I was in the middle of writing this entry when I got distracted, so this is from last Thursday�
So, Justin has his first job interview! It�s working as an alarm technician, but it�s full time and it pays okay and you get benefits after three months. Let�s pray that he gets it or another job.
Today was really insane. My day started off with torrents of rain outside, meaning that our driveway was flooded to the apartment building. Unfortunately, I had to take a left hand turn, so hopefully I didn�t do any damage to my car while sitting in the middle of a huge flood of water. It was about two feet deep, I think. So I got to my meeting and called Justin to tell him about the flood. We were in a meeting window with no windows. Well, we walk out of the meeting and see that it is snowing extremely hard. Now, in some places this might have been no big deal. If you live in Portland, Oregon, it�s a very big deal. Especially since we had about two or three inches stuck to our cars. So we made our way back to school (luckily, the roads were just slushy). Apparently many schools let their kids out early. Our school was not one of them. They wouldn�t even let the kids go outside to play in the snow at lunch. Two of my team members (guys, of course) let their kids out to play for a few minutes during homeroom time. They were right outside of our window playing, so I relented and let my kids go out, too. The janitor was not pleased with us because the principal of the school next door called to say we were disrupting. I didn�t feel too bad though because we get snow less than once a year here. No one �talked� to me, either, so I didn�t get in trouble. I also got the utter adoration of my homeroom kids.
I am praying for a snow day tomorrow, but it looks like we won�t have one. The flood in the driveway is gone, because they called someone to clean out the gutter.
I just finished Sunset Terrace by Rebecca Donner. It was okay, but I didn�t like the ending. I didn�t get into the characters that much, but I thought she was a pretty good writer. I am now trying to get through The Sexual Life of Catherine M.. I�m not sure if I�m going to make it. Call me a prude, but I am not exactly loving her descriptions of orgies she was involved in. I can�t really get into it for some reason. I�m not sure what I was expecting, but her descriptions really aren�t erotic or titillating at all. It also isn�t really clear to me what it was that got her into that kind of sexual lifestyle. So who knows if I will finish it. I have been looking for a really good book, or a really fun light book, and I haven�t been able to find either lately.
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Now I�m back to real-time. I have been having a pretty good time lately. I�ve been busy, but since we are giving grade printouts as a team tomorrow, I am all caught up on grading. Of course, their big papers are due tomorrow and the next day, so I will be back to not being caught up after tonight. The other good thing is that we didn�t finish half of what we were supposed to do today, so I have Wednesday�s lesson plans all ready (we are on block schedule every other day). I am really excited, since I am so lame that I didn�t even have lesson plans for the entire THREE DAY week. Ugh. I spent about four or five hours on grading yesterday, though, so that should count for something.
Today Justin came by school really unexpectedly at the end of the day, which he has never done. The kids were just getting out of class. Two of my students saw him, and even though they had only seen a picture (to go with my story about how the two of us met�I told the story to show them how to use the graphic organizer), they knew it was him and yelled, �Is that Justin, HI, JUSTIN!� It was pretty cute. I was really embarrassed for some reason about him being there. You know, the whole my-worlds-are-colliding thing. I�m the same person, of course, but sometimes it feels like I am a different person when I am teaching.
My usual angelic ninth period was not the greatest today. I gave them a lecture, but I do have to realize that it is the short week before Thanksgiving.
This weekend I got some new things. I got a pair of pants for work, two shirts, a white zip up sweater, and the Britney CD. This CD is only for the die-hard Britney fans (such as myself). The reason is that the CD sort of sucks. It isn�t typical Britney, either�it is some sort of weird music that they might play at dance clubs or something. I am not loving it, but it is growing on me.
I am really proud of myself because my American Express bill will be paid off after this month. Then I will only have one credit card left to pay off. It started out as almost $2,000 dollars, and now I have paid it all off. It did help that I got a reduction on rent when I moved in with Justin�I put all of that money toward credit cards. Unfortunately, I still have about $1,300 on my other card, but I should be able to pay it off pretty quickly if I keep putting the same amount toward it. Once I have them paid off I will feel a lot better about myself, because then my only debt will be my school loans. I will feel more secure about getting a new car if mine ends up dying a horrible death sometime down the road.
I went to another work function, this time with Justin. I heard some more interesting team gossip, plus some gossip about the teacher that is my mentor teacher. I heard it all from one of my team members who I really like. I love gossip, and I love it when I am allowed to be in on it. It makes me feel like people like me when they share gossip with me. I had a pretty good time at the work function. The most amusing part of the evening was when the time-out room woman got a little drunk and told everyone to stop sending kids to time-out. Yeah, even when we�re drunk and partying, teachers still talk about kids.
I also got invited to another party at another teacher�s house. I was really excited because it was an actual invitation, so I know that not everyone got invited. It�s the first time that anyone has invited me to do something outside of school that wasn�t just a �everyone is invited� thing. So I really felt good about the time that I have put in trying to go to these sometimes-uncomfortable work functions. It sounds like it will be a fun party, too.
Well, I really better get going. Hopefully next time I write Justin will have a job. Ugh.
