The Time, it Flies!

I spent an hour Saturday morning grading notebooks and then another hour before work on Monday. Sunday I spent about half an hour finalizing the lunch detention list for Monday.
Weekend: 2.5 hours
Monday: 7:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. = 9.5 hours
Tuesday: 7:00 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. = 9.25 hours
Total hours: 198.75 (150 contract hours)
Total days: 20
Average hours per day: 9 hrs 56 min
Today we have our short school day and 2 hours of "professional development" after school. Then a parent meeting which hopefully won't take long, and we're leaving straight from there. I'm slowly getting some papers graded. I think it's finally safe to re-do the seating charts and have them last for a while... the schedule changes are done, I hope. I have the kids taking a test on Friday. I will have to try again to grade notebooks now that I led the classes through the process of writing their first and last names, the period, and the words "math notebook" in permanent marker on the outside of their notebooks. It's pure babysitting sometimes. Two of my classes are being sufficiently naughty that they don't get to work in partners. They just have to sit and listen to me lecture, take some notes and then try to struggle their way through the problems, since they won't let me teach. I will have to keep doing that until I see some sign of maturity from the boys and cooperation from the girls. It makes teaching easier but man, is it bad for their learning. Hopefully it won't last long.

Friday Night and I'm Blogging

I have 139.75 hours as of Monday. On Tuesday I worked 7:00 - 5:30 = 10 hours and Wednesday 7:30 - 5:30 = 9.5 hours. Yesterday (Thursday) I worked 7:00 - 4:00 = 8.5 hours, and today 7:00 - 4:45 = 9.25 hrs. I had to push it to get out by then because my carpool buddy would have stayed longer. We packed up our things and left, knowing we would finish on the weekend. I am grading notebooks, despite the upcoming schedule changes, because I need to give the kids some feedback. I guess I will have to spend time re-entering grades for the ones whose schedules change, but it's been 3 weeks and they need a grade on something!! Anything!! I am planning a test for Friday, so between the notebook grade and the test grade I think I will be putting out a pretty accurate progress report, which is due at the end of next week. I'm not sure how the other teachers are dealing with grades because nobody I have talked to has yet to enter any. It's a mess.
Total hours: 177.5
Total days: 18
Hours per day: 9 hrs 51 min

Working Dumb

I'm not working smart. I can't say I am entirely to blame, but if I was doing more thinking ahead, my life would have been easier the past few weeks. The principal at my school is very disorganized and makes decisions on the fly, which leads to a lot of chaos. However, I know this about her, so usually when she sends down a mandate I ignore it until I'm sure someone is following up on it. The problem has been with grading. I had set up my gradebook and was trying to enter enough grades so that the kids would have an idea about how they are doing. Feedback is really important for the kids because they get a feeling for how much effort they need to put in. I had entered a test and 2 assignments. Almost all of my students failed the test. Most of them did well on the assignment. Then, schedules started changing. The principal is trying so hard to balance the classes and make every class less than 30. This is a first for me and I support her 100%. But when she said she was going to do that, I ignored it as so much bullshit. I entered grades, and invested time in the seating charts. Incredibly enough, it is actually happening. It's absolute chaos. I never know who is going to be on my roster. Taking attendance every day is such an adventure, and the time I have invested in grading and seating charts is lost forever! I threw all the papers away and gave up on the grading. (The grades don't follow the kids when they change classes, so it's an exercise in futility to try.)
Instead of spending time on that, I have been cleaning my room, organizing materials and all the stuff that keeps popping up in my box, some of which I need and most of which I don't. My room and my desk are a lot more organized and clean. That's a good thing.
Yesterday the attendance clerk sent out an email saying the master schedule was going to change, which means teachers' schedules are changing. One of the teachers was crying in the office after school because she has to stop teaching reading because she is not qualified, so they are moving her to 8th grade science, for which she is also not qualified. (They are trying to make her quit.) Teachers are having social studies and math and reading classes added to their day just like that, and everyone is pretty upset. Teachers like me are the ones that benefit... all of my classes are below 30 now, for the first time in my 7 years of teaching.
I have my hours written down but will have to log them later. It's time to get ready for work.

I'm OK!!!

One of my 2 readers pointed out that paid vs. unpaid hours is a very negative way of looking at things, and I have to agree. I will start referring to contract hours vs. non-contract hours.
It's not that I expect a 7.5 hour workday. I think 9 hours is reasonable. I don't think that more than 9 hours combined with work on the weekends is reasonable - not for what I'm being paid, anyway.
One of the things I am after is finding out exactly how many extra hours pile up during the school year. Are they enough to make up for 2 months of vacation? If I average all the hours out at the end of the school year, how many 8- hour workdays will there be? That is one of the questions I want to answer.
All that being said, I am not unhappy or bitter. That is not why I am keeping track of my hours. I tried like crazy to find a job in the public sector this past summer. It didn't work out. I was so dreading going back, and I find that I'm quite happy to be back with my team and spending my day with kids again.
I can enjoy the good parts of teaching and distance myself from the parts that are frustrating. Part of letting go of my anger at all these extra hours is keeping track, so that at the end of the year, I can find out if my anger was justified. In the past years I have really been frustrated and angry at the end of a really long week. Putting it down on the blog and seeing it in writing helps me look at it and say, wow! That's a lot of hours! Then let it go.
Now, I have spent all morning farting around instead of working on my seating charts. Maybe I'll just pile the desks in the corner and have them sit on the floor. haha!!

Best day ever!!

Today I learned that the district won't approve another teacher for our school, and there is no way to get my class sizes down to manageable unless we put the SPED kids with the SPED teacher, in her own classroom. This is good news because I've been doing her work and my work because she has never taught middle school OR math. I'm pretty much drowning in work! So she will have to sink or swim and now I can get caught up. I should probably feel bad since she is going to be struggling and her students will not have a fair chance at success, but I can't keep doing everything for both of us.
Tuesday 8/23 7:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. = 8.5 hours, 1.5 unpaid, 30 minute meeting after school with parent about kid who isn't doing any work and is robbing the rest of the class of at least 10 instructional minutes every single day, and an hour doing seating chart and rearranging the desks.

Long day.

Yesterday (Sunday) I spent about 5 hours on grading and organizing test data so I can group the students effectively. I finished the data sorting this morning and started importing it into the seating chart software I bought. It cost $6 for the first year so I'm going to try it. Once I input all the student information, the program will take the information about the students and group them according to my specifications. I can put relationships in there, so say I have two kids who talk constantly and need to be seated apart. I can put a negative relationship between the two of them and the software will make sure that they never sit together. I can put positive relationships between kids who work well together as well. I can make sure kids get seated in the front or in the back, and I can "glue" kids to the same seat if I want them there permanently. (Comes in useful for the naughty chair.) Setting up the program is time-consuming but it's an investment because when I need to change the seating chart, for the rest of the year I can just push "place students" and get a new one, with all the rotten eggs still separated from each other.
Sunday: about 5 hours throughout the day
Monday: 7:00 - 5:30 = 10 hours, 3 unpaid grading, cleaning, doing seating software and answering emails.
Running total: 93 paid, 38.25 unpaid. 

"But what do you DO all day?"

That is a question that comes up often for a teacher. They want to know what we DO that we have to spend all this time unpaid doing things. It's an easy but long-winded question to answer. These are all the things required for the gradebook:
A minimum of 1 grade entered per week
A minimum of 3 assessments per quarter
Specific, meaningful feedback on every student's paper
Now you might think 1 grade per week, big whoop. Here's the thing: Students need to do math homework every night. Not much, just think about what they learned that day for 5 minutes or so. I give them one problem a night. Every Monday, they turn in homework with answers to five questions. These are thinking questions, which require complete sentences and showing work for their examples. About half my students turn in homework, so that is around 75 papers to grade. I would say it takes about an  hour to grade all the homework. That's 45 seconds per page.
Students need to have more than 1 paper returned each week in order for them to know how they are doing in class. So in addition to grading the homework, I need to grade classwork too. The kids keep a notebook with their bellwork and classwork, so I grade the notebooks. There are around 150 notebooks to grade, one for each student, and that is pretty quick because it is graded on completion, not accuracy. However, when there are 150 of them, that's not quick. It takes at least 20 minutes per class, so that's an hour - about 24 seconds per notebook.
We have a quiz or test about once every 10 school days. These are the biggies. They take FOREVER to grade because multiple choice is OK for about half the questions, but the others need to be performance-based answers. This means reading what they wrote, checking their work, and providing specific, meaningful feedback. It takes about 30 minutes to grade each period's quizzes, times 5, so that's 2.5 hours - 60 seconds per quiz or test.
Then, after the grading is done, the grades need to be entered into the online gradebook so that parents and students can access their grades (required). This is quick but it adds up when you have over 150 students.
All together that is an average of about 4.5 hours a week, just grading and entering grades.That's not counting having to look up the periods and last names of the kids who are too clueless to realize they are probably not the only Jose or Maria I have in my 5 class periods. (They get dinged points for that. It's so freaking frustrating they can't bother to write out their last name and by 7th grade they haven't got in the habit of doing it.)
I mentioned in my last post that we have 1.5 hours per day to do things not related to actual teaching. That's 7.5 hours all together per week. Four of them are gone - just grading.
One day per week we are required to spend 50 minutes with our content area, planning. There goes that.
We are required to make 5 positive parent contacts per week. I do postcards because if I try to make phone calls, parents want to talk and talk. Every day, there are probably 2 students who display behavior sufficiently stupid enough to warrant a parent phone call. (Last week a student dug a hole in the wall probably 2 inches long , an inch wide, and a half inch deep. The student was in time out for answering a math question I had asked the class by calling out "Doo doo.") Parents call in or email every now and then to find out how their kid is doing or complain about my homework/classwork policies. Those have to be attended to within 24 hours, required by the principal. I would say about 30 minutes per week is spent on parent contact, and that's a lowball estimate.
That leaves 2 hours and 10 minutes to do everything else. We have to write the daily objective on the board every day, along with the vocabulary and language objective. We have to write the bellwork every day. (Bellwork is absolutely required.) We have to make copies. We have to do 5 days worth of lesson plans, and lesson planning alone takes at least 4 hours every week because the template we are required to use is ridiculously long and detailed. We have to find resources for the lessons because the textbooks are woefully inadequate and don't meet the state standards. We have to upload our lesson plans to the school website so they can be scrutinized or duplicated by whomever wishes to do so.We have to clean our classroom counters, desks, and sinks because all the custodians have to do is clean the floor and empty the trash. We have to get the supplies out for class, be it markers, scissors, protractors, or whatnot. We have to go through the textbooks and erase or white out all the penis drawings, gang tags, and curse words.At least once a week, one of the administrators wants to have a meeting for this or that. We have team meetings with parents whose kids are acting like idiots on a regular basis. There are a thousand other things that teachers need to do. 2 hours and 10 minutes? Yeah, right.
You might be asking, "But what about during class? Can't you get any of this done while the kids are working on their own? Why, when I was a kid, the teacher sat and drank coffee and read the newspaper while we slaving away doing our work." You need to understand this: Teaching is not like that anymore. If EVER an administrator comes in and we are sitting at our desk, we hear about it. We HAVE to be monitoring the kids every single minute of every class. I would be doing that anyway because I teach all the lowest kids, academically speaking. Their level of independence is about zero. At any given time, if I try to have them work on their own, there are about 5 hands in the air. (If you keep your hand up, you have an excuse for not doing any work. "Miss, I was waiting for you to help me!") When they take a test, teachers are expected to be walking around, monitoring. I am not kidding you. If someone walks in and sees you doing anything else, you WILL hear about it. They visit at least once a day, by the way.
I could be a shitty teacher and leave some of this out. But you tell me, what have I said above that isn't required but also isn't necessary in order for me to teach effectively? 
Having unloaded that, here are the rest of the stats for this week:
Tuesday: 7 a.m. - 5 p.m. = 9.5 hours, 2.5 unpaid.
Wednesday: 6:45 a.m. - 5:15 p.m. = 10 hours, 3 hours unpaid. (2 paid hours spent in a stupid meeting with all the math teachers in the school, designing a unit for the district, which they proceeded to throw out yesterday, saying it was inadequate. We're only teachers, what the fuck do we know about what the kids need to learn?)
Thursday: 7 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. = 9 hours, 2 unpaid (15 minute meeting before school about tutoring.)
Friday: 7 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. = 9 hours, 2 unpaid (10 minute meeting before school about how they were throwing out the curriculum unit mentioned above. Great way to start the day.)
Today I need to do my lesson plans and grade homework and quizzes, so it will be about 6 hours but I will have to post on that next time.
Weekly total: 35 paid, 17.75 unpaid = 52.75 hours this week.
Running total: 84 paid, 35.25 unpaid. Keep in mind, this was the 2nd week of school. Teachers got it easy, right?

A Social Experiment

I don't know if that is the right thing to call it, but I am going to start a new project. I am going to try to turn my blog into a running tally of hours actually worked teaching this school year. I am also going to include information about what the unpaid hours were spent doing, and possibly details about why they were necessary.
A few things non-teachers need to be aware of:
1. Our contract provides for 211 paid days of work. The work day is 7 hours and 30 minutes long, including lunch, so each day there are 7 hours of actual paid work.
2. The contract day begins at 7:45 and ends at 3:30. The kids start at 8:10 and leave at 3:30. We have 50 minutes of prep time, leaving us an hour and a half each day to do work non-related to actual teaching.
3. 211 x 7 = 1477, so dividing my annual salary by that number, I make just shy of $23.70/hr. (This is assuming the bond election in November passes, and there are no furlough days added to the calendar. There may be as many as 5.)
Teachers started work on Thursday, August 5th, so that is where I will begin.

Thursday 8/4: 7:30 - 4:00 = 8 work hours, 1 unpaid traveling from school to the stupid casino and back for the annual kickoff (how did they pay for that??).
Friday 8/5: 7:00 - 4:30 = 8.5 work hours, 1.5 unpaid getting classroom ready.(Working lunch, gee thanks principal. We were excused at 2:30 so that we could come back from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. for the parent-teacher meet and greet.)
Total: 13.5 paid, 2.5 unpaid = 16

Sunday 8/7: 1:00 - 4:00 = 3 unpaid, writing syllabus and week 1 homework.
Monday 8/8: 6:30 - 4:00 = 2 unpaid getting classroom ready, as we were provided 1.5 hours to do so.
Tuesday 8/9: (first day for the kids) 6:30 - 4:00 = 2 unpaid making copies, teaching co-teacher how to do today's math, and trying desperately to finish making the classroom presentable. The custodians left yesterday at 2:00 p.m. and they had not emptied the trash or cleaned the desks, which were still dirty from the end of last school year.
Wednesday 8/10: 7:30 -5:00, 2 unpaid hanging posters (required by principal), finding supplies needed for the rest of the week, doing health forms for nurse, updating website (required by principal), teaching co-teacher tomorrow's math, making copies.
Thursday 8/11: 7:30 - 4:00: Jury duty. Practically a day off.
Friday 8/12: 7:45 - 3:45, 0.5 unpaid updating website, setting up online gradebook (the program went down halfway through and wiped out everything I had done. Gave up and went to the bar.)
Saturday 8/13: Total 8 unpaid spread out through the day. Read and logged information given by parents on syllabus signature form, added parent emails to online address book, tried to set up online gradebook and data was wiped out again when the program went down.The syllabus part takes a long time because we have about 150 students.
Week total: 49 paid, 17.5 unpaid = 66.5

Sunday 8/14: 6 hours throughout the day. Successfully set up grade book, hooray!
Monday 8/15: 7:00 - 4:45 = 9.25 hours, 2.25 unpaid grading papers and organizing signature sheets from each student's agenda (required by principal).

My Daughter, the Free Thinker

My youngest daughter was over recently to get some help with a car deal she has going on. I made her some food, she turned on the nickelodeon cartoons, (I guess they won't outgrow it) and we spent some time together. Sometimes I have conversations with my daughters that make me think, DAMN!!!! I did all right! This is one of those:

E: Mom. Do you think I am weird because I think the Women's Plaza of Honor is a stupid idea?
Me: What the heck is that?
E: We went there during class the other day. It's this plaza, and it has flowers and benches and stuff, and it has stories of women who did different things.
Me: Huh. And you didn't like it?
E: We went to see it and when we were walking away, everyone was saying how great that the U of A did that, and it's so great to see women who did things, and I said Well I think it's stupid. Then everybody looked at me like I was crazy and I said, Why should it have to be because they are women?
Me: That's my girl!! :::clapping:::
E: So I'm not crazy? Because they were all looking at me like I was anti-feminist or something.
Me: No, you are probably the only one that knows what feminism really is.
E: I was trying to explain why I thought it was stupid, and I said that they made it a big deal because they did these great things and EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE WOMEN. (said with eyes wide and dripping with sarcasm.)
Me: That's exactly right. When you single out a group of women and make a big deal about how they made certain accomplishments, that's the patriarchy in action.
E: It's like it was shocking they did important things, we have to make a plaza!
Me: Yep. It is an outright insult, and it's demeaning because what it says is, You are not equal. If you do great things, and you are a woman, you must be recognized separately, because it's not normal for women to do great things. So as long as we keep doing things like this and drawing attention to the fact that these are exceptions to the rule, then our role as women remains "less than."
E: But why didn't anybody else see that? Why were they looking at me like I was crazy?
Me: Because they aren't conscious of the patriarchy. They aren't AWAKE.
E: My professor seemed like he kind of got it. He said hmmm, I see what you are saying.
Me: That's good!

Both of my daughters have told me stories like this - observations they have made that something is ridiculous or insulting, and when they point it out, all they get dumbfounded looks of what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about. So I say keep making those observations! Keep talking them out with people, and keep thinking them through! When you look at something, and your gut says, This isn't right! Keep thinking about it and talking about it until you can articulate what's wrong! If ever there is a time when our culture doesn't notice someone's gender, whether they have or haven't done something remarkable, then we will know we're making progress toward equality.

It's broken, and I can't fix it.

This is an essay I wrote about why I am leaving teaching.

So how'd it go?

I had a job interview yesterday with a company in the private sector, for what seems to be a fairly decent job. It was my first interview in the private sector - I have a ton of interview experience, but it has all been with principals and restaurant managers. I was a little nervous. Six years of teaching + no new clothes = I had better go shopping. I bought a beautiful tan jacket to go with a pair of chocolate brown pants, matching pumps and shell that I already had. I was going to be looking and feeling great!
I went to get ready for the interview, pulled on the beautiful chocolate-brown pants, and the zipper was ripped from top to bottom. My undies were peeking out from either side. Oh boy. I have another pair of brown pants, with ugly copper threads running through them. They are old and worn and 2 sizes too small, but I didn't know what else to do. I squeezed into them and prayed they would stretch out at least enough so that I could breathe.
I finished getting ready right on time. My hair was perfectly coifed, nails trimmed and neat, mascara expertly applied, and with the exception of the pants, I was feeling pretty good. I left the house with my purse, portfolio, keys, and diet coke. I got to the building 5 minutes early for my interview. Perfect. I grabbed my purse and portfolio and reached for my jacket. No jacket.

NO. JACKET.

I can't go in there wearing my spaghetti strap shell, especially since it is holding in a sizable bulge from my pants being too tight.
I panicked for a minute but got it under control. There was a Wal-Mart 3 minutes away. On the drive, I left a message for the interviewer telling him what happened, that I hoped to be back in ten minutes or so, and that I hoped he would still see me. I called my sister and sobbed for a minute and got some reassurance that the world wasn't going to end. I ran into the store, saw a dark brown button-down shirt, yanked it off the hanger and put it on, ripped off the price tag, and RAN to the cashier. She looked at me a little funny, but she rang me up quickly. I RAN back to the car (let's not forget it is 108 degrees outside) and drove back to the building. I was 15 minutes late, but then I couldn't find the suite. A kind gentleman gave me directions, and so all together I was 20 minutes late.
I burst in the door and announced myself. The receptionist gave me a tight, curly smile and said the interviewer had been out a few times to ask for me. Then, the interviewer came around the corner. I can't imagine what I looked like. I had cried off my make-up, and I had been running around in the heat for 20 minutes. I was wearing old, worn-out, too-tight pants and a Wal-mart shirt. Wow. Just.... wow.
The receptionist gave me some paperwork to fill out and offered to get me some cold water. I thanked her, took a fist-full of kleenex off the counter, and sat down to fill out the forms. Sweat was quite literally dripping onto my shirt, my glasses, and the application. I did the best I could to mop it up with the kleenex and tried to slow my breathing. I think the interviewer gave me a couple of extra minutes to compose myself before he called me into his office. I calmed down and finally cooled off, and he started the interview.
He had my resume in front of him and had clearly studied it. His questions were well-thought out and specific to my situation. I've never been good at putting on a show, and when someone asks me a question, I tend to just answer it. This aspect of my personality plus my ability to make sentences out of fancy words makes me a decent interviewee, I think. The guy asked me questions for a good 45 minutes. Some of them were hard questions that really made me think. I had answers for all of them, and he seemed satisfied, so that part was ok.
The next part of the interview was with a panel of 5 people. Two of them were in the position for which I am applying. Then there were some regional managers and I don't know who else. Two people were there in the room with me, and three people were on conference call. Thankfully, the conference room was cool enough to be somewhat chilly after sitting in there for a while. All five people had my resume and the list of questions they wanted to ask. All five had clearly studied the resume. It was shocking. That part of the interview took a full hour. It was absolutely grueling. By the end of the hour, the two people in the room with me had filled up their papers with little scribbles, which is always a good sign. When we were finished, one of them walked me to the lobby and said the main guy wanted to speak with me again.
I waited for a few minutes and the main guy came out to get me. We went back to his office and he asked a couple more questions about restrictions on the hours I work, how I felt about coming in early, etc. He said that he thought I did well and that the team liked me. He had some more candidates to "get through" (his words) and then all the candidates would be ranked, and based on the scores, some would be invited back for a second interview.
I think the interview went well enough to make up for the lateness, and one of my sisters said it was good that I showed up sweaty and panicked because it meant I really did have an emergency. I guess we'll see. Hopefully I will get a call next week and go in for a second interview, because I have a dynamite jacket to wear.

Can't you take a joke?

I grew up hearing those words often. I was a buck-toothed, pudgy, redheaded, overly-sensitive child in a large family. I felt then, as I feel now, that words can be very effectively used as weapons, and when that happens, they hurt. Freckle face, Bugs Bunny, fatso, shorty, carrot-top, etc. were some of the words flung at me on a regular basis at home and at school. I'm sure I did my fair share of the flinging, too, picking out things I thought were funny about people and using them as insults. As with most insults, it's not the words themselves, but the way in which they are used. I remember the words with such clarity because they hurt. Sometimes, they hurt enough to make me cry, and that's when I would hear, "Can't you take a joke?" or, "Geez! Stop being so sensitive!" Those words filled me with anger and shame that I could not articulate then, and I find difficult to articulate now. 

Recently, I have come into communication with a friend from my past. My WAY long ago past. As in, my ex-husband and I used to hang out with this person when we were married and my children were very young. He found me on Facebook (fucking facebook, I hate you but I love you) and sent me a friend request. He reminded me of how we knew each other, and we got caught up a little bit on where we are now. I guess I am quite a bit different now than I was then. Raising two kids, going through college, joining the professional workforce... those are all life-changing events that I have gone through in the past 15 years. He, however, has been through... none. 

We have been exchanging messages every few days, and little things he said at first were irritating to me. Things like, "Wow! I can't believe you got a degree!" Actually, I have two. "Wow! You got a Master's too? That is unbelievable! You should be very proud of yourself!" And on, and on.

Now, on the surface, these things seem benign. But they didn't FEEL benign. They felt condescending. I think if he had just said congratulations, or that's great, it would have been fine. The over-enthusiasm of his response bothered me. Had he held the opinion that I was too stupid to do anything besides give birth and change diapers? Why was he so shocked? Irritating. And the praise... like he was patting me on the head. Ew.

Then something a little bigger happened during a discussion we were having about basketball. He asked if I watched the WNBA as well as the NBA and I said yes, but of course not as often because they don't get much media coverage. Then I made a remark about how great it would be if there weren't men's teams and women's teams - just teams. Well, he just about wet his pants laughing at that. Then he realized I hadn't been joking. He proceeded to tell me that he could explain it to me but all I would do is get mad. I had only one question for him - "Does your reasoning have anything to do with the physical differences between the male and female bodies? Yes or no." He wouldn't answer. I ended that conversation and didn't answer the next few messages from him, hoping he would just go away. 

He didn't go away. The next time he messaged me, I was watching my new favorite show, Through the Wormhole and it was about the concept of time. I asked if he knew that the reason the prime meridian goes through Greenwich is because some dudes got together and decided that's where it should go. (Change of subject, right?) The next message he sent was a link to a website about Greenwich Mean Time. (He HAS to make sure he knows more about it than I do.) Then he says, and I quote: "BTW....check out the conference delegates. They were indeed a bunch of men. Thank goodness..........if the conference had been a bunch of women meetiing they would still be trying to make a decision on where to establich the prime meridian!" 

I eventually responded that he really is very sexist, and I didn't write again. I really hoped he would go away. 

He didn't. His next message talked about how fun it is to tease me, and I wasn't mad at him, was I? I thought about it for a while, and I should probably have just deleted him from my friends list and let that speak for itself, but instead I quoted his words back at him - the part about if the conference had been a bunch of women. I have to quote his reply directly, because really there is just no summarizing it: "You are mad about that? Seeiously? Come on now you know I said that jokingly to tease you. Hello.......yes lost and found? I'm looking for Melissa's sense of humor. It is a really great sense of humor, yes it is the A+ model, yes super deluxe that's right...... Oh you have it?! Super I'll be right over to pick it up for her. Thank you so much!" 

I replied one word: Wow. Then, a day or two later, when I still hadn't written:
"Come on didnt that make you smile even a little? Is it cold in here? Brrrrrrrrr  ? -:)"

I can practically hear his thoughts! "Oh, how cute, she is giving me the cold shoulder! Aww. Well, I'll just keep joking around until she gets the bug out of her ass."

So here is my attempt to articulate why the whole "can't you take a joke" thing makes me so angry. What someone is saying, when they come back at you with that phrase or something similar, is this:

"I should be able to point out something about you that is different from me, and I should be able to use that thing to insult you whenever I feel like it. I might be thinking I am funny, I might be angry at you, I might just be talking. The point is, it shouldn't matter what YOU think about it. I should be able to say those things about you, and you should be all right with it. If you aren't, then clearly the problem is yours. Now, not only are you different from me in the first way I pointed out, you are also not even courteous enough to think I am clever/right/superior!"

There is more, I just can't put it into words.

I know there's no sense in putting this all out there for HIM to read, because clearly I will just get more of the same. Actually, if I put that out there, the next thing he would do is probably start calling names like "feminazi" and "angry bitch," etc. "God, what is your PROBLEM?????" he would think. 

I think, it's just not worth the energy, and I'm going to delete him from my friends list. I just really don't like him anymore. I'm not sure I ever did.

"Uh, not so much"

Here's a direct quote from this fantastically misogynist article featuring pictures of celebrities (women) without make-up: "And some of them still look completely stunning without a stitch of makeup, and others ... uh, not so much ..."
How awesome is the self-named BeautyRiot Diva! How great that she wrote a blog entry showing famous women in their natural state, and proceeded to point out every line, pimple, spot, and other so-called imperfection on their faces. The secondary headline reads, "Madonna's greasy look." The photo shows Madonna wearing a baseball cap with hair that is clearly wet, not greasy, and the most logical assumption is that she just came from a workout at the gym, since THAT'S WHAT SHE DOES. In my world of middle-school teaching, this kind of thing is called bullying. Women have enough trouble in our patriarchal society without attacking each other in this manner. Most male celebrities wear make-up for their red carpet appearances and shows as well. They look just as different. Is there a male blogger somewhere posting pictures of men without their stage makeup and making snarky comments? Possibly. Is that type of thing featured on the Yahoo! home page? Certainly not. So, let's think of the general rule for deciding whether something is misogynist and/or sexist. Could you do the same thing with men without appearing ridiculous?
Click here to comment on BeautyRiot Diva's blog.

Frustration!!!!

I want out!! I want out of teaching!!! I can't do it another year! I don't even know if I can do it another week. I'm so fucking sick of being treated like shit. By the parents, by the administration, by the kids. All for the privilege of a $0.10 bank balance. So I am thinking of getting a roommate so I can pay my bills, and I am trying to picture life with a stranger here. I will have to give up a LOT. Such as: cleaning when I fucking feel like it, not when the house is dirty; walking around naked whenever I want, which is always; loud sex; laying around naked on the couch eating, watching TV and farting; basically, everything I enjoy about coming home. Get a roommate and lose my safe haven, so that I can keep the job that I need the safe haven from??? None of this makes any sense!

Linkage

I finally linked my blog on IBTP, so some of y'all feminists might come over here. Be warned. It's boring and stupid. I write about nothing except my struggles with teaching, money, and my bipolar disorder. Read further if you dare, but you WILL lose brain cells.

Looking Forward

It's the first week back at school after spring break. The first week back after a break is always difficult. The kids don't want to be there, I don't want to be there, and we're all exhausted by the time the end of the week rolls around. I have been taking a tiny bit of xanax in the mornings because otherwise I will be losing my temper and therefore control of the class. It's working so far.
We are about to have our final round of retention meetings. This is the time of year when we decide who we are actually going to retain, and we fill out the official paperwork. It's not so much fun, but necessary.
I have started donating plasma so that I don't have to get a roommate. I had no idea it paid so well! However, the last time I went in my blood was too thick, and it clotted. On top of that, I had an inept phlebotomy technician who did not place the needle properly in my vein. The result was a whole lot of wasted time and a huge bruise on my right arm because they were moving the needle around in there trying to get the blood to flow. Then I had to get stuck in the other arm! And still they only got half the plasma I usually donate. I still got paid, so who cares. The problem is I don't want to go again because the last time hurt so bad. I think I am going to tell them they need to get someone experienced to put the needle in, otherwise it's not going to go well.
I am getting ready to exercise for the first time in a long time. I set my alarm for 45 minutes earlier this morning, and I am bound and determined to get out there. My mental state is not good, and it isn't something that more medication will cure. I am feeling bad about myself because I'm so heavy right now, and the lack of exercise means less natural endorphins, which means my medication isn't as effective. This is something I need to fix myself instead of asking for more pills. This is one of the few things I have control over right now, and I know that just getting out there is going to make a huge difference in my mood. It's just so hard sometimes to put my shoes on and go.
My so-called relationship is at the breaking point. I feel as though I have to walk on eggshells to avoid arguments, and some weird shit went down yesterday that made me feel so unsettled that my stomach hurt. I got the key to my apartment back, and it's staying in the junk drawer where it belongs. I'd rather be single that have this much stress. I wish I could pick better men.
Here's to a great day! Thanks for listening, blog.

Oh the exhaustion

Recently my partner teacher and I split our classes. She took the top 15 students and I took the remainder. The good news is that 4 of our SPED kids went with her!! The bad news is I forgot how exhausting it was to teach SPED by myself 5 periods a day. So far the results are fantastic, and it is definitely enjoyable and rewarding. I love those kids to death. Bonus - I get to teach the kids who struggle with math but haven't been identified as SPED. So they get the instruction they need that if it weren't for the co-teaching, they would never receive. It makes their chances of improving their test scores and understanding increase greatly. But, it is truly exhausting. I feel I could sleep for 10 years. I am teaching at the community college this morning. After that I have an appointment with my shrink and then I need to go across town to get my computer and a new charger. After that I need to get some medicine for my daughter, who I suspect has an ulcer, because she is broke. She also needs some non-solid food to eat while the medicine takes effect. Luckily I got a community college paycheck that I didn't realize was coming, so I have the money to do it.
Yesterday I didn't teach. I had the day to write education plans for my SPED students. I am way far behind and definitely out of compliance as far as the law is concerned regarding these plans. I went to go in and finish a plan that I had started last month, and saw that the idiot department head at my school, who doesn't know how to write a proper plan, had re-written the entire thing so that it was completely out of compliance. I spent 2 hours re-writing and finishing it. Luckily I had printed a copy beforehand, so I didn't have to re-analyze the data. I was so pissed. I finished 2.5 plans. While I was working, 2 teachers emailed me to complain about my sub. I deleted and kept working. WTF? I should stop working and go take over because the sub is incompetent? Just because I am on campus? I don't think so. They absolutely refuse to let me work from home on these days, even though I could get twice as much work done. Idiots.
Another interesting thing that happened yesterday: I had analyzed the data for our 1st period math intervention classes following the most recent standardized test. The results were absolutely dismal. I met with the principal and one of the women from the district office who is supposed to help us get our school get its collective act together. There are 4 math intervention classes. Every student in the 4 classes fell far below the state standards in math at the end of testing last year. In other words, these kids have gaps in their understanding. They are not working at grade level and they need help. In January, I split the kids into four groups: falls far, far, far, far below; falls far, far, far below; falls far, far below; and falls far below. I used test scores to divide them up. (I have no special authority - I am not the department head and I don't lead in any assigned way. The principal let me take charge of this thing because I wanted to, and he knows everything I do is data driven.) When I analyzed the data, I found that the top two groups of kids had shown significant drops in their scores between the 2nd quarter and 3rd quarter benchmark tests. Almost all of the kids' scores went down. I'm talking about kids who were falling far below are now falling far, far, far, far below. In the bottom two groups of kids, the higher of the two groups showed a modest average gain in their scores. Half of those kids had increased their scores, and the other half decreased. The bottom group, which is my group, showed significant gains. Every single one of them. Now, this isn't about me, it's about the program I am using. The kids are the ones that did the work, not me. It's not about my teaching. It's a direct reflection of the effectiveness of this program that I learned how to use while working at one of the top districts in the state.
When I shared this data and my thoughts about what was happening, both the principal and the woman from the district reacted by telling me what a good job I was doing. I kept saying it's not about me, and the reason I am telling you this is because we need to get the other teachers to use this program because then we won't have to get these takedowns like we did on Wednesday. I don't know if they got the message. It's really frustrating. We can help these kids. We can fill in those gaps and get them up to grade level, or at least closer. It's such a simple program to follow. All the work is already done as far as the teacher's job. All the teacher has to do is administer. Time the drills, give the kids stars on their charts when they earn them, etc. EASY AS PIE!! If only I ruled the world.

It's rough out there!

It's crunch time - one more month before state standardized testing - and the stress is beginning to show. On the part of the district, we had the take-down on Wednesday. On the part of the teachers, there is much less tolerance for behavior issues. Students who disrupt instruction are being dealt with expediently. I've had more parent meetings the last few weeks than I have had all year. Different teachers take charge of setting up meetings, and usually the teacher who is having the worst time with the kid sets up the meeting. The meetings are almost always depressing. That's if the parents bother to show up.
We find out the kind of struggles families are having, during these meetings. We find out what kind of parenting is happening. We find out all kinds of yucky things. Usually the parents want to put the blame on the teachers. Typically, they don't bring the kid to the meeting, so we can't call the kid out on the way they are playing us against the parents.
Yesterday I found out that two of my students, a pair of twin boys, are preparing to move because their parents are losing their house. The twins have been acting up the past month or so. They have always been energetic, but now they are actually causing problems. How could they not - their safety net is being yanked out from under them.
Then, after school I had a meeting for a SPED kid. Out of 46 days of instruction, he has been present for 30. Mom just can't understand why he is failing. He is already at a tremendous disadvantage because of his learning disability. How can we teach him anything when he is absent at least 2 days out of every 5? Half the days he has been at school, he has been in ISS. And then we take heat from the parent. Nice, huh?
Meanwhile, another meeting was taking place in another classroom. This kid got hit by a car on his bike about a month ago and sustained a permanent injury to his neck. Since then, he has decided he doesn't have to do any work. He is a really good kid and he is also SPED. He has made so much progress this year, it's incredible. Now he is going backwards because something horrible happened to him and he doesn't know how to deal with it. I wasn't there, of course, so I will find out today what level of support we are getting from the parents, and whether there is a chance he can turn things around.
There are many more stories. They weigh heavily on our minds. As teachers, it is our instinct to want to make everything better for our students. It's a double-edged sword because there is so much in their lives that we can't help with. We just don't have that kind of control.
These things, along with three jobs, my mental illness, and trying to sustain a relationship with a man are crushing me. There are days when I think the relationship just has to go. I don't have time to pay attention to anyone when I get home. I don't want to talk. I want to sit and watch TV and eat. I'm just not a good partner.
There is nothing I can do about the 3 jobs. I have to keep all of them. In fact I need another one. I cannot make ends meet with things as they are. I feel really good about the fact that I am not using my credit cards and that my debt has been reduced substantially already. I've changed my lifestyle and I'm proud of that. I know that if I can just hang in there, and keep letting things work themselves out (which they always do, financially speaking) then my life will be much more enjoyable. The stress of work and relationships won't take such a toll because I will be relaxed about the money part. I won't have to work 3 jobs once my debt is paid off. If I stay focused on the outcome, I'm in a much better place! I can do that most of the time. Sometimes, especially when I've had a rough day at work, I just kind of sink down into thinking about the negative things. Especially the things that are happening with my students that I have no control over. It's just part of being a teacher. If I can be there for that kid, smile at them every day and be happy to see them, it makes their lives easier (I hope). There is a lot that I CAN do, and today, I'll try to stay focused on that.

Deja Vu, and not the good kind

Last year, about this time, the superintendent came to the school where I taught and read the staff the riot act. There were many thinly veiled threats to our jobs if our students didn't do well on the upcoming state standardized tests. The possibility of the state coming in and taking over the school was discussed... but the superintendent made sure we knew that he wasn't worried about HIS job; he said, "I have three board members in my pocket. You think I'm worried? YOU should be worried!" I kid you not - that is exactly what he said. And in a raised voice and none too pleasant tone.
The result of this badgering session was a lot of anger and frustration on the part of some of the staff. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. In the end, things went on as they had before, and the students did about as well as we all expected. The state didn't come in and take over the school, but the principal was reassigned somewhere else in the district, and many of the newer teachers, including myself, were laid off.
Yesterday, somebody from the district office came in and read the staff at my current school the riot act. I wasn't listening when the principal said his title. I don't know or care who he was. I know he is a higher-up - it was obvious from his arrogant demeanor and the disrespectful delivery of his message.
When he finished telling all of us what a shitty job we were collectively doing, and how a panel from the district office would be observing next week, and how we were going to go through a "solutions team" process so that we could stop doing a shitty job, he graciously took questions from the audience. I mean, the staff.
The reaction we gave him was very similar to the one the superintendent got last year from my former co-workers. Some of the staff was hurt, angry, and upset. Hands were raised and teachers were defending themselves, having been put on the defensive by the tone of his message. He didn't interrupt anyone, he made eye contact with whomever was speaking, and he nodded periodically to show that he was listening. However, there was no emotional reaction whatsoever. No body language, no facial expression, nothing to indicate that what he was hearing was at all of concern to him. And of course, it wasn't. He had come to do a job, and he had done it. The question-and-answer session was merely a courtesy to the staff.
I felt hurt and betrayed, and devalued and demoralized, and everything that I felt last year at this time. This year, however, there was a nagging little voice in the back of my head that was making some sense. This voice asked me a few questions:
"Who do you see getting angry and defensive and speaking up?"
"Who do you see just sitting there?"
Herein lies the problem with trying to defend the teaching profession. Those who spend time and energy defending the job they are doing and explaining why it is so difficult to be successful are the ones who do not need to defend their teaching. They are good teachers.
Those who just sit there are the ones who always sit there. They sit there during class time. They sit there during meetings. They sit in the room in which the district or principal requires them to be, and they sit there.
Those are the teachers that the asshats from the district are talking to.
There's a problem with this: Those teachers won't respond. They don't care.
They know there is a small chance they will lose their jobs. They know that this will only happen if the state actually does take over, which they won't, because the funding for that program was cut last year and it pretty much doesn't exist anymore.
They are union members. They are shitty teachers. They just sit there.
The same thing is happening in Wisconsin. The teachers protesting at the capital are the last ones that should be there. They deserve to keep their jobs and their benefits, because they are good teachers. They care. If they didn't, they wouldn't be protesting in the first place.
The unions need to go away. The collective bargaining needs to go away. It is only then that the asshats will be free to say to a teacher who is just sitting there, "You are part of the problem in this school. You aren't getting a contract next year." As things stand right now, they don't have the power to do that. They know that they will never be able to prove the level of incompetence that is required in order to fire a teacher. Nor do they have the time and the resources to gather the materials that would be necessary for such a thing.
My bottom line is this: I am a teacher. I go to work every day to teach. From now on, in those meetings, I am going to be one of the ones that just sits there. But it won't be because I don't care. It will be because I DO care, and I am saving my energy for my students.

Ok, maybe not!

So I took $50 out of my emergency fund to have enough money for my ACCC payment. Then I hid it and said the hell with it, my emergency fund is $950 and that's all I have to say about that. When everything comes out of my checking account I will have $0.65. I get paid on the 11th. I am tutoring today and I am really hoping that she will pay me when I leave her house because then I can go to the store and buy cheese. As you know, blog, cheese is my main food group. Yesterday I thought I had cheese in the refrigerator, so I spent my last few dollars on a can of enchilada sauce and some corn tortillas. I was going to make cheese enchiladas and MAN was I looking forward to them. Then, I got home and I didn't have cheese! I ate it and I don't even remember when. So I made spaghetti and tater tots instead. Don't worry, blog, I am not starving! I just really wanted those cheese enchiladas!
There is bad news. I did my budget worksheet and I am short $450 of the monthly expenses. I can't figure out what the hell is wrong. Well, that's not exactly true. All together, my payments on all of my debt are about the same as one paycheck. My rent is more than half of my second paycheck. That leaves less than half of one paycheck for all my utilities, car insurance, medical expenses, and food. I'm living on just my own salary now and the numbers simply do not add up. I'm thinking a 4th job isn't possible. I can't work on weekends because I teach at Pima some Saturdays. A night job isn't a possibility - I need more sleep than most and I would lose my tentative grip on sanity. So I don't know.
A little Wednesday Bitchery - when I watch the news coverage of the situation in Wisconsin, with the unions, I keep hearing about how public sector employees have these great benefits. It makes me see red. What great benefits? Seriously? Everyone who knows me, knows what I think about the teacher's unions. I haven't changed my mind. I want to be a teacher and I want my job performance to be evaluated based on how my students show growth in their learning. I don't want my job to be hinging on how many years I have been teaching. That doesn't make any sense. So I want the unions to go away. Right now with all this hubbub, the teaching profession is being absolutely demonized. So we're getting it from both ends right now. I truly do not understand where people get the idea that we make so much money for what we do and have these great benefits. I wish I could get 20/20 or Dateline or somebody to come and film my days for about a week. They could blur out everyone else's faces. I think it would help give the private sector a serious and bracing reality check regarding what teachers actually do, and how difficult it is to survive on teacher's wages.

Better

My cough seems to have changed its mind. Not a single cough during the night!
My insurance company says I have no deductible for mental health, just a copay.
I still don't want to go anywhere but I wonder how much of it has to do with needing to recuperate from work? I've been sleeping 12 hours a night but what if it's not depression? Today I don't feel depressed.
I have my emergency fund in an envelope but now my bank account will be overdrawn when my ACCC payment comes out, unless some money appears in my account between now and then. I will stubbornly choose to wait until the last moment for that to happen, before I put back part of my emergency fund! I so want to be finished with it! Buying all that medicine for my illness set me back almost that entire hundred dollars. Stupid cough.
The lady I am tutoring takes her test on Monday. I told her yesterday I'm way to invested in the results! If she doesn't pass I'll feel like I'M the one who failed! I really do think she will pass. She's doing so well.

The crazy's got me.

The crazy has got me in its evil, evil clutches. Fortunately, I have things to do that will force me out of the house today. I have a list of things to do but yesterday I just laid around feeling sorry for myself. Today I am tutoring the lady who is trying to become a kindergarten teacher, and I am hoping that once I get showered and out of the house, I will feel better and will go ahead and do the things that are on my list.
I think there are a few things contributing to this new and seemingly inevitable trip down depression lane. First, it's never good to have an illness that is dragging on. I have had no voice for the last 8 days. The cough started to go away, and now is coming back, as I knew it would. But I was so prepared this year. I have been writing everything down since day 1. I wrote my symptoms and how much medicine I have been taking, and which kinds. Now when I go see Dr. Min on Monday, I will have been managing by myself for the last 12 days, and he will have to do something. My logic is that if I had gone after the first few days, like everyone was telling me, he would have just sent me home, telling me to take the medicine I was already taking, and see if it would clear up on its own. So I just skipped that step, which would have cost $40 and been completely useless. See? But I think being sick for more than a week or so takes its toll on my mental health.
The second contributing factor is being off work for more than 2 days at a time. It's just never good for me to have too much time on my hands.
The third, and most relevant thing, is that I have got myself in a cycle of blaming myself and feeling sorry for myself because of the fact that I have this disease and it's progressing as I age. When I went to see this guy that does the intensive outpatient therapy, he corrected me when I said that I was bipolar. He said that I am not bipolar, I am not this disease, I HAVE this disease. A diabetic person wouldn't say I am diabetes, they would say I am diabetic. Semantics? I don't know. Anyway, I have a lot of self-hatred going on, and I just keep going back to the fact that this will never go away. I will never be "better." All I can do is manage it, with the help of my support system. Keeping in mind that I am lucky, SO lucky, to have the support system that I have usually helps. But I have even found a way to keep that from helping, by developing this overwhelming fear that the people in my life that comprise my support system will get sick of dealing with me and will abandon me. I am sick of myself. So how can they not get sick of me? I hate being around me. So how can they not hate being around me? I just feel like an asshole.
The fourth and probably most important contributing factor is that I haven't been exercising. Exercise is like a 5th pill that I should be taking every day. I can blame the illness for the past few weeks, but even with the cough I could be taking a walk every day. At least I think that would be ok. (It seems like going outside makes the cough worse, so maybe it wouldn't be ok. On the other hand it might help. Dammit Jim, I'm a teacher, not a doctor!!! hahah!!!)
So I think I really need this outpatient therapy. It just pisses me off that going to this therapy is going to set me back as far as my financial freedom! It pisses me off that I need it, period! I don't want to drive clear across town (it's an hour drive after work to get there, no joke) three times a week! I'm not sure that is a good idea! I will have to either quit my tutoring job or have something to do after work every single night of the week. How can that be a good thing? I do have the option of doing the therapy twice a week instead of three times. The social worker recommended against it, but it's still an option. The cost in gasoline will be huge. I'll have to stop for something to eat every time. I just don't know!!!
I"m seeing Dr. Saeed next weekend, and I'm definitely not in the frame of mind to hurt myself, so don't worry, blog. I recognize the stupid depression for what it is. And I know I will feel better if I do the things that I am supposed to do, one of which is letting my support system know that I am having difficulty. Check. Also keep taking my meds and keeping my mood chart. Check. Get out of the house. Check. So it will be ok. Writing about it helps. Check. It's gonna get better.

It's actually working out!

I got both my refunds, and finished my emergency fund, and paid off the small B of A loan. Now I can start paying off my car. If I can put even $100 more toward my car payment, then I will have it paid off in less than a year. Hopefully I can get a good job over the summer and pay it off then. That's an extra $350 a month I can put toward the credit card I have in Mom's name. Then, when I put that money plus the money I have already been paying toward that every month, I should have that paid off in about a year. It's a long process but getting into this much debt took a lot longer. And it feels so good to be living within my means. I can't believe I will have a car that's paid for! I wouldn't have imagined such a thing a year ago! All of this of course barring disaster. Something is bound to come up between now and then, but I have the money saved to pay for a disaster up front, and then I'll just build back my emergency fund and keep going. Ramsey's plan is taking me a hell of a lot longer than he said it would, but then my situation is kind of extreme.
For now, I see the light at the end of my debt tunnel, and it is exciting. Just to have hope is an incredible gift.

The cooties got me!!

It's a chest cold. NOOOOO!!! I have no voice and my chest hurts. The worst part is not being able to talk. Everyone knows how much I like to talk. But it kind of hurts to do it. It's a good exercise in listening!! haha.
My tax refund should be coming in a couple of days. Then I can finish my emergency fund and pay off the small B of A loan that wasn't included in the debt consolidation. I need to take my Mac to this place in Tucson that fixes them - if they can get it to start I can get my budget worksheets off of it! Really I need to just quit being lazy and do them over again. I'll have to get right on that.
Testing today at school and I have to read the math part out loud. I really don't think that's happening! I will have to ask the administration if they can trade me with someone who doesn't have to read but who knows how. I'm sure it will work out. I got the kids some capri-suns and some fruit and crackers. They don't eat breakfast, because they are turd pre-teens, and then around 9:00 their little stomachs start growling. Totally ruins their focus. Well not on my watch!
So about the outpatient therapy program. I have about $100 left on my fsa card that I should be able to use for that. I need to call the insurance company and ask them if this is a mental health care deductible, because if it is, then the co-pays for Dr. Saeed this year should count toward it. I am trying to decide if I really need to go. My past experience with my disease says that if I am trying to tell myself I don't need it, then it's probably the first thing I need. Especially if the doctor told me I need it. So. I'm going to keep thinking about it.

I might have it

It was another good day, mood-wise. I think I am leveling off! Yay!

Well, shit.

I think the people at the district have really done everything they can about the broken air conditioning system, and the classroom topped out yesterday at 82 degrees. Much better, bearable I think, so as long as the weather doesn't get any warmer we'll be ok. Yesterday a boy came in and he had just had P.E. He couldn't cool off because it was so warm in the classroom. He told me he felt like he was going to pass out. This is a tough kid who never complains so it was kind of scary. His face was all red and he did not look good. I told him to get some water and he did cool off eventually. In an evil way I wish he had fainted because then we might get some attention from somebody who can pay the money to fix what's broken.
We have testing this week. Yuck. The school and probably the district is out of compliance as far as meeting accommodations for our SPED kids. I told the bigwigs what needed to be done and nobody even responded to me. So, I took matters into my own hands and sent out an email to all staff who is proctoring SPED tests. I told them in no uncertain terms what they had better be doing and if they weren't doing it then they were breaking federal law. The reaction I got was funny. Two people wrote back. First the principal, who said good email and that the admin would be following up by visiting the SPED classrooms. Then a bigwig from the district, saying "Thank you Sxxxx, now maybe we can get some compliance." Sxxxx is the school psychologist - one of the people who didn't respond when I told him we were out of compliance. The person whose JOB it is to make sure this is happening. So. You can see how awesome our SPED department is. Bunch of asshats. All of them. Then, I had two SPED teachers thank me for sending the email. Whatever! One of them was the head of the SPED dept. for our school! Whatever!! We agreed that we would check with our kids and ask them if their accommodations were happening. Whatever! Ugh!!! Thanks for the help, people who were supposed to be doing this in the first place!
After work yesterday I went to an intake appointment for the intensive outpatient program Dr. Saeed said I needed to come to. I spent 2.5 friggin hours answering a billion questions about very private matters. Then, at 6:30 p.m., they tell me I have a $500 deductible and the cost for each session is $90. The program is 3 sessions per week. 6 weeks in I would be done paying and I don't even know how long I would need to participate. I said there is just no way I can pay that money, and they said well sorry, bye. I wish I could tell all the jerks who insist we don't need healthcare reform about this. I wonder what they would say? I work for the government, in the most thankless job in the country, and I can't get benefits that will allow me the treatment I need. This in spite of spending over $2,000 each year to get the meager benefits I do have. Last year I spent over $1,400 out of pocket on medical expenses. If I was able to itemize, I would get that back from the state, but I don't have any mortgage interest or anything like that, so the standard deduction is always higher. It's quite the fun mess. Last year's expenses were high because of that horrible lung infection the first few months of the year, when I had to keep going back to the doctor, the urgent care, and finally the specialist before I got some help. I don't know how many prescriptions I paid for - and for drugs that didn't help. Another good reason for reform. If doctors had some kind of incentive to really figure out what was wrong the FIRST time around, everyone would benefit except those who make a fortune off of sick people. There is absolutely no reason I should have spent $100 on co-pays to see my PCP, who did not test my immune system until the 5th visit. Every time I went to see her, she talked about my weight and my diet instead of my hacking cough, wheezing, low body temperature and general weakness and malaise. My lungs have never been the same since. I spent $150 on three visits to the urgent care when I was so sick I almost couldn't get through the days. Then $80 on co-pays for the specialist.
So I have to call Dr. Saeed to tell him I can't afford the treatment he recommends, and I already know that he is going to tell me I really need to do this, and I will say it's either rent or therapy, and we'll both sigh and shake our heads, and life will go on. And hopefully I won't have another episode, and will get control of my moods. The last 2 days have been ok. Just keep praying, blog. Please let today be better than yesterday.

Hardball

I decided to play hardball in my quest to get reasonable classroom temperatures. I applied for jobs at Pima over the weekend, and then found out from a colleague who works there that there are huge cuts coming in the fall. They are closing one of the campuses and looking to place the people that will be ousted. They are not hiring AT ALL. However I think she might be talking about full-time faculty positions, which I don't have a shot at anyway. What I want is adjunct faculty positions teaching math classes. The website says they are hiring for that. So I can still hope.
Anyway I sent the principal and assistant principal an email yesterday morning stating that I had applied for some jobs over the weekend and they might be receiving some calls. Lo and behold, dear blog, the assistant principal was in the room at least three times checking on the temperature. Someone was up in the ceiling with a ladder by third period. I went to the back of the room, where the vents are, while he was up there. I felt cooler air coming out almost immediately. I asked him what he had done. He said he closed the valve. It took him all of 5 minutes. He said now you won't have anything coming in at all. I said GREAT! He explained a little bit about what is wrong with the system and why it's only our classroom that is suffering. It turns out the heating system turns on based on the temperature outside the school instead of inside the classroom. How stupid is that?
A little later, both the principal and assistant principal came in and came directly to me. The assistant principal says he has an update, and that they had bypassed the heating system entirely. He said it might get kind of cold in the room. I said I can always put MORE clothes on. I don't mind the cold! I am really hoping that this morning when I walk in, I won't feel like it's summer in Tucson and I'm walking straight into an open oven. We'll see. I wish they had done it sooner because now I am getting sick, and I am almost certain that walking in and out of the extreme temperatures is what did it. I was coughing that barky cough each time I walked from the hot room into the cold outside. I told the school nurse, who also knows about my bipolar and my immune system deficiency. Now the cough hurts and my chest feels compressed. Stupid bastards.
In other news, my Mac completely died. It won't turn on at all. All of my budget information is in there. Now I am really making a mess with my finances, because I need to start over and I don't want to do the work. I am using my work laptop. I am spending money based on my federal tax refund that should be coming but hasn't made its anticipated appearance. Ugh!!!

I spent.

I taught at Pima today until noon, and then tutored from 5 - 7. I treated myself to a pedicure. It wasn't a good pedicure, which pisses me off because it was $25 which is probably cheap... I don't know. My feet are not any smoother than they were when I went in. Anyway my toes look nice, which is good because I am wearing flip-flops in my classroom in order to bear the heat. I covered one of the vents with a posterboard and duct tape, and the classroom cooled down to below 80, but by the afternoon it was back up past 80 and it didn't matter. I told my co-teacher we need to both call in sick or something, until they fix it, and she said "I'm not that dramatic." So, I think this might be the last straw. I'm sick of working in a profession that is so pathetically undervalued. The state is talking about cutting the capital part of the education budget, which means even less money for things like building maintenance and desks. I have a fucking master's degree and I am making the same salary that Leslie will be making when she starts her job at the U of A bursar's office on Monday. None of that would matter if I felt like I was making a difference in the world, but the bottom line is that I spend about half my time babysitting because the kids don't give a shit and either they have no parents, or their parents don't care either. The other half the time I do teach, and sometimes I make a difference, and that used to be enough. But I am just fed up. So I am putting feelers out. I want to teach adults who are going back to school in an effort to change or better their careers. I think community college might be my best bet. I'm looking.

3rd job

I have a third job for a while - about 2 months, I think. Last Spring, I went to a little eggs n' hash browns type place to eat. I was there by myself, grading papers. The waitress asked me about the papers and I told her I taught math. She said she was in school to be a teacher (she wants Kindergarten, ugh) and that the math was really getting in her way. I gave her my number and told her if she ever wanted tutoring, I would charge $15/hour and teach her the math.
A couple of weeks ago she called me out of the blue. Her program is coming to an end and she still hasn't passed this test she needs called the Praxis. I would say the test goes up to about 8th grade math.
I looked at her test, and listened to her talk about the problems she had the most difficulty with, and asked questions until I understood what was blocking her progress. Well, to be quite honest, this poor woman has zero number sense. So I told her that if she felt at any point that I was condescending to her, let me know right away, and I began at the beginning. I drew her a picture of the number line and I could SEE her panic coming up. We talked about what she already knew, and I gave her lots and lots of positive feedback until she relaxed. I told her some things that I said would make sense the more we studied, but for now she just needed to accept these things as facts. Things like, there are as many numbers on the number line between 0 and 1 as there are on the entire number line from negative to positive infinity. Then we talked about our base 10 number system, and I showed her how the names of the place values correspond to the number of times you multiply or divide by 10. It took a lot of patience and a LOT of smiling and telling her she was fine so that she would relax. That will go away as time goes by and she sees that she is safe with me. Safety is a big issue here and it appears that's in no small part due to her idiot husband. He happened to be in the kitchen while I was talking about base 10. I was talking about money, since that is the best example of base 10 in our culture. I asked her what I would have if I broke up a dollar into ten equal pieces, what would I be holding in my hand. She had NO IDEA. It wasn't because she is that dumb. It was because she was panicking. I just slowed down, asked the question a couple of different ways, and waited. Well her dumbass husband, while she's thinking, walks by and says, "This isn't hard, babe!!!" in a nasty tone and with a frustrated look on his face. My head must have whipped around pretty fast and I probably didn't have a very nice look on my face, but all I said was, "She's thinking, it's ok..." in a really gentle tone. Whatever look I gave him inspired him to disappear for the rest of the session. I told her straight up that she needs support from him. She justified and made excuses, but I told her and that's all I can do. If I get the chance I will straighten his ass out.
I left her with homework and we set up the next appointment.
Attitudes and beliefs about math are so much a bigger problem than math itself. People have this idea that they should just be able to do it. That they should be able to look at something once and understand it. This is wrong. It's a belief that I blame on the male scientific community and the patriarchy in general. Here's why: Our school system was designed for white males. Since the inception of our educational history, the people privileged enough to move forward in their education have been the ones that take the least amount of time to understand the hard sciences. These (still) happen to be white males, and this is NOT a coincidence. It takes only a little bit of investigation to realize that it is a FACT that white males get more attention, more preferential seating, more help, and more encouragement than any other subgroup. FACT. They get more out of every teacher, regardless of gender or race of the teacher, than any other subgroup. Our patriarchy in action. Additionally, this population tends to be more privileged in general, having parent(s) that are available to help them, access to tutoring and other resources, and a structured household that values education. They have books, and parents/siblings that read, and have been learning an educated vocabulary their entire lives.
My best response to women (and it's always women) who display these beliefs is to turn in back on what they are good at. I said to this woman, "I would never expect to be able to go into your restaurant, watch you wait tables for a while, and then get up and do it myself without making any mistakes. I would expect a complete disaster." She nodded and I could see a little bit of understanding coming into her eyes. I said, "That is a learned skill that I don't have. So you have got to take it easy on yourself and give it some time. I will help you and you will be successful at this. But you can't have the expectation that it's going to come just like that." I could see her shoulders relax. It was awesome.
She only has a month left before she has to take the test again, and if she fails it this time, they have to pull her out of her program and she has to wait for the next available opening. Stupid University of Phoenix. She should have called me earlier but I know how hard it is to ask for help. After she takes and passes the Praxis, she has to take and pass the AEPA a month later.
My financial bottom line: This is an extra $30 - $45 per week for the next couple of months. YAY!!! And it's almost effortless. Adults are so easy to tutor. They do the work, they follow directions, and they try their best. If they don't understand something, they are usually able to articulate it. So it's like getting money for say, running errands, but it's even better because it's rewarding!
Anyway I am blogging instead of writing IEP's, planning for teaching at Pima this Saturday, and exercising. I have way too much to do in the next few days, and not enough time or energy to get it all done. I have to be careful because of my recent mood episode not to overdo it. Eh, it will work out. It always does. My co-teacher was not resentful. She was just glad I was back. The blower in the classroom is putting out a jetstream of 90 degree air. It is absolutely miserable in there. I told the kids that their parents need to call the district office and complain, because my pleas for help certainly aren't getting us anywhere. I really don't understand what the problem is. It's nice outside. All they have to do is block the vent. Oh hey, that gives me an idea... if I get there today and it's still blowing hot air, I'm going to duct tape posterboard over it. Oh, that is totally what I'm going to do. I'll keep you updated, dear blog.

PS

I probably will lose a friend, but it will be my choice. He's been one of my best friends for 5 years... he's the guy I co-taught with in Vail. He taught me about special education. We never lost touch. Yesterday on Facebook (which I really should have been staying away from, but I don't know, I couldn't stop with the interwebs) he asked me if I was off work. I said yes, I was having a really hard time. He asked why, and I said I don't think I ever told you the extent of my mental illness. He said that I hadn't. I thought for a second, and then said, I have bipolar. He said, and I quote, "Gee, you could have fooled me! LOL" I didn't say anything. He said something about you have to laugh at life. I said yeah I laugh at my disease all the time, but not when it's winning. Then I went offline.
I never want to speak to him again.

My Wishes

I learned how to make the sugar-free creamer! I put 3 cups 1% milk, 1 cup heavy cream, 12 sweet n' low packets, and a dollop of vanilla. It tastes better than the store-bought one. I wonder if there is such thing as caramel extract? Oh!! There is sugar-free caramel syrup! I will try it next time. YUM.
I got my state tax refund just in time to avoid overdrawing my account when my car insurance comes out. I hate this out-of-control feeling. I feel almost like I'm back to square one, but really I'm not because I do have some emergency funds, and I do have a budget that is workable, and when I get my federal return I'll be in good shape. I am afraid that I will go on a shopping binge... especially after this last depression. With my disease, there tends to be an equal and opposite swing for every time I go up or down. If I go into a mania, then there is a good chance I'll spend. But this time might be different because the depression was caused by the change in meds. We'll see what happens. Next week I'll start an intensive outpatient program that is supposed to help me develop skills to better manage my moods on my own, when I find them swinging around. Dr. Saeed says this might help because I am compliant with my treatment and those are the patients that are usually able to learn these new skills. It's called Dialectical Behavior Therapy. I don't know, it sounds kind of tree-huggy but if Dr. Saeed says it will help then I will try it.
I have called in sick the last 2 days, and I think my co-teacher is resentful. It doesn't help that our classroom is still 85 degrees. She was taking the classes down to the auditorium and other places to escape the heat, which to me is a very bad idea, but I wasn't there so I can't judge. I just know that change of venue is a really bad idea with my SPED kids because they tend to lose all control of their behavior.
I wish I could tell the people at work how dangerous it is when I am unstable, without fear of stigmatism. People hear the word "bipolar" and they think, oh my god, that person is crazy and is not to be trusted! And that kind of attitude is even worse when you're a teacher. I wish I could make them understand that I am aware of when I am unstable and I know what to do when it happens, and that includes calling in sick because my mood is out of control. I wish I didn't have this disease but wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up. I don't tell them what is wrong. I just say I can't function yet, I need another day. This has happened twice this school year, and both times it took 2 days. It doesn't seem like such a crime to me. Maybe I am paranoid. Scratch that, I KNOW I am paranoid.
But, I do know that I make people mad and I hurt their feelings when I am in the bowels of my disease. I don't know when I'm doing it. It happens when I'm not me. I just see people withdraw from me and I don't even want to ask what I did anymore because it hurts to know I am behaving badly and I can't control it. When I am functioning, my social skills are normal (I think). But when I'm having a hard time, I think they just kind of go away. I lose empathy and I lose the ability to consider others' feelings before I act. At least I think that's what happens. I don't really know. I think people get frustrated because they can talk to me, and I can sort of make sense, and they see that I can talk and communicate and walk around so they don't understand why I can't go to work or go out or behave normally or function socially. How do I explain? I can't. I just have to keep apologizing, when I am Melissa again, and hope that they let it go. I don't know what else to do besides apologize. The truth is, when I am in that state, I don't give a shit what happens with other people or situations. I think, work still runs when I'm not there. People still have their own lives when I'm not there. Deal with it. Because I can't right now. I don't want to be alive. I do things like drink all day long or take extra pills. I do whatever I have to do to escape. I probably say things that are offensive or insensitive. It doesn't help that I often can't even remember conversations I had with other people when I was not myself. I don't call anyone until I am on the brink of disaster, because even in my pathetic state of disorder, I know that talking to people = consequences.
Well it feels better to get this all down in writing. The fact is I had an episode and now I'm me again and I have to deal with the consequences of the episode. It's scary... I never know what to expect. Who did I piss off? Who did I frighten? Will I lose a friend? Who will be avoiding me? Have I ruined my relationship with the person of the opposite sex that I have been trying to be with? Is my family still speaking with me? This part is absolutely not paranoia... these are all things that have happened following a significant episode.
You know another thing that is scary? Terrifying, actually. The older I get, the further my disease progresses. What will my life be like in another 10 years? Will I even be alive? Or will I have had an episode that was so bad I didn't make it to the other side?
My children ask me if they are at risk for mental illness. I have to tell them yes. It's the truth. The look on their faces hurts so much. What if at some point I get so crazy that they won't take care of me anymore? What if I turn into my Grandmother, and I am so hurtful that they hire someone to put up with me so they won't have to? I wouldn't blame them... if I get abusive, then I don't want them around. Them or anyone else I love.
And now, I shall begin to count my blessings, because that always helps. I shall also put on my gear and run/walk, because that always helps. I shall go to work, smile and be thankful that I am me again. And I shall wait for the next round. Because it's coming, and there is not a goddamn thing anyone can do about it.

Definitely off track.

A few things are awry right now. The most damaging thing is that my rent and my big credit card payment both come out of one check. My check is big enough for that but there is nothing left for gas, food, necessities. So I have had to dig in to my emergency fund. That made me feel hopeless and I spent money on things like the $6/bottle anti-cavity mouthwash I kind of need but have been doing without, junk food, restaurants, etc. My saving grace is a somewhat healthy tax return which I can use to finish my emergency fund, pay off the small B of A loan, and leave enough cushion to float through those 1st of the month paychecks. Now I am done typing as I have to hunt and peck due to cutting my fingers quite badly whilst trying to make soup with a hangover.

Ach, the frustration!!

Everything seems to be happening so slowly. I had $690 in my emergency fund and last weekend I took $90 to go out with Leslie and have fun. I blew the rest of it on fast food. I don't begrudge doing it much, because I only have so much restraint, and it's better to just take some out and have some fun than deny myself and end up going crazy and spending all of it on stuff I want but don't need. I suspected, when I read Ramsey's assertion that most people can get the emergency fund saved in a couple of months, that I wouldn't fit into that category. I just don't make enough money and I don't have anything else to sell. I already have two jobs and now I am going to start tutoring a woman who is trying to escape waitressdom by going to school but she can't get through the math by herself. I'll probably charge her $10 an hour. Every little bit helps.
I just have to be patient. The money from Vince is helping a ton, but at least half of it is going to my budget, to make up for the parts that just weren't realistic when I set the first amounts. For example the $150 for groceries just isn't realistic, given that makeup, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, etc. comes out of that money. I had budgeted $60 for gas and that wasn't enough... it's more like $80 or $90 with gas prices so high.
Right now I have $1700 coming in my federal tax returns. I am waiting for something from the U of A because I got some fellowship money when I finished my master's this past summer. But I think I might have been taxed on it last year. If I don't get something from them today I'll go ahead and file. With that money I can finish my emergency fund and start my debt snowball. My debt snowball is different from how Ramsey says to do it because I signed up with ACCC. I have decided to pay off the small B of A loan, then the car, then the Hughes credit card that is in Mom's name. Those are the ones that are not included in the ACCC account. Then withdraw from the ACCC program and pay off those 4 accounts, smallest to largest. Then I can tackle my student loans. Freaking $40,000 of student loans... I feel like I will never pay them off before I die, and maybe I won't.

Wow.

A change I haven't been able to make: putting milk and sugar in my coffee instead of the creamer or hot chocolate. Can't do it, and want to use the sugar-free creamer because I use less of it than milk.
I don't have to think about how many times I am eating fast food because I can spend the "restaurant" money on that and when it's gone, it's gone. I just know I'm not going very often at all and it may indeed be once every other week. Probably it's more like once a week.
I have been scrimping on water and electricity and clipping coupons religiously.
I haven't given up my smart phone for a cheaper plan. I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it.
Vince came home and yesterday he brought a ton of food home. Now I just need a few things and I will be able to stay within the budget I set for groceries. WAY exciting.
My paycheck was big because I got my sub pay for last quarter. The money went directly to my emergency fund and now I am more than halfway to my goal of $1,000.00. Unbelievable. I am current on all my debt.
It looks like bankruptcy is not necessary, and now that I am not paying fees and my interest rates are about 1.5%, I no longer feel like I shouldn't have to pay the money back.
I haven't had any trouble dedicating the time I need to work on the budget. I have been checking my bank balance every day but once I saw that the credit card payments had been disbursed by ACCC and I am current on everything, I stopped checking those every day.
So, progress report. I started the Total Money Makeover one month and 2 days ago. In that time, I have accomplished the following:
Become current on all my debt.
Saved a little more than half of my $1,000 emergency fund.
Made a budget and did a really great job considering it's the first month.
Completely and totally changed my attitude about money.
Incredible. What a blessing.

the coffee

The ground coffee I bought doesn't taste bad at all, but I am still going to Costco this weekend to buy a big bag of beans. It is more economical than the ground coffee - I think - I am going to see how long a bag lasts and then I will know which one to buy.
Last night when I went with the girls to see the president, I went straight from work and had to stop for dinner. Since I had commanded the girls to go, I thought I should buy their dinner too. Since we were already at Beyond Bread, that's what we got... we were catching the bus from there, so we couldn't drive through any place. The bus cost $9.00 for the 3 of us. I spent the rest of my spending, grocery, and $10 of my gas money on the sandwiches and bus. Right now all I have in my envelopes is $10 for gas which I need to use today. The good news is I'm halfway through the month, I get paid tonight and still have $30 for groceries, $10 for restaurants, $20 for gas, and $20 for spending coming out of this paycheck. I just might make it on what I budgeted. Probably I will have to adjust it, especially for groceries, but overall I think things are going pretty good for my first month of my first attempt at a budget. If I get the sub pay I am expecting, my paycheck should be quite a bit larger than normal, so I can fit the adjustments in and then put whatever is left toward my emergency fund.
Ramsey says that if you make $20,000 a year or less, you should have $500 in your emergency fund. Otherwise put $1,000. Last year I made somewhere around $33,000. I wonder if I should stop my emergency fund at $750 or so since I am not making that much more than what he considers very low wages.

Also

I had to buy ground coffee instead of beans. I'm really pissed about it.

Patience!

This whole process is going to take a long time and I will have to be patient. At some point I hope I will stop feeling the need to check my account balances almost every day. I should only need to spend time on my finances twice a month, when I get paid.
One of my B of A accounts does not qualify for my debt reduction program because the balance on the account is less than $500. Stupid!
My laptop is seriously on its last legs. It's going to give out and I will be unhappy. I will feel deprived and I might get desperate and crazy and do whatever it takes to get a new mac.
My FSA debit card finally came so I don't have to front cash for my prescriptions for a while.
My cash is going fine so far. I didn't budget enough for groceries though. I have about $50 for the rest of the month and it's only the 9th!

2 things

First, it is really difficult to adjust to this cash thing. I had no idea. On my cash flow sheet, I will have about $50 in my bank account from tomorrow until my next paycheck on the 14th. When I look at it, I have instant anxiety. Nearly 2 weeks without any money?? How will I manage? I have to remind myself that I have cash in envelopes for all the things I will need between now and then. My gas, groceries, restaurants, and misc envelopes all have sufficient money in them (I think) to get me through the next 2 weeks. Total change of mentality! It's going to take some getting used to. I worry that I will forget about the cash and use my debit card. I think I will put the debit card into a pocket in my wallet so that if I go to use it, it won't be there and I will remember to use the cash.
Second, I am spending a LOT of time on this. I'm pretty sure that after a few months, it won't take so much effort to make sure I have everything in order. I just don't see myself devoting the time that is necessary to keep it all straight after I start work again tomorrow. Typically I am so tired when I get home that I really don't do anything except eat dinner and watch TV for 3 hours or so before I go to bed. We'll see what happens. If everything goes according to plan, I won't have to do anything for the next 2 weeks, until I get paid again.