Beginnings and Endings

Abstract, no? I'm never, in a million years, going to be creative enough to come up with titles for all of my posts...just ask anyone who kept in touch with me via email in college.

So, I officially moved to Blogger. I figured it was time, since my Xanga account was coming due, and Blogger is free.

My first year of teaching is officially done...when people say it's the hardest year of your life, they're not kidding. What they don't mention, I don't think, is that it's hard in a different way for everybody. Me, I'm fine with a group of kids. Put me with kids to teach, and I know what to do. It's the gosh-darned paperwork, for one -- or organization in general -- or possibly the supervising of aides. I survived, but it was a near thing a few times....

The sad thing is, the exact stuff I struggled with isn't even an issue in other districts. Our speech therapist came from Escondido, and the secretaries schedule IEPs and just tell everyone, teachers included, when to come. All you have to do is write the actual IEP -- which, by the way, I'm apparently pretty good at. So there, certain unnamed CSUN teachers who pick apart every goal and objective with a fine-toothed comb.

If I sound bitter, I'm really not. Things could have been a lot worse. I'm not a huge believer in fate, but I do believe that people end up where they're supposed to be, and when they're supposed to be, and it turns out that the aides at Santa Su (where I student taught) practically staged a revolt over there this year, 'cause the person they got to replace the teacher (who happens to be doing the same program at CSUN at me, which they aides don't know, and who didn't mind confirming a few suspicions I had over that whole mess) actually (gasp) wanted to teach the kids. I don't know about some people....

I'm busy getting ready to leave Wednesday for Pennsylvania. Patrick got to go to his first concert last night, if you don't count Raffi, although it was with our mom. He saw Kenny Chesney, his new favorite country singer (which is funny, 'cause he typically gravitates towards people with very raw emotion (Johnny Cash's "Hurt," for instance, or most of Melissa Etheridge's album Skin, as well as her song about 9/11 "Tuesday Morning"), who was playing with Rascal Flats (?) and Uncle Cracker. I, on the other hand, crashed in the hotel room 'cause the last day of school was Thursday and Friday was teacher checkout day.

Anyway, we leave Tuesday morning for PA, to do some visiting and some sight seeing. I get to have a birthday lunch at the restaurant at the Hershey Factory. :-) It's going to be pretty hectic, but there's quite a few members of my mom's side of the family who are getting kinda on the old side (like, say, her grandmother, who is 94 and still walks 12 blocks a day -- she had to cut it down this year from 18). Plus, my mom's aunt, who has Alzheimer's Disease and is not doing so well.

Speaking of, working in Simi Valley this last week was an interesting experience. I don't really remember much, positive or negative, about Ronald Reagan, except that my friend Amie went to school with one of his granddaughters, that my grandmother was very bitter that the Iran-Contra hearings preempted As the World Turns, and watching the Challenger explode live on satellite because I was home sick. Politics aside, like most other people, I think I felt more for Nancy Reagan this week than I did for him. For President Reagan, I would imagine that death was probably a release (I felt this way about my great-grandma)...it's sad, but in a way, it's better. But Mrs. Reagan clearly had a very deep bond with him, and I think will probably either pass away herself quite soon (as my grandfather did after my grandma died) or will get into campaigning against Alzheimers and breathe new life into herself.

Let's see...what else before I pack my laptop? Oh, yeah...saw Harry Potter last week. It was a very good movie, not the least of which because the kids seem to have learned to act. ;-) Seriously, though, The Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite of the books so far, so it figures that I liked the movie.

Got new glasses the other week. Turns out I have astigmatism, which LensCrafters over corrected for on my last pair...so I spent much of last weekend adjusting and not trying not to be busy. Patrick and my mom got some too but we had to send Patrick's back because they forgot the transitions coating. We're hoping they come in Monday so he can have them on the trip.

I think that's about it for now...enjoy the minimalist, easy-on-the-eyes template!