the most wonderful time of the year

This year's pirate pumpkin. Sweet!

me and the twins

School went into Code Red lockdown today during the majority of 3rd period. Apparently someone robbed a convenience store and decided to hide out on campus, although, nearly 2 hours later, I have yet to recieve official word from the administration as to the actual cause of said lockdown which is, in a word, annoying.

I spent part of yesterday at a truly worthless conference about filing the FAFSA. I tried to get out of it on the basis of being a graduate student and having filed my own FAFSA for several years now, but still had to go. Upon arrival, I realized that all other "reqiured" teachers from my school had gotten out of it, which was irritating. Doubly irritating? Our head counselor, who signed me up for the thing, sleeping through the majority of the 6 hour presentation. It was a monumental waste of time (as I'm finding most conferences and workshops to be) and now I have to make up for the fact that none of my classes got anything accomplished while I was gone! Hooray!

I'm reading a really great book right now called The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield. All I really want to do right now is go home and curl up on my couch and read. Oh man, is it good.

And no, I did not dress up for Halloween, which is truly disappointing, I know, but my kids said they would laugh at me and I didn't have anything anyway and I surely wasn't going to go spend a fortune just to be laughed at.

The end.

days of the week

I took the day off on Friday to work on my Benchmark, knowing that I would probably get very little done this weekend. This was a good choice, as I finished the monster at about 6pm and then had the rest of the weekend to play...

...with my new computer!

Oh my gosh, I am in heaven. Now, I am not a techno-geek in any sense of the word. I mean, I like computers and I know how to use computers really well, but I'm definitely not the person who goes out and buys something the minute it comes out just to have it. I'm also not the person who replaces their digital stuff the minute it starts to get a little old, which is how I found myself with a six-year-old computer, running two operating systems behind, that could barely start up without crashing (and a two-year-old cell phone that only rings half of the time, and a digital camera with a corrupted internal memory, but whatever).

I didn't realize how old the old computer was, however, until I plugged this one in. Well first, it's just beautiful. And huge. I bought the smallest screen, and 20" is still a big freaking screen for word processing and playing online sudoku. And second, it's fast. I'm sure it's not really any faster than any normal computer, but compared to what I've been using, it's like moving at the speed of sound after riding a tricycle. I can't believe how much time I've wasted waiting for programs to open or waiting for charts to import from Excel or waiting for the Trash to empty.

In short, I am in computer heaven. More later.

what have you done today

Another super EOG:

I did not get much done this weekend, MA-wise. This means I'm in serious thesis lock-down from here until Sunday night (although I'm hoping it doesn't take me that long). What I did do this weekend was spend Sunday morning in Chico with my brother. He invited me and my parents up to see his new house and have lunch, and then after lunch he offered to give me a tour of the campus, since I've never been to Chico before.

It was a really great time to spend with him and see how much he has grown and matured in these last few years since his accident. He really is a great kid and I was just so proud of him this weekend - not only is he being kind and affectionate with my parents (and with me!), but he's working really hard at school and refuses to give up, even though his major is really tough. I've always looked forward to the day that we could really start to be friends, and hopefully that is coming up soon.

starts to take shape

I got a pretty great Encourage-o-Gram this week:


In other news, I just got back from class and am pretty stoked to get to work on my First Benchmark (only worth 50% of my grade!) which is due next week. Time to sit down with some tea and get busy with vocabulary worksheets and research timelines. Yay!

But in all honesty, for as much as I complain, I really love real graduate school. I like to research and the writing comes pretty easy to me and I'm learning how to be a better teacher in the process, so its a winning situation no matter how you slice it.

I'm also working to make this my "general stuff" blog and move all of my teacher-y research-y things a more formal "teacher stuff" blog over at http://rm205.wordpress.com since I can use any journaling I do about my classes as actual data for my thesis. Check in soon if you're interested in all the exciting goings-on of room 205.

I'm also looking forward to a new computer in the next week or so. Having a real job with a real paycheck certainly has its benefits...

It's so beautiful!

i want your love

"Well, sometimes love seems easy. Like... it's easy to love rain... and hawks. And it's easy to love wild plums... and the moon. But with people, seems like love's a hard thing to know. It gets mixed up. I mean, you can love one person in one way and another person in another way. But how do you know you love the right one in every way?"

"I'm not sure, but I think you'll know. I think if it's the right person, it'll be better than rain and hawks and wild plums. Even better than the moon. I think it'll be better than all that put together."

Where the Heart Is -Billie Letts

get it right

I made it through my entire credential year without doing it, but today I crouched down under my desk after the lunch bell and just cried.

wake up with the rain

Regardless of the last post, I'm still freaking out about my MA. I have another WARP due tomorrow and my first benchmark (worth 50-freaking-percent of my fist quarter grade) due in about three weeks.

Today I have a staff meeting (in about 5 minutes) where the English department will try to tell the ELD department how we should run our programs (I am part of both, of course). There will be no chocolate, because our department chair is male, which is highly unfortunate (the chocolate part, not the male part) because this has been a seriously bummer Monday and I'm not looking forward to sitting through a meeting one single bit.

Ah, life.

rock n roll fantasy

It would appear that all the freaking out I have been doing over my MA has been well worth it. Success!!

Megan,
Could I use your achievement data set as a model for good data representation to share with others in your cohort? Let me know if
doing so is all right with you.
Thanks!
Kathy

this will be the last night

I'm growing my own miniature Christmas tree.

You laugh, but come December I'll be stringing miniature popcorn garlands, just you watch.