Weekend, What Weekend?

I attended Promethean training this morning bright and early at school. It was a pretty decent training and we got to ask questions. I'm not as irritated by the board anymore and now I'm thinking I better have one in my classroom. One teacher talked about how kindergartners can learn to use the voting tools at their desks and I learned a pretty cool way to check roll in the mornings that the students will enjoy.

Tonight I get to go meet some of D's friends for a birthday party. He's told me they can be a tough crowd and I'm exhausted so I'm not really looking forward to it but as future GF it's my obligation.

I had a crappy experience with customer service today. I was having issues with my iPhone and finally dumped it and went back to the Blackberry clan. I refuse to buy $100 a year software in order to get my email to cooperate so mom got the iPhone and loves it and I'm happy. The new BB's use a smaller charger than the previous models (why mess with a good thing? Not to mention I already had extra home chargers and a car one) I get it, they want my $$. So I go to the accessory store at the mall to get a car charger and a case. I use the little rubber cases which they didn't have so I told the guy I'd run by AT&T and be back. He was asking whether or not I still wanted the car charger and I asked if it was safe to use . I've heard of people having issues with the cheaper chargers blowing fuses in the car or busting the phone. He started explaining the lifetime warranty and the fact that they had a tech so if the phone was damaged, they'd take care of it when the other salesguy came up and said, "fuck it! spend time on the customers that are buying something, let her fuckin go". I was completely blown away as were the other people standing there, some just walked away. I was going to ask him to go ahead and hold the charger but since Mr. Asshole had to get crazy, I went to AT&T and got treated nice although I did pay $10 more I probably would've paid $20 more if necessary rather than giving Mr. Asshole by business. I was proud of myself for walking away and not just giving him a peice of my mind, but in truth, he's really not worth it.

Classroom Jobs

I had to come up with a list of jobs for students in the classroom. This year, the Pre-K standards have changed and instead of rotating students on the job list, everyone must now have a job at all times. I've been thinking of jobs I can add to the list and some jobs I can double up on. Instead of having one student do the dusting, I can have 2 share the room.

I also have to get the supplies for my "talking sticks". I'm going to use red, yellow and green to color code them. The green kids can be asked lots of higher order thinking questions, yellow might need assistance, and red is for the ones who are shy to answer and get nervous when called on.

I've also been debating on where exactly this blog is going. I knew it was going to take a turn into a teaching blog but I also would like to keep it to blab about daily life and a little fashion of course when I'm no longer a poor student. Life right now is throwing me some serious curves. My brother is in a lot of trouble again and the stress of all my observation hours and completing all of my coursework is weighing on me and it's only the 2nd week of school. I think it's time for me to stop and count my blessings for a minute.
1. I have the means to be able to work 1-2 days a week and fully concentrate on school.
2. This is my last semester and no one ever died from Pre-Service Candidacy work
3. I have a roof over my head
4. I'm getting a tax credit from some work I had done on my home
5. This too shall pass
6. I live in the Who Dat Nation and get to see my Saints go to the Superbowl

Black and Gold Superbowl

There are fireworks all over the place, my voice is gone but we did it! I believed from the get go and now it really doesn't matter whether we win the Super Bowl or not, what matters is, we got there. Now I'm headed to bed, too much excitement today. Geaux Saints!

School Time

I got assigned my classroom for my practicum class. I got a kindergarten but my cooperating teacher has 17 years of experience so hopefully I'll be able to learn a lot from her. 90 hours and 10 lessons taught later, I will be certified to teach K. Everyone in the class goes to Pre-K or K but I was hoping for some 1st grade. My major includes Pre-K-3rd and I really have a desire to work with older kids but maybe this practicum will change my mind about K.

The bad thing is, I have to attend separate classes for my Math, Science and Reading classes so I'll be running around like crazy. I'm going to the 1st grade class I went to last semester because I really enjoyed Mrs. R and the students. My Reading teacher is a principal so all of my field experience will have to be done at her school. I have to hit the ground running this week, that's for sure.

Back to School

Today was the 1st day of school. I'm not going to pretend this semester is going to be a walk in the park. Today I was still healing from a cosmetic procedure on Monday so the day was extra long and uncomfortable. On the plus side, one of my professors is the principal at a local elementary school (hello brown-nose my way into a job!).

I can and will get through it. I'm only working Thursdays and Fridays at the Land of Alcohol. Next week, when I get my shit together, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming on SAST.

IEP Woes

What a weekend! Friday, I went to my seminar and hung out with friend boy. Saturday, the Saints came through and won! Friend boy is pretty amazing so far but I'm not the type of girl to put all my eggs in one basket.

I'm having a time with one of my CASA kids. We are desperately trying to get him an IEP before he fails 1st grade. His teacher's position was to wait until he failed Reading and Spelling for 2 six weeks straight which has already been done. Now things have changed to let's wait until he either gets held back or fails 1st grade then we'll evaluate. They don't even want to entertain the fact that he might be dyslexic until at least 3rd or 4th grade. The child is already saying that he's stupid because he can't read or write well and I feel like the longer he goes with out assistance the worse it will be for his self esteem. He's been through a lot already and my heart goes out to him.

Still sick

I'm still not feeling better. I guess I'll have to make an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. I don't have insurance due to the fact that I went back to school so shelling out the extra money isn't the greatest but whatever I have to do, I have to do.
I did meet a boy so things are looking up a little. We're going out tomorrow night. I kind of knew him already so that definately makes things easier on me.
My CASA case is driving me insane and sometimes I wonder how I'm going to manage things this semester but I know I have to keep praying about it and saying postitive. It'll get better.

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Target Haul

I've been feeling a little better today so I went to mom's for dinner then to Target. I scored a cardigan in gold and green for $5 each. (can't get the image to work, ugh) I also picked up some pillow covers for my throw pillows on the couch for $4 each. My couches are chocolate brown and came with crazy striped pillows that I've been looking to replace but haven't found anything. The covers are Tiffany Blue so that should be perfect until I find something else. I'm starting to feel ick again so I'm off to lay down on the couch and hopefully this cold goes away soon.

Cold weather=sick

This weekend the temps got down to 17 which pretty much makes everyone in Louisiana go crazy. I of course got sick with the whole high fever and cold thing. My mom brought me dinner last night and my fever was so high I was talking all kinds of craziness. The weekend at work was slow because of the weather. Thank God my sweet neighbor wrapped my outside pipes for me. It's gotten a little warmer though. Saturday night when I was driving home from work my Yukon said 23 degrees so it's a small improvement.

School starts in a week and I couldn't be happier, I'm so ready.

Adventures in dating websites

So far I have: figured out how to get rid of the creepers who are "looking for loose women", ignored a few 55+ members of the population and found several guys I went to school with. Bff and I are having a good laugh over this and it's definitely making for an interesting experiment. Dating websites are the virtual version of a bar and I've heard cheesy lines that I thought went away with the 90's. I did have an interesting convo with a guy we'll call SaintsFan or SF for short. Now SF seems normal, all things considered but he can't spell to save his life. I've always been the self proclaimed Queen of Spelling and it unnerves me to no end when an adult can't spell basic words.

Bff and I haven't quite contemplated what we will do should we find someone interesting enough to, God forbid, meet in a safely lit public place. However, I'm sure that won't be happening because the Federal, State and Parish background check as well as the "meet my huge cop friend first check" and the "why yes that is a 45 sticking out of my handbag" will be sure to scare anyone off.

I know I've been poking a bit, ok a lot, of fun at this online dating deal but I was raised where you meet men at church, school and such. If anyone out there in blog land cares to share a success story about an online match, feel free and perhaps, I'll learn to be less skeptical.

Relationship Drama

The bff and I have decided that in the new year we're going to embark on a manhunt. I think it's been enough time of me being upset with everything that's gone on with a certain boy and going back and forth. So, we've decided that we're going to sign up for a certain online site and see how many creepers we can attract. We're not expecting anything but it should make for some interesting blogging.

Weekend Recap

I got a little stroke of luck last night. I came into work and wasn't scheduled so I happily left. It was a fight night anyway so I'm sure I didn't miss much other than some drunk meatheads in Affliction gear. I had dinner at my parents then headed to meet ex roomie for some drinks. We had really bad falling out that lasted a year or so and just reconnected but haven't really spent any time together. We went to a small local bar and I got to meet her new bf, who is definitely a sweetheart and amazing for her. The Patron and Tequila Rose got to both of us so we stopped for food and her bf drove us home. No hangover this morning thank God.

It's Sunday Night Clean Night so I'm headed off to get that under control before bed. Tomorrow is errand day and 2 weeks til classes start. I'm so ready but worried about my work schedule. I'm taking 5 classes plus doing all of my observation hours, trying to attend a Bible Study once a week and I don't know how I'm going to squeeze work into all of that too. I'm confident that things are going to work out, I've come too far.