October 2010

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October 2010

October 15, 2010

Afternoon Update

I wrote last night, but apparently in my addled state, I forgot to post it. I meant to, but it's probably better that I didn't. I am, as we speak, typing over all of last night's drivel so it is lost to history which is probably for the better anyway.

I was angry yesterday. Incredibly pissed off. It's better today, but I don't really know how much. Flashes of it still come back to haunt me.

I've made my reservations for a campsite, and I was a little surprised at how few spots were available. As it is now, I'm in an "overflow" site, which I assume means there won't be a fire ring or a table. That kinda blows, but then again, I'm paying $28 for two nights. I suppose I'll be taking my dissertation stuff and handwriting responses. I'll need to leave fairly early on Sunday morning so I can get back to Louisville and get to work on the other things I've got to get done this weekend.

I think I'm trying to get sick, which is not surprising given that fact that I'm a wee bit stressed. I have to stop at the grocery store on the way home, and I'm going to pick up some Advil Cold and Sinus. I figure that along with enough alcohol will see me through the weekend well enough. Yes? So yeah. That's what I'm thinking.

Have to stop by the post office and pick up my mail. I hope there are some magazines there for me to read. I think tonight will be trashy magazines and such. Maybe I'll finish reading Waiting for Superman even though it makes me want to scream.

I've done something to my left eyeball. I've been wearing my glasses for the last week because my eye was hurting when I wearing my contacts. It goes back to when I was finishing my dissertation and didn't sleep for 3 days. That's when the cloudiness and the gunk started. Hasn't been any gunk lately. But it hurts. Always feels like there's something stuck up under the contact way up under my eyelid. I think I'm going to be wearing glasses for quite awhile. And while we're talking about glasses, I really need to get a new pair. I think the prescription in mine is the same as it was when I got them before I moved to MS. As much as I love my glasses, they're beginning to show the wear of 7 years of use. And I do love that pair of glasses. They work for me. But it's time for a new pair. Something else to spend my non-existent money on. *sigh*

Anyway. It's time to get going. Stuff to do, stuff to do, stuff to do.

October 12, 2010

Evening Update

I must have been prophetic last night. The chickens came home to roost today at work. Lots of yelling and lots of anger. There are only so many hours in a day. I'm not an administrator, and I'm not going to work the hours that administrators are expected to keep. I'll do the best work I can while I'm at work. You may get me a couple of hours after I got home, but that's it.

I am not going to live and die by this job. I can go home. I can get another job. I was looking for one when I got the one I have. There will be somewhere else that I can work. With less stress.

I had a presentation this afternoon for work. At the last minute I remembered that it was going to be in the auditorium which meant that the small group activity I'd planned wasn't going to work at all. I went whole group and read from my powerpoint. It was OK, but it could have been 100x better. Given where it was taking place, though, I didn't know how else to do it for them. *sigh*

Which reminds me...I need to update my teaching page. I've done some stuff the last couple of years that I at least want to catalogue here. If I'm uploading it to my server, then it's backed up. That means that I will need to continue to pay for webhosting. I suppose that's OK, although I really should invest in some remote, automatic back-up. That way I won't have to worry about remembering to do it.

The last two nights I've taken my doggie for walks. They've been slow walks because I've been taking pictures as we go. I have gotten some nice shots the last two nights. I need to get some pictures of the trees around school, and I need to get down to Iroquois Park to take some photos there. Over to Cherokee Park. The leaves are already starting to drop and if I don't get them soon, they will be gone. I'll be home in MS next fall, which means I won't get to see these beautiful colors again.

We have parent teacher conferences the next two nights. I don't know that any parents from our class will show, and if they don't, that's just fine with me. I have tons of other work that I need to get done. Tomorrow night when I get home, I'm going to have to clean out the car so Thursday night when I get home, I can get it packed up and ready to go Friday. I'm still planning on camping. Even though I think I might be developing a touch of the fever.

Have I mentioned lately that I love PBS? Tonight I'm watching God in America. It starts with the Civil War and Lincoln's spiritual journey. You might see this on the History channel, but not everyone has cable. PBS is available to everyone, and I believe that PBS serves a valuable purpose in our society. We have access to much that we would not necessarily see or know in our everyday lives. It's another perspective, about things that are important to us, but don't get the attention that mainstream media believe they should. It's about the telling of stories. As a word person, I value the stories.

Getting a shower and going to bed. Tired.

October 11, 2010

Evening Update

Before it gets too much later and I finish this martini, I need to finish the school work I brought home with me. I worked on it most of the day today at school, and my head is killing me. It sucks to go between two different paper documents and one spreadsheet. Sucks. Badly. Not only is there eyeball strain, but there's the neck strain because you're constantly moving your head among the three different interfaces. Very frustrating.

It's moments like these that I wonder what the hell is going on with people in education. If they'd given me an electronic copy of the document, I could manipulate the data any way that I wanted it.

With that out of the way, time to finish my martini and get ready for bed. I think I'll get the shower out of the way.

Tomorrow I have to get ready to teach my faculty how to use SRE. I should have Mary do it. She was talking about how it works. Taught her students how to do it. The problem is that she would talk the entire time and no one would learn anything. *sigh* I hope that I don't get like that. I hope that I learn when to shut up...have enough presence of mind to pay attention to the cues of the crowd.

The doggie and I went for a walk this evening. My hip is still killing me. Has been killing me all weekend. But I'm tired of letting it limit me. There were fall colors that I wanted to capture on my camera, and the doggie needed to be walked. So we went. Between the taking of pictures and remembering where I'd seen some rather pretty trees, we were gone about an hour. And now my hip hurts. I've taken some muscle relaxers and a pain pill. I think that as soon as my defense is over, I'm going to have to go talk to my doctor about a cortisone shot. I don't want to do that. If it's anything like my shoulder, then it's going to hurt WORSE for at least a week after I get that shot. I'm not sure that I can handle it hurting worse than it already does. At times it's excruciating, and I'm literally afraid for it to hurt more.

Have any of you been paying attention to the idiot that is running for governor of New York? I honestly can't believe all of the things that are coming out of people's mouths. In public. There's a ton of anger in this country, and I think a day of reckoning is comimg. I'm afraid of it...perhaps as much as I'm afraid of my hip hurting even more than it already does...and I'm afraid of the aftermath. It seems to me that we've got to figure out some way to come together and figure out how to respect each other even though we might disagree with each other. We can't continue as a society if we can't at least grant each other some common courtesy. We won't need the terrorists; we're a house divided and cannot stand.

I'm going camping this weekend. I'm not entirely sure that's the best idea for me. With my hip hurting the way that it does, I don't know if I need to be sleeping on an air mattress, but I'm going to do it anyway. I've been camping twice this year, and neither one of those times did I have the alone time that as an introvert who often plays like I'm an extrovert, that alone time is important. So. We're going to go. Even though I have parent teacher conference nights until 6:00 Wednesday and Thursday, I'll get the car packed so that all I have to do Friday is cruise by the grocery and pick up some stuff for our weekend. Then I can come home, pick up my puppy and hit the road. Still haven't decided if it's going to be Cumberland Falls or Land Between the Lakes. Both are about the same distance from here. Can't remember if the area around Land Between the Lakes is "dry" or not. Not that it matters to me one whit. I'm not obnoxious when I drink and camp. I'm just thinking about if I run out of beverages. That has happened before. Poor planning on my part, yes.

Did I tell you that last night I started reading Waiting for Superman? Makes me so angry on so many levels. Yes, there are teachers that don't belong in the classroom. But teachers aren't the root of the problem. We have generations of citizens who do not value education. Waiting for Superman follows 5 parents who give a damn. But what about the parents who don't? Or who say they do but then do everything they can to undermine their child's education? Waiting for Superman doesn't mention them and how difficult it is to teach when those students are in your classroom. Literally all it takes to ruin a class is one student hellbent on being an ass. Yeah, there are ways to bring them around, but in the mean time you're losing valuable time.

Work is kicking my ass. So much to do and no time to get it done. It's very frustrating. Tomorrow we have a faculty meeting. Then an emergency ILT meeting following it. And on Wednesday we have EPD all day long. Parent-teacher conferences Wednesday/Thursday nights. And now we have a meeting tomorrow during first period. Just called. Back the fucking train up. I'm not paid to be an administrator. Stop treating me like one. My job isn't my life. I don't have children that I'm ignoring for this job. Getting more snaggley by the minute. *sigh*

Need to go to bed now before I get myself in trouble.

October 9, 2010

Evening Update

I baked brownies this evening. They actually turned out quite nicely.

My hip is killing me again today. I meant to be walking with the rest of the folks from my school, but I just couldn't do it. I got downtown, got parked, and started walking the four blocks to the Race for the Cure. Yeah, about half a block and I was in agony. It hurt so badly. Turned around and went back to the car, came home, took some pain medication, and went back to bed.

I've spent most of today sleeping. Because of my hip.

I've started reading Waiting for Superman, and it makes me angry. There's an assumption that every parent wants their child to do well in school, and I believe that a majority of parents do want their children to be successful. However, I've come to the realization that there's a segment of our population that doesn't care. They don't care about their children; they don't care about the rest of society. They live in the moment because the moment is all they have. Perhaps the school systems have failed them and led them to where they found themselves, but it's a reality that movies (and books) like Waiting for Superman fail to acknowledge. There's a lot of reality that gets ignored. But this movie will come out and my fellow teachers and I will be the root of the problem. When we're only a piece of of the pie.

Where does Waiting for Superman address the Matthew Effect? With children coming to school further and further behind? Where is that included in their "research"? Oh. You mean it doesn't fit neatly with their hypothesis so they ignore it? Say it isn't so!

*sigh*

Did I mention that the doggie and I are going camping this coming weekend? I don't think we'll need to be able to make a fire. It's so warm. Tomorrow is suppose dot be 90. That is crazy for the middle of October. The middle of October should be cool weather and bonfires, but it's too dry for that. But the doggie and I are camping. Which reminds me...I need to figure out how far it is to LbtL. If it's closer, we might go there instead of Cumberland Falls.

October 8, 2010

Evening Update

There was something specific I wanted to talk about tonight. I wanted to talk about education and social justice and how we have made a decision in this country to leave quite a large percentage of our population behind, but I've had a few martinis and I'm not at all sure that I can be coherent. So. I'm gonna ramble. Iffn you can't keep up or I get tedious, I'll understand. I swear.

I have decided that the doggie and I will be camping next weekend. I think we're going to Cumberland Falls state park. It's about 3 hours from home. I'm going to pack up stuff related to my dissertation and take it with me. That way i can go over it and prepare myself for what will come later in the week.

I made the mistake of having martinis this evening. I can't keep it together enough to write anything here tonight. I promise that some time tomorrow will be better.

October 5, 2010

Evening Update

The dissertation is with my committee. I made the editorial corrections that my chair wanted and sent it to a friend to print last night. He delivered it today. It looks like the defense is going to be on October 21. I still have to hear from the last person on the committee as to whether that date is good, but I think it's probably a go.

Now the difficulty comes in trying to figure out how to work the days off. My current school district, unlike my last district, does not have an "educational" leave policy. I need four days of personal leave. I have three. If the only option is for me to take an unpaid day, then I suppose what will happen is that I will go to work on December 9 and then head south around 11. That will get me into Hattiesburg around 7 Hattiesburg time. Just in time to leave for the airport. That means that someone will have to go to USM to pick up my gown and all that good stuff. I'm sure that I know someone who is willing to do that for me. Positive.

We were talking about how this works for other people in the district, and the consensus seems to be other people learned to lie about what they were doing. And the suggestion was that perhaps I was going to be ill. There are all sorts of things that could happen. I might intend to be home on such date, but maybe I had an allergic reaction to something that caused a delay? It's unfortunate that people are forced into making such choices. Personals do not accrue as personal days. They become sick days. So even though I didn't use all of my personal days last year, I can't use one of those this year. Frustrating.

I'm poor right now. It's going to be a tight week and a half. I had an unexpected $200 expense and then a $100 unexpected expense. And I'm sure there will be something else. This is the first check of the month which is always a little tighter to begin with, so those things hurt. It's OK, though, I can stay home. I need to sleep. And read. And do stuff for work.

Is anyone else sucked into Teen Mom on MTV like I am? Addicted.

Did anyone else hear about Jim DeMint's comments regarding not wanting practicing homosexuals or unmarried, sexually active women in the classroom? That angers me on many levels. One...how do you know about someone else's sex life? Two...why do you care about someone's sex life if they're not making it an issue? If I'm not having sex in front of your kid in the classroom, where does that make an appearance in the classroom? Three...what's with forgetting about the unmarried, sexually active men? Really?

Give me a fucking break.

Speaking of reading (or at least I did a couple of paragraphs ago), I bought a copy of Waiting for Superman. I want to hear what it has to say...although I don't know that I will buy much of it. I need to go to the library and get a library card so I can finish reading one of the books I started this weekend at ChiChi's. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow night.

October 3, 2010

Evening Update

I can't believe I've not been here in over a month. *sigh* Sorry. I've meant to, but there have just been too many other things that needed to be done.

Chief among them my dissertation, which is just about finished now. I'll call tomorrow night to talk to my chair and go page-by-page through the document so I can make his corrections. I'm hoping that I can get all of those corrections made tomorrow night. That way I can have it printed and delivered to where it needs to go Tuesday. That will be helpful because one of my committee members leaves Hattiesburg Tuesday afternoon and if I don't get it to him then, it will have to be shipped Fed-Ex over-night.

Finishing this thing up has not been without drama...and lots of it. Last week was my own little version of hell. Especially just for me. So very frustrating. It took me three times as long to finish it as I thought it was going to. I'd get going on it and the next thing I knew, I found something else that had to be done. Or i noticed that the Graduate guide wanted things done differently than the APA did. I went with the Graduate guide because I didn't want to have to redo it just for her. So. Every one of those things took so much longer than they really should have. I didn't sleep from Saturday morning until Monday night. Or eat. I was so focused on getting it done.

And then the bombs started falling. On Tuesday I got an email saying, oh by the way...one of your committee members is no longer with the university and he must be replaced. With Dr. XXX. Who is a fine person but not at all who I need to have on my committee. I made a few calls which confirmed that the university has a procedure that will allow committee members who are no longer with the university to continue to serve on a committee. Since we are literally three weeks away from being done, I think this is as perfect a situation as you'll ever come across. I contacted that committee member and he agreed to continue to serve. Then I had to wait to hear back from my chair. So much stress. Ugh.

Now I'm a little ticked off that there may be a ton of corrections. Apparently in the first 60 pages, the errors that my chair found will take me at least an hour to fix. *sigh* I've read through that section a million times. Other people have read through it. No one has mentioned errors to this point. That frustrates me. If you'd told me, I would have fixed it. *sigh*

So. Looking at a final defense on Oct 22. Or at least that's the last thing I heard. I'm assuming that everyone can make it that day. It's the last day that defenses can happen, and I would expect that most professors who are on committees that *might* meet, clear their schedules in case they're needed that day. I'll head south on Thursday after school, and get there late. That will hopefully give me little time to worry, although we all know that if it can be worried about, I will find a way to do it. My defense is currently scheduled for 10 in the morning. I don't know how long it will take for me to file paperwork and all of that, but I expect, since the PA is off that weekend, that he will be taking me to a celebratory lunch. The drinking will begin then...if it doesn't start with Bailey's in my coffee that morning.

Feels like the dissertation has consumed my life for the last month or so, but in other news, the PA came to visit. He was here the day after his birthday. We didn't do anything exciting because I had to work and money is tight all the way around. I went to work during the day and he slept in or piddled around the house. He had a computer with him, as well as his playstation/xbox/whatever it is and a book to read. He cleaned things, made me dinner, made me work. Of course, because football is incredibly important, he left early Saturday morning. That was actually OK because that was what started the marathon of dissertating.

I've had a terrible arthritis flare for the last month. It's finally starting to be mostly better, but on the whole it sucks and is debilitating. I lost weeks of time that I could have been working on my dissertation because I hurt so badly. Either the pain was so debilitating that I couldn't concentrate or the pain medication, which didn't really help the pain, had me so dazed that I couldn't concentrate. I knew I needed to be working, but the only thing that made me feel better was being asleep. I'm not all the way better yet, but I think I'm close enough that this week I'm going to start exercising again. While the doctor told me back in July that I shouldn't run any more, I want to try to get myself in shape for the couch-to-5K program again. Or maybe even a longer race like a 10K. I think this week, the little black doggie and I will be back at just walking...and then next week, we'll go from there.

Speaking of the little black doggie...we went to Amish country this weekend. Not our best time there. I don't really like being "that" friend. I like to have a good time. I like to enjoy a cocktail or three. But I don't want to completely lose control, and I don't want the people around me to feel like I'm the impetus for their losing control. I was frustrated with myself, and completely annoyed, because I was that friend this weekend. *sigh* I wanted to just leave, take no responsibility for myself, and while I could have, I went to bed instead. Not my finest moment.

Work is work. I'm hoping that when the pressure of the dissertation is gone (like Tuesday), I can get more fully engaged there and feel like I'm doing something worthwhile because right now I feel as if I'm just useless, which is probably a little true. I'm doing the work I need to be doing. There is, of course, quite a lot of work what needs doing. And I've got to get on top of it. I need to feel like I'm doing something that is worthwhile. For instance, this weekend, I didn't do any of the work I needed to do. I'll get some of it done in the morning. The rest of it will have to wait. And that's going to have to be OK.

This coming weekend I have to be downtown on Friday for the Showcase of Schools. Saturday is the Race for the Cure. I'm thinking that the weekend after that...the 15th...the doggie and I might go camping. It will be the only time we've been since the spring when we went with TaTa and the Cabana Boy. I went in June with the PA, but the doggie did not get to go on that trip. So maybe she and I will go somewhere that weekend. It would be nice to go to the Smokeys, but I won't be able to take off early from work. It's a six hour drive, and I don't know that I want to be setting up camp that far from home in the dark. We could go to Land Between the Lakes...that's only like a four hour drive. It would still be dark when we get there, but it's not as far. I'll think about it. There's the Lexington Race on the 16th but I don't know if I care so much to go to that one.

I just checked and found that the New Orleans Race for the Cure is on October 23. How much fun would that be to go over with some friends and family? don't have to get to' up. We could just go...do the Race...have a picnic there in City Park. Drink some free beer. I think it sounds like an excellent plan. Who's with me?

Going to bed now. More on Tuesday. Maybe.

Last Updated November 2, 2010

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October 15, 2010

Afternoon Update

I wrote last night, but apparently in my addled state, I forgot to post it. I meant to, but it's probably better that I didn't. I am, as we speak, typing over all of last night's drivel so it is lost to history which is probably for the better anyway.

I was angry yesterday. Incredibly pissed off. It's better today, but I don't really know how much. Flashes of it still come back to haunt me.

I've made my reservations for a campsite, and I was a little surprised at how few spots were available. As it is now, I'm in an "overflow" site, which I assume means there won't be a fire ring or a table. That kinda blows, but then again, I'm paying $28 for two nights. I suppose I'll be taking my dissertation stuff and handwriting responses. I'll need to leave fairly early on Sunday morning so I can get back to Louisville and get to work on the other things I've got to get done this weekend.

I think I'm trying to get sick, which is not surprising given that fact that I'm a wee bit stressed. I have to stop at the grocery store on the way home, and I'm going to pick up some Advil Cold and Sinus. I figure that along with enough alcohol will see me through the weekend well enough. Yes? So yeah. That's what I'm thinking.

Have to stop by the post office and pick up my mail. I hope there are some magazines there for me to read. I think tonight will be trashy magazines and such. Maybe I'll finish reading Waiting for Superman even though it makes me want to scream.

I've done something to my left eyeball. I've been wearing my glasses for the last week because my eye was hurting when I wearing my contacts. It goes back to when I was finishing my dissertation and didn't sleep for 3 days. That's when the cloudiness and the gunk started. Hasn't been any gunk lately. But it hurts. Always feels like there's something stuck up under the contact way up under my eyelid. I think I'm going to be wearing glasses for quite awhile. And while we're talking about glasses, I really need to get a new pair. I think the prescription in mine is the same as it was when I got them before I moved to MS. As much as I love my glasses, they're beginning to show the wear of 7 years of use. And I do love that pair of glasses. They work for me. But it's time for a new pair. Something else to spend my non-existent money on. *sigh*

Anyway. It's time to get going. Stuff to do, stuff to do, stuff to do.

October 12, 2010

Evening Update

I must have been prophetic last night. The chickens came home to roost today at work. Lots of yelling and lots of anger. There are only so many hours in a day. I'm not an administrator, and I'm not going to work the hours that administrators are expected to keep. I'll do the best work I can while I'm at work. You may get me a couple of hours after I got home, but that's it.

I am not going to live and die by this job. I can go home. I can get another job. I was looking for one when I got the one I have. There will be somewhere else that I can work. With less stress.

I had a presentation this afternoon for work. At the last minute I remembered that it was going to be in the auditorium which meant that the small group activity I'd planned wasn't going to work at all. I went whole group and read from my powerpoint. It was OK, but it could have been 100x better. Given where it was taking place, though, I didn't know how else to do it for them. *sigh*

Which reminds me...I need to update my teaching page. I've done some stuff the last couple of years that I at least want to catalogue here. If I'm uploading it to my server, then it's backed up. That means that I will need to continue to pay for webhosting. I suppose that's OK, although I really should invest in some remote, automatic back-up. That way I won't have to worry about remembering to do it.

The last two nights I've taken my doggie for walks. They've been slow walks because I've been taking pictures as we go. I have gotten some nice shots the last two nights. I need to get some pictures of the trees around school, and I need to get down to Iroquois Park to take some photos there. Over to Cherokee Park. The leaves are already starting to drop and if I don't get them soon, they will be gone. I'll be home in MS next fall, which means I won't get to see these beautiful colors again.

We have parent teacher conferences the next two nights. I don't know that any parents from our class will show, and if they don't, that's just fine with me. I have tons of other work that I need to get done. Tomorrow night when I get home, I'm going to have to clean out the car so Thursday night when I get home, I can get it packed up and ready to go Friday. I'm still planning on camping. Even though I think I might be developing a touch of the fever.

Have I mentioned lately that I love PBS? Tonight I'm watching God in America. It starts with the Civil War and Lincoln's spiritual journey. You might see this on the History channel, but not everyone has cable. PBS is available to everyone, and I believe that PBS serves a valuable purpose in our society. We have access to much that we would not necessarily see or know in our everyday lives. It's another perspective, about things that are important to us, but don't get the attention that mainstream media believe they should. It's about the telling of stories. As a word person, I value the stories.

Getting a shower and going to bed. Tired.

October 11, 2010

Evening Update

Before it gets too much later and I finish this martini, I need to finish the school work I brought home with me. I worked on it most of the day today at school, and my head is killing me. It sucks to go between two different paper documents and one spreadsheet. Sucks. Badly. Not only is there eyeball strain, but there's the neck strain because you're constantly moving your head among the three different interfaces. Very frustrating.

It's moments like these that I wonder what the hell is going on with people in education. If they'd given me an electronic copy of the document, I could manipulate the data any way that I wanted it.

With that out of the way, time to finish my martini and get ready for bed. I think I'll get the shower out of the way.

Tomorrow I have to get ready to teach my faculty how to use SRE. I should have Mary do it. She was talking about how it works. Taught her students how to do it. The problem is that she would talk the entire time and no one would learn anything. *sigh* I hope that I don't get like that. I hope that I learn when to shut up...have enough presence of mind to pay attention to the cues of the crowd.

The doggie and I went for a walk this evening. My hip is still killing me. Has been killing me all weekend. But I'm tired of letting it limit me. There were fall colors that I wanted to capture on my camera, and the doggie needed to be walked. So we went. Between the taking of pictures and remembering where I'd seen some rather pretty trees, we were gone about an hour. And now my hip hurts. I've taken some muscle relaxers and a pain pill. I think that as soon as my defense is over, I'm going to have to go talk to my doctor about a cortisone shot. I don't want to do that. If it's anything like my shoulder, then it's going to hurt WORSE for at least a week after I get that shot. I'm not sure that I can handle it hurting worse than it already does. At times it's excruciating, and I'm literally afraid for it to hurt more.

Have any of you been paying attention to the idiot that is running for governor of New York? I honestly can't believe all of the things that are coming out of people's mouths. In public. There's a ton of anger in this country, and I think a day of reckoning is comimg. I'm afraid of it...perhaps as much as I'm afraid of my hip hurting even more than it already does...and I'm afraid of the aftermath. It seems to me that we've got to figure out some way to come together and figure out how to respect each other even though we might disagree with each other. We can't continue as a society if we can't at least grant each other some common courtesy. We won't need the terrorists; we're a house divided and cannot stand.

I'm going camping this weekend. I'm not entirely sure that's the best idea for me. With my hip hurting the way that it does, I don't know if I need to be sleeping on an air mattress, but I'm going to do it anyway. I've been camping twice this year, and neither one of those times did I have the alone time that as an introvert who often plays like I'm an extrovert, that alone time is important. So. We're going to go. Even though I have parent teacher conference nights until 6:00 Wednesday and Thursday, I'll get the car packed so that all I have to do Friday is cruise by the grocery and pick up some stuff for our weekend. Then I can come home, pick up my puppy and hit the road. Still haven't decided if it's going to be Cumberland Falls or Land Between the Lakes. Both are about the same distance from here. Can't remember if the area around Land Between the Lakes is "dry" or not. Not that it matters to me one whit. I'm not obnoxious when I drink and camp. I'm just thinking about if I run out of beverages. That has happened before. Poor planning on my part, yes.

Did I tell you that last night I started reading Waiting for Superman? Makes me so angry on so many levels. Yes, there are teachers that don't belong in the classroom. But teachers aren't the root of the problem. We have generations of citizens who do not value education. Waiting for Superman follows 5 parents who give a damn. But what about the parents who don't? Or who say they do but then do everything they can to undermine their child's education? Waiting for Superman doesn't mention them and how difficult it is to teach when those students are in your classroom. Literally all it takes to ruin a class is one student hellbent on being an ass. Yeah, there are ways to bring them around, but in the mean time you're losing valuable time.

Work is kicking my ass. So much to do and no time to get it done. It's very frustrating. Tomorrow we have a faculty meeting. Then an emergency ILT meeting following it. And on Wednesday we have EPD all day long. Parent-teacher conferences Wednesday/Thursday nights. And now we have a meeting tomorrow during first period. Just called. Back the fucking train up. I'm not paid to be an administrator. Stop treating me like one. My job isn't my life. I don't have children that I'm ignoring for this job. Getting more snaggley by the minute. *sigh*

Need to go to bed now before I get myself in trouble.

October 9, 2010

Evening Update

I baked brownies this evening. They actually turned out quite nicely.

My hip is killing me again today. I meant to be walking with the rest of the folks from my school, but I just couldn't do it. I got downtown, got parked, and started walking the four blocks to the Race for the Cure. Yeah, about half a block and I was in agony. It hurt so badly. Turned around and went back to the car, came home, took some pain medication, and went back to bed.

I've spent most of today sleeping. Because of my hip.

I've started reading Waiting for Superman, and it makes me angry. There's an assumption that every parent wants their child to do well in school, and I believe that a majority of parents do want their children to be successful. However, I've come to the realization that there's a segment of our population that doesn't care. They don't care about their children; they don't care about the rest of society. They live in the moment because the moment is all they have. Perhaps the school systems have failed them and led them to where they found themselves, but it's a reality that movies (and books) like Waiting for Superman fail to acknowledge. There's a lot of reality that gets ignored. But this movie will come out and my fellow teachers and I will be the root of the problem. When we're only a piece of of the pie.

Where does Waiting for Superman address the Matthew Effect? With children coming to school further and further behind? Where is that included in their "research"? Oh. You mean it doesn't fit neatly with their hypothesis so they ignore it? Say it isn't so!

*sigh*

Did I mention that the doggie and I are going camping this coming weekend? I don't think we'll need to be able to make a fire. It's so warm. Tomorrow is suppose dot be 90. That is crazy for the middle of October. The middle of October should be cool weather and bonfires, but it's too dry for that. But the doggie and I are camping. Which reminds me...I need to figure out how far it is to LbtL. If it's closer, we might go there instead of Cumberland Falls.

October 8, 2010

Evening Update

There was something specific I wanted to talk about tonight. I wanted to talk about education and social justice and how we have made a decision in this country to leave quite a large percentage of our population behind, but I've had a few martinis and I'm not at all sure that I can be coherent. So. I'm gonna ramble. Iffn you can't keep up or I get tedious, I'll understand. I swear.

I have decided that the doggie and I will be camping next weekend. I think we're going to Cumberland Falls state park. It's about 3 hours from home. I'm going to pack up stuff related to my dissertation and take it with me. That way i can go over it and prepare myself for what will come later in the week.

I made the mistake of having martinis this evening. I can't keep it together enough to write anything here tonight. I promise that some time tomorrow will be better.

October 5, 2010

Evening Update

The dissertation is with my committee. I made the editorial corrections that my chair wanted and sent it to a friend to print last night. He delivered it today. It looks like the defense is going to be on October 21. I still have to hear from the last person on the committee as to whether that date is good, but I think it's probably a go.

Now the difficulty comes in trying to figure out how to work the days off. My current school district, unlike my last district, does not have an "educational" leave policy. I need four days of personal leave. I have three. If the only option is for me to take an unpaid day, then I suppose what will happen is that I will go to work on December 9 and then head south around 11. That will get me into Hattiesburg around 7 Hattiesburg time. Just in time to leave for the airport. That means that someone will have to go to USM to pick up my gown and all that good stuff. I'm sure that I know someone who is willing to do that for me. Positive.

We were talking about how this works for other people in the district, and the consensus seems to be other people learned to lie about what they were doing. And the suggestion was that perhaps I was going to be ill. There are all sorts of things that could happen. I might intend to be home on such date, but maybe I had an allergic reaction to something that caused a delay? It's unfortunate that people are forced into making such choices. Personals do not accrue as personal days. They become sick days. So even though I didn't use all of my personal days last year, I can't use one of those this year. Frustrating.

I'm poor right now. It's going to be a tight week and a half. I had an unexpected $200 expense and then a $100 unexpected expense. And I'm sure there will be something else. This is the first check of the month which is always a little tighter to begin with, so those things hurt. It's OK, though, I can stay home. I need to sleep. And read. And do stuff for work.

Is anyone else sucked into Teen Mom on MTV like I am? Addicted.

Did anyone else hear about Jim DeMint's comments regarding not wanting practicing homosexuals or unmarried, sexually active women in the classroom? That angers me on many levels. One...how do you know about someone else's sex life? Two...why do you care about someone's sex life if they're not making it an issue? If I'm not having sex in front of your kid in the classroom, where does that make an appearance in the classroom? Three...what's with forgetting about the unmarried, sexually active men? Really?

Give me a fucking break.

Speaking of reading (or at least I did a couple of paragraphs ago), I bought a copy of Waiting for Superman. I want to hear what it has to say...although I don't know that I will buy much of it. I need to go to the library and get a library card so I can finish reading one of the books I started this weekend at ChiChi's. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow night.

October 3, 2010

Evening Update

I can't believe I've not been here in over a month. *sigh* Sorry. I've meant to, but there have just been too many other things that needed to be done.

Chief among them my dissertation, which is just about finished now. I'll call tomorrow night to talk to my chair and go page-by-page through the document so I can make his corrections. I'm hoping that I can get all of those corrections made tomorrow night. That way I can have it printed and delivered to where it needs to go Tuesday. That will be helpful because one of my committee members leaves Hattiesburg Tuesday afternoon and if I don't get it to him then, it will have to be shipped Fed-Ex over-night.

Finishing this thing up has not been without drama...and lots of it. Last week was my own little version of hell. Especially just for me. So very frustrating. It took me three times as long to finish it as I thought it was going to. I'd get going on it and the next thing I knew, I found something else that had to be done. Or i noticed that the Graduate guide wanted things done differently than the APA did. I went with the Graduate guide because I didn't want to have to redo it just for her. So. Every one of those things took so much longer than they really should have. I didn't sleep from Saturday morning until Monday night. Or eat. I was so focused on getting it done.

And then the bombs started falling. On Tuesday I got an email saying, oh by the way...one of your committee members is no longer with the university and he must be replaced. With Dr. XXX. Who is a fine person but not at all who I need to have on my committee. I made a few calls which confirmed that the university has a procedure that will allow committee members who are no longer with the university to continue to serve on a committee. Since we are literally three weeks away from being done, I think this is as perfect a situation as you'll ever come across. I contacted that committee member and he agreed to continue to serve. Then I had to wait to hear back from my chair. So much stress. Ugh.

Now I'm a little ticked off that there may be a ton of corrections. Apparently in the first 60 pages, the errors that my chair found will take me at least an hour to fix. *sigh* I've read through that section a million times. Other people have read through it. No one has mentioned errors to this point. That frustrates me. If you'd told me, I would have fixed it. *sigh*

So. Looking at a final defense on Oct 22. Or at least that's the last thing I heard. I'm assuming that everyone can make it that day. It's the last day that defenses can happen, and I would expect that most professors who are on committees that *might* meet, clear their schedules in case they're needed that day. I'll head south on Thursday after school, and get there late. That will hopefully give me little time to worry, although we all know that if it can be worried about, I will find a way to do it. My defense is currently scheduled for 10 in the morning. I don't know how long it will take for me to file paperwork and all of that, but I expect, since the PA is off that weekend, that he will be taking me to a celebratory lunch. The drinking will begin then...if it doesn't start with Bailey's in my coffee that morning.

Feels like the dissertation has consumed my life for the last month or so, but in other news, the PA came to visit. He was here the day after his birthday. We didn't do anything exciting because I had to work and money is tight all the way around. I went to work during the day and he slept in or piddled around the house. He had a computer with him, as well as his playstation/xbox/whatever it is and a book to read. He cleaned things, made me dinner, made me work. Of course, because football is incredibly important, he left early Saturday morning. That was actually OK because that was what started the marathon of dissertating.

I've had a terrible arthritis flare for the last month. It's finally starting to be mostly better, but on the whole it sucks and is debilitating. I lost weeks of time that I could have been working on my dissertation because I hurt so badly. Either the pain was so debilitating that I couldn't concentrate or the pain medication, which didn't really help the pain, had me so dazed that I couldn't concentrate. I knew I needed to be working, but the only thing that made me feel better was being asleep. I'm not all the way better yet, but I think I'm close enough that this week I'm going to start exercising again. While the doctor told me back in July that I shouldn't run any more, I want to try to get myself in shape for the couch-to-5K program again. Or maybe even a longer race like a 10K. I think this week, the little black doggie and I will be back at just walking...and then next week, we'll go from there.

Speaking of the little black doggie...we went to Amish country this weekend. Not our best time there. I don't really like being "that" friend. I like to have a good time. I like to enjoy a cocktail or three. But I don't want to completely lose control, and I don't want the people around me to feel like I'm the impetus for their losing control. I was frustrated with myself, and completely annoyed, because I was that friend this weekend. *sigh* I wanted to just leave, take no responsibility for myself, and while I could have, I went to bed instead. Not my finest moment.

Work is work. I'm hoping that when the pressure of the dissertation is gone (like Tuesday), I can get more fully engaged there and feel like I'm doing something worthwhile because right now I feel as if I'm just useless, which is probably a little true. I'm doing the work I need to be doing. There is, of course, quite a lot of work what needs doing. And I've got to get on top of it. I need to feel like I'm doing something that is worthwhile. For instance, this weekend, I didn't do any of the work I needed to do. I'll get some of it done in the morning. The rest of it will have to wait. And that's going to have to be OK.

This coming weekend I have to be downtown on Friday for the Showcase of Schools. Saturday is the Race for the Cure. I'm thinking that the weekend after that...the 15th...the doggie and I might go camping. It will be the only time we've been since the spring when we went with TaTa and the Cabana Boy. I went in June with the PA, but the doggie did not get to go on that trip. So maybe she and I will go somewhere that weekend. It would be nice to go to the Smokeys, but I won't be able to take off early from work. It's a six hour drive, and I don't know that I want to be setting up camp that far from home in the dark. We could go to Land Between the Lakes...that's only like a four hour drive. It would still be dark when we get there, but it's not as far. I'll think about it. There's the Lexington Race on the 16th but I don't know if I care so much to go to that one.

I just checked and found that the New Orleans Race for the Cure is on October 23. How much fun would that be to go over with some friends and family? don't have to get to' up. We could just go...do the Race...have a picnic there in City Park. Drink some free beer. I think it sounds like an excellent plan. Who's with me?

Going to bed now. More on Tuesday. Maybe.