In which I have no idea where the time went

On April 12, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

Lessee.

I didn’t get the DC stories written down fast enough; the whole weekend is starting to blur together already and I feel like I should have gotten at least two or three more decent blog posts out of it before that happened. All told, it went exceptionally well; the last time I went to DC I got home ready to 1) never talk to anyone on the trip ever again and 2) quit teaching as soon as humanly possible; this trip was easily the best one I’ve ever taken. Any of the snafus or setbacks that happened weren’t due to the kids and got resolved easily (worst problem: we rear-ended another car while merging from a highway, one of those “technically the driver’s fault, but everyone blames the dude who slammed on his brakes” types of situations) and two of the stops weren’t what I wanted from them. I’ve already posted about the fiasco that was Ford’s Theatre; the other was the National Zoo, which does not appear to actually contain or feature any animals. We were there for an hour and a half; most of my kids did not see any animal more exotic than a squirrel. I think they have a giant elephant ass on a stick that they move back and forth from the inside pen to the outside pen periodically to fool people into thinking there’s an elephant; the entire rest of the zoo is an elaborate piece of performance art.

Other than that? The Jefferson Memorial at 7:00 in the morning when you’re the only people there is awesome. The Iwo Jima memorial at 5:00 in the morning, likewise. I got to see the FDR memorial in daylight for the first time. We managed to accidentally find some parts of Mount Vernon I’d never seen before, including a place to take a cart ride behind some huge draft horses that was more fun than it had any right to be. It was a good trip.

Since I got home, I’ve mostly been laying on the couch and moaning. I have to get some work done today and tomorrow (and I have to go to OtherJob in…damn, an hour and a half, and it’s nice outside so we’re going to be busy) so tomorrow is either going to be hella productive and end with me feeling good about the world or be a nightmare of stress and kvetching and Sundaying. Who knows? We can all look forward to it.

That’s not true… that’s impossible!

On January 7, 2014January 7, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching10 Comments

ngbbs4eea41aad0f41 School’s cancelled tomorrow. Again. The email from the central office downtown was almost apologetic this time, citing difficulties with clearing snow from all the buildings and heating issues in addition to the expected problems with the buses. The last line was something along the lines of “Schools are expected to be back in session on Thursday.”

I am about to whine about not having to go to work; you may want to bail on this post right now.

Because oh my god I’m losing my goddamn mind over here. I was expecting today and yesterday to get cancelled; not in a million years did I think we were going to lose Wednesday too. I haven’t gone to work since December frickin’ 19th and I literally do not remember the last time I left the house. I am not good at vacation, people, and vacations without clearly defined end points are worse.

(Left aside in all this drama is the very real fact that the end of the quarter is now six days of school away instead of the nine I had previously, that all my kids have an unavoidable math test next Thursday, that they’ve forgotten everything we’ve done for said test over the break, and that they’re not backing ISTEP or the ECAs up just because we had some snow days. This is about my sanity, not my job.)

I actually miss my goddamn students. I should be able to slap somebody for making that happen. Seriously; all I want from life is to be able to get up and go to work like a damn normal person. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Aargh.

Requiescat

On October 5, 2013October 5, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Unless something goes terribly wrong, by the time this post pops I’ll be well along the way to my uncle’s funeral in Michigan, a state run by even worse people than the ones who run mine. While we’re just spending the day up there and will probably be back before or around dark, I don’t expect to much be in the mood for bloggery, and it seems unlikely that anything mutually entertaining will be happening while I’m there. If I do manage to find some material, expect it to be Arby’s related, believe it or not.

One way or another, I expect to be taking the day off. See you tomorrow.

Now that it’s over…

On August 21, 2013August 20, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Let’s talk about how the summer went.

In a word? Weird.

As I write this (which isn’t at 8:00 on Wednesday morning, which is when this is going to pop; I’m probably passing out locker numbers to my homeroom girls right now) I still don’t have ISTEP scores for the 2012-13 school year. We can argue– and I have, no link necessary– about how important these tests should be, and how much they actually accurately measure student learning, but the simple fact is that they’re really really important right now even if they should be. In a very real way, I’ve spent all summer unable to close the book on 2012-13 because I never got my ISTEP scores. I have kids who have already transferred or moved who I’m never going to get to be able to tell that they passed for the first time, or that they brought their scores up by more than they ever have before.

That’s kind of a big deal for me. Now, granted, I’ve got a lot of these kids back, so I can have the conversation with them this year, but it’s not the same. Psychologically, I haven’t let go of last year yet. I haven’t been able to process how well they/I did– for better or for worse– and figure out a way to adjust and/or do things better for this year, because I don’t yet know how well the changes I made last year worked out. And that’s a damn weird position to be in. (I’m hoping that by the time this actually publishes I’ll actually have scores in-hand, but I’m not holding my breath.)

Outside of school… well, it was still a weird summer. It started off too wet, transitioned into too hot– expected in northern Indiana in July– but then took a weird detour straight into Octobersville, which is where we’ve lived for the last month or so. Business at OtherJob hasn’t been what I’ve wanted it to be, because the weather never cooperated with us. And it’s made the job less fun in a way that I don’t like at all, because having something fun to get paid for is the whole point of OtherJob. I don’t like it when that doesn’t happen.

I built a deck. That was awesome. I cooked a bunch of stuff; also awesome. Ripped up some carpeting in my hallway and started working on the year’s biggest project, the new bathroom, which I’m hoping will be awesome once it’s done.

I failed at ukulele. That was unfortunate.

And then there was this place. I haven’t been a regular blogger for several years, and I managed to write damn near every day through the summer (when the hell did I start this place up again? Early June?) regardless of what else was going on. I think I only missed two or three days all summer, and while the posts haven’t exactly all been brilliant at least I’ve been writing. I’m hoping to hell I can keep up at least a four- or five-days-a-week pace once school starts; we’ll see. Weirdly, I think my schedule– my prep period is last hour– might help with that; it’ll give me time to get stuff done before school lets out, which will mean I won’t be at school as long, which will mean I’ll theoretically have time at home to write. I don’t want this place to wither, but I can’t pretend there’s not a real risk of it. The plan will be to always try and write for the next day so I can keep posts popping in the morning. We’ll see.

The biggest failure of the summer has been where it always is: writing fiction, which I’ve barely done at all. Which I never do, despite my constant desire to the contrary. But you’ve seen that rant before, multiple times, so I’ll spare you.

And that was that. Here we go again.