Where do teachers live?

22 November 2006, 11:37 pm by Giggles
Categories: Work

Last week I was explaining the difference between salary and hourly wages to a group of sixth graders. After listening to my explanation, they all decided that hourly was much better than salary. And after last week, I might have to agree with them.

Last week it seems like every big thing hit all at once. Grades for the first term were due by 2:30 on Friday. Normally we have till Monday, giving us the weekend to finish them up. Nope, not this time. For some strange reason they needed them by Friday. So I was franctically trying to get those done.

Then, being that it was the week before Thanksgiving, I always do “turkey stories” with the fourth-sixth graders. They sit at their computer and start a story titled “Five Fat Turkeys Are We,” and they get to decide what happens next. Except that every couple of minutes I say “switch” and they have to scoot down one computer and start working on the story at the new computer. We do 10-12 switches and then they go back to their computer. This year I decided I wanted to start displaying student work. That meant that I went through all of the approximately 275 stories and did a quick spell check and grammar check for punctuation and spelling (the stories don’t make sense, I wasn’t checking for that) and then printing them so they could be taped to the wall outside my classroom. I did the fourth grade stories on orange paper, fifth on red, and sixth on yellow. It looks great in the hall and the kids were real excited about it. I love seeing how the stories get longer each year as they get faster at typing. So that was a huge project, but worth it for my kids.

And then I had a big paper due in one of my classes last week as well that needed to be based on an interview I did with one of the teachers I work with. The interview was a lot of fun and helped me get to know more about one of the teachers I’ve really admired at my school.

So with all of that due, I did, in a way, live at school. Tuesday I was at work from 8am to 10:20pm. I had to scrape frost off my car when I went home. Wednesday I didn’t get home till 11:00pm. Thursday I worked from 8am to 3:45 and then went to class. I got home from class about 8pm and stopped to pick up some papers that Melissa had corrected for me and eat something for dinner before going back to work and staying there till 12:30. Just think of what I would’ve been paid for all that extra work at night if I was paid hourly.

Yesterday I was reading a chapter about the environment in schools in one of my text books. Part of a quote in the chapter says: “The relationship among adults who live in a school…” And after last week, I almost think I do live at school.

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We’re being robbed!

15 November 2006, 8:59 am by Giggles
Categories: Questions, Venting

Would someone explain to me the ethics of the gas station owners here in Utah?

For the past week the Maveriks around have been doing very well. Last night when I went home around 10:30 they were even down to $2.05 per gallon. It has been interesting to watch because the Chevron near my house has been sitting at $2.23 for the last month, and yet people have been going there. Compared to the Maverik, that’s about $10 more per month for me, and all for the name brand really. The gas stations up by the University of Utah haven’t dropped below $2.30 yet. We are still one of the highest states in the nation, and we haven’t had any hurricanes or anything to upset our production.

This morning as I was driving to work, less than 10 hours after seeing Maverik have gas for $2.05, it had jumped to $2.19!!! What is going on with our gas prices?

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Good News

14 November 2006, 9:11 am by Giggles
Categories: Health

This is a case where I am saying it is good news to trick myself into believing it. 🙂

First, some background information.

Eight years ago I was working grounds for BYU. I worked in the horticultural garden, and one June day they asked us to spray the weeds in the garden. If I remember right, it is a two acre garden. I had a four gallon back pack weed sprayer that I was filling and lifting over and over again for four hours. That resulted in severely injuring my back and right shoulder and 3-4 months of intense pain. Workers Comp. only allowed so much physical therapy, and then the hassle of getting doctor visits cleared through them was so bad that I didn’t go back when I probably should have. I remember spending nights lying on the floor trying to breathe as shallowly as possible so that my lungs wouldn’t make the muscles in my back move.

My back and shoulder had been livable since then, but that was because I’d made adjustments in how I live to accommodate them.

Five years ago I started noticing that my shoulder was sore at the end of the day. But it wasn’t until two years ago that I realized that soreness probably wasn’t normal and I started going back to the doctor. I’ve had x-rays, MRIs, radio-frequency lesioning (my insurance lists it as “destruction” on the form), and physical therapy.

Yesterday the physical therapist asked how I was doing. I told him that honestly, the progress there is, is so slow I often wonder if I’ll die before it gets better. He said there was some truth to that actually. I’ve lived with the pain for so long it is probably never going to go away. The best I can hope for is being able to have a better quality of life where I manage the pain rather than it managing me.

I can’t help but wonder if I’d had different treatment 8 years ago when I severely injured the muscles in my back and right shoulder if things would be different now. I’m almost positive that if I’d had some form of physical therapy after injuring my knee over ten years ago my knee would be practically normal now, but I didn’t have any physical therapy back then.

At least I have the resurrection to look forward to.

So the good news is that I can either stop hoping the pain goes away in this life, or that it will be gone in the next.

UPDATE:

Nov 20th, 2006, 5:34pm
Today at physical therapy he told me I have a difficult problem. I think I threw him for a loop when I told him that my back all day yesterday was spasming and it felt like someone was trying to compress my spine. My doctor only prescribed 12 physical therapy sessions, and today was #10. I think my therapist would like me to come back some more though. I’ll have to see how much my insurance will allow. He wants to get me a home e-stim. thingy and a traction thing for my neck as well. And he’s started working on my right shoulder, which will really help as well. So I’m still really screwed up, probably will be till I die, but I’m doing better with that fact.

But yesterday, I got some perspective. At the last minute they needed me to go help with Primary at the Tiny Tots home in my neighborhood, a home for severely disabled children. The whole time I was there, singing songs with them and pushing them around the hall in their wheel chairs, I couldn’t help but think just how pathetic I am that I was that upset by my small problem. Compared to their bodies, mine works great. I really have nothing to complain about. That doesn’t mean I probably won’t complain again. But that hit in the head with the perspective was well timed.

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Great performance – dumb audience

10 November 2006, 12:41 am by Giggles
Categories: Life, Venting

I have had some interesting theatrical experiences this week. The other day a director asked me if I sang and then proceeded to tell me all about a part and even sing me part of the song. I knew they were going to ask me to take the part, but they never did. Instead they just said how great it was that I was going to be able to do it. The look on their face when I told them I couldn’t was priceless. It was “the audition that wasn’t.” I don’t know if I’ll ever have as much fun turning down a role as I did that one.

Last night I attended a show I’d been looking forward to for almost a year. More than 7 years ago I watched the Aubrey Hepburn classic “Wait Until Dark,” and was scared spitless. Last year the Hale Center Theater in Orem (HCTO) announced that they were going to be producing the play as part of their season this year. I was very excited about experiencing the show live. The HCTO is a small in-the-round theater, so the audience is right there with the actors the whole time. If the actors were to trip slightly, they end up in the laps of the people in the first row. And I had good seats.

Before getting in to how good the show was, I want to complain about the audience first. The general age of the audience was old, so they really should’ve known better. But they were stupid anyway. The play starts with a darkened (not dark) stage and a man pokes his head in from the door on the side and says “Hello?” or something like that. A man sitting a few chairs over from me, answered him! And then he and the woman who I assume was his wife, and the man next to him, had to laugh about their great joke! Who taught them how to behave in public?

My next issue with the audience came during the second act. The stage and theater are completely dark. You cannot see anything. But the actors are moving around on the stage, and it should have been possible for the audience to hear them. Except the audience was moving around in their chairs making noise, and a few were even giggling. It is an intense part of the play, so the emotions are running high, but giggling was not the appropriate response. When the power goes out at work and the room gets dark, I expect a reaction from my students, but adults, who are probably a bit familiar with the story, or who should have at least been paying attention and known that the lights were going to go off, should have been prepared.

But the show, it was amazing. The actors did a wonderful job. They were very convincing in their roles. I don’t know if I could put a finger on the emotions I was feeling at the end, but it felt like if I moved too much or tried to speak that I would’ve cried. The emotions were that strong. While it was definitely a mix of a lot of different emotions, the main one was probably relief, relief that she had survived. And I felt that even knowing how it was going to end. That emotional charge was worth the show. It was an amazing experience.

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A problem of a book addiction -or- Too many books, Too little time

1 November 2006, 12:44 am by Giggles
Categories: Books

I got on Amazon today to look for some possible gift ideas. I’ve spent the last half hour adding books to my wish list, about math.

A week or two ago I read a chapter from a book for homework in one of my classes. The chapter was great and I decided the rest of the book would be nice to read. So I spent about an hour adding books to my wish list, about learning theory and metacognition.

About a month ago I realized I was behind on a series or two. So I went to Amazon and realized I’m behind on more series than I thought. So I spent about an hour adding books to my wish list, from the children’s literature area.

It’s an addiction I tell you. You look at one book and there are five or six suggestions of books that other people who bought that first book also bought, so I look at those. I add a book to my wish list and there are suggestions of other books I might like, so I look at those.

My list is the most hodge-podge collection of books, but I know I’d get a kick out of all of them.

These are just the books on my list. I already ran out of book shelves at home and have to take books to work when I finish them.

Children’s Literature
-> Among the Free by Margaret Peterson Haddix
->Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix, Cliff Nielsen (Illustrator)-> Charlie Bone And The Castle Of Mirrors by Jenny Nimmo
-> Charlie Bone And The Hidden King by Jenny Nimmo
-> Crispin: At the Edge of the World by Avi
-> Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi
-> Eldest by Christopher Paolini
-> Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction by Lloyd Alexander, et al.
-> Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
-> Gossamer by Lois Lowry
-> The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
-> The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
-> The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer
-> The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

Education
-> Experience And Education by John Dewey
-> How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice by National Research Council (Corporate Author), et al.
-> How We Think by John Dewey
-> Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics: Teachers’ Understanding of Fundamental Mathematics in China and the United States (Studies in Mathematical Thinking and Learning Series) by Liping Ma
-> Metacognition in Educational Theory and Practice (Educational Psychology Series) by Douglas J. Hacker (Editor), et al.
-> The Jossey-Bass Reader on Technology and Learning by Jossey-Bass
-> The Process of Education, Revised Edition by Jerome Bruner
-> The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World’s Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom by James W. Stigler, James Hiebert
-> To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher by William Ayers, Gloria Ladson-Billings (Foreword)

Math
-> An Imaginary Tale: The Story of i [the square root of minus one] by Paul J. Nahin
-> God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History by Stephen W. Hawking
-> History of Pi
-> The Divine Proportion by H. E. Huntley
-> The Geometry of Art and Life by Matila Ghyka
-> The Golden Ratio and Fibonacci Numbers by R. A. Dunlap
-> The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World’s Most Astonishing Number by Mario Livio
-> To Infinity and Beyond by Eli Maor
-> Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife
-> e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor

Quilting
-> Every Quilt Tells a Story by Helen Kelley
-> That Dorky Homemade Look: Quilting Lessons from a Parallel Universe by Lisa Boyer

Random
-> History of My Life (Volumes I & II) by Giacomo Chevalier de Seingalt Casanova, Willard R. Trask (Translator)
-> The Lost Language of Symbolism: An Essential Guide for Recognizing and Interpreting Symbols of the Gospel by Alonzo L. Gaskill

Science
-> A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
-> The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene (Author)

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I want to …

26 October 2006, 12:08 pm by Giggles
Categories: Quilting/Sewing/Knitting/Crafting

I want to be home sewing. Sewing anything. I have two parts of my Halloween costume cut out on my living room floor and I want to be home sewing those. Or I want to be sewing some quilted pumpkin wall hangings, some small ones for friends and a big one for my wall. Or I want to be sewing Halloween postcards. Or I want to start working on all the projects I’m making everyone for Christmas this year that I’ve had the material sitting in sacks in my living room since July. Or I want to be working on the bedspread that I’m hand quilting, and have been for the last two years. Or I want to be sewing the chocolate brown butter suede skirt I have stuff for, or the black glittery skirt, or the wine colored corduroy jacket. I want to be creating.

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Smells I love

26 October 2006, 10:58 am by Giggles
Categories: Family, Happy Things, Life

There are a lot of smells I really love. And after thinking about them, I think the reason I love them is because of the memories I associate with them, not for the smell itself.

Coppertone sunscreen smells like summer for me.

Lilacs smell like the backyard of the house my mom grew up in and always remind me of Grandpa Nelson.

I love the smell of rain. I once described it as a dusty clean smell. But not all rain storms smell the same. There are some rain storms that the smell of them instantly takes me back to Brasil, or even El Paso some times. Something about that smell is a very strong memory trigger.

Crock pot soup or pot roast is such a comforting smell. I love when I cook those things and my apartment smells like it. When I cook them on a Sunday, I can smell it half way down the hall to my apartment. The smell reminds me of coming home on Sunday with my family when mom had put a pot roast in the crock pot for dinner. It’s a very comforting smell.

Bread, the smell of fresh baked bread, reminds me of home and my mom as well. I loved it when she’d cook several loafs and we’d take one that was right out of the oven and put butter on it and then sprinkle it with cinammon and sugar. We’d finish off a whole loaf that way.

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