Blast from the Past

Space has started showing episodes of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. So Awesome.

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Clean Machine

I had a rip roaring time this weekend. My big excitement included cleaning the Venetian blinds, kitchen and bathroom. I also managed to be in bed before 11 every night and up before 7. Tonight to cap off my big weekend, I will be in bed by 10. I am the life of the party.

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Scientific Time Efficiency

I was doing last minute lesson planning when I realized that my entire grade 12 Physics class is in my Chemistry class. I was planning to review that same basic principles of science in both classes but what's the point? Why teach the same group of students the same thing twice? I'm just going to go on with the next lesson.

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Important science lesson

16 inches is very different than 16 centimetres.

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Dollar Store Bargains

My school is by the best dollar store EVER! Honestly everything is a dollar or less. For school I bought for less than $22.

• 7 measuring tapes


• 2 boxes of tissues


• 5 bags of marbles


• 4 stackable storage boxes


• 2 rolls or masking tape

Bargin.

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Tattling Students and Strange Co-Workers

I'm a little annoyed right now. Earlier this week I had 4 students show up 5 minutes before class was over. They are upset that they were marked absent and not let into class. You're kidding me, right? They were so upset they went and complained to the school director. Among there other complaints: sometimes I make mistakes when working out math, chemistry or physics problems.

****Newsflash: Janny is not perfect and sometimes makes mistakes.******

These kids are ridiculous. The director called me into his office to tell me I need to let the students know that teachers make mistakes too. I seriously have to tell them that? That is something they don't know?

On a less annoying but more curious note, one of my co-workers has been acting strange all morning. Whenever he sees me, he stops, looks right at me and says nothing. If I ask him what he is doing, he says nothing. It is a little unsettling.

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Weirdest Thing I've Yelled at the TV in a Long Time

"For serious? A beret? You have to be kinding me."

Thanks Roger, now "for serious" is part of my everyday speech. I started out using it as a joke now it I started using it for serious.

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The Busy Just Got Busier

Yesterday I was asked to coach the junior girls basketball team. I teach at a small school and there has never been enough interest by female students for a girls' team. I have never coached basketball by myself before. At my previous school, a community member coached the team and I helped out. Legally a teacher has to be present at all practices and games.

I'm glad that girls are showing interest in sports at this school (whose population is predominately Muslim). However, right now I barely have enough time to sleep and eat with my schedule. I have yearbook meetings starting today and basketball starting in a couple weeks. I might possibly die.

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Useless

This afternoon was a complete bust. I taught my lessons but it was impossible to get the students to work on what they were supposed to. These were the questions they asked me this afternoon:

1) How much cobalt-60 is needed to make a nuclear bomb?

2) What is cancer? How does cancer start? Why isn't there a cure for cancer?, etc

3) "Why did some dude invent pi?"

4) How do we know that these formulas [sic] are right?

5) Why did they decide how to arrange the periodic table?

6) "Were swears the same way back when you were in high school?"

There were many other questions relating to a belief that all the sciences were a mass conspiracy that nothing was actually true. As one student put it "There is no one someone could have figure that out."

It was only Wednesday, I hate to see what they are like on Friday.

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Hope for the best

My expensive graphing calculator went missing and I fear a student might have stole it. I never leave my class unlocked so it doesn't make sense. I really hoping I just put it somewhere weird and it will turn up.

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Welcome Wagon

Only one more sleep until Veronica Mars. I may burst with excitement.

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Bad Teacher

I "borrowed" a garden gnome on Saturday night.  I took part in a scavenger hunt at a birthday party and the item said "a lawn ornament".  I only hope it is returned or that would be stealing.

Today I bent my glasses with a Donkey Kong (spinning) top.  My glasses were sitting on the table and the top got a little out of control.  I confiscated the top from a student now it is all mine.  Of course, I only use it for very scientific purposes. I love double standards. 

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Surprisingly Efficient

This morning I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm. I decided I might as well start getting ready for work. Instead of taking over an hour to get ready for work, it too me a half hour. I ended up getting to work a half hour early instead of my usual right-on- time-in-the-real-world-but-late-according-to-the-school-clocks.

The computer teacher had a meeting this morning so I was supposed to cover his class during my prep period. He gave me all of the matierals for typing drills but when I got to class I discover it was one of their in-class learning days. They could do nothing that I was told they were suposed to do. Instead, I taught them how to draw The Sierpinski Triangle.

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I am not in a good mood. I just had a physics class where it was an absolute struggle to get them to pay attention. A ton of time was wasted and we barely got a start on the notes. I really don't want this to effect the rest of the day.

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Scientifically Annoyed

Before school started, I got half way through organizing and making an inventory of lab supplies. I stopped because it was taking me way longer than I was expecting and I had to prepare other things for the school year. I have done a little here and there since but have not had a significant amount of time to work on it. I came to the school today for the specific reason to organize the lab. The director came and opened the school for me. He knew why I was there but he gave me a lecture about how I need to make an inventory of the lab supplies while I was doing it. What? Isn't that the reason I am here? It is like telling someone in the middle of washing the dishes that the dishes need to be washed.
Also, why am I the only one who needs to be doing this? I'm not the only science teacher in the school. I worked on this for 3 full days before school started. The other high school science teacher worked on it for about a half hour. The middle years science teacher has not worked on it at all. They didn't even let me have the classroom off the science lab because the other teacher claimed the she was going to be using it more. I think this is a clear cut case of take advantage of the new girl.

Wrath of Jan

I gave my chemistry class a pop quiz today. Yesterday they were talking so much while I was teaching I stopped in the middle of my notes and made them learn it on there own from the text. I think I gave the greatest speech of my teaching career. You know how in the movies when someone is upset they will give brilliant speeches but in real life no one takes you seriously? No one makes sense when they are angry. That wasn’t me. Today I tested them on how well they learned on there own. Several of the students have smartened up, they do not want that to happen again.

Someone had the brilliant idea to have “Meet the Teacher” night on Friday. Friday is prime for slinking out early not staying 4 hours later. I got to school this morning at 7:50 am and I will be leave at approximately 8 pm. Ouch.

I was walking to supper with some co-workers (who happen to be male) and happened to run into my cousin who I had not seen for weeks. We are both to the same get-to-together tonight but I won’t get there until after 8. I’m paranoid that she be telling tales that she saw me with men before I get there (men that happen to be married or living with a girlfriend). We’ll just have to see.

In Calgary the no-smoking by-law does not go into effect until 2008. Tonight at supper, even though we were sitting in the non-smoking section, I went away with my hair and clothes reeking of smoke. What a great first impression for meeting the parents. “Nice to meet you. Contrary to the way I smell, I do not smoke like a chimney.” Man, I’m not even smokin’ like Ky.

I ran into someone I could not stand from high school yesterday. I was getting on the train as he was getting off. Time has not made him any less weasely (including his moustache).

Happy 2nd Blogiversary

I have officially have been blogging on Angelfire for 2 years now. Wow, have the times changed.

When I began blogging, I had just quit my job as a full time teacher and began my new life as a sub/shelf straightener/tutor in a new city. Since then I move again, became an admin assistant then quit that job for a full time teaching position.

I started blogging to stop bugging my friends with emails of random thoughts, forwards and surveys. It turned into another form of procrastination for me.

My personal favourite posting of the past two years: Emmy fun, mostly because of the Perfect Strangers reference.

Drive by Blogging

Sorry for the lack of posts. I STILL don't have Internet at home and I've had to leave right after school every other day this week.

I think my landpeople are avoiding me. I'm not sure why. It could be that they have something going on in their lives that I don't know about. Another theory is they are avoiding me because of the Internet situation.

I have been getting very little done in my prep periods lately. The rest of my day is so intensive, I just can't bare to work if I don't have to. Today it was a bit of a problem because I almost didn't finish my marking because of my procrastination.

Last Thursday I was facing downtown on the train as we left it. I noticed that Bell and Telus had their head offices right across the street from each other. I immediately thought "I wonder if they have rumbles on the street?" I then proceeded to rewrite songs from West Side Story with Bell and Telus instead of Jets and Sharks. I caught myself humming a little.

I'm not worried about being the crazy person on the train anymore. Today I was sitting beside someone who I thought was talking to someone across the aisle. I looked up to discover he was having a serious conversation with himself (complete with different voices for each "person"). I don't think I could ever truly live up to that.

The past two days I've had appointments after school so I've driven instead of taken the bus. Strange how when I leave an hour before I have to get to work it only takes a half hour to get there. If I leave a half hour before work, it takes 50 minutes to get there. Needless to say I was 20 minutes late yesterday and a half hour early today.
The last two days I've pretty well wasted my prep time at school. Of course I heard a quote one time that said that it was not time wasted if you enjoyed it. So I guess I can say I have not gotten any school work done during my prep period but instead I've ended up visiting with another teacher.
My classes have been very well behaved the last two days. This is mostly due to my very stern reaction to poor behaves on Friday (I'm trying to put it as polite as possible).
I've got to get going but hopefully I have time to tell the story tomorrow about how I have the potential to be "crazy lady on the train".

Dull, dull, dull

I am so close to being ready for Tuesday when the students come. After many hassles with the school's photocopier and printer, all I have left to do is look over my class notes.

My life has been rather dull the last couple days. I've been slacking off on procrastinate. The only thing I do when I am not working is watch reruns of Project Runway and Popular. All though I am super-pumped there is a Project Runway marathon tomorrow. Ugh, I have no life.

On the bargain front, I got a Sony flash drive for $10 yesterday.