Pigeons

Yes, if there’s one thing my school has an abundance of, it’s Uncle Mil’s favorite bird. I was never bothered by an occasional stray bird, but this is a pesky pack of pidgeons. They play chicken with you when you’re walking with a line of kids. They’re either fearless or stupid. I’m not sure which. They are definitely annoying, though. They love the school, though, because the kids are always dropping food…food that they’re not even supposed to have! The kids are extremely fond of hot Cheetos or something like that. But they’re messy, so they’re often on the ground, and the pigeons have a picnic. A pesky pigeon pack picnic. Just so ya know.

Harry is a happy kitty, thrilled to have toys and someone who plays with him. However, he meows at me for no obvious reason when I’m in bed. It’s a lot like the “get up and feed me” sort of conversation cats have, except for the minor detail that there’s already food in the dish. He does it both in the morning first thing and when I go to bed. Sigh…

Attendance and tardiness are both problems in my classroom. No lie — I have 7 students with between 10 and 19 absences, and I have 12 students with between 10 and 29 tardies. I know this because I counted each student’s today. Then I looked up the bigger picture, absences and tardies for the first two marking periods (we’re a month into the third one). On my way home I stopped at the Dollar Store (a version of it, I think this one’s actually the 99 Cent store) and got stuff for the seven who had no absences either first or second quarter, and the 8 who had no tardies either first or second quarter (3 had no tardies either quarter). For those with no absences, I found this cool thing that’s both a ruler and a calculator. For the non-tardies I got a pack of markers and a package that has a calculator and a pen. They can pick which they want, with three getting one of each. I may make certificates, too. How can they pass tests if they don’t show up at school???

I dropped my on-line class. I’m going to take it “live” instead. The live version is free, but it involves two whole Saturdays (8-5) and 5 Tuesdays (4-8:30). No homework. Two of the other teachers from my school are also taking it (it starts this Saturday) and they encouraged me to join them so we can all take it together. Sounds like fun! Well, fun in a way at least! The teacher is the same one for the on-line class.

******************************WARNING: POLITICAL INTERLUDE******************************

I wish I could at some point feel passionate about a candidate, and maybe that will come. I’m not holding my breath. At the moment, I’m leaning toward Obama. The more time passes, the less I’m able to seriously consider Clinton. I still think it’s sleazy that she suddenly became a New York Senator without having ever lived there prior to deciding she wanted the job. I also find her remarkably annoying at the moment. Now, I’ll admit that I think I actually voted for her when she became senator. The guy running against her was a moron, and he would have been a shoe-in if his commercials had simply said “I’m not Hillary Clinton.” But nooooooooooo. He said a bunch of stuff like “She’s awful because she believes X” and I’d think “But I believe X too!” He had a whole series of commercials that made her look good!

I looked up Obama’s platform on education, and I liked what I read. Our primary is next Tuesday, and that’s probably which way my vote will go.

The Tedesco Family

Sue’s birthday is coming up (actually, I seem to know a lot of people with February birthdays) and I was googling … well, I won’t say what. It goes without saying anyway. But Google is made for people with my short attention span, and I came across a gem of a blog. I’m convinced that even though there isn’t a single Tedesco in any version of a family tree that I’ve seen, we definitely must be related to these people. Maybe they simply changed their name for the blog, and their last name really starts with a C. http://tedescotimes.com/ The wedding video is something worthy of my Phoenix cousins, and I thought of the photo of Buz, Donna, and Jaeden when I read about and saw the video of the train incident. I definitely like these people!

Today was my first union meeting. It was short — already I like it! There weren’t a lot of people there, if you consider how huge our school is (I think I remember there being 60+ staff). But they welcomed me and gave me a tote bag with a few goodies including a window shade that’s better than the one I have. The sun shade reminds me of something I said before — we don’t have a lot of “weather.” We had some this morning. Yesterday and last night there was plenty of rain. This morning when I left for work, there were plenty of clouds. Some were slanting down instead of being flat on the bottom — more like they were falling downhill. Others were grossly huge and looked like bad news. When I got to work, someone commented on them and called them “beautiful.” The conversation was along the lines of “Hey! Did you see the clouds this morning?” Now, for most of my loyal readers, that makes about as much sense as “Hey! Did you see the doorknob this morning?” But the clouds really were cool, in a “it better not rain while I’m driving so I don’t have to cross flood zones” sort of way.

I was getting ready for work this morning, and right as I was leaving at 7 the phone was ringing. I looked to see who it was — it was the substitute office. I never notified them to take me off their list! So I did that this afternoon. I also breathed a sigh of relief that I could tell them I had a full-time job now and didn’t need to be a sub. I am ever mindful of the law they told us about at the beginning of the year: You can only sub at a school for 120 days. Then you can no longer sub at that school. Their theory I suppose is that they don’t want classrooms filled with a year-long teacher who’s really a sub. The hundredth day was last Wednesday, so 120 is in a couple of weeks. I don’t know how many subs we have left. I know one had orientation a week after I did, which means she’s now official too. We’ll see if people suddenly disappear!

Harry & Ginny

Ahh, life with two cats is so much different from life with just one! When I came home from work on Tuesday, Harry hid for a while but eventually came out. That was his last shy moment. He has discovered that he has a lap to sit on or next to, someone to sleep with, someone to claw when he’s kneading, someone to pet him, and a steady supply of food. Ginny doesn’t hiss at him so much any more; he does the hissing. Now that he has his very own person, he doesn’t want to share! But they must have come to some sort of truce because they’re both in bed with me when I wake up in the morning.

I didn’t get a washer last payday because I had to pay all those bills, etc. I applied on-line to the local rental center and the guy called me today to see if I’m still interested. He’s going to get back to me. If I can’t rent, then I’ll try to buy one this payday if I have enough left over after paying rent. I can’t keep taking my laundry to the folks’ house, and I’m very behind because I don’t do any the weekends we have company. If the rental place showed up tomorrow with a washer and dryer, it’d take a week to get caught up!

Monday after work is my first union meeting. Now, I’m not really a union person, but considering the district didn’t want to give teachers a raise at all (even though they were given the money to do so) and hadn’t for a number of years, I realize having a union is better than not having one. Some of my discomfort comes from when I worked in the nursing home. The Teamsters Union decided tha they wanted to represent us, and went to court to do so. We didn’t get to vote on (a) whether or not we wanted a union and (b) whether or not we wanted the Teamsters Union to be that union. They simply invaded. But it’s a right-t0-work state and I refused to join. By the time they were done, we had fewer benefits than we had before they came. I have nothing nice to say about them. Hopefully my experience this time will be better!

I started reading the book for my online class. So far the first ten pages are about what doesn’t work. I finally started skimming. I don’t have time for that sort of nonsense. Don’t tell me the history of anything. Don’t tell me what doesn’t work, and name a bunch of researchers. Cut to the chase. I hope it gets better!

Park

edit: I have to find a blog style that doesn’t cut off part of the pictures! The photo with John and I also includes Donna!

another edit: as you note the clothing, remember this is January 21!

I love Tohono Chul park, and so it was great to be able to go there with the family, especially with John and Lisa seeing it for the first time. Of course I took a ton of pictures. I decided to just post the pictures so you can see the scenery that I love as well as the people that I love (well, some of them, anyway). A couple of the signs I took pictures of because they are warnings to beware of snakes since the winter was so mild. The thing that looks like a huge reptile is a sculpture. There was a really odd large rock, so I took a picture of it with my shoe for scale/size. I took a picture of the blind cactus because I was wondering how a blind cactus gets around exactly. Little white cane? Seeing eye vine? Keep scrolling down — you don’t want to miss Lisa and the Saguaro (so you can see how really huge they are).

Wed. = PD

Today was the 100th day of school.  I wouldn’t have known except it was mentioned at the staff meeting.  I don’t know if the lower grades had any “events” or not.  They’re inside the building, far away from us.

Every Wednesday is the staff meeting, also known as Professional Development. Had I read yesterday’s paper, I would have had a clue what was coming. The state has decided to make rules on a whim. They have no data or research to back up their decision; it just feels good or something. They want to segregate English Language Learners by their ability to speak English, in a ranked sort of way. Those segregated children would have four hours a day of structured English education. However, they still have to pass the state standardized tests, so after those four hours a day are over they have to fit in all those pesky other subjects: math, science, math intervention (remediation), music, social studies, library, any other specials, etc. Now I’m not against children learning English. I think it’s a great idea. However, in my school, it would look like this: Hispanic children bundled into classes according to their level of English proficiency (four classes of 4th graders next year), and the remaining class or two classes containing all of the Anglo, Native American, and African American children. Spanish speaking children who test out would then be able to join the rest of the school. That four hour block would include an entire hour of grammar every day and an entire hour of vocabulary. Our district has chosen the program we will be required to use, but there are no funds to pay for it. Fun. But this is for next year.

I finally got my ID badge, and a second one for my wallet. I am now official. In general, the women at the school don’t wear their badges. The men did at first, but now I can only think of one person who wears one, and I’m not sure who she is! Sometimes I think she’s a sub, but subs don’t have badges. She must do something else but gets called upon to sub sometimes. Or she could be an aide. Other schools require the teachers to wear their ID badges all the time. I know when I went for the DIBELS training we were supposed to wear our badges, but mine hadn’t come. And yet no one at the school stopped me and asked who I was.

Tomorrow is our team meeting after school. We’re supposed to come up with things to improve our math scores. Well, for starters, can we stop following the stupid calendar that moves kids on whether they learned it or not? The math person’s theory is “at least they’ll be exposed to the content.” Well, the tests are based on mastery, not exposure!! I did find an awesome site, though. It has about a dozen math activities for each computation method. I have them do the timed multiplication, setting the amount of time and the highest factor (10). It also has games they like. http://www.kidsnumbers.com/

January 22

This morning I realized I was wrong. I had thought it was awful to see a sunrise on the way to work. Nope. It’s worse to be driving toward a full moon on your way to work in the morning, BEFORE the sun rises! Dark all the way to work. Bummer.

Harry isn’t much for coming when he’s called. Yesterday his fans wanted to meet him but he just stayed hidden until he felt like coming out to get scritched. It was the same tonight. I came home from school and called him, but it took him an hour to decide that there might be something interesting in the livingroom. That’s when he noticed a lap. He loves laps. He also has claws. There’s a big difference between being kneaded by a declawed Ginny and a Harry with claws!! Harry is a kitty who LOVES being loved, and he purrs, too! But things must be getting better in the kitty wars because tonight Ginny didn’t hiss at him or growl.

My on-line class started today. I had ordered the book and went to pick it up after school. The nice thing about doing it that way was that I could surpass the huge line, plus it was easier to resist the temptation to buy other things, since the book had already been paid for. I just had to prove who I was and sign some form and leave. But … for a few moments I regretted signing up for an on-line class rather than a classroom class. I love being in that college environment, even though it’s a community college rather than a university. But when I take Spanish (don’t know when), that’ll be in person.

Dr. King Day

Oooh, I suppose it would be cruel to point out that I’m sitting in my jammies and robe because I have no school today, since my Wisconsin friends are in a classroom right now! And mentioning that today’s high is expected to be 65 is just adding insult to injury. Sooooo, I won’t say either. OK? 
I am soooooooooo glad John and Lisa came down, but today is the last day I’ll see them for a while. Luckily, I am already planning to visit Wisconsin in June, so that will make their leaving today less painful. But it’s been great to see them!

On Friday I finally got paid. My previous pay check was half a check. There was some retroactive money but I won’t know if I got it all until I get my next check and see what I get normally! This check was supposed to include the difference between the week of sub wages and what it would be at my regular salary, a week of retroactive pay for the second week of that pay period, and the normal two weeks of pay. From the bank (my last trip, because the rest of my checks should be automatic deposit) I went straight to pay my car insurance. Then I went to Blue Willow to get Lisa birthday presents, and home to the computer, where I paid on-line bills for gas, electric, cell phone, landline (even though it needs repair), cable/internet, and annual dues for an organization. OH, and for the record, my deductions added up to more than my take-home pay in Wisconsin. They may have even beaten my gross pay. Geez.

I had to sign up on-line for the course I’m taking at the community college — the one I need for licensure. It’s only half of a term, but with all the work. I’ve heard it’s very labor intensive. We’ll see. It starts tomorrow. The system has changed since last time I went! I had already applied (well, re-applied since I’d already taken a zillion classes there in the past) on-line. Not only did I register on-line, but I ordered the text on-line as well! The cost for delivery of the book was a bit much, though, so I’m going to go pick it up on my way home from school tomorrow. They have this whole sweet web interface thing for students that I haven’t seen before. But you sign in and it shows your school e-mail, personal & school announcements, student surveys (none at the moment), a personal calendar, college dates and deadlines, etc. It’s like a personal homepage for the college.

OK, so after giving away a huge chunk of my paycheck, I went over to Dad & Dottie’s. Buz, Jemma, and Jaeden came, so John and Lisa got to meet them. John had already met Buz, but not the rest. I predicted that my father would tell Lisa a lot of blonde jokes. Was I wrong? Of course not! But it gave them a way to have a conversation, and he had a new audience. I had brought my chess board with me, of course. It took John no time to actually beat me, but I was mostly still working on memorizing the Sicilian opening, which I hadn’t played in a while. Then he played Buz, but I forgot to ask who won. I have a great set (I was jealous of the one I got Joe, and so I got myself one just like it!) and Jaeden enjoyed lining up the pieces that were captured.  I didn’t have my camera with me, so I took pictures with my father’s new digital camera.

On Saturday I didn’t see John and Lisa. Donna came down from Phoenix, bringing Harry. Now my other cat, Ginny, is named after a book character, Ginny Weasley, because she is an orange tabby (and Ginny has red hair, which is called Ginger in the UK). Anyway, when Donna told me that the cat she was bringing was another orange tabby (only he had some white), my first thought was naming him Fred or George after one of Ginny’s brothers. Donna knew that because she said right away that the cat was no Weasley. She was right. He is much more laid back and passive and mellow. I named him Harry instead. So Donna started singing “I’m Just Wild About Harry” to him. It’s very easy to get that song stuck in your head, by the way!

I can never remember what I’ve already written here! But anyway, Ginny is a little thing and Harry right now is about three times her size. But he was a stray that Donna took care of and fed, and I think that he’ll slim down once he gets it that there is a permanent food source and he doesn’t need to pig out to “stock up” on food. I thought he would be shy or aloof (as opposed to a Loof) or afraid when he got here. Nope. He’s very friendly and loves attention. Yesterday during the game I sat on the couch. Ginny was up on the back of the couch in her favorite spot (other than on my lap) and I called Harry. He came right up and sat next to me wanting to be scritched, ignoring Ginny’s hisses and growls. Last night he even slept in the bed for a while.

Anyway, after Donna arrived we went up to Dad & Dottie’s, to (again) join Buz, Jemma, and Jaeden.   Then Sunday morning, John, Lisa, Donna, Dad, Dottie, and I met up at IHOP for breakfast.  It was the first time the three of us siblings were together since 1995, hence lots of photos were taken.  You can see that my father had on his Giants sweatshirt, but we sat at the same table anyway.    Then everyone went different ways.  Donna and I took Dottie and we went to Kohl’s and then the mall.  Afterward, Donna dropped me off at the house to watch the game while she took Dottie home and then went to join John and Lisa at a mutual friend’s.  There was a time when we all lived in Tucson at the same time.  Before we lived here, we had lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (and I hated every minute of it).  In Cedar Rapids, John and Donna made some friends because they lived there longer than I did.  I moved there for my senior year in high school and then left.  They were there at least 5 years (‘74 – ‘79).  One of those friends (at least) moved down here, if I remember correctly.  I could be wrong — they could have met him here.  It was a long time ago, so I forget.  Anyway, Donna had a good time visiting them.

Today Donna and I will go to Barnes & Noble (which we tried to find yesterday but couldn’t until we were on our way home), and then later go to the desert park place where I took the pictures of the “tumbleweed man” (as opposed to snowman).  Lisa likes the desert, and that is a really cool place to experience the desert.  I don’t think John has been there either.  Then Donna will go home, and I’ll get ready for tomorrow, doing the school things that I haven’t done all weekend.  Probably.

In other news, before I left Jefferson I had gotten myself a guitar.  I was determined to learn to play it, and got a computer program that teaches you better than a book does.  Of course, I didn’t load it into the computer until yesterday.  But I like it.  It plays the notes so you can tune the guitar, which is already a plus over books.  As soon as I heard the notes I remembered them from the distant past, but without the program I wouldn’t have been able to.  Then they taught one chord (G, I think) and had you strum along to Frere Jacques.  The guy sings and plays it and you’re supposed to sing and play it with him.  Then they suggest you replay it but wait two bars so that you can sing with him in a “round” format.  So I did.  Yep, I looked silly, but hey.  I now know the G chord!

Photos

Getting caught up on pics in chronological order — journal entry will be added later.

This is how far I’ve gotten on Betty’s quilt. Next step is borders.

This is Harry. He is Ginny’s new brother. Ginny has pretty much limited her greetings to extensive hissing and growling. Harry is about three times her weight, but he’s VERY mellow. He was technically a stray, although my sister fed him (for the last three years) and took him to the vet when he was sick. But he didn’t live in her house (more or less). Now he has plenty of food and shelter — and free hissing and growling as well!

You can see that my father and I were not rooting for the same teams today! Right now it is 17-13 in the third quarter.

Here are two photos from this morning’s photofest at IHOP. It was the first time my brother, sister and I were together since 1995. I will write more about the actual visit later.

Thursday night

So I’m sitting here on the couch, starting to doze off. It was a cold day by our standards — I read that the high was 55 but it felt a lot colder, and it’s supposed to be below 32 tonight. So as I’m dozing, I hear a truck sound and my first thought? Snow plow. I heard the sound and was transported back to Jefferson, sitting on this same couch. I know it’s colder than you know what there. And I’m hoping that I never again need to hear the sound of a snow plow. For the record!

Well, today in violin we held the strings down for the first time. It’s hard only having the class once a week; progress is sloooooooooow. But when we pluck or bow, we do it accompanied by all sorts of great music. My favorite is “Vivaldi On G”. Today we played with a jazz tune for the first time. The teacher throws in things to keep my amused. When she was asking what kind of music it was, she talked about it being a jazz band. Then she said that kind of band isn’t the same as a marching band … well, except in one place.

We didn’t have a team meeting today after school, so I had time to grade the recent geometry tests. With 80% being the passing grade, I had a whopping six people pass. It’s frustrating because each morning we reviewed, and did so extensively immediately before the test. But the school is so into this Buddy Buzzing thing. It’s nice to tell kids “tell your partner the answer to X” but often only one half of the team is doing it. I had the teams write then answers the last time and take turns. But part of the problem, still, is not reading the question. In our regular math class, I called on people to share their answers to the problems so we could review. The question began “how many” and the student answered “yes.” But on the plus side, one of the students who passed has done dismally all year; this is his first passed test!

I did find a math site that they like. It has a variety of computation games, but they love it! I wrote down the web site’s address on the board and a bunch of them copied it down so they could play at home! Works for me! http://www.kidsnumbers.com/ is the site, and it has on-line activities for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We just started fractions this week, but they need the practice on computation. Some have completely forgotten long division and multiplying two-digit numbers.

I must say that I don’t understand why people like sunrises.  I always thought seeing a sunrise meant you were up too early.  Now I know there are worse things then going out in your jammies with your coffee and watching the sun rise:  seeing the sun start to rise when you’re already halfway on your way to work.  This does not bring me joy!  Just so you know.

I survived the DIBELS workshop.  It’s not even interesting enough to talk about!  You’d just fall asleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.  But I did find out that doing DIBELS is the law in the state.

The hot thing on the internet seems to be this video with Tom Cruise and Scientology.  The fascinating part was when he said something to the effect of Scientologists need to stop when there are traffic accidents because they’re the only ones who can really help people.   Um, OK.  But it made me think of someone I knew who is suspected of being a scientologist, as well as someone else I know from the same place.  The second one probably had Scientology potential as well.  But they both had this weird attitude of “What gave you the impression that you can do your own thinking?”

The second guy knew some things about computers.   I was frustrated with the slow performance of the desktop computer, and wanted to get more memory.  He suggested a certain size, but I realized that I could get more than that.  I did not want to spend money on a smaller one and then spend more money on yet another memory upgrade.  So I ordered the one I wanted, and was so excited when it came.  Now I could not have a computer that … well, is as maddening as the one I have now with crappy Vista.  He had a fit!  He was truly furious that I didn’t get the one he told me to get.  It was one of many bizarre conversations.  It was something like “Didn’t I tell you to get X?”  “Yes, you did.”  “Well???”  “That was your suggestion, but I weighed all the factors and made my own decision.  It’s my money and my computer.”  “But I told you to get X!  Why didn’t you?”  “I just told you…”  and it got worse from there.  But see, it’s all a mental train — I think of Tom Cruise, which reminds me of Scientology, which reminds me of Don, which reminds me of Andy.  I have known some colorful people!

Did I mention that I finally took my tree down?  Literally — this past weekend.  The ornaments had been off for quite a while, but I couldn’t find the box the tree goes in!