In The News

I get to work this morning, but I’m out in the pod village so I don’t really get that something’s going on until just before it was time to pick up the kids. So here’s what happened. Yesterday (Sunday) some teens came to the school. The tried to break two glass doors into the school; they destroyed both doors but didn’t get the glass out. They did break a window. They threw an incendiary device against one of the pod doors and you can see where it burned, but the burn area is around the size of a supper plate. They also went to one of the kindergarten rooms, and got in. Everything came out of cupboards and was on the floor or walls, etc. Paint was poured on the computers, glue and pretzels and glitter were intermixed on the carpet, yogurt was thrown on the walls, etc. The entire room was destroyed. When this was announced over the morning PA system, the assistant principal making the announcement was in tears. We were told to discuss it, which we did. Then they declared an assembly for grades 3-5, and the principal was equally upset. So they’ve moved the kindergarteners to another room for the week, and parents came and helped clean up. Did I mention that they had bomb-sniffing dogs at the school yesterday? Apparently a bomb threat was a part of the vandalism.

On Friday we had the school carnival outside, which was a lot of fun. Some think that this gave the perps a chance to check things out. Others think that it was part of gang initiation.

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/236450.php

Jemma’s Swimming Pics

These were taken two weeks ago. We went swimming again today, so you can pretend they were taken today if you want. The main difference is that apparently they stopped heating the pool, so the water was cooler this time. Notice that Jemma figured out that if you’re the one taking the pictures, you don’t have to be in any of them!

Dottie is finally feeling better, and now my father is sick. It took nearly a week for Dottie to be really sick from the guy on the airplane, and around the same amount of time for my father to get sick (although he could be having bad allergies or a bad cold). It’s weird that whatever it is has such a long incubation period!

Jemma’s Winterhaven Pics

Shortly before Christmas, Jemma, Buz, Jaeden, Dottie, and I went through Winterhaven. That’s the neighborhood that gets all decorated for Christmas, some houses having very extravagant displays. It was a cold night!!

(I went swimming again today, and school is out in less than a month, so Christmas seems like such a long time ago!)

Jemma’s December pics

Christmas Eve, as you’ll recall, I had a ton of people at my house. My brain wasn’t functioning enough to take photos if I remember correctly, but Jemma did a great job!

The cast of characters for these photos: Jemma, Jaeden, and Buz, Donna, Dad and Dottie, Laura, Del, and Cathleen, and yours truly. Oh — and Ginny, who didn’t hide (which I expected her to do) but hung out and even played!

Retreat

It was awesome!!! The retreat was sponsored by the union and held at a ranch: http://www.tanqueverderanch.com/. I had to drive forever to get there; it’s at the very end of Speedway, 14000 block (east). I live at the 1400 block east (not Speedway, but it gives you an idea of the distance — 1260 blocks (since they start counting at 100). The place is big (once I found it) and so it took some searching to discover where we were supposed to be. After signing in and getting a cup of coffee, we signed up for our massage time. We went on a hike, and then Angela (the teacher from my school who suggested we do this) and I had our massages. That meant we missed the beginning of yoga, but the part I was there for confirmed my lack of balance and coordination. I’m going to try some more, though. Maybe it will help! The massage was awesome, though. Unless I already used the word awesome. In that case, the massage was some other superlative.

Next was aromatherapy. I started falling asleep at one point, but someone pointed out that could be because we’d massaged lemongrass oil into our skins and could smell it, and so perhaps the relaxing properties went a bit far. It was interesting, but some of the information seemed a bit … far-fetched to me. For example, she talked about waves, and how different things have waves and people have waves and the oils match people waves and can increase them, while other things work against the waves. And ideally people waves are in the 90s. Something like that. Where’s the data? Who decided there were waves and how did they prove it? Etc. There were a lot of things like that, but I do like nice smelling things, so it was OK. Not super, but decent.

For lunch we went to the buffet there that was included. Some people come out there just for lunch. I can understand why. The food was excellent, and not lunchy. No sandwiches, etc. Salad, tons of deserts, three or four main dishes, etc. And in talking to the people at my table, I discovered that the bakery that I loved didn’t disappear, it merely moved. I couldn’t find it because I thought it was a Greek bakery, since I remember the baklava quite fondly. But apparently Nadine’s is a Jewish bakery and alive and well on either Broadway or Speedway. I definitely have to find it!

The rest of our time was unstructured. There was someone there who was alone, who we’d talked to and ate with, so I invited her to join us for the rest of our time. We went to the gift shop, which was nice but I didn’t spend any money. Then we went to the pool and the spa — first one, then the other, back and forth. It was hard to leave! But I plan to do the same thing at the folks’ tomorrow, so that helped me get out of the water for today!

It really was an awesome time and an awesome place. They have a lot of programs — weekend events, people who just stay for the heck of it. It’s expensive (I don’t know how much), but a visitor from Maine whom I talked to said that you pay for everything up front, which is nice. Then you don’t have to decide if you can afford to go horseback riding this day or that, for example. You can do it all because you already paid for it.

Oh — when you see the statue of the horse — behind him were real horse turds on the ground, as if he’d done them!!

I’m not sure if you can see it, but I’m touching a Duck Crossing sign!

Pink and Blue

Well, my student G didn’t have measles after all, but pink eye — again. Now that testing is over, I have a lot of absences once more. Some are out a few days at a time, which could be the flu and also vacations. We have a math test on Friday and once again K is going to fail it because he has missed at least three days in the past week and a half. It’s hard to learn when you’re not around.

A new student arrived in my room this morning. He likes basketball, as do many of my students, so he made friends right away. He also lives in the same apartment complex as another student. Being the new kid stinks, and being the new kid when there’s like 23 (TWENTY-THREE!!!) days of school left is definitely hard! But I don’t think he’ll have a problem socially. I don’t know about academically yet.

My observation/evaluation/whatever you want to call it was yesterday. I think it went fairly well, but I hate those things and worry a lot. One of the things I did, though, apparently was worth mentioning (by the assistant principal who did the observation) as a good thing during faculty meeting today!

My Pics

This is labeled My Pics because I have some pics from Jemma that I’m going to upload as well. I will also get the blog caught up, but may do it in a few posts rather than one.

These first two are the view from my folks’ balcony. I totally love seeing the mountains every day!

Next is Dottie and Jaeden playing on the aforementioned balcony.

Ginny loves to curl up in the violin case. She has always been fond of nesting and would rather be surrounded by little walls than stretching out on the flat floor.

In my first school, St. Rose of Lima, I had the students make birthday books for each student’s birthday. They each wrote a letter with three positives (I did too) and I put them together into a little book. It was a nightmare for me. I’ve tried all sorts of different things, and this year it came down to one sheet of paper per student. At the top was the student’s name and “rocks!” as in “Alexa Rocks!” Then each of us had to write one good thing about the person. I mounted it on construction paper and we all signed around that paper frame. They came out nice, actually, and a whole lot less stress for me!

Next is just two pictures showing some of the pictures students did that are hung up behind my desk. The one that just looks like weird writing is wishing me a Merry Christmas using … hmm, I can’t remember if they’re Old English letters, or Phoenician, or what.

When my mother was here this past weekend, we went through as many of my photos as I could find. There were other things in those boxes as well. Ginny decided to take advantage of the clutter and nest some more.

Photos from the county fair this weekend include my mother through the fence (I’d gone in and rented the wheelchair while she waited for my sister, who was parking the car), the exhibit of the Vietnam War Memorial (including the name from my POW bracelet), the elephant my sister and I rode on (my mother has the actual photos of the event, but they’re in her camera), a white lion she saw, usual photo op stuff, and two pictures that are there just because I can hear Sue saying “You moved all the way to Arizona so you could sit on a tractor? We have tractors here, you know!” as well as “We have real cows here, if you were that interested in milking a cow!” The cow was in the 4-H building, and you can see she’s shiny plastic but something did come out when you milked her.

Sunday

The other morning as I was going to work it was 45 degrees, so it was hard to believe the radio folks when they said we were expected to reach 90 today (Sunday).  I suspect we did, though.  So after Sunday brunch with Del, Laura, and Christine, I went to my father’s.  Buz, Jemma, and Jaeden came over, and we all went swimming in the condo’s pool.  It helps that it’s a heated pool; mine isn’t, and cold nights mean cold water in the pool.  That’s not my thing!  The heated pool was awesome, and they had a hot tub thing that was so hot the pool water seemed cold in comparison!  We had great fun swimming, though, and then afterward ordered a pizza.  I’ll probably take a nap soon and be sore tomorrow!  I’m just hoping I didn’t get sunburn; my legs are white enough to blind a satellite!

We’re nearly done with standardized testing.  The fourth graders are piloting a science test tomorrow, and then we’re finished.  In the meantime, my student who left and came back is gone again.  Another student had red eyes Friday (or at least one) but she went to another room for testing.  When she came back I sent her to the nurse, who promptly sent her home.  Then that night on the news they were talking about the measles outbreak that they’ve been discussing off and on for a couple of weeks — and one of the first signs is red eyes!  Great!!  I know what shots you are supposed to have to start Kindergarten here, but she went to Kindergarten in Mexico.  I don’t know how thorough the school is on medical records.  I guess I will find out tomorrow if she had the measles or just allergies.  Allergies have been very strong this past week — went through lots of tissues in my room (bought by me, of course; no school supplies at this school!).

At a staff meeting, they had us sign up if we wanted to go to this workshop when school lets out, paid for by the school.  I put my name on the list and was approved!  This means that the school is paying for the workshop, which also means that they really do believe they’ll be able to rehire me.  But I have to tell my parochial school audience — some of the teachers didn’t sign up for the list because the school didn’t have enough money in the budget to pay for them to attend!  Imagine the school not only paying for your week at John Muir Academy but also paying you to go to it!!!

We also have some school carnival coming up, and each teacher is expected to man a booth.  Many are upset and looking for the easiest possible booths.  I picked one of the games.  I was thrilled — after doing the Children’s Game Room at the Fall Festival for a few years, I’m excited that I don’t have to get prizes, store them, find two shifts worth of people to work, deal with money and tickets, set up and clean up — this is a piece of cake to me!!  Perspective is everything!

Testing, 1 2 3

Yes, Monday is the big day. Big Day. We begin five days of testing (nothing on Wednesday, which is our early dismissal day). My walls are stripped as if it’s the last day of school. Nothing can be up. We had a pep rally. Yes. A pep rally. For testing. It was fun and loud and surreal. Three people sang to a karaoke machine and I expected it to be ordinary singing or less than ordinary but brave. Nope. It was excellent singing. Not just excellent. They would make it quite far on American Idol if they chose to change careers. Honestly. I was stunned!! They had all sorts of things: someone to play Hannah Montana, the Macarena, We’re All in This Together from High School Musical. The last one I knew by heart, of course, because it was one of the morning songs in my classroom last year, toward the end of the year. The Macarena actually reminds me of … dang. I can’t remember what it’s called now. It was a week, twice a year, when all the Franciscans came together — novices and their [stupid internet froze in the middle of the entry!!] Formation Directors.  Ahh — Greymoor!  That’s what we called it, because that’s where it was located:  http://www.atonementfriars.org/  Anyway, for entertainment one night there was a gathering with snacks, and we did the Macarena.  I know that sounds remarkably exciting … not!  But then again, “recreation” had come a long way since the days when it was darning socks or doing embroidery!

One of the songs killed me — something along the lines of “I’m ready to take the test.”  It just seems bizarre and poignant that testing has come to the point that we have to sing cheerful songs about it to pretend it isn’t brutal!  And what will these tests show?  That it’s asinine to compare my students who don’t hear English outside of school to children from English-only homes.  The math test is a reading test, as is the reading test itself.  The science one will be too, no doubt!

The battle plans to prepare for this joyful event rival the plans for Catholic Schools week, except that the focus of a great deal of a year (only the waking moments — so far) has been this coming week.

In the meantime, the next two days will neither be spent relaxing nor going to the Street Fair.  They will be spent in a classroom doing the other part of the SEI class.  This is the one-credit prerequisite.  When I have this weekend finished and the results in writing, I take that with my other paper downtown and hopefully get the SEI endorsement put on my license…in the hopes that I’ll have a job.  But without it, I can’t get one.  I only managed to get the job I did because they were desperate.  That won’t be the case this coming year!

Update to Saturday Night

The cops were here until 2:30.  Apparently a man was holding his wife hostage.  His stepdaughter called the police.  After the shots were fired, so did a lot of the neighbors as well.  I thought I heard other shots later but that didn’t make sense, until I watched the news the next night.  Those other shots were the police shooting the man, who was pointing a rifle and another weapon at them.  He survived and when he gets out of the hospital (unless he already did) is being arrested, of course.  It’s nice to know that I live in a place where people actually call the police when they hear gunshots, because that wasn’t the norm when I lived about a mile or so away on Hopi.  There were shots all the time and most of the time no one bothered to call the cops unless there were also screams.  Anyway, I didn’t get any news until I actually watched the news on Sunday night.  Then we got a note about it on our doors Monday afternoon.