More Stuff

At 4:30, I finished my PowerPoint for my presentation in my writing class tomorrow. Bellydancing class is at 6:00. I realized I might as well stay here, since bellydancing is right down the street and my house is 30 minutes away.

So I'm at school and I should be writing my memoir rough draft for tomorrow night, but I've been trying to get that done since last Wednesday and it's just not working out right now. So I guess I'll blog about all the fun we're having here.

The new semester has been an adventure. I have almost all new students in my reading and creative writing classes. The writing class I'm taking is proving to be very strenuous. I put about 15 hours of reading/writing per week, plus three hours of class time each week. But when I'm done, I have my reading endorsement. I've been working on it for two years, so it will be nice to have it over with.

I've been recruited to join the district's literacy committee, as well. I go to my first meeting on Wednesday after school. So there's another new thing I've added this year. When I get done with the writing class, I'll probably also be joining the group that reads and approves novels for the district.

Al has been doing well. We had quite a scare a couple of weeks ago. We got word that Al's Area Director had been laid off and Chili's was closing stores. Rumors and assumptions were flying everywhere from about 5:00 on a Tuesday night until about 10:00 Wednesday morning. I was trying to come to terms with the idea that I might be serving tables again to supplement income. In the end, they closed seven stores in the region, none of which were in Utah. Of course, that doesn't mean that there won't be more cuts, so we pretty much are keeping our fingers crossed and Al is trying to be an even better manager than he already is. That whole scare made us pretty appreciative of the money we've managed to save and for my job security. It made the whole "rainy day" scenario very real. I just feel horrible, though, for the managers and employees of the stores that were closed. The recession is hitting a little too close to home.

Even though my job is secure, we're looking at really cutting back on education budgets. One idea on the table is to make all high school teachers teach seven periods, whereas right now they teach six (3 on A-days, 3 on B-Days, with one prep period each day). I'm doing that schedule this year and am getting paid extra for productivity. Let me tell you, it's killer! I'm expecting a big fight with the union if this becomes a serious possibility. Even being paid extra, it's barely worth it. I'm stretched so thin and I know I'm not as effective of a teacher.

Being an aunt again is also a lot of fun. I haven't been able to spend much time with Blakelee, but the time I've had with her so far has been fabulous. Perhaps when she starts being more awake it'll be even better! Even Al has been trying to become more comfortable with her, since right now, he's really only comfortable with kids 8 and up. He's doing a good job!

Well, there's about a million things I should be doing now, so I'm going to go and get to them before I have to leave school for bellydancing class. If you'd like to see my brilliant PowerPoint on how I teach the voice writing trait, please let me know. I even downloaded a special theme for it...that's how fancy I'm getting!

This time next week, I'll be packing for Vegas!