Friday

Quite a day! I looked at my bank account first thing this morning, and my check to the department of education cleared, and had numbers written on the front, so I’m thinking that means my license is on its way, finally! It wasn’t in this afternoon’s mail, though.

During math today, I opened my door and put a sign on the outside of the door that’s supposed to be there. I looked over at another teacher’s pod and there was a man on her ramp who I never saw before. But being the polite sort, I said hello. An EXTREMELY short time later, we get an announcement for a lock-down. Now, I do not have written directions for lock-down procedure!! So I went by what I learned at my last school, since it seemed pretty basic. The kids asked me if it was a test, as if I would know! Next thing I know I hear sirens and the grounds are swarming with cops looking for someone. Keep in mind that the school building itself is kept locked at all times except for one door that goes directly into the office. But the pods are simply free-standing units. The doors lock, but we are in the great outdoors.

So apparently a child from one of the pods went to the bathroom and when he came out he saw a teen with what looked to him like a rifle which the teen then pointed at him. This is what triggered the lockdown. They never did find the guy, but they looked for 45 minutes.

The pods are closer to the main driving entrance than the school building is, and anyone coming in could be wandering around the compound, far from the building.

It started raining heavily by the time I got home, but Adrianna needed a ride to work so I drove her. That saved her standing in the pouring rain waiting for a bus. I was going to go to the Black Rose Caffe for the last write-in for NaNoWriMo, even though I don’t need it, but driving her to work convinced me that I really just wanted to go home and stay there! Tomorrow night is our Thank God It’s Over party, and Sunday some of us are going to see Enchanted (the movie) together. Cool beans, eh?

Speaking of “cool” — a little birdie (I think it was a pink flamingo, actually) told me that they were expecting sleet in Jefferson, to cover the layer of snow. So I sit here snuggly with my kitty and my tea, knowing that no matter how much rain we get, there will be no shoveling!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

It really does feel good to have NaNoWriMo finished, although now I look forward to next year already! My story still needs some major clean-up as well as the ending not really being finished yet. But I know that you have to submit your story to the word counter by midnight tomorrow in whatever time zone you’re in, and I don’t want to risk the computers crashing from the weight, so I tried to finish early. The thing is, though, that this book had some complex ideas in it based on reality, so I have to do some research before I do the final version. I have some of the books I need. A trip to a certain town in Northern Arizona would also be helpful, but I do have google globe thing for now. (I can’t remember what that’s called!)

School: First, I have to tell you what R did. The kids insist on chewing gum, even though they not only have to throw it out but they also have to write *I will not chew gum* a zillion times. So yesterday R was chewing gum, and I told him to go spit it out and then grab a paper to write. Well, he goes to grab the paper, but I didn’t see him spit it out. He’s the sneakiest kid in the class, so I reiterated that he had to spit it out. He replied that he did. Where, I asked? And he pointed to where there is normally a trash can by my desk. Normally. But not yesterday because I have two girls coming to school sick and so I gave them the trash can for their tissues. So what did he do with the gum then? HE PUT IT ON THE FLOOR IN THE CORNER!!!!!!!!!!!!! He went and got it and threw it in the can. Geez louise!!

There was major drama today, the sort that involves calling 911 for an ambulance. All I know is what I got from the students, combined with overheard announcements on the PA system. The kids said that a student stopped breathing. There were numerous announcements about emergency special ed meetings, so my guess is that one of the special ed kids stopped breathing. I don’t know anything else, though. We have a large special ed program, and I have seen most or all of the students, but I know nothing really about what happened.

In OMA today though, we finally got to use the bows on our violins! What fun! And we actually sounded good; no screeching at all! We had been practicing holding a pencil like a bow for weeks, and doing exercises with the pencil. Today after our plucking songs we played air violin first with the bows and then got to actually play. It was awesome! The way it works is that the teacher has this teaching CD. It has various forms of music, and there are things we play or pluck with them. We’ve been plucking to Les Toreadors for weeks.

Our huge science kit came but it took me until today to finish the inventory. We have to inventory it when we get it and when we return it. I finally got the kids to cooperate so I could finish. Part of the problem was that I didn’t know what some of the things were! But then we got to do the fun stuff! (There are a series of lessons; you don’t just turn the little angels loose or try to figure out what to do.) I told them that they would each get a battery, wire, and bulb, and they needed to make a diagram of how they thought they would put these together to light the bulb. They did that. Then I gave them the pieces and told them to figure it out and make the bulbs light. That’s it! That’s how remarkably helpful I was! When a couple fussed, I asked them: would it be more fun to figure it out or more fun for me to tell them how to do it? They decided that figuring it out was more fun. At one point, though, I did offer to tell them how, but I knew there were a couple who had seen it done before, and the kids decided that they’d rather keep trying. M was the first one to do it, and I had everyone clap for him, which of course he loved. Attention is definitely his thing, and it was nice that he could get it in a good way. Now, if you are a teacher, even though I have never told you my students’ names, you can guess right away what the M stands for. Except for the Aumanns, every M of this name I’ve known has been the same! But anyway, it was great fun as each child finally managed to light their bulbs (me too!) and that’s one thing I like about ending the day with science. They leave on a happy note and have something cheery to talk about at home!

After school I went to see the folks. I put the toner in Dad’s printer and installed it. His Microsoft Office won’t start without some sort of on-line key because it is a trial basis, but his Microsoft Works does. He wanted to make an address book and there’s one in there, so that’s something he can play with between now and Sunday, which is when the cable people will arrive to give him internet. The Word page has a bunch of different kinds of cards to make on it as well, so hopefully he may try to play around with that in the meantime as well.

Winner

Quote:
You Won!

So it’s official.

Our word-counting robots have analyzed your November novel, and they’ve delivered their final, binding assessment: Winner.

You did it! You did it! You did it!

This was, without a doubt, one of the hardest years on record for NaNoWriMo participants. At some point in the literary marathon, most of your fellow writers fell by the wayside. They lost their books to work, to family, to school, and to the hundreds of other distractions and interruptions that tend to shutter creative undertakings like NaNoWriMo.

But not you. Not this year.

This November, you set out with the ridiculously ambitious goal of bringing an entire world into existence in just 30 days. When the going got tough, you got writing. Now you’re one of the few souls who can look back on 2007 as the year you were brave enough to enter the world’s largest writing contest, and disciplined enough to emerge a winner.

We salute your imagination and perseverance. The question we ask you now is this: If you were able to write a not-horrible novel in 30 days, what else can you do? The book you wrote this month is just the beginning.

From here on out, the sky’s the limit.

We wish you well on your many upcoming adventures, and hope to see you for Script Frenzy in April, and again for NaNoWriMo next November.

Before you go, though, we have some NaNoWriMo Winner gifts for you.

The first are a couple of winner’s icons, meant to be posted on a website or blog.

Since your achievement should be proclaimed far beyond the internet realm, we’ve also created a special Winners Certificate for you to print out and hang anywhere novelist groupies tend to gather. After downloading from our site and printing it out, you’ll just need to grab your favorite calligraphy pen or re-run it through your printer to customize it with your name and the title of your new novel.

You can download your NaNoWriMo 2007 winner’s certificate using the link below. If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, you can just click the link to download and print from your browser. To download the certificate to your hard drive for later viewing and printing, use your browser’s ‘Save Link Location As…’ (or ‘Save Target As’) feature: PC users can right-click on the link to bring up a menu, and Mac users can just hold down the mouse button over the link.

On behalf of everyone here at NaNoWriMo headquarters, I offer you my congratulations.

Warm regards,

Chris Baty
Program Director, NaNoWriMo

Monday

I am getting my story caught up. I am having to use some of the tricks of the trade, but that’s OK. This is still just the rough draft.

It was a grey, chilly, dismal day. I’m not used to that, spoiled as I have been by warmth and sunshine. Now it is back to having a little blanket on the couch and a space heater in the bathroom. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.

Long division is going to kill me. Half the class can’t multiply! And if you think about it, there are a ton of steps in a two-digit number divided by a one-digit number with a remainder. So the little cherubs during math today simply wrote things like r2 or r3 FIRST and then tried to figure out the math problem. Um, how do you know what the remainder is if you haven’t done any of the math yet?? We did a bunch of problems on the board, then I’d have them do one problem and they’d fall apart. Then I’d do it on the board. OK, you do the next problem. etc. It wasn’t pretty.

I got absolutely no school work done during the four days off. Usually I do, but I kept putting it off. Part of it was because I’m still just a sub. I’m not getting paid for the days off, let alone for any other time aside from my daily eight hours, so why spend my personal time on the weekends doing work for free? My mind hasn’t been a pretty place to live lately.

One Month Before Christmas

Time flies!

My father has a computer now. Buz took him yesterday. He will call Monday to get internet. In the meantime, he’s learning how to use a mouse by playing Solitaire and Free Cell. It is stressful watching someone use a mouse for the first time!! In the meantime, we had Thanksgiving Dinner, Act II at Dottie’s yesterday. It was great food, of course. Jaeden is learning to talk now. He is stringing two words together and you can understand him.

My story is behind. The writing meet-up was on the other side of town yesterday because our usual place was booked, and I was counting on writing there and getting caught up. Alas, nope. I’ll see how much I can get done today, but I also have work to do that I’ve not done all weekend — grade a math test and fill in a grid, grade a math pretest, grade a reading test, get the reading paperwork caught up, and then deal with lesson plans and such. Busy day ahead!

In the meantime, at some point (maybe next weekend) I want to take down my October/November theme stuff in my kitchen and livingroom and then get out the Christmas stuff. Maybe I’ll do the taking down part during the week and then next Saturday, which is December first I think, I’ll put up the Christmas stuff.

Autumn

It’s cooling off now. The high today is only going to be 63, and it was more like 43 when I got up. Inside the house it had only cooled down to 68 though! Nevertheless, I finally turned the heat on and set it to 68. That way if it drops further tomorrow night I’d be covered. In the meantime, I can play with my Sims and see plenty of snow. I have the Seasons version and they start you out in winter, so the family I was playing with this morning is in the middle of the snowstorm. They like to look out the window when it’s snowing; it cracks me up. Sims even have snow days sometimes!

I did some work on my story this morning, but need to do more to get caught up. I have an idea about other stuff that will happen, so I may just write out of sequence and move things to the right spot later.

I had the cactus (prickly pear) jelly on my toast this morning. I wasn’t sure if I’d like it, but it was good! Otherwise I would have taken the rest of the jar to Dottie today!

Thanksgiving

Donna arrived Wednesday night, and my cat was happy to see her! Of course I was too, but my cat knows her now — enough that when I had the nerve to come home today from an outing and my sister was no longer with me, Ginny started meowing at me! She went to the back door in case Donna was out there smoking. Silly kitty — didn’t care that I was there — OH, no! She wanted Aunt Donna! Cheeky thing!

So Saturday we went to breakfast with Dad and Dottie to IHOP and then to there house. I got to watch the Packers game, which was a real treat because more than half the time their games aren’t televised here!! It was awesome!

We met Buz and company and followed him to Jerry and Louise’s for the big meal. Louise is a caterer, and the food was great. Luckily, she had a menu — the beef was cooked with wine! I never thought about it before I went there because it never occurred to me! Needless to say, I skipped the beef and was careful about other things, making sure that nothing I ate had alcohol in it. Then again, cooking with alcohol was never something that I ever did because it made more sense to me to just drink it straight from the bottle. There’s a whole other world out there! She had a ton of people there, and they were fascinating to me! Most of the adults were her age, and they talked about whether their mothers kept kosher when they were growing up, and if they did and at what point in their marriages, etc. There was a man there who I recognized as being a news anchor but was now retired I guess. The thing is, I couldn’t remember his name! Then again, it was a moot point because he wasn’t someone whom I was in a conversation with, but he did take a bunch of pictures. Jemma had a couple of her friends there from out of state, and one reminded me a lot of Lisa, my new sister-in-law! By the time we left, I swore I’d never eat again. As it is, we left around 6 or 6:30 and didn’t eat again until noon-ish today!

Since Donna was going to be here part of today as well, and I knew the folks would want to do something together and I couldn’t handle more sitting on the couch in front of the TV, I suggested we go to Tohono Chul park. When I came out here to visit over Christmas of 1997, Del took me there for lunch to their tea room. She got me this clay nativity set that I still have. All I remembered was that it was a really cool place and had desert gardens and I thought the folks would like it. But we had to wait until now for it to cool off enough for them to enjoy it, because it’s mostly outside. It has a couple of little museums, gift shops, and nice nature walking. In fact, we discussed the fact that Uncle Bob would love it. I’m also trying to increase their (Dad and Dottie’s) … experiences — places to go — so that when they have company from out of town they know lots of places to take them. Also so that they have places they like that they can go back to. I almost forgot to mention — there were signs up to be careful and stay on the paths, because it had been so mild that one had to keep an eye out for rattlesnakes!!

The food was wonderful! Donna and I got two different things that we both wanted and then split the, so we each had half an order of quesadillas and half an order of enchiladas. I took lots of pictures until the camera batteries died.

In addition to the gardens and pathways and regular gift shops, they have desert plants for sale so I got a Christmas cactus and a little plant of tiny red peppers. After I got home, I went to Ace Hardware (they had sent me a birthday discount coupon) and got better flower pots and transplanted them as well as a couple other plants.

Not to jump around, but Louise had made this incredible lemonade beverage from the fruit of a cactus! So while we were at Tohono Chul Park we got some jelly from the same cactus. When you see in the photos below a cactus with a little purple thing on it, that purple thing is what the jelly and juice came from. The people in the photos are me, Dad, Dottie, and Donna. If you know us, then you know who is who.

Teapot Photos

These are the three teapots I got for my birthday. I couldn’t post them or any other photos sooner because I cleaned up one day and put the camera’s cord … somewhere. But I took more photos today and really needed to start uploading pics!

Classroom Photos

I haven’t tried to upload photos to this blog yet. So we’ll see if it works. These photos were taken at the beginning of November. They show you all the … stuff … we have to have up — lesson plans, vocabulary, SFA stuff (the blue thing — I just change the stories and day numbers), etc. But I am still me. So when we had to write poems for SFA, I let them post them onto construction paper and decorate it. They loved it! Now they like writing poetry more. My SFA class includes a few third graders this term. I’ve made that my SFA spot on the wall so that it isn’t as much an experience of going to an alien room — the SFA kids belong there too. The blue baskets are also SFA — each group has its own basket, notebook for paperwork, folder for turning in homework (which I check while they’re reading), etc.

My regular class tries to write as little as possible, and that hurts them on the writing tests. So I told them no more short paragraph things. We’re writing big kid papers now, that have to be a page long or nearly so. They aren’t thrilled, but they did a decent job of it! Since we’re writing persuasive essays to prepare for the next writing benchmark, they had to persuade people to recycle. That went along with our school-wide recycling theme we had one week.

The last photo is from the kick-off party for the writing group. Some are dressed up because it was Halloween.

11-21-07

I keep thinking of this every so often, like an annoying gnat that you can’t get rid of. When my mother was here, we ran into a student of mine and her family at the mall. Now on the plus side, the student’s mother and father don’t speak English. That’s probably a key factor in why my mother didn’t end up walking home from the mall. Anyway, she says to the girl: “Is she [me] a good teacher, or do I have to spank her?” Now, is it just me, or is this a totally inappropriate … or psychotic even … thing to say to a student, let alone a student of your adult offspring? Luckily the girl didn’t understand the conversation because it was too weird.

Donna arrived safe and sound and is playing Second Life on the other computer. She brought the kitty presents — snacks and this toy bird thing that really makes chirping sounds. You have to hit it to get it to make those sounds though, so that’s good! So tomorrow morning we’ll go out to breakfast at IHOP with the folks, and then the Thanksgiving Dinner starts at 3 I think Dottie said. IHOP gives you enough food to last all day though. Good thing!