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2001-11-12 - 7:53 p.m. I've had a busy weekend and it's pissing me off. I didn't accomplish half of what I planned on! I actually did devote a fair amount of time to trying to get it done, too. I am feeling guilty and overwhelmed and just...I don't know. I ended up staying here on Friday night and had a nice restful night of sleep, which I definitely needed. Saturday I went down to visit Justin which was okay. I returned some stuff at Target and we ate at Red Robin. This was exciting because there are NO chain restaurants around here or really in Corvallis, and Justin and I live for Applebee's, Red Robin, Olive Garden, TGIFriday and Chili's. For some reason those are our favorite kinds of restaurants. So I guess that was the highlight of our time, even though it made our tummies hurt. I have major stomach problems so pretty much ANYTHING I eat makes me tummy hurt. Yay for me. Oh, and I got some new jeans at the hick mall. Small town malls suck. Every single one that I have gone to has Emporium as the "cool" store or if you are lucky you get Sears. I miss my Meier and Frank and Nordstrom. I ended up working all Sunday and today trying desperately to grade journals and papers. I got through all of the journals I need for tomorrow (sophomores will be typing so I don't have to have theirs done), but didn't get through as many papers as I wanted. I was hoping to give seniors grade printouts tomorrow so now I just have to pray that finishing the story and reviewing for the test will take all period because now I don't have the grade printouts that would lead to them trying to make up some work. I will not be pleased if I run out of stuff to do with them tomorrow! Cross your fingers for me because I don't have any energy to plan anything else and nothing would really fit anyway because the test is the next day. I also ended up meeting up with this other teacher for two hours this evening because I am on this other committee that is developing a plan for a certain group of kids to do better on their state testing. We somehow got drafted to write up the proposal so we wrote it up tonight. Actually the other teacher who always tries to make me do work for her is the one that said that I should be the one to write it up. Suddenly it turned into me doing it even though I never agreed, but luckily the other guy volunteered to help me. We finished writing it up and now are going to give it back to them. The other thing that is semi-exciting that has come out of it is that we are going to have a Reading Night sleepover at the school, that apparently I am in charge of (The woman volunteered me to do this as well! Can you believe her nerve? Why does she want me to do everything?!?!?!) I am going to make them come up with what we are doing but it actually sounds really fun and I am hoping that it will be. This will be with sophomores so I am not sure why I think it will be fun but the overnight thing sounds cool. Another thing I have added onto my plate is mentoring two to three kids one hour per week. I just hope it is a good combo of kids and not any of my scary sophomores that hate me. It will be good to get to know the kids and get to take them out to eat and such, which I have always wanted to do. I just wonder when I will find time to do it. My pregnant teen said in her journal that only me and the other teacher I was working with tonight are being non judgemental and caring toward her. She said other teachers have been giving her mean looks. Sad. Another thing I am wondering about is what my duties are if one student is hinting that another student's boyfriend is beating her up. I am not sure if that is what she is saying, but that seems to be what she is saying, and I am not sure how to handle that. I guess I will find out more before I do anything, and perhaps talk to the counselor at my school. The boyfriend doesn't go to this school so it isn't an issue with that, but since it is one student saying that about another and the other student could figure out real easily who told, it is a sticky situation. I am supposed to report "harm to self or others" but this is not exactly in that category. I don't know. I was watching Boston Public earlier and that show always makes me think. The main reason I like the show is because of the vice principal character and the principal and how lonely they are. That is what I really like about that guy's shows--the way they show how lonely people can be is really touching. Anyway, the whole concept of vice principal is so intriguing to me because they really are the most hated members of our school system since they have to deal with all the discipline issues. I feel bad for them. But then you see things like his interaction with Jeremy Peters and you remember why vice principals are so hated; they are jerks! I feel really sorry for Scott in a lot of ways, and I really wish he would not have to be hooked up with hook woman. She creeps me out. The character I really don't like on the show is Harry Senate. I have had enough of his extremist crap. I would have been mad at the kid too, but I thought he was extra cruel. Yeah, he ended up helping the kid out again, but some of the things he said were out of control awful. On the other hand, he was hurt, and teachers should be allowed to have emotions. I am sure that the kid would think twice before ever doing anything to let someone down like that again, but still...I really don't like how Harry handles most things, though. I think he needs to be fired and a real teacher would be long ago. I especially hate the firing a gun in class incident, but the boxing incident was pretty bad. I guess he does good things for kids too but I don't think that's enough. I'm tired of feeling like an inadequate teacher. I did come to the conclusion that having the sophomores write a paper each week is too much for them and too much for me. I am going to cut it down to one every two weeks, I think. They are writing every day in their journals, and write something short on just about everything we read, so I think they will be okay. And I am just going crazy having to grade 80+ papers per week. I basically have to grade them twice because I have to score them for work samples using the state rubric plus score them for an actual grade (which has some of the same stuff but the score from the rubric doesn't go nicely into a 50 point scale). Anyway, I am sick of not being able to give them back their papers on time. So I am glad with my new decision and that will also give me time every two weeks to let them type because the majority of them are using it, and they do a much better job at typing than handwriting. Soon I have to plan a speech for them as well and that is not going to go over well. There is nothing they hate more. I hate it too, but it is a state requirement. And the object behind it is good--everyone should learn to be able to speak in front of groups. It just takes up so much class time to hear thirty speeches and since they are just learning, the speeches are usually really boring. Oh well. Can I please complain more in an entry? :)
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