i have an assignment for a class i’m taking. if you wouldn’t mind answering the following question, i’d really appreciate it.

after almost six weeks of really disliking my job, i have finally had a good day.  it’s what i was expecting when i agreed to take it.  i had very good communication with my main cow-orker, and i let her know that i thought she was very difficult to read (i consider myself to be a good judge of poeple’s emotions and feelings), which was really bothering me.  plus, there was a lot of work to do today, which made me finally feel useful.  i was feeling very useless, and redundant.  i actually believe there isn’t enough work for two people.  definitely too much work for one, but not enough for two.

i also taught a class this morning, which always makes me feel good.  and i played softball after work.  i also did something kinda bitchy intentionally.  someone’s been parking poorly at work, and i blocked his car in for being a bitch.  he’s a custodian, who gets to work early enough to have better parking, but choose to park in a tandem spot, wasting two spaces.

movie night consisted of buckets of fried chicken and fixin’s from kfc, and watching eight ninths of the william shatner roast on comedy.

yesterday was a movie night field trip–little miss sunshine was so funny, i cried.  jnb3 was howling next to me, and laughing with me at inappropirate moments.  bless his heart.

disneyland was sunday, and that awesome too.  and saturday was the cactus show and dinner with banana (aka sanfranann).  i’m very lucky to have good friends who are taking good care of me while my love is away.  i love you, and we’ll be back together soon.

anyway, good day.  finally.  i’ve been waiting for this.  for too long.  i’m expecting more of this.  not hope.  expect.

halfway through grading 165 papers, after about 15 near perfect papers, and a disproportionate amount of good grades (that’s good, right?), i finally encounter my first A+ paper.

not one single perfect paper! i have a bunch of near perfects (29/30), but not one a+.

sometimes, i feel like i’m burnt from both ends so badly that the effort in cooking for myself, cleaning my house and doing my laundry seem like too much. sometimes, i wish i had a job that didn’t follow me home, or require so much brain power. sometimes, moving boxes sounds like fun.

about a week back, i was observed in my classroom by a group of administrators from a nearby school. they were seeing how other schools implement their algebra program, because, like us, they’re having trouble with their kids lack of success (the answer is easy, they’re either not prepared in their basic skills, or they’re not mentally ready–id est, the development of their frontal lobes have not progressed sufficiently to properly grasp the subject). i personally thought i was having an off day. it was my first day back from taking five days out to attend district-level meetings and conferences. but my kids shone brighter than i could have ever expected. they were great, not me.

my visitors walked around my room, interviewed some of my kids, and as they were leaving told me i was doing a great job, and even asked me if i wanted to defect to their school, to which my math coach was adamantly opposed. after they had left campus, i walked into the main office to take care of some other business, and several people came up to me to congratulate me. i was a bit confused until they told me that they had heard of my impressive performance (again, not me, my kids were strangely stellar).

on friday, one of my mini-cheeses asked to see me. my gut reaction was to deny knowledge of any wrongdoing (i’m known for being a bit of a trouble maker on campus). he assured me i wasn’t being reprimanded, and told me, off the record, that the other administrators were very impressed by one other teacher and myself. he then said that the visiting admin said that my cow-orker and i were better than the other school’s two best teachers.

professionally, that made my day. hell, it validated my existence in my classroom.

*you can’t call it conceit if you know it’s true*

one of my mini-cheeses came to me during my last class today and had two questions for me. one was regarding eighth grade activities, and the other was to ask me to sit in during an interview. i was very flattered that he came to me to be one of the teacher representatives. it was the first interview i’ve ever been able to participate in (other than the one where i was on the other end of the table). the poor guy was so nervous, but we decided we liked him (shh, don’t tell anyone)–he had potential. he wasn’t immediately workable, but he will be. and we’re a good facility to promote that kind of growth.

yay me!

if dr. king were alive today, would he be happy with the state of america? why or why not?

yesterday’s input: 1.5 L water; bowl of pho and vietnamese iced coffee; soft serve and shared hotdog from ikea; taco hell (1 nacho supreme, i soft taco supreme, 1/2 grilled stuft chicken burrito)
yesterday’s output: 1/2 hour cardio on the elliptical machine, ab work.

today, i’m off to the gym and then i’m going to pop into work and do an observation of a cow-orker (i’m a master teacher, scary). i think i may be staying after hours to do some posters and lesson plan and work on my credentialling stuff…misery loves company, y’know?

ok, i love the snickering back and forth about uranus. but it’s really funny to hear it out of the voice of adolescent english language learners.

one of my students is writing a compare and contrast report on uranus and mars. which brought out comments such as:

“your anus is bigger than earth.”
“no, my anus is over here!”
“man, stop talking about my anus!”