Off and running

What happens when the fire-marshal visits your school? They tell you to lower your class sizes.

The class numbers are in flux and I can make so sense of it. I think they are leveling other core classes, which is wrecking havoc in a few of mine. I’ve had a few students dropped from some of my classes only to be added to my biggest class. I’m up to 45 (thankfully there always seems to be a few absences!) but others have it worse. I’ve heard of a class of 48 today, and in another class I heard 75 (ouch!). I’m counting my blessings as of right now that they are well behaved and working with very little disruption (knocking on wood!). I’ve heard rumors of a new English teacher next week…we’ll see!

It’s two weeks in and I still don’t have all the names down. I think that portion of my brain has given up. Actually, I’ve learned the names of several students only to have those ones pulled from my classes. Perhaps I should talk to the counselors and ask them to switch the ones I don’t know. :) Ah, well, I have most of them, with a few more days, I think I’ll get them.

I found out that I won’t be doing the after school tutoring, which I’ve done for the last five years now. I applied and am obviously qualified, but they gave it to the daughter of another teacher/community member. I’ve heard she is also a new teacher at the school. Do I smell nepotism? I’m a little annoyed, because I was looking forward to the money, but since Mike is beginning to scrub (YEA!) I’m not too worried. Well, I guess I have more time to work out!

Speaking of which, I am getting close to running 40 minutes non-stop, which I haven’t been able to do in years. Over the summer, between the other classes, I’ve been putting my time in on the treadmill. That sounds bad…I actually enjoy working on the treadmill at the gym. For one, it has AC and fans. Two, it has TV’s and most of the time I can watch Food Network. And three, I can control my pace and keep track of my workouts easier. (I’ll probably head outside once it cools off)…well, I’ve been trying to walk less and less and on my last workout I walked 3 minutes, ran 18, walked for 2 and ran the rest, and cooled down for 5. I haven’t felt this good in a long time.

Oh and Aly has been doing her countdown to her 18th birthday. Her speaking of “5 days” was not quite as her scary rendition two days ago. She was walking around the house and sneaking up on me saying (in a creepy whisper) “Seven Days!” Quite scary! It would have been even funnier if she had called me (perhaps next time). That would have been absolutely creepy!

A New School Year and Old Technology

Had my first week back at school and to say the classes are large is an understatement. I currently have five classes (4 senior, 1 junior) with my smallest” regular” class at 35 and my largest at 43. I also have one smaller class of 29 for a “lower level” class, which has 29 (so they can get more personal attention, but it’s all the same work) up from the usual 10-20 it has been in previous years. Seriously people! I do need to eat and sleep! And I am not alone; it appears that most of the English department is overwrought with students.

We did have one English teacher quit the week before school started. At first they needed people to give up their prep hours and cover these classes. So being the helpful, loyal person I am (and after finding out it could add an extra $7000 a year/$200 a paycheck) I volunteered for this. Fortunately, the did find someone to sub for these classes and gave him one of my English 11 for another English 12 so he could have all Junior classes. He is a very pleasant fellow who has been on the school board and has taught college, but he hasn’t taught high school before. I think he is acting as a long term sub until they can find a qualified teacher (for the core areas, you have to be certified for a permanent position). Since I’m right across the hall and teach that level, I will be helping him out quite a bit (I usually try to help out new teachers anyways, so nothing new there). His class sizes are just as high….which might be a dilemma for me.

See, as aforementioned, I did volunteer to give up my prep hour and it just happens to be when this man and another teacher have very large classes. The school is looking to lower some class sizes…so I may be taking on another 20-30 students. The real crux of this is: Are they going to ask others to help lower MY larger class sizes at the same time? I doubt it. I suppose I could say no, but I feel for this man and I really could use the extra money…decisions, decisions…

As for the old technology, it was really Aly’s doing. We only have one TV in our house (I KNOW!) which is used for all our TV, DVD, video games, etc…so if someone is watching TV, you are out of luck if you want to play…oh…a video game. Especially when you just got a PS2! So Aly went outside where I’ve been storing some items from our storage area. I had an old TV I was thinking to giving to charity or something and then got busy, so it’s been out on our porch for several months. I figured it was ruined. She cleaned off all the spider webs (literally), wiped the dust, and brought it in…It worked! Now this TV is so old that it only has a coaxial cable attachment (no, not even RCA attachments…wow it’s outdated)…so off to Wal-Mart to buy an adapter for coax to RCA and a coax cable. (And since our house sucks, we also had to run another extension cord to the unit so as not to blow a fuse) All plugged in and SUCCESS! Now she can play her games on a ……13” screen! She seems to be happy, but I think I may need trifocals now.

Do you know where your brake light switch is this evening?

You learn something new every day, and today I discovered that my car has a brake light switch. I don’t know much about it. It all started when we went to the store and as I was putting groceries in my trunk, I noticed that my brake lights are on…great…on top of college and dentist, how about a car repair? I did all the usual: turned the car on/off, pushed the brake on/off, pushed the emergency brake on/off…you get the idea…nada! Still on. So I returned home and asked Mike to help. He did really try, and also went through the same spiel (love that word) and came to the same conclusion…yes the lights are on, and I have no clue what to do next...

Then TA-DAH, brilliant idea! Hey, I’ll go look on the internet. So after conferring with several sites, I found that none of which had my make and model. I did find some close that all stated to check the “brake light switch”. Huh? Ok, so that may be the problem, but what is it? They all said it was attached to the brake pedal (ok, I know where THAT is) and it’s under the dash (uh-oh). With a little more searching, I found a replacement part picture so I know what the part looks like and a very fishy picture (see above) that took a few seconds of staring to make the picture in the background look 3-D…no, not really, but I had to figure out the “landmarks” of what I recognized and use those to locate said “brake light switch”.

So armed with a book light (hey, it’s better than a flashlight, I can set the angle!) and set out to the car. I stooped into the driver’s side and followed the brake up…and was amazed at all the gizmos and thingamajigs. I theoretically knew those were all there, but to see them is something else…I mean, COOL! Looking up the brake, I found the correct part. It took a bit of angling to reach UNDER the dash, but UP above the brake and actually get to the part I needed. I spotted the end and pushed…snap (in a good way). Getting out and looking at the rear lights, they were finally off. Using the “24 days away from 18” daughter, I checked the brakes to make sure they turned on when I pushed the pedal…SUCCESS!

(I’ve included the aforementioned picture so you too, can find the unicorn or dragon…it’s there, just keep staring!)