, including a bulletin board.

Now I've got one day to do a week's worth of work. No pressure.

Long Day

Got up at 5 AM today, just to see if I could do it, since work and insane commuting times start tomorrow.

With the free time I had that early in the morning I took a walk around Baltimore's Inner Harbor and, well ...

I'm not a Wi-Fi virgin anymore.

There's apparently a free Wi-Fi access point near one of the harbor's shopping centers, so this morning I tried it out - very sweet connection, in fact. And at 7:30 in the morning there's almost nobody out and about (since most shops don't open 'till 10) so it was nice and peaceful as well.

But now I'm home and on dial-up. *sniff*

In other news: Kelli's still making progress. She was off the ventilator for 8 1/2 hours today and managed to sit up for over an hour, although an attempt at standing backfired. I brought her headphones so she can listen to MP3s on her Palm Zire at dialysis tomorrow.

My Dad's a Hero (Not a sandwich)

Here's a little conversation for you.

AIM IM with my sister:
8:50 PM
Beka: dude!
Beka: daddy is a hero
Blake: dudette!
Blake: how?
Beka: we went to this place today to go walking, and this guy turned blue and fell over
Beka: he knocked me over, and daddy started cpr
Beka: i called 911
Blake: so you're a hero too.
Beka: the guy took a couple of breaths on his own... it doesn't look good for him, but daddy kept him breathing until the medics got there
Beka: it was so scary...
Blake: But he didn't die on you.
Beka: no... but he's not going to live either... probably
Beka: but we did all we could
Beka: daddy was so cool... i have never been so proud of him
Blake: :D

Temporarily evicted.

I've been using iBlog to do my blogging for a year now, thinking it was a pretty neato program.

Last night it decided to stop saving entries in HTML format for me. A reinstall did not fix the problem, nor did my Disk Utility.

So now I'm in the market for another blogging program that is customizable and saves as HTML. I would just stick with LiveJournal, but I like having most of my stuff on a single account.

Darkest Before the Dawn

Oh me of little faith. Looks like God pulled through with a ... well ... a godsend.

What started off as a very scary week for me is now turning out to be quite a happy one. Today my Curriculum Supervisor (for whom I've always had a tremendous amount of respect) is getting me a position as an elementary teacher!

Ok, you know how when you're out of college and employers are asking you where you see yourself in 5 years? I always told them "Teaching elementary school." It's what I've wanted to do ever since I stepped into the classroom. This is a big deal for me.

There are some cons: Multiple buildings, longer commute time than last year, and most likely it will be "art-on-a-cart," but it's all good because it's ELEMENTARY! WOOHOO! BOO-YA! INSERT NONSENSICAL EXCLAMATION HERE!!!!

Oh yeah, now I have to redo all my lesson plans for the year along with most of the content on my school site. Feh.

Oh, well. It's still worth it. :-]

Misplaced, Part 2

The hunt continues.

I have two probable leads on teaching placements, and one interview set up for Monday at 7:30. I've interviewed at that school before and didn't get the job, but this is a different potential opening (the current teacher hasn't decided if she's leaving yet, but she's hinting she might) and they have a new principal.

So I've got two schools that MIGHT hire someone, but that someone might not be me.

Feh.

Update:

The 2nd school did not answer the phone when I called them today. I just found out why - Human Resources gave me their FAX number, not their PHONE number. I couldn't find this out until I got home and was able to go online and check their website. Now I've lost a whole day when I might already be too late.

Will someone please hire competent staff for my county's Human Resources? The current lot of them are either arrogant egoists or incompetent bumblers. I know nobody's perfect, but even a broken watch is right twice a day if it's analog.

HR is a digital watch. They're just off.

Misplaced

As in, my job has been ...

Couple of weeks ago I called up Human Resources and they told me the school at which I've taught for the past two years would once again be my assignment.

Ok, no problem. I began to prepare for the school year, etc..

Today I called that school to see if I could get an advance copy of my schedule.

Schedule person: "You're playing, right?"

Me: " ... "

Schedule person: "Because you're not on our roster. [Insert principal's name here] told us the Art position was a vacancy and we've filled it."

Me: "I think I need to talk to Human Resources."

There is of course more to the story, above, but going into more details would provide incriminating evidence or lots of "[insert name]" thingies instead of real names, and I won't subject the web to either.

Suffice to say that HR said they'd get back to me, and I left voicemail messages for my Curriculum Supervisor (A great woman - she's come through for me in the past.) and my Union Representative. We'll see how things progress and hope for the best. If phone calls do not go well in the morning, I will be driving to the HR building rather than going IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION to see Kelli. This will of course put me in a horrible mood, but like a mechanic fixing a car things get done faster when you're standing right there.

Some would ask why I don't take my issues to the school rather than HR, and for that I will say that 95% of my difficulties have come from higher powers than the local administration. I am willing to believe that the false pretenses my (former) principal acted upon are not truly his fault.

I have, however, already heard it said by those in the know that this is the worst shape our county's ever been in when it comes to the right hand knowing what the heck the left is doing. If it didn't mean changing health care plans (That's a rant for another day) I would have left for a different employer already.

Wish me luck.

Credit Card Apps

You're pre-approved!

... and I'm pre-approved and my cat's pre-approved and my great great uncle is pre-approved even though he's long dead.

I know that Seraphim of Megatokyo fame has just recently ranted about the same thing, but wouldn't you know it I opened up my mailbox to find many many apps for cards, some of them duplicates. Is there any reason why a guy needs to have two Sears cards? I didn't think so.

When Kelli & I eventually throw off the shackles of apartment living to live in an actual house, (something that we'll be unable to do if we have dozens of credit cards) I'm installing a paper burning stove so the credit apps can actually do some good.

I saw it on a T-shirt.

Rock is dead. Long live paper and scissors. ... that is all.

Fall Blitz

Getting ready for the winter rush.

Some people do spring cleaning, but my busy time is right before school starts. Oh yeah, and my first day back is the 16th, although I won't see kids until a week after that.

I'll be back in the same building as last year, although I can now expect to have 30 kids per class instead of 25. Last year some of my classes had 26 kids, which was annoying because I only had 25 desks.

Let's just hope they A) give me 5 more desks, B) said desks actually fit in the room, and C) I have the budget to teach these kids a decent Art lesson.

In preparation for the new school year I've been tweaking my Academic Aesthetic page and preparing some lessons in advance. I even went and bought all my school supplies already, although I'm sure I'll remember some others later on.

-=-=-=-

On the home front, Kelli is doing much better. The Doctors want her to stay off the respirator for 12 hours - something she hasn't done yet but she's managed 9 1/2 in one go so it's not too much of a leap. Her legs are also getting much better, thanks to them stretching her ankles and casting them to keep them stretched for a week at a time. She can manage to stand for 10 minutes so far, but we expect that to improve as well.

Our 3 year anniversary was on July 14th, and I bought her a Palm Zire 72 to celebrate. I figure I spent $100 per year and it's something she could use when roses would just make her allergies act up.

Many of our friends and family have been sending in cards. Lots of cards. More cards than I can count, and some of you have sent in 3 or 4 of them already. Every one of them is appreciated. It's nice to know you care.

Kelli also has her cell phone on her, so if you happen to know her number you can give her a ring sometime to help alleviate the boredom. We've got free nights and weekends if you wan to do some guilt-free talking. (If you don't already know her number, sorry but I'm not putting it in my blog. E-mail me or give Kelli's Dad a call.)

Well it's 1:30 AM and I should've been asleep a while ago. G'night, all!