Missing a Karen

Ahh... today ends the end of the four day whirlwind of tourism. I loved having Karen here. It was AMAZING! We went everywhere and saw everything. I miss her already! But needless to say my legs are excited to go back to work tomorrow. Should have told her to come wed through Sat instead of Sunday but o well! I lvoe her...we had way fun and took lots of pictures~ craziness!

Single

I am now single. Eric and I broke up. Just a general fyi.

Forgetting A Step

It seems that the weather around here has forgotten a step.

Back home... when it snowed, the snow melted. Not a problem. Or the snow melted when it rained... not a problem. But when it snows the DAMN RAIN IS SUPPOSED TO MELT IT!!!

It is not supposed to rain cats and dogs while there is still snow on the ground. The freaking streets here are discusting. There is snow on all of the side walks and on the sides of the streets. Now that it's raining there is plenty of water around, under and on top of the damn slush. It is freaking rediculous. And because there is so much excess water, the puddles on the side of the streets go ut at least 2 feet if not 3 or 4. That also doesnt account for the slush in these side puddles that make it look like just a little bit of a puddle, only to be stepped in and go down like four inches!!!

Needless to say it was not fun to get to work this morning... and now I have a double prep with nothing to do!

A good weekend

It was a good weekend. I did nothing really... but it was good.
I got a new couch. For those of you that don't know, I sat on my couch about three weeks ago and broke it. That's right..the couch that is less than six months old broke on me! The framing on the bottom of the couch broke. I called the company... after weeks of trying I finally got a new couch this weekend. AND because there was no saving the other one to resale it, they left the other one. So now I have two couches! It will be great when I have other people in my apt!

The other half of my weekend was productive. I got up on Sunday, went shopping for food, did laundry, tried to bake cookies (they burnt) and then made a very good batch of strognoff (sp?!) It was all in all a good weekend.

Now all I have to do is make it though the week... I have next week off and Karen will be here!!! I am SUPER excited!

Finding a ballance

As I sat with my mentor today, I am thinking ahead towards next year. The kids this year are driving me insane and so we were talkinga bout what to do. I am hoping that next year I can grow and do a better job, as it should be.

Things I am thinking about tend to center around the begining of the year. I need to

• get a grip on rules at the begining of year. rules need to include policies around computers, checking computers at the end of class, raising hands, getting my attention, plugging in computers
• also when it comes to behavior. calling home. i need to start early calling home for good and bad behavior.
• the using of a projector needs to happen early so they can get used to it
• the use of assignment sheets needs to be used early so that they can get the hang of it. start easy. a couple of steps then work up to it.
• go through the stuff i have this year and pull out good and bad stuffs. start with typing, then go with projects.

These are just some of the things that I need to do next year. Keep watch of more things to come.

an exciting project

After my kids finish their current project... newspapers, we are going to embark on movies. The kids are going to have a choice of two different projects. They may either choose to do a movie including pictures from the school (taken my yours truly) or they can use the ducky pictures that I am going to demonstrate with.
This weekend I am going to go on an adventure. As a tourist I have been a lot of places. I remember what it was like to see each for the first time and I want to convey that in video. But I really cannot take pictures of myself by myself in the city, so I have come up with a plan. It is going to be, A Day In The City with Ducky. Ducky will be getting on the subway... heading into town, getting on and off the subway, doing all the stairs and seeing the sites. Ducky is lucky because he will have me to document his journey. Then, after returning home with these documented pictures, I will be putting these pictures into a video. The cool thing that I can do is to narrioate what Ducky is doing then present the video to the kids. I am super excited about this project. It should be way fun. Hopefully I can get a large part of it done on Friday and the rest done on Saturday. Then I can spend the majority of Sunday putting the vidoe together. This is going to be super fun I hope. Ducky will get dirty, like every other NYC tourist, but we are super excited. Leave me a note if you would like to see Ducky's adventures. Maybe I will finally figure out YouTube and post it there and here. We shall see.

a great day

Sundays are usually a day of rest, or at least laundry. But this Sunday was SO awesome. Yesterday it was like 45 in the city and sunny. So, on a wim, I headed into the city. By myself.. that's it... just me. Walking around the city for like three hours.. enjoying the warm air that had just a nip of cold, the people..so many people enjoying the same, walking past fashion week, and getting a great deal on a fabulous new red top. It was a great Sunday. (ps. Go Giants! so sad I can't go to parade tomorrow..stupid people should wait till the weekend so morepeople can go!)