Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Back to school . . . .blah! :-(

It was an interesting Feb break.

Did all the Dr appts. Shoulder is feeling better. Meds and physical therapy is working. I still can't lift my arm or rotate the shoulder for the most part.

Harvard Mock Congress in Boston was interesting. We had a few issues with the three of the boys on the trip. They decided to blow off the first committee meeting. Little did they know that 1) my co-advisor and I were checking on them, and 2) The committee chairs were taking formal attendance. I sat in one of the committees and I heard two of the boys names being read out and of course, no boys anywhere! So, I call them on their cell phone and they didn't answer. I call their parents to let them know their sons are MIA (Missing in Action) and within five minutes I get a phone call from the boys telling me their cell phones were turned off. Gee - if their cell phones were turned off, how did their parents get a hold of them so quickly????? Yes, I left a message but one of the boys slipped and admitted they were "screening" their calls. Stupid kids. Another boy decided to smoke in their hotel bathroom and run the shower to try and cover the smoke. The room was a non-smoking room and they all signed an agreement that no smoking was allowed on the trip. Of course the fact they are only 16 and 17 years old means nothing. The girls were fine. Giggles and typical girly behavior. They were good about obeying the curfew at midnight which was good. It was the other students from other schools that tended to be a pain in the butt since their advisers were not watching them. I hate having to watch other kids when they are not my responsibility.

When I wasn't sitting in on meetings with the kids, I walked around the Prudential Center and Copley Place. The Sheraton is attached to these malls. EXPENSIVE!!!!! I ended up having to buy new shoes because my black dress shoes fell apart on me when I was walking around Harvard. I went to Aldo and bought a pair for $50! I tend to purchase really cheap shoes so the fact that I paid $50 for a pair of shoes was a huge deal for me.

I met teachers from all over the country at the conference. Some high schools from IL were there too - all suburb schools. Overall, it was a good and educational trip. Most of the kids got into their roles as congressmen(women) so it was a good experience. Only one of the kids wanted to take a tour of Harvard University on Friday so my co-advisor and I took him to the campus tour and we had a faculty luncheon on campus. Harvard Square and Cambridge is always a unique experience.

Came home on Sunday night exhausted. I need a break from my break! :-)

Hope everyone has a good week -

Monday, February 18, 2008

I'm on vacation! Yahoo!

I'm officially on Feb break. Yeah!

I have Dr's appt's, hair appt, physical therapy appt, etc. Sorta busy. This is the week I tend to get all this crap done.

Rotator cuff is still a problem. I find that when I don't use my arm or shoulder a great deal it tends to feel OK. I can't lift my arm/shoulder very high. The pain is insane! The pain meds and antiflammatory works but I can only take them at night since they make me really sleepy. I suck up the pain during the day.

When I was working at Paws this weekend, I overdid it and the pain in my shoulder was killing me. I get very frustrated because it takes me more time to do things since I use my left arm more. And then I end up using the right arm and the pain kills! I know this is my own issue and I need to work on it. Ughy!

Today is the only day that I don't have any appointments so I plan on taking it somewhat easy and head over to Barnes and Noble at some point to get some correcting done.

It's raining here today. In the 50's. Sorta of a blah day. I guess the rain is better than snow! :-)

On Thursday, I head to Harvard Mock Congress with my co-advisor and 13 students in Boston. We will be staying at the Sheraton in Boston until Sunday. Schools from all over the country will be there so it will be a great opportunity for the kids to meet other kids from other schools and places. And, I like meeting teachers from all over the country too! :-)

So, it will be a busy week.

I won't have email access at the end of the week so if I don't respond to emails or blogs, please know it's because I have no access to the Internet. My co-advisor is going to bring her laptop but we don't know if we have to pay for Internet at the hotel or not. My laptop is not working right now and doesn't have wireless anyway.

Have a great week!!! :-0)

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Happy 37th B-day to M-Dawg!

This photo was taken when I was in 7th grade. Ahhh . . . the cheerleading days!


Yup! It's my birthday. I turn 37 today.


List of b-day happies:

*Happy to have a wonderful family. Mom called today to sing happy birthday to me - a tradition in our family.

*My silly and supportive friends. Thanks peeps! :-)

*Ellie the Cat cuddling with me this morning before I left for school.


My friend Carla will be taking me out on Friday for my b-day celebration. I don't want deal with the Valentine Day stuff so I pushed off the night out to Friday. I find that the older I get, the more sensitive I get to not being in a relationship with a great guy. Just don't want to deal with National Single Awareness Day aka Valentine's Day. :-(


What will you be doing on V-day??????

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Had to take a day off.

I had to take today off from school to go to the Doctor. My rotator cuff/shoulder has been in some serious pain for the past 1 1/2 week.

So I've spent the morning going to the Dr, got two prescriptions filled (one is Vicodin - yahoo!), made an appointment for physical therapy, and waited over an hour for an x-ray at the local hospital.

My shoulder is killing me from all the poking and prodding. I have an appt next Tuesday to figure out where to go from here.

Now I get to get my taxes done. Here's hoping for a nice big refund check this year! :-)

Saturday, February 09, 2008

Whew! It's been forever since I've posted anything on this blog!

Sorry folks! I know it's been a long time since I've written on the blog. The life of M-Dawg continues to be busy and crazy. I am alive. I am kicking. I am exhausted! :-)

Let's see. . . where do I start?

*Survived midterm exam week and finished grades. I was extremely disappointed in my freshman co-taught class grades. Over half the class failed for 2nd quarter. Part of the problem is that the SPED teacher in the room with me does not do his job and help the students (please note that I've vented about this guy many times on this blog). I follow the accomodations according to their IEP (Individual Education Plans) as best as I can. By law, I have to follow their IEP's. I have 25 kids in the class and 16 of them are on IEP's. The SPED teacher is supposed to be in the room to help these kids. He doesn't help the kids. He sits in the back of the classroom and falls asleep. In the rare occassion when I do ask him to do something, he gives me an attitude. And yes, I've already went to his head teacher and administration to complain about him and the response was not supportive nor good. He does the same thing in the other four classes that he's supposed to be co-teaching in as well. So I know it's not just me. He's riding out his time until he retires so until then we all have to suffer - including the kids. The thing that makes me so angry . . . he makes the same salary that I make! I bust my ass to do my job and he does nothing. And they (government, media, public, etc.) wonders why public eduation is failing in this country???? This guy doesn't have the same case load of SPED kids that other SPED teachers have because "he can't handle anymore kids on his case load." (per an administrator). So the administration is aware that the guy doesn't do his job. The man falls asleep in his own SPED meetings with parents and kids! I've witnessed it folks! Scary! I feel bad for my kids not doing well but there isn't anything I can do.

*The school system I work in ended up getting a loan from the state government to try and save all the teacher positions. We ended up losing 5 paraprofessionals and two custodians and 1 secretary in the end of the budget crisis. The numbers were going to be higher. Plus, the community rallied and donated over $400,000 to save jobs as well. FYI: The auditors finished their investigation and turned everything over the police to investigate the Business Manager that did all this craziness. Let's hope they fry the guy! Good news out of this experience: the city is looking to consolidate the city and school budgets. Read about it here.

*I starting teaching a new course called Current World Affairs. 10th-12th graders can take the class. I am very excited to be teaching this class because over the summer, I helped write the curriculum for it. The kids seem to be enjoying it too. The first week was interesting because a lot of seniors thought it was going to be a blow off class and I made it quite clear that it was an academic class that required work to be completed. I even assigned a two page typed essay on the first day! Kids started dropping out like flies! :-) I even have some kids contracting for honors credit for the course. The other teacher that helped write the curriculum over the summer is also teaching a section of it so her and I have been meeting once a week to plan together. She taught a section of it last semester but she found that it was tough on her own. She told me that I've been helping her stay focused and more on task. And, I guess I'm the creative one when it comes to activities so she loves that too.

*On the personal homefront, had a funny experience on Match.com. Yes, I went back to trying the online dating thing. I'm having a really hard time meeting guys so I figured, what the hell??? So, I post my profile and a few pictures of me on the site. I get an email from a 72 year old man. Yes, 72 years old. It gets better people. In this email, he asks me, "Would I like to play with his 'two Irish pototoes'"!!!!!!!!!!!! Dear God . . . he's a dirty old man! And, I check out his profile and his age requirement is 18-38 only! My age requirement was 32-48 (I'm going to be 37 next week). So that's my funny story of the week. At least I can laugh about it????

*Have school this week and then I'm off for a week for Feb break. Half of my break will be with Harvard Mock Congress and 13 students in Boston. Really could use a bit of a break.

*Yes, I will be 37 on the 14th of this month. I'm trying to grasp the idea that I'm getting old! :-)

Oh, sorry about the mispellings in this post. Blogger won't let me spellcheck for some reason???

Any news with you folks out there????