Smokey and Opportunities

My day started with a phone call.  A principal asked a former colleague of mine to call me. "Tell her to get over here and do what it takes to get her here!" It was a boost this morning to feel that rush that someone thinks you are good at your job and they want you at their school.  At work all these little faces looking at me made it really hard to consider moving at this point.

Then I had a meeting this afternoon. I've fought for two years to get a student help. The head of that department finally sat and talked with me before spring break and made it happen. Someone else tried to sabotage it moving forward. My heart sunk. I think the person had a personal issue with me and made it about that instead of the student. I had a horrible experience with this person last year and I was asked to write up what had happened. UGGH! So luckily the head of the department could set all of that aside and make it about the student.  So finally after two years I can get this student the help needed.  The head of that department told me "we should've done this for you and him a long time ago".  Anyhow the bottom line is it finally happened. So many times I  was near tears for this kiddo. I really hope this will make a huge difference.

This afternoon Smokey the Bear came to school. The kids were so excited to see him. It is really funny to me that even the kids who think they are too "big" for these things still went and gave Smokey a hug. Then as we were leaving my kindergartner ran over to Smokey and made him lean down so he could whisper in Smokey's ear. I don't know what he said but Smokey have him a "thumbs-up". Cracked me up. You never know what the kids will do. 

After  meeting Smokey and learning about fire safety  I took the kids up to the field for some play time. On Thursday Afternoons it is the only way to keep them sane. They played a couple of rounds of "Spiders and Flies" and then it was time to go home.  Every year I make a CD for my students of songs we learn throughout the year. I play a lot of music in my classroom but I forget how much I do until the kids start helping me make this list. It is really great because the majority of them are education related. They even requested some of the classical music I play. It makes me feel good when we make this list because I know they love the music.

Judging

I've been thinking a lot about judging. It seems more and more people are justifying their behavior, actions, and choices by saying someone else is judging them. I don't believe it is wrong to judge. I believe it is wrong to judge and not turn that same judgement upon yourself and reflect on your own behaviors, actions and choices. The verse I believe is in Matthew 7 that talks of judging others and ourselves. We have to have some discernment on what is good and right.  I feel saying "you're judging me" is a cop out for people to do whatever they want. Everywhere I turn lately it seems someone is trying to justify their choices to me or to the world, or to someone else. They want someone to say it is okay and find people in agreement with them. If  you feel completely secure in your choice you don't feel you owe anyone an explanation.  I know I am guilty of doing this as well. It is a dangerous trap. It is natural to seek approval from others. However, who are those "others" we seek approval from? Just some of my thoughts lately.

I headed east for a couple of days this weekend. I hung out with some friends and had a great time with them. It is one of those places where you always feel like the door is open and they're happy to see you. So it was a very relaxing time for me. I came home and have almost completely tackled my mountain of dirty laundry. I haven't  tackled the folding part of that yet.  I really hate folding laundry. I need to get over it though I don't see that chore ever ending!

6 school days left. I spoke with a colleague tonight and he said "Are you tired?". Yes, YES, I am. We are tired mentally. It has been a really rough and long year. We need to step away and refresh. Six more school days, the 7th day is a work day for teachers. I can do this. I am really hoping their will be some positive changes over the summer.  I know there will be some for me because I will get away and spend time with friends and family. Looking forward to this.  

Countdown

I usually write on my blog after work when my brain is tired. Then I come back and read some of my blog post and notice all my errors. Forgive me my spelling/grammar errors. It is so weird how you can do basic math all day and come home and can't do it. It tells you how tired a brain is by the end of a day. ''

Today was a good day. The kiddos worked hard this morning and then after reading time we focused on our play. We wrote a play as a class about the three states of matter. Today was the grand performance for the parents. We did have a practice round several weeks ago for the upper grades. I really appreciated all the parents, friends, and family that came for a short little play.  There were a couple of students that didn't show up. I don't know why so I quickly rearranged the lines and we pulled it off with barely a hitch in our giddy-up. It was a great way to end a long week. The parents enjoyed it and the kids were proud of themselves. So it was good.

Six days of school left. SIX DAYS! Our aide has started to help me box things up in my classroom in preparation for new flooring. Also after two years for some random reason they decided to give me my username and password to submit help tickets for maintenance. It was amazing. I immediately put one in to get a white board put back up that they took down over spring break to do some painting and never replaced it. Also to fix a lock on the Uniform Room door. Students have been accessing it and trying them on for fun. I don't know if these help tickets will be acknowledged but it made me feel like there was a possibility  they would be taken care of. 

The upper grades worked on making a rock outline of our high school initials on the hillside below our track field. They just finished placing all of the rocks. I guess there is a plan in place to paint it but it looks very nice. The seniors had their first week back after their senior trip. I have to figure out how to become their class adviser. They went on a cruise to Alaska. From what they said they had a wonderful time. They were excited about the unlimited food at the buffet, seeing lots of green, and how moist their skin became.  They were pretty lethargic this week but with only six days left I imagine this lethargy will get progressively worse. 

I am looking forward to having some visitors the last week of school. Although I will have to clean the mountain of clean laundry off the guest bedroom bed.  At least they are clean clothes!   Well I've been forcing myself to stay awake till a reasonable hour... I think it is here... so off to my pillow I go...

Have a lovely weekend and Memorial Day.  

Stoolie Season

The "bar-stoolies" are out and about. Mostly out on the sidewalk.  The music is loud and their yells over the music louder. Not my favorite season of the year "stoolie season".  If you've read my former posts you know I live over a saloon which is closed the majority of the time. However, virtually all of my neighbors are also saloons. When the weather gets warm they celebrate by drinking outside on the walkway. They open the doors to the saloons and the otherwise contained noise filters into the streets as well. I fondly (ahem) call them "Stoolies" because they bear some similarities to the "stooges". They sit on their bar stools and solve the worlds problems and create more than they solve. So "stoolie-season" is here. I don't hear them much unless they  are quite near my house or I am in my front room.Well, or if they happen to get in a fight and pull a weapon on one another. Otherwise my walls are so thick at the back of the house I do not hear them much.   It is worse this time of year because we have drillers and temporary workers in town.

It was quite a day today. You never know what  a day will bring that is for sure. We had a meeting after school and as usual I was wowed by the professionalism. I feel sure I have something more to learn from all I've been through this year and seen this year. Is it any wonder I am counting down the days till school is out. The more I learn the more I want to make sure I have very good people around me. Good people help you to be the best  you can be as well as being encouraging.  It is why I am looking forward to heading north for awhile this  summer. I need to get back to the basics of why I love teaching and focus on my students. 

So if you can walk into your home without hearing the "stoolies" opinion on the state of the world.. You may want to move... HA HA!   

Grocery Creativity

It's been over a month since I purchased groceries. Cooking is getting a little more creative than I'd like. Thank goodness for our delicious school lunches. It is the end of the year so all the meals I made to get through winter are pretty well gone. So dinners are a little more creative than they should be. Creative is a very generous description. A better word might be "desperation"dinners. I need that app that you can plug in what you have in your kitchen and it can give you a list of possible meals. It might get embarrassing if the app was confused!

I am heading east for a couple of days this weekend and will pick up a few necessities at the store while I'm there. This Thursday my students are delivering their "Three States of Matter" play for their parents. Hopefully, they will enjoy it.  One of my second grade students tested for reading at a 6th grade level. I knew she was high but I was surprised by that. I attribute this mostly to parents who always read to her and never "dumbed" down vocabulary. They would just explain the words and continue reading the books. I hope her teacher had a little something to do with it but, I think it is a combination of good genetics, good parenting, and hopefully a good teacher.

I discovered I am old yesterday. Not that I have a multitude of aches and pains or I'm falling apart. Nope I realized I can't drink caffeine after 5p.m. and expect to sleep at night. Sigh... it is a bummer. 

Tomorrow, we have our planning meeting for next year. It will happen after school. I decided to keep quiet and let the chips fall, even if I think the chips need to be thrown in a trash compactor. Logic doesn't work in this situation so I won't try to infuse any into the discussion. 

I'm going to eat a bowl of cereal.. I still have milk and cereal.. what more do you need?

Optimistic

It was  a good day today. I drove about an hour to watch a couple of my students compete in a barrel race. It is good to see them out of their usual context because  you can get an idea of how they behave in different situations.  It also means a lot to them when you show up to their event. Anyhow it was fun to watch them and see how these little people ride these big animals with such confidence.

For the first time in awhile I am feeling optimistic about my job situation. We may be changing administration. I really, really, hope this happens. It would be a huge change and we would all be held more accountable. I am okay with that because I know that things will be taken care of and that would relieve so much of my stress. I know that I may get told NO, now and then but it would be from the voice of experience. I also know that I may not like the answer I get all of the time, but at least I would get an answer. Sometimes we are forced to handle things we probably shouldn't because otherwise they don't get taken care of at all.

There seems to be a lot of possible changes in the air which really makes me more excited about my job. Which is sooo good. I was getting so discouraged about things that it was hard to see possibility if that makes sense. Anyhow, I don't know anything for sure but time will tell.  We don't have much school left till the end of the year. I am very much looking forward to summer break. I have several school related projects I want to work on over the summer, but over all I am really excited about a change of pace. There has been so many stressful events at work this year, no heat, floods, staff, drama, etc. That It is time for me to head northwest and see water, and trees, and the like.  

There was a request out on a social media site from a former colleague of mine. Their sun has an extremely rare disease their son has been in and out of the hospital since birth. They had to fly to the east coast for genetic testing to find out what was going on. They finally moved to a large city so he could get better medical care. He is doing phenomenally well since they made this move. He has an electric wheelchair he isn't able to walk very far. Anyhow, a lady with kind generosity donated them a wheel chair lift for the chair. If you've ever tried to move one of those you know how heavy they can be. They asked if there was anything they could do to say thank you! The lady told them she wanted a cow skull for her yard. So I put the word out and one day a student walks in with a bull skull, one horn still intact.  I thought this was sooo great. I took it to the other teachers and said " Your students might bring you an apple or chocolate, but look what my students bring for me!" We had a couple of chuckles about that. Now I have to get it to my former colleague. I hope to be able to do this in a couple of weeks.  I hope it is what the lady had in mind.  

Not much time left until the end of the year. I've really been pushing the kids to keep working up till the end and they have! I am very proud of them for pushing hard. There are a couple of exceptions but the majority of them are giving it their all.   I had a parent tell me that school was supposed to be "FUN". I said no school is about learning and learning isn't always "easy or fun". Sometimes learning is work. I do try to make it fun to learn but isn't one of the lessons we have to learn in life that we have to overcome things that are hard for us? To do this we need to continue to work through them even when they aren't "FUN"!   I appreciate the parents who really see that I am pushing their students because I want them to have success in learning, and in life.    I am looking forward to my parents coming down for a visit soon! It will be good to have a little help. I have to empty my classroom so that they can redo all of the flooring, finishing fixing drywall, and a fire alarm system and other updates. Hopefully they have all this done in a timely manner this summer.  We shall see....

Mother's Day and Mondays

I hope everybody had a nice Mother's Day. I sent my Mom a gift card and Dad said " What's this for" Uh Dad.... Mother's Day ahem!  It was a quiet weekend which was nice for me. Got a little laundry done, did a little cooking, did some dishes. Nothing exciting but that is exactly what I needed. The weather has been very warm here and by the end of the day today I thought we were all going to melt in the classroom. I finally turned off the lights and we worked that way. It helps keep it cooler.  It is this time of year and in the fall that I have to push the kids to drink. I worry they are getting dehydrated and don't know it.  So then I remembered when I was visiting the mine they had a "Urine Color Chart" taped to the back of every bathroom stall. It gives the colors and how much water you need to drink. So I taught the kids about it and hung it in their stalls. Then of course they alllllllll had to go to the bathroom to analyze the color. Only a couple came back and said they needed to drink some water. It made me laugh, this process. I think it is important to teach kids how to listen to what is going on in their body. It is so dry where we live and when the weather gets warm you can get dehydrated pretty quickly. I am sure there are some parents are going to learn more about urine color tonight. I talked to a couple of them and they thought it was funny and a good thing as well.   So... if you are interested you can find a
"Urine Color Chart" here. 

Tonight we had our Athletic Awards Presentation and Potluck. They always do it up right with the potlucks around here. We even had some greenery this time, I saw lettuce and some broccoli. Quite impressive.  Anyhow all of the coaches came and said very kind and wonderful things about the athletes. Before all that though I had to give a little speech. I hope I articulated as well as I wanted to.  Once you're talking you're not sure how it is coming out.  I was disappointed  that only two of us teachers showed up tonight. That is fairly typical though. You can only do what you can do though. Scheduling this was a pain because the seniors travel dates for their senior trip kept changing. So we finally just decided on a date and went for it.  So the seniors did end up being gone, on a cruise to Alaska. I hope they are having a great time.

I am tuckered out so I'm hitting the showers... g'nite

Mining

It has been busy. I know I'm going to forget something so I hope I can remember the highlights. For my STEM class we were privileged to visit an underground mine. We went about 17 stories underground in just the shaft cage. I am not sure How much further we went down after that. It was deep and dark and seemed like another world.  We all were provided coveralls with reflector tape, steel toed rubber boots, headlamps, a respirator, and a safety presentation. The respirator was precautionary as the mine had an amazing ventilation system. Air sucked through a ridiculously huge fan was pushed down into the mine while another sucked the bad air out. There was a maintenance shop underground, a "car" wash,  a huge jack for oil changes, and even a lunch room. We saw where the carts carry the ore above ground.

 We were able to watch miners placing bolts in the walls of  one of the branches they were getting ready to pull ore out of. The bolts were put in to hold up the surrounding walls, then a layer of "shock-crete" is placed over that. This is done as they go to prevents rocks falling or cave-ins.  It wasn't a day they were trucking ore to the bins to raise to the surface it was a maintenance day, so we didn't get to see blasting either. Although I am not complaining about that. It sounded quite dusty and not as exciting as one might think. Well unless you like carefully placing explosive which may bring out the inner eight year old boy in some! 

The ventilation tubes were quite large and you could feel the air blowing in. The fresh air felt amazing down there. You could immediately notice the change in air quality when you were further away from the ventilation, or near the outtake ventilation. 

We also got to go into the room that has the hoist cables which carry the "cage" up and down into the mine.  It was  also way larger than I had imagined. The "cage" is what the miners called the elevator. Elevator doesn't begin to describe it though it was built to carry the heavy mining equipment into the ground and if I remember correctly it could carry over 27,000 pounds. The "cage" part is where the miners take the two minute ride underground. The level under the cage is where "cargo" is taken down. Then above the "cage" was an area for shaft inspectors to ride and make sure the shaft didn't have any issues that could be dangerous to the operation of the hoist.   It was a little spooky to realize how far underground we went so quickly. 

It was also interesting to see all of the large equipment you just wouldn't expect to see underground because the only way in is in the "cage" they explained that the equipment would be delivered, mechanics would take it apart, the parts would be sent down the shaft, where mechanics would reassemble them. There was almost an assembly line of tool boxes. Each mechanic had their own box. They would get a stipend for tools. Also apparently they had to put a limit on the size of toolbox they were allowed to bring with them into the mine. We wondered if their was a "toolbox" hierarchy, as you were there longer your toolbox might be moved to a better location. I don't know why that occurred to us but it did :).

We needed our hardhats with the miners light for the light. When you were walking you had to keep an eye on the ground where you were walking or you'd slip in mud or trip on a rock in your huge mucky boots. We rode in transport trucks  and I was able to sit up front which was nice because I had a great view. Once in awhile we'd have to pull off into a side channel to make way for equipment coming through. We even had to pull out of the way for a road grader. It was completely bizarre to see that underground. The maintenance areas were very well lit and all of the equipment had LED lights and reflective materials on them. Once in awhile our driver would holler something out to someone he would see and apparently they have their own lingo down there because I didn't understand a single word he said.  It could've been anything from hello to get out of the way you jerk. I have no clue!  

Our guides were a couple of geologists and a mine supervisor and a crew supervisor. We had a lot of people with us. Some stayed in front of us for the tour and some behind us. Making sure we stayed with the group at all times. I could see how imperative that was,  for safety reasons. I'm not sure what they miners thought of a bunch of teachers coming down into their world but they were all gracious hosts.

I think we were down there about 2 1/2 hours but I kind of lost a sense of time. When we came up we were provided with box lunches. I am really glad I was able to experience this. I came home and probably washed gold dust from my hair, definitely arsenic, and other gunky rock materials.

It's the WEEKEND!

I made it through this school week and we survived state testing. We finished our play about the three states of matter and performed it for the upper grades today. The older students appeared to enjoy it and my class seemed to feel quite proud of themselves. Next we will work on props and do a performance for their parents. The adults especially got a kick out of the play I could hear their chuckles which is good.  I have been worn out this week so I am very happy it is my Friday today. 

I will have to go into work over the weekend(when don't I), but at least it is quiet and I can get quite a bit done in a short period of time. I also am going to see a friend a short ways away this weekend and have some relaxation time. I am also going to another event that I will share details about later. It should be interesting.

I was looking over the calendar today and there is only about a month left until school is out. I knew time was flying by but I didn't realize it was happening that quickly. It will be June in the blink of an eye. I have a mountain of laundry to catch up on and dishes piling up in my sink. How I created so many dishes when I've been avoiding cooking this week, I am really not sure. When you live alone you can't blame it on anyone else.

Signs of spring and summer are here. Tourists are driving through town and stealing my parking spot. They pull the "wrong" way into the gas station. The rhythm of town changes if that makes sense. I think it is a good thing though because we all develop these quirky little patterns. We need to mix it up once in awhile. I was speaking with a local recently and she said this is one of the few places you live that all the town drunks know you by name and feel they can comment on your job performance, personal life, etc. It is amazing! Some of them I've never seen at a school event so you really wonder where their information came from. This town has taught me sooooo much. Some of the lessons were easier than others. It is up to me to not get stagnant and not continue to learn and become better at my job.   I had a substitute this week who moved here with her husband for his job. She has her teaching degree and is quite a good teacher. She told me she didn't know how I did this job here.

I find more and more that I can't have much of a social life within this community. What you say or do is quickly twisted and mythologized. Getting out of town isn't exactly cheap or easy. So I tend to chat on the phone more than I should as a social outlet.  I also have my brother on a guitar search this summer. Maybe I can learn a little on the guitar and use it in my classroom. I definitely need more creative outlets. Next week for my STEM class we are going on a tour of a huge mining operation. I am excited but not excited to wear the required  provided boots and coveralls. It is quite an amazing opportunity though tours of this type do not happen very often. I will share more later... have a fabulous weekend