waking up in a fog

I have never really understood this saying. How can you wake up in a fog unless there is fog outside your window? Well... I finally made the connection this morning. I feel like crap today. I don't want to be at school and I would much rather be in bed all day and pet my kitty.

Whether this is an effect of five hours out in the cold last nigh to watch the tree lighting in Rockafeller Center or just a build up of the not so good feeling I have had all week. I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. As for the fog... it was in my head. Never had that before but it was. O well. Off to work I go. Gotta love it!

spoiled

My cat is spoiled. Well..ok..its not that bad... really. Just when I went to the store yesterday to update the empty bag of cat food and cat litter...it was EXPENSIVE. Ok.. so I got her some wet food and a brush. But STILL!!! 45 dollars for all that is so expensive. Hopefully this will last me until Christmas break. I know I will have to get more before that.


Spoiled? Very much so...

A great turkey day weekend

It was a great weekend. I have had a number of firsts this weekend.

My first first of the weekend is the adventure of hitting the other two airports in New York City. I was able to fly out of LaGuardia on Thursday and I flew into Newerk this morning. That checks off all three airports in the New York City area.

My next first was Denver. I went to Denver for the holiday weekend. Now some of you are wondernig... WHY DENVER?!? Jessica, my college roommate, lives in Denver and invited me for the weekend. It was great. It was so great to see her and I can check Denver and Colorado off on my list of plaes to go. Denver was AMAZING. I love the snow, I loved the snow and cold sunny weather. It was SO beautiful.

Third on my list of firsts is a Jewish Thanksgiving. Ok... so a Jewish Thanksgiving really isn't all that different. They prayed in Herbrew but that was the only different thing. (besides sitting at a table which none of my family does but that's not really a Jewish thing...)

And while I was having a Jewish Thanksgiving, it was also my first Thankgiving without any of my family around. I did Thanksgiving with Eric's family last year but then we went to my aunts so this is the first without my family.

So that's about it for my lists of firsts.

I do have to say that I had a great weekend. It was so nice to see Jessica and spend time with her. It was also nice to see that people can have money (Jessica's family) and still be amazing people. They were interested in everything I had to say... They were impressed by me living in NYC... They were SO welcoming. It was a great weekend. I am sad that I have to get back to my real life tomorrow, almost doesn't seem real that I am teaching and I will be going back to school as a teacher tomorrow. Life is crazy. I am freaking living in NYC. I am making it on my own in a city where I knew no one. I may not have friends here so far but I can get myself to and from the airport.. I can get around the city... I can make it on my own. That is most important to me at this point.

Go me...

Mondays....

You know it's not gunna be a good day when its a Monday that does not start out good. First... didnt sleep well. Off and on all night. Second.. cold shower. Now in the summer I had shower issues but since the steam has been on it has not been an issue.... nope this morning... ICE COLD! Gotta love it. Then as much as I love the snow that is falling outside the school window right now, when I was excited about the possibility of snow yesterday I forgot the fact that I had to WALK to work in it this morning! Gotta love mondays right!?! Off to more work.

PROACTIVE AND VITACLEAR WARNING!!!

This is a warning to all yall. I recently ordered Proactive online. Well, apparently online you cannot order single orders. You enter a club and they charge your again and again. Also, the 'free' VitaClear vitamins that you get a sample of... that is also a subscription. I really dont like either of these products. First, the idea that I signed up for subscriptions without knowing it buggs me, but the way Proactive has killed my skin makes me mad.

My skin has developed horrible red acne that hurts down to the jaw bones. It was so bad that one of my kids thought I had a rash on my face. Sad Sad times. So I am sending back the vitamins (which I have to PAY for if I want my money back) and getting my money back on the Proactive.

O well. WE shall see if my skin survives.

The interesting keeps coming

Well. I am just hanging on here. Surviving. no.. no.. no... its not that bad I promise. The title of this post is the interesting keeps coming. Why you ask?
As I walked in to work and ran into my favorite custodian. Eddie, is a very nice guy. He is always making fun of me and has become my lunch buddy on my late lunch days. Bantering back and fourth has been fun. I thought nothing of it. Until yesterday. AS i was telling him about my weekend he was telling me about his. He was going to come into work for a couple of hours... basically just so he could see me. He was also talking about how he wanted to ask me to a movie. He wanted to ask me out. He even talked to his sister about it. She asked if I had a boy and Eddie said back in Oregon... she told him to go for it! OMG!!! Its crazy. He asked if I would have actually gone.. I said as a friend. It should be interesting around work.

So it's been interesting... gotta love being a girl!

An exciting turn of events.

Friday night was an interesting and exciting turn of events. Friday night I was talking to my college roommate Jessica about thanksgiving. AS you may suspect I am alone in the city. No family, very few friends. It is also WAY expensive to go home. So... Jessica invited me to Denver for the holiday. After searching and contemplating I bought a ticket to Denver and Jessica bough me one back to NYC. So Ill be headed to Denver in less than two weeks to spend the holiday with Jessica and her family. It will be super fun, a long weekend, but super fun. I have never been to Denver so... we shall see.

Just a shout out to my readers. If you leave a comment PLEASE leave your name so I know who is talking. Thanx a million! Love yall.

A weird day...

Today has been a weird day. First off. I got my NY licence today! I am offically licenced in the state of New York! Happy times.



The other part of the day was dealing with my supervisor. Today was my first offical observation of the year. It was an interesting observation. I was teaching a third grade class. The class started at 1205, but because it usually takes them some time to get back I had him come in at 1215 and he was late. He totally missed the begining of my lesson, which is fine I guess since I forgot to do something he told me to do... aka tell the students the aim of the lesson. Because he was late he needed to watch me in another class... so on the spot he decided he was going to follow me to my next class. Which was SUPER fun. I told him that I was not going into another third grade class, but a fifth grade class. But I changed my plans at the ast minute for him so he could see it again. This time it was about three kids. They were great because they totally wanted to learn about animation. So we shall see how it goes when we have our 'post conference'.

Funny comment for all you Oregonians

As I was walking into work this morning a first grade teacher walked in with me. She stated, "Wow, this must be like summer to you... being from Oregon and all." Ladies and gentleman this morning it is currently 33 degrees in my zipcode. 33 degrees to me IS NOT WARM!!!!! I kid you not. I very nicely said back... UM NO!!! Oregon is much warmer and even if it is colder I get in my car and drive to work.. I get in my car and come home from work. I don't walk ANYWHERE!!! So for those of you in Oregon who may be thinking it's warmer over here than there... UM NO! Im freezing my ass off over here!

HINT! Christmas... scarves... hats... gloves... warm socks...space heater.. all that good stuff

Professional Development

It was a professional development here in the great city of New York. That means that the students got the day off and teachers spent the day in meetings.

Today I was lumped with the k-2 teachers. This is all good, they are a good group of people. But at the same time.. I wonder if there would have been a better more productive place for me. The entire day was centered around data.. how to read and use data from tests to help students. Now see. I have 400+ students, I don't have their test data. I also do not test them. So data you ask.. o right. I have none. So when they were talking about grouping students for reading and reading centers.. I got nothing. Then we moved on to data and math. Again..nothing. Then after lunch is was reading some more.. again NOTHING!!! Basically the entire day I sat listening and doing lesson plans. During the last session the assistant principal started asking me if I wanted to do technology forever. I told her that I would rather integrate technology into my classes but I am happy where I am for now. She also stated that this must be hard for me to do since I do not currently teach reading. I think she was probing. Shes not the first to do it, so it should be interesting.

I do hope to have my own classroom next year. I cant wait to teach my own class. To be able to know my kids as well as these teachers know their kids. I cannot wait. I love my technology job, don't get me wrong, so it will be an interesting year.

Ok... back to the salt mines.. or my computer game. We shall see.

Im in love..

National Galery of Art game called Brushster is amazing. I want to use it with my kids... damn internet. grrrr...

Mondays are a bummer (STATIONS)

Tuesday's only fair. Wednesday's getting better...Thursday's almost there...

Ok. Its only Tuesday but today was WAY better than yesterday. Monday was a BADD day. Between it being Monday, the high stake testing in the morning, and Halloween week, Monday was such a bad day. The kids just would not listen... they were not even reading what I gave them.

This week I started a new leaf with the kids. We are trying stations. There are three or four stations that the kids are working on. I thought it was a GREAT idea. The kids... well. I think it is a change that they are not so willing to go with. A change in routine seems to throw them off totally. Next week is going to be interesting for them.

They are going to start being held accountable for their work. Each class period students are going to get a grade. It might be a check or a minus or a plus but each time they are in my class they will get one. This will help keep them accountable. Some of the kids are going to be confused when they find out they are failing technology.

As for the stations. students will be at one station for two class periods. The stations include:

• story starters. writing their own story starters which will evolve into writing a story with another groups starters
• vocabulary words in inspiration. defining their weekly vocabulary words on the computer making a long list that we can print
• powerpint. students are changing a pre-made slide into a unique slide. showing basic skills in powerpoint.
• typing. Students are using the internet to practice their touch typing skills.

Like I said, I think these are great ways to use the skills that we have aquired so far this year. As they get used to the stations, I can change the activites to reflect new programs. That way the old stations studetns will know what to do and I can teach to a small group. Hopefully this works. I will keep you updated.

As for Tuesday. Tuesday was a good day minus my worst class. What am I supposed to do when students run out of class? There really is nothing I can do but let them go because I have 20 other kids in the room that need to be tended to.

Later yall.

Begging for more picts

Hey yall. So I had a request for more pictures of the apartment. You will have to wait.. I am too lazy to get out the camera and hook it up and all that good stuff. So wait. Its just about clean so when it is perfect I will hook yall up.

As for my weekend. It was a goood weekend.

Saturday was filled with the usual Manhattan adventures. Kira and I headed towards a new theater to see the new movie "Dan In Real Life". It was a GREAT movie. The plot was a little like The Family Stone, but a different prospective and better acting. The characters in this movie fit together so well it was amazing. The theater we went to was SO nice. Because we saw a new movie it was in the HUGE theater. This theater had a mezzanine level where we sat. It was SO awesome.

After the movie I spoiled Kira's shopping plans and invited her to watch the UO Duck game with me at a local bar. It was a lot of fun with the fanatic people that usually are drunk at games being drunk next to me 3,000 miles away from Autzen! After the game we parted and headed home but it was a GREAT day.

My Sunday has actually been a productive day. I was up by like 730 and went for some essential groceries. After that I did laundry. I was done with laundry and home by noon. What to do with the rest of my day? Clean the house! I spent the rest of my day cleaning my house. Between the like 7 small bags of garbage and the massive amount of cat hair from the floor, it was a BIG job that's not all the way over quite yet. I need to do some dishes and sweet the dining room and kitchen.

Time to head off to find some food. Hope you enjoy hearing about my adventures... however lame they might be. Later yall

Freaking out

So. Gotta love the city and their data driven ways.

Everything in this city is all abotu the numbers. This is true for many things. One of these things is the survey that was given last spring. With the dismal number of students, parents and even staff that filled out the actual survey, the results were not good. What they actually were... we are not sure yet but we were given tiny parts of information.

One of these things is that the parents believe that the information about home are not making it to school and being integrated into the students education. AKA If grandma was in the hospital and the students missed a couple of days because there was no one to make sure the student got to school, the teachers were not sensative to the situation.

The other part to this is that parents are not seeing what is happening at school, they only see how their kid is progressing in grades. To circumvent this problem the administration has come to the conclusion that students need to have goals. These goals need to be in every aspect of their education. English/language arts, math, art, drama, TECHNOLOGY. The principal wants to be able to show the parents who is working towards what goals with each student.

That's right. Each and every student that I work with has to have an individual goal to lead their learning. That means I need to make goals with about 400 students. That includes all of my kinder through 5th graders. Every.. single...one. This should be interesting. How am I to do this you ask... any way I want. Absoletly no direction from the higher ups. Fun.

On top of this, my direct supervisor does not actually speak to me. I guess I can't say that. He says HI to me once and a while. I guess I would think that my direct supervisor would want to meet with me, figure out what I am actually doing in the classroom... you would think. I guess I need to step up and talk to him... which of course is kinda scarry. We shall see how it goes. Wish me luck.

I had a nice long weekend... almost

It was a good weekend. I sware. Just not a good start to the week.

Saturday was filled with time in the city. After meeting Kira for a long lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen (damn good by the way) I headed out for an afternoon on the town. AKA... wasting time until the game started. By the game I mean the duck game that didn't start until 730 my time. I spent most of the time listening to my latest book on tape (or iPod as it has to be) called Ain't She Sweet? Good book so far. I ended up about 8 hours into the 10 hour book. It s a good book about a rebellious teenager who, 15 years later, returns home to a small southern town. Its good. I have been getting all my books from Audible.com. Good source, but there are a lot of British books, which I am not all that into as a listen to book. After watching the first half of the game I headed home bc of exhaustion.

After a long Saturday my Sunday was nice and short. I slept and vegged till almost 3. I didnt want to shower because of the lack of shampoo in my bathroom. After some hard willing I finally got dressed and headed towards the drug store. I poked around some and finally bought my shampoo and conditioner. Then I headed to the grocery store and got some essentials. I acutally went home and put things away. AFter finishing some lesson plans I headed to bed. A short but good day.

Ahh.. Monday morning. Gotta love it. As I waited for the water in my shower to get warm I thought about how dirty my hair was without having been washed yesteryday and how good it would feel to wash it. After climbing in the shower I wet my hair and reached down for the shampoo.... shampoo... SHAMPOO... where was the shampoo? O crap. I got two bottles of conditioner... no shampoo. CRAPOLA!!! fine.. another day towards dirty hair. Off to school I went.... o well.

Annie in the city

Life is pretty boring around my house when I have no one around after work. I don't do anything. All this stuff to do and all I want to is go home and sleep. That's how exhausting my job is. But I really need to get up and moving. If I don't get up and get moving soon, this is going to be come habit and that CANT happen. We shall see...

Ah.. its been SO long

I am SO sorry it has been so long to my loyal readers (if there are any). It has been a long couple of weeks. Between school and personal life I have not had time to sit (unless falling alseep watching tv counts)....

School has been busy like always. These kids are crazy. I knew they were going to be a challenge, but I definately have one class that is AMAZING! These kids are insanely amazing. (makes me feel good that it's my mentors class!) Then I have kinder and first, they are crazy but are good. The fourth grade is good overall... Then there is the fifth grade. Besides the angel class discribed above, the fifth grade as a whole is quite interesting. The class I just got done with is CRAZY!!! The last three times I have been in there we have had students walk out and disappear. Today it was because one couldnt ues the computers.. so he walked out and disappeared totally. gone... the teacher tried to find him and finally called security to find him. Its just crazy what can set these kids off.

The personal life stuff. Eric has actually been here for ten days now... well.. he is headed towards the airport as I type. Probably just getting on the subway. I am very sad about this. It has been a great visit. I love having him here. Someone to do stuff with.. someone to come home to. It is great. We did stuff like, the United Nations tour, we did the Staten Island Ferry, Chelsea Piers, The really flat building (cant remember the name right now), Limbardi's Pizza (OMG!!! everyone who comes here HAS GOT TO have pizza there even if I cant spell it right), a good Chinese restruant in China town. We were everywhere, but at the same time I was nice to have someone to cuddle up to when I fell asleep on the couch at 8pm bc it was such a long day.

Will he move? Not sure yet. Still depends on when he gets a job. He had a bunch of informational interviews this week, some good some a waste of time, but it should be good. I cant wait to have him here in the city all the time. If he could move right now he could get the apartment under me and we would be living super close. But with rent being as much as he has total in his savings that wouldnt work out well. O well. We shall see.

My lunch break is just about over so I should scoot towards the resst of my day. At least I have fourth grade the rest of the day. They tend to do good... laters

quick lunch post

Wow.. question. when did side pony tails come back into style? It seems that everyone in NYC wears them and they are SO cool. just asking....

A Day in the City

It was a great day in the city today. The day started off with weird dreams. Everything from a weird dream about a new sport to a high school joke coming true... weird. dont ask...
Next I headed into the city, aka Manhattan, for a movie. My friend and I saw "Good Luck Chuck". The BEST thing ever happened. For the first time ever I got carded for a rated R movie. After buying out tickets we proceded to the ticket taker old man who was hunched over he took them and in his horse voice "can I see ID? Its a rated R movie." So poping out our id's and laughing we proceded into the theater. Only minutes later did a girl and her mom walk in... the girl being no more than like 10 MAYYYBE 11. OMG! Interesting.... not really. If you love raunchy sex montages, REALLY bad acting, and the horrible best friend who cant get enough boobs, you would LOVE this movie. I have no idea who would take their child to this movie, but o well... not mine!
After the movie I headed towards the local home goodie store... The Container Store. The best store ever!!! I got a shelf for the bathroom along with some towel hangers for the bath. Then had to make a stop for cat food and Staples for more cork boards for the bedroom. Of course, living in the city without a car it was FUN to carry this all back on the subway! Good thing the container store wraps everything for carrying.
When I got home I worked and worked and worked on the house so it would look presentable. So because I spent SO much time working today I decided I need to post more pictures.

This is my entertainment center that I put together.. what you think?
The bedroom. Cork boards I just put up today and the air mattress. How bad is it that the crooked cork board is driving me nutz in this picture!?!?!
The bathroom with mynew shelf. Gotta love the duckies.
The kitchen wide angle.
The kitchen counter. Microwave and all. this is ALL the counter space I have.

Another Week

It was a pretty uneventful week. There was one over lying theme though. Save Ms. Erickson's voice. That's right. After yelling at kids for three weeks I basically lost my voice. By Friday my poor voice was giving out. Way too much yelling and talking to kids. It will be much of the same this week.

The one fun event was on Friday in a fourth grade class. As the class ended and we started to get ready to walk to lunch, from the closet came a stong stench. What I can only assume was AXE coming from a student. Which one, not really sure, but they definately sprayed WAY too much in a very small spot. BAD!!!!

O. And Eric will be here next Saturday. I am super excited. He is actually coming on a three day weekend for me. He is coming to make sure he wants to keep looking for job here (aka does ne REALLY want to live and work in the city). And also, hopefully the headhunter he's been talking to will meet with him. I can't wait to see him! Its gunna be a GREAT week. I just gotta get ahead in my school work so that I can spend every moment with him that I can. And Bri will be here in three weeks! So exciting!

laters