Saturday, September 28, 2013

Got a Roomie

Well, all of Matt’s stuff has been moved in so we’ve got boxes all over the place.  I spent last week doing housecleaning in preparation so now it’s a mess again.  It seems that Matt is a bit of a hoarder.  I think he got rid of about 10% of the excess stuff before moving, but there’s still some purging to do.  I’ve been trying to integrate some of his stuff into the house, but we may need some creative thinking.  I still don’t know where to put the giant mounted fish that he has.  They are sentimental since he caught one of them while fishing with his dad and the other was one that his dad caught.  I still need to buy a new chest of drawers for him.  His is so ugly that I won’t allow it in the bedroom. It’s going in Josh’s room/Matt’s office for now.  I may try to paint it at some point. 

School has been crazy this week.  I’m continually behind on getting things done it seems.  I did get my grant book order finished.  I submitted two other orders and will slowly work on a few others.  I’m supposed to be working on the school calendar but that has been put on the back burner for now.  My Scrabble club is still huge.  I had to adjust my layout on Friday because of the book fair getting set up.  I have over fifty students that are playing Scrabble.  Luckily I don’t have to run the book fair.  It’s handled by the PTA. I get some donated books from it.

It was great to sleep in today. I am enjoying my Saturday off.  I guess I could be sorting through some of Matt’s stuff, but there’s no rush.  I’m probably going to finish my Sue Grafton book instead. And perhaps take a nap.  I need to reserve some energy so that I can help Matt clean his apartment that hasn’t been cleaned since he moved in 12 years ago.  Matt said that instead of finding “dust bunnies” that they were more like the giant killer rabbit from The Holy Grail. 

Monday, September 23, 2013

It was a Monday

I was really upset when I got to school this morning.  Today was officially Scrabble club day (yay) but when I walked into my library, there was 20+ boxes of workbooks left all over my tables. I got to school early so that I could get ready for the club today, but I spent the morning moving boxes out of the way.  What’s worse is that these were boxes of workbooks that I had already received – so they were duplicates.  I only needed some algebra workbooks and they sent those along with everything else.  My club was so full this morning that I had to turn students away.  Club went ok, but I had my hands full as always. 

I wrote a terse email to textbook person and explained the situation with workbooks.  Thankfully she has some people that came and picked them up today so I didn’t have to store them.  Matt was there this morning so helped with club and then shelved books for me.  I spent most of the day working on an orientation lesson for one of the English classes.  I’m  also trying to finish my $5000 Laura Bush Grant book order which is harder than it seems. I actually have to order 10-15% over that amount because they may not be able to actually send all the books on my list. 

Matt has to get moved in this week. I tried to help him at his apartment, but it’s a nightmare.  Remember that he has lived as a bachelor for many, many years.  It seems that he has saved every scrap of paper and piece of mail over the past 13 years or so.  I found a receipt dated 2000.  Since a bunch of the stuff is old bills and whatnot, I can’t really sort through it very well so I haven’t been much help.  I’ve been doing some work here at the house instead.  I’ve been cleaning out things, moving furniture around, and making room for Matt’s stuff. 

Monday, September 16, 2013

Working in an inner city district

When I got hired at my district I was a little concerned because I’d be working at what you’d consider an urban inner city school.  It has a high ratio of low socio-economic students and borders some “iffy” neighborhoods.  Living in a big city certainly means more crime.  That part made me nervous about moving here.  In the small town I came from there was a murder maybe every five or six years.  There are almost one or two a week here. But when I moved here, I found a neighborhood that I felt comfortable in.  The students at school where I teach are a little rough but a good number of them are great kids.  

We had a tragedy befall our school this weekend.  One of our students was shot in a drive-by shooting early Sunday morning.  He was only 13 years old.  I didn’t know the student.  He was fairly new to the school, but it is something you hope you never have to deal with.  The library became the grief headquarters today.  The district sent over several counselors to talk to students as needed.  Some of the students were truly broken up, but there were a lot of others that took advantage of the tragedy just to get out of class.  Many of them, however, wrote messages on a banner that I assume will be given to the family. 

On a positive note, I got quite a bit done today.  I was able to catalog several magazines and accomplished many things on my to-do list since we didn’t have Scrabble club today.  Matt brought me lunch and shelved books for me as well.  I also talked to the deputy superintendent who seemed very impressed by my Scrabble club.  I think I’m starting to make a name for myself in this district. 

Yesterday I created two new websites.  I found a very easy, but very nice online web creation program called weebly that I used to create my own library lesson page.  It’s going to be a work in progress for a while, but I hope to share it with others in a few weeks.  I also created a San Antonio Scrabble website for Matt. I mentioned that I was going to do it last year, but never found the time.  Once I found weebly, however, it was easier to do.    I’ll pay for my own domain name after payday in a few weeks.  Money is tight at the moment.  Luckily Matt will be moved in by the end of the month and I’ll start getting some money from him to help with the bills and such. 

Well, I’m going to eat some leftover pizza for dinner soon.  (Sausage, pepperoni, and onion) and then read for a bit. Maybe I’ll talk myself into doing a little more laundry.  Probably not, but there’s always hope.

Saturday, September 07, 2013

Another week down

Things are off and running at school.  I opened the library on Wednesday and have already had three classes in there this week.  I think there’s going to be a lot of students interested Scrabble club.  I’ll know for sure on Monday when we have our first meeting.  Someone from the district communications office is going to come out to write a story about the club.  This week I worked on some lessons for the digital citizenship lessons that have to be taught to all the students in the school.  I’m having all the teachers present it this year and that will take off about two weeks of work that I normally have to do.  Maybe I’ll be able to finish cleaning out my back rooms by the end of next week then. 

Matt has the day off today so we’re going to go pack some of the stuff in his apartment.  It was great to sleep in today – especially after taking two benadryl last night.  I had some allergies hit me around dinner time last night.  We went to Cheddars for dinner and on the way home I sneezed quite a bit.  I took the first benadryl around 8:20 but it didn’t seem to work much an hour later so I took another one. I guess that did the trick as it knocked me out.  I had a lot of weird dreams last night.  I didn’t get out of bed until after 10 this morning.  I woke up the first time around 7:45 when I had to go to the bathroom and Lucy insisted on food.  I went back to bed and slept until around 9:30.  I still stayed in bed and read for a little bit before I managed to get up and about. 

Now I’m having my coffee and some french toast sticks which aren’t that great.  Oh well, at least it is something for breakfast which is more than I usually eat.  Not sure when we’ll head to Matt’s apartment.  The nice thing about weekends is that I can make my own schedule.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Opening the library

Well, my library is ready to open tomorrow.  I already have classes scheduled.  I still have a lot of work to do, but the library and lab areas are clean and clear for the moment.  There’s still a lot of “stuff” to go through, but most of it has been moved to back rooms.  I have some lesson plans to put together for teachers to go over with their classes next week.  I also need to finish my grant book order. 

The Scrabble tournament was a bust for me this weekend.  My last game was for the potential of placing 3rd and I blew it.  I had some great tiles but just couldn’t see the words and used up too much time.  As soon as the last game was done, I rushed out of there.  I just needed to get away and not think about Scrabble for a while. 

I was glad to have Monday off so I didn’t have to do much of anything.  Matt and I went to half priced books.  I got a jigsaw puzzle and a book for Josh.  Matt found two books.  After that I went to Michaels, but didn’t get much.  Matt went and played Scrabble the rest of the afternoon and I just vegged at home. 

Tonight I  picked up some Chinese food takeout and didn’t do much of anything again.  I probably should have done some laundry.  I haven’t run out of underwear yet so I have a few more days.