D'oh!

Amazon.com: DVD: Farscape - The Complete Fourth Season (1999)

Murphy's Law strikes again -- why didn't I see this when I was at Best Buy with my mom on Wednesday and in a spending mood?

Oh, wait.

I need black ink for my printer.

Gosh darn it. ;-)

Murphy's Law

I've learned something about myself the last couple of weeks. When I get stressed, nervous, or upset, I hide...withdraw.

(This is a POK-mobile post, so probably no one should read this anyway...)

It's not been a fun few weeks. It all started the weekend Connie was supposed to call me and arrange to meet for dinner -- I totally forgot I was expecting the call, then thought of it that night, and realized I had no earthly idea where my cell phone was. Once I found it, I found that somehow a master password or something, which I never set, got messed up, and I can't get past the locked SIM card.

Meanwhile, my grandmother was told that because of the advanced stage of her emphysema, so much of her lung tissue is damaged that exposure to any respiratory-related illness (colds, flu, etc.) could be fatal. Actually contracting them would almost certainly be fatal.

Oh -- and she's smoking again.

So now, everytime I get the fluttery feeling I had the night my dad died (and my great-aunt, grandmother, and grandfather), I get nervous. Despite watching sci-fi, I'm not really one for the mystical stuff, but this, I believe in. It's happened too many times now...somehow I know when a relative is dying.

Let's see...my class is a disaster. The kids I had last year are doing okay, but none of the others have any clue what to do in a classroom. Most of them are doing a little better, but one kid, R., is driving me bananas, and I can't figure him out. This is very frustrating.

To add to that, one of my students is probably moving, and because she's assigned to P. as one-to-one support, one of my aides in the morning will be gone in the near future. Meanwhile, this person (who has a personality like my grandma's) is obsessing about random things, which I get to hear about for 6 1/2 hours a day.

Then, beginning about a week and a half ago, my jaw started to hurt. The wisdom teeth -- which were supposed to finally hold my teeth in place so my retainer wouldn't be necessary -- I was promised are finally coming in, but there doesn't appear to be room after all. Now, I have a major dentist phobia (not good, 'cause bad gums run in the family, but so far, I've been lucky in the teeth/cavity department), so I haven't yet convinced myself to call a dentist for what will probably be oral surgery to remove at least one impacted wisdom tooth.

And then, after my weekly Monday Carl's Jr. date with Patrick, I woke up so dizzy I felt like I was on a merry go round on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean. Yep, folks, I had food poisoning.

One bright spot is the new 1st-3rd special day class teacher, Jenn, who has made it her mission to drag me to a teachers' happy hour gathering on Fridays, and finally succeeded Friday -- though I only had a virgin margarita. She's almost exactly my age, and we get along really well together, so I hope she stays more than one year.

Maybe forcing me to do that is what finally got me to write this. I knew that as soon as I did, I'be be...well, for lack of a better word...interacting with the wide world again. Maybe it's a sign that things are going to turn around.

Or, maybe I'm just a little maudlin tonight 'cause it's 7:30, there's nothing good on TV, I ran out of labels and ink to do anything useful for school, I don't want it to be Monday tomorrow, and my mouth hurts. :-(

I Have Been Pushed Over the Edge

Yeeeaarrrgghh.

It's "would have," people. Would have...could have...should have....

There is no such thing as could of. Or would of. Or should of. Or...had to of.

Would have.

Say it with me. Would have. Should have. Could have. Must have.

(Or, the acceptable slangy Farscape variant: could'a, would'a, should'a. :-)) Note, however, that the contraction includes the "a" from the word "have" -- nary a hint of the word "of."

Must have.

Could have.

Would have.

Should have.

Sigh.

My Little Energizer Bunnies

All I can say is yikes.

The morning went absolutely fantastic -- which should have been my first sign.

But somewhere between lunch and...well, recess after lunch, my calm 11 students (even S. had stopped hitting himself by that point) all went berzerk. The best way I can describe it is that they were like little energizer bunnies on fast forward.

I'm so exhausted I can't sleep. Seriously. I'm absolutely exhausted, and even though I'm trying to drift off, I can't. :-(

Here's to boring TV.

Second Day

Good grief, I'm going to crash and burn on Friday. More later.

Erm? (Puzzled Noise)

Okay, so what looked like a browser hiccup wasn't.

Then, what looked like a blogger hiccup wasn't.

You will find my post about the first day below my posts saying I couldn't post about the first day.

Yeah.

Whatever.

I'm so tired, I don't even care... ;-)

Boo

Either blogger or firefox ate my post.

I will recreate it later. Right now, I am zoning...I don't think I'll get much work done tonight -- but that's okay, I guess, 'cause most of the work I needed to modify is still in the kids' work folders at school. :-(

First Day

Oh, no.

(That was in a Phoebe voice, by the way.)

Blogger ate my post.

I will recreate it later. I'm right now trying to talk myself into doing work, but I think I'll celebrate a day finished and vegetate, then work all night tomorrow (well, not all night...).

First Day

Boy.

I would say it was a crazy day, but I think I just got spoiled by the progress I'd seen in my class last year. When I remember the first day of last year, with I. throwing everything she could get her hands on, G. hiding in the bottom shelf of a bookcase, and the aides looking at me like I was speaking Greek when I wanted the kid to work.

Today, all the kids -- not just mine from last year, but J., R., and the kids from the primary class (which didn't really do all that much academic work last year) were at their desks working for the first hour or so of the day...then they started needing breaks at different times, and it got kind of...hectic.

I can see right away that I've got my work cut out for me -- it's very much a different group of kids this year...different vibes, different challenges -- but I think we'll be okay. We start DARE and science next week, so I'll have some kids in and out for mainstreaming, and I plan to set up a "student exchange program" during silent reading times....

I think the hardest part will be that because of budget cuts, they are changing some aide hours, and I swear I spent 3 hours of today hearing M.E. stress that because they took away 1 hour of M's time, they would "take it" from her and give it to M. Oy.

But I think the best kid-related thing that happened today was one of the following two things:

1. E. not wanting to do math until I found these plastic stretchy lizard toys, and had the lizard count the coins. All of a sudden, she could count to 13 -- almost 15, but she got a little hazy around there. So I bought a few more packs at WalMart tonight...maybe she'll do more math for frogs. ;-)
2. S. didn't come on the bus today. He's the one that hits his head until his head and/or knuckles are bloody. Anyway, they didn't have his bus "harness," a special seatbelt contraption, so they said they'd bring him. Well, 9:30 came around -- no S. 10:00 came around -- no S. So I called his group home...and the response I got was "oh, I saw him downstairs...I was wondering what he was doing here!" Very confidence-inspiring. Then the lady told me he'd been hitting his head, so they let him stay home. Now, this kid hits himself all the time...whether he likes stuff or not...and I'm thinking, Now, there's a great thing to teach the kid -- I hit myself and can stay home. But C.-the-Magic-Behavior-Intervention-Specialist, who had asked me to call her if S. didn't come in, scoffed and said, "I'll call 'em." S. was there 20 minutes later. The cool thing? He did 2 pages of work and didn't hit himself all day! :-)

So, I think we need a couple of days to get everything worked out. We shall see.

Oh -- and to top off the day, A.'s aunt wasn't there when the bus dropped her off, and her mom didn't get there to pick her up for an hour and a half. :-(

Procrastinating

A few days ago, I thought I had most everything ready. Tonight, after making the classroom rules ("We help each other," "work first, then take a break," and "we respect each other") and homework folders, and realizing half the class needs more work modified, I've come to the conclusion that I could have started getting ready during summer school and still wouldn't be.

Oh well.

We'll survive. Can't be worse than last year, when I tried to (gasp) read a poem to the class, then assigned a math assessment (to see where everyone was), and had the aides looking at me like I was speaking Greek.

Google Trick

I used to spend lots of time browsing lyrics.ch, a very large lyrics database. Got me through loads of nights of MathLab tutoring, until someone sued for copyright infringement (this was before napster, which I think took the focus off of lyrics and onto the songs themselves).

In any event, it got pulled offline, and though there are lots of sites out there that you can find with google, you can almost always find the lyrics to a song by typing this string into a google search:

lyrics "name of song" artist

Be sure to put the name of the song in quotes so it looks for that particular string. If the artist's name is 2 words (Jann Arden vs. Evanescence) put the whole name in quotes as well. The word "lyrics" seals the deal.

For instance, to look up the lyrics to, say, "Hurt," as sung by Johnny Cash, you'd type:

lyrics "Hurt" "Johnny Cash"

And to search for the lyrics to "My Immortal" by Evanescence (a great song to Farscape's "The Chosen," for any Farscape fans -- particulary John/Aeryn, though that should be obvious by the episode), you would lose the quotes around the name and type:

lyrics "My Immortal" Evanescence

Finally, if you ever know a bit of the words but not the artist, often you can find that by typing:

lyrics "phrase from lyrics" ("name of song" optional)

For instance, at the school, we have a flag ceremony every Thursday morning and often sing "God Bless the USA." (Only the fact that it's Simi Valley, a relatively conservative area, has saved them from someone commenting on this choice, I think.) I searched the lyrics once to send home for the kids to practice but didn't know the artist, so I searched:

lyrics "tomorrow all the things were gone"

Have fun. :-)

Randomness

I have the worst craving for toast, but have no butter. :-(

Took forever, but all the copies I made today are sorted, stapled, and have kids' initials on 'em ('cause not all kids get all work), ready for preparation and modification, where needed, manana.

Don't forget to check out photos of my classroom. The link is below.

Nighty night.

Arranging the Classroom

Room_From_Door
Originally uploaded by spoowriter.

I put up a gallery of my newly-almost-ready classroom here. I was at Sycamore quite a long time today, putting the finishing touches on the room, but what took the longest was the copier, which suddenly decided to be a snail. (Sigh)

But, all I have to do now is make the kids' word books, portfolios, write a "how the classroom works letter" and get some work ready for Tuesday.

It'll be a weird week. Our behavior specialist (who I took a class from that I didn't even need 'cause she's fun to listen to) is gonna be by because one of my new guys, S., has some extremely self-injurious behaviors (he hits himself on the head until his head and knuckles are bloody); the OTs and speech therapists will be by to make a schedule -- ditto with the APE guy. So it won't be a normal week anyway.

I'm far less freaked out than last year, unlike the new primary SDC teacher, Jenn, who has never had a classroom herself, and although she's worked with adults with severe disabilities, her credential is in mild to moderate disabilities.

So, here's to a good year. Hope you enjoy the pictures. I work hard to make the room look as similar as possible to any other classroom. I feel that's very important, because it starts everything off with an...aura, so to speak...of age-appropriateness.

I just lost my train of thought there. More later, maybe.

Banned Books Week

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–20001

From the American Library Association. Bold means I've read it. Italics means I've heard of it but not read it..

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz -- my 3rd/4th grade teacher read these to us all the time...we loved them.
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck -- didn't like either of these, but had to read them for school.
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson -- another one my 3rd/4th grade teacher read us.
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry -- this is a fabulous book
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Dieby Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel -- well, I've read the first one...the others were too weird for me.
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane -- this is a riveting, fascinating story about living under apartheid that I found in my middle school library.
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -- I wasn't really fond of the book as a whole, but the beginning part that describes the "decanting" of children and the conditioning process is fascinating.
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl -- another 3rd/4th grade one
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison -- I'm not a huge fan of Toni Morrison, but this was the best of the ones of hers I've read
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford -- if you can count it as reading...
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett -- I think I read this one once
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell -- does reading it Patrick count?
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney -- haven't read this one, but I read a number of hers
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

You know, my elementary school teachers read many of these to me, and others, I found wandering the library at school, which was small enough that I stumbled upon things I wouldn't have found elsewhere.

Do I think 5 year olds should read Cujo? No, of course not. But should a 15 year old read Cujo? Why the heck not? It they wanna have nightmares, let 'em.

Be involved with your kids...know what they're reading -- and you decide something is not appropriate, fine. But don't assume that what is inappropriate for your child is inappropriate for another. It might just be the book that inspires them to write the next "great American novel," to use a fairly cliched phrase.

Testing, Testing

Patrick at the Coke Store
Originally uploaded by spoowriter.

Just testing out the blogging part of flickr, which is a Mac-compatible almost-as-good-as-Picasa-and-Hello. Miscellany is below. Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

Miscellaneous Musings

I think all this classroom-arranging has been bad for my ankle. It really hurts tonight, and my ice pack is still at my mom's house. :-(

On the other hand, all I have to do, really, is the bulletin boards and rearrange the desks, then make photocopies of the first week's work. My goal from now on is to be a week ahead in work -- that is, I'll have week 2's done over this weekend, so I can photocopy it and modify it on our early-out Thursdays.

That'll probably only last a couple of weeks, but it's a nice thought.

On the third hand, I think I'll get along great with the new primary SDC teacher - whose name is also "Jennifer." There are now 4 of us at Sycamore, and 3 of us teach special education, in one form or another. This is her first year teaching, and her credential is mild/moderate, not moderate/severe, so she's kind of freaking out right now.

I spent a lot of time today going through kids' IEPs with her, and showing her how I have my classroom set up. I tried really hard to walk the line of "give useful advice" without the "this is what Dana did" trap. I spent the first 6 weeks or so of last year constantly being told "Kate did this" or "Teacher Peter did that" ("Teacher Peter?" For 5th graders? Really?) or "What's-her-name-who-was-pregnant did that." Drove me nuts.

I told Jenn to tell me if I was doing that too much, but I'm not sure if she really would....

On the...fourth?...hand, the principal was insistent that Lauri (the preschool teacher) and I explain to Christina and Jenn how to get the kids off the bus.

Um, I'm sorry, but if they can't figure out how to get a group of kids off the bus and to the right classroom...we have much bigger problems here, people.

I don't know...Suzanne stresses about weird things, in my opinion. Last year, one of the first things she said after she hired me was, "Make sure you put up bulletin boards and stuff because the parents want their kids' room to look like everyone else's."

First off, after I went all over in my interview about how I worked in inclusive environments, and how important age appropriateness is to me, and how I was going to give homework because that's part of everyone else's school experience...what on earth did she think I was gonna do? Put up bars on the windows and "Warning: Special Education Students Here" on the door??

I'll have to post pictures of my classroom. I think it's a fairly nice compromise between looking very typical and having to respect the needs of my students by providing quiet cool down corners, a couple of individual work places, and a little corner for speech, OT, etc.

See? Toldja it was miscellaneous.

By the way -- thought of the night -- "The spear in the Other's heart is the spear in your own; you are he." -- Diane Duane.

Gmail

If anyone who wants a gmail account hasn't received an invite, check out The Screensavers' Kevin Rose's website.

I'll miss Pat, and I already missed Leo, but I'm looking forward to giving the new Screensavers a try anyway.

By the way...it must be the night for weird grammatical images. I just read something about a character being the one to...ahem..."bare" a baby....

Interesting Image

"Feint" basically means taking mock swing at someone. I believe it's a fencing term, as well.

Either way, it presents interesting images, when you read how it was used here.

However, it's worth noting that if someone feinted at me with a sword, I'd be faint of heart too. :-)

Manual Dexterity

I am the least coordinated person on earth.

And yet, I have tasked myself with creating triangular name labels for the kids' desks, because the ones that can't yet read their names weren't looking at the taped down ones last year anyway. These new ones are triangular and velcroed, to make it easy to move kids around without having to peel off old name tags.

However, this involves making a 1.5" table in word, putting the kid's name in, color-coding it by grade level, printing, cutting, and then (the manual dexterity part) folding along the lines on the table and gluing the extra flap from the top margin to the rest of the triangle in order to fill it with old phone book paper.

This is not easy. Worth it, rather than having to create new name tags every time I want to move kids' seats, but not easy.

Just thought I'd whine a bit.

Let there be light

Aha! I have light! Well, in 4 of the 5 bulbs -- since I wasn't sure I had the right bulb, and they came in packs of 4, I decided not to buy 8 bulbs I might not potentially need.