Hi sa shi buri desu ne (Japanese). "It has been a while". Sorry, if you've read my blog over a period of time, you'll know (or can probably get a sense) when I am in a "mood". I really did not feel like blogging. Boredom at the moment is the reason I'm blogging now. I was planning to type my students' information into Excel, but I got lazy. Well, since I am here, I might as well do a catch up, however, by now so much is just shades of repetition.

First up, (random) near blog entries that never got written:

*Shoulder pain so bad that I could barely lift my right arm. Luckily, it was only for a day. I don't know what caused it, but it is gone.
*Sticky Finger drama. The step-mom wanted the cell phone that birth-mom said to throw away. Finally met Sticky finger's father. A week of teary-eyed fear has dissipated to the same vague response to the "I'm going to speak to your father". A follow-up meeting with the father did not yield the same "teary-eyed" fear.

*School newsletter drama. My offer to submit a photo of my bulletin board (to avoid having to write anything)turned into a last minute "blurb" that required me to fill 3/4 of the page. And it needed to be done and finished because of the deadline by "today". And after submitting a 2 paragraph summary of the paragraph along with a student's sample of the spider report by 5pm. The principal was impressed with what I'd submitted, but didn't know how it could be glued into the final newsletter draft. I submitted a paper copy to let her know what was available in digital form upstairs, but "cutting and pasting" and "reshaping" seemed alien to "Blackberry Queen". Anyway, after submitting the summary, the principal put it into a folder and said that the secretary would finish it tomorrow. In the end, only the single photo was used with a one-line caption that basically said, "nice work, keep up the good work!". I was planning to post the article submission and photo here, but now the moment has past. If I remember, I'll at least post a photo of the bulletin board.
*And finally, I could spend the next 15 or 20 minutes with the same "I ate, I walked, I slept" as previous entries to summarize the last week, but I won't. I'll just do today's. :)

So now, I am caught up. Now, a quick summary of today. Professional development class in Queens meant a two hour commute there. This week, we learned mail merge. Last week, we learned how to use Microsoft's Excel program. Both lessons were very interesting. With mail merge, I can send a personalize form letter to each student and/or their parents. With Excel, I can organize students' testing data. Both lessons made the 2 hour commute worthwhile. Our last class will be in two weeks. The last class is supposed to apply all of the skills we learned. Although I found that class very useful, that sounds like a lot of down time. We have to bring in 3 lesson plans and/or documents that we can apply the skills on. Oh, I almost forgot, we also learned about PowerPoint today. I'm not really a big PowerPoint fan, but I think it was still useful to learn.

On the commute back to Yonkers, I continued to read "A Storm of Swords". On the ride to the PD class, I was thinking about dropping the book. I was annoyed at the adult content that would appear every now and then. "Women are whores. She takes him in her mouth. She was striped naked and thrown in the street. He's hard. He's inside her." Etc... And I am only on the 168th(of 973) pages. If I am going to read adult content, it would not be in science fiction. I was also annoyed at the book's layout. Each chapter is focused on one character (and there are about 7 or 8 main characters). Everyone has a barely pronounceable name. Anyway, on the train ride back home, the first scene where characters (or just events) are finally coming together....I think. Up until now, I felt like I was reading seven or eight different books. I have to keep going back to the last time the character's chapter last appeared to remember what happened. I bought the book thinking that it was a combination of sword and sorcery along with some political intrigue with royal houses. The royal intrigue part is there, but it might be a bit over my head. With the first near overlapping of story lines, I will hold out a bit longer before deciding to drop this book. Being a bit of a cheapskate, I hate the thought of throwing my money away for a book that I don't read.

On my way home, I remembered that new bulletin boards are due by Friday, Nov. 9th. I got off the train -- oh, there was track work on the #1, #2 and #3 train line, but it did not really affect me. Anyway, I got off the train at 116th street. I went to the teacher's College Bookstore. Wow, what slim pickings. There were about 4 colors left, and a not very good selection of borders. I'm assuming that with Parent / Teacher Conference days away, teachers are redoing their bulletin boards. Anyway, I settled for a lite purple paper with a slightly darker border with a flower pattern. I asked a lady also shopping for her opinion just to make sure it matched. After stopping at the bank, I headed for home.

I was home about 5pm. And, I was asleep within minutes of arriving. I woke up about 8pm. Since I had a big lunch, I didn't eat dinner. I ordered take out from a Spanish restaurant in the school's neighborhood. I ordered Spanish rice and chicken. That was my day.


Post Date - Saturday, November 3, 2007 10:42pm