A Fresh Coat of Paint and a New Post

Well I have given the blog a fresh coat of paint. I have the weekend and then a new school year starts for me. I am trying to figure out ways to keep this year as stress free for me as possible. I think one way is going to be for me to write. I really enjoy writing. I have been doing that over at our site, The Married Gamers, every so often but that is a bit restrictive as it has to be about video games. Here I can just write about things that are going on in my head. I am going to try to keep my posts as positive as I can. That is one thing that I am going to try to do. Keep positive.

This year should be good. I have a great discipline plan in order that is very positive in thought and I know that it is going to work. I am going to be very strong going in and not let the students run the classroom. They are going to know who is boss in the classroom and there is no other way around it. It is going to be a great year. I know that.

New Medical Issues and a RANT

Well since I came down with what the doctors think was H1N1 in January, I was diagnosed with asthma. I have been having to go into Kaiser to get breathing treatments and they are still trying to figure out what are triggers and what not. It is quite frustrating with my general care doctor on maternity leave.

Apparently, Kaiser has this great catch all that when a doctor is out you see whom ever happens to see you. I completely understand this if a doctor is going on vacation for a couple of weeks or is out sick for themselves or a family member. But if they are going to be gone for any extended period of time I would think that there would be some better type of program. I have had other medical insurance before and they have always set it up where patience A through whatever would see Doctor A and so forth. Doesn't this makes sense. Okay it does to me.

Well anyways. Since my primary doctor has been out on maternity leave for 3 months and I have been on and off sick for this past 3 months I have seen 12 different doctors. You read that right 12 different doctors. So I have to go through explaining to them exactly what I have had and what they think is wrong with me and then they have to explain that when my general doctor gets back she will have to run all sorts of test to make sure that what they are doing for me is correct. This is kind of scary to me. I don't know. I am just a bit concerned.

I mean I know when I am not feeling well. I know when I can feel wheezing going on in my chest something is not quite right. I know when I have a fever that there is something going on. I know when I have a deep cough and I am coughing up green stuff from my chest and my nasal congestion is clear that there is something going on. I am almost 36 years old. I can figure stuff out and I also have a school nurse who can listen to my chest and say, "something isn't right here you need to be seen by a doctor today." Yet when I call at 3:20 in the afternoon and then don't get a call back and I have to call back again 3 times only to be told the final time I call at 7:00pm that they have no time to see me until the next day, I know something is wrong with Kaiser's system.

OKAY RANT OFF

Sorry guys and gals. I am just a bit frustrated.

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Illness Abounds

Well Chris spent all week last week home sick with a really bad cold/flu that caused him to run a low grade fever and just generally feel really bad. While he was home, resting and feeling better I was going to work and enjoying my first week back after a 3 weeks break after Christmas break.

On Thursday, my cellphone was stolen out of my purse, out of my desk, by one of my students. It was returned to me on Friday, but nonetheless this caused me tons of stress and caused me to get a huge migraine that started on Thursday night and only got larger on Friday.

We ended up on a foggy day schedule on Friday, which was nice due to the fact that I got to sleep in an extra hour. I was not feeling up to par due to my migraine but I knew that if I could make it through the day that I had a 3 day weekend ahead of me and I could get a migraine shot and then feel so much better.

Around 1:30 I started to feel like crap and went to the nurse only to find out I was running a fever. Having a headache and running a fever meant that they were not going to give me a shot quickly and I was going to have to be seen by a doctor because they want to rule out anything else other than a normal migraine. I was told that I had a normal migraine and a virus on top of it.

Well today is day 5 of 100.5 plus temps and finally they are putting me on antibiotics realizing that I probably have some sort of infection, sinus more than likely, and hopefully that will make my fever break. I took today off from work and I will be taking tomorrow off as well. I hope that the fever breaks and I can get back to work because I really do miss my students and I want to get back to teaching them. I hate missing work and I hate missing the time I get to spend with them.

So instead I am resting today and watching bad TV. Even bad for me. All the Bring It On movies. They were on TV and I taped them. They are so bad and funny at the same time. Come on, who now is going to go and watch them too?

Back to the Grindstone

Sorry for the lack of post. I am going to try to update this blog on a weekly basis this new year. That is one of my new years resolutions. I did a fairly good job on my one for last year so we will see how I do with this one.

After being off for three weeks for Christmas break, it was back to work for me today. I was glad to be back as I missed my students. I was sad to see that one of my students had moved but hopefully it will mean a more stable place for him and it will be better overall for him. As long as it is the best for the student that is the most important thing.

During the break, Chris and I were able to spend about 5 days with my parents down in Southern California. It was a very good visit. It had been about 4 years since Chris had been down there with me and so it was good for him to go with me and to see everyone. It was good that no one started to talk politics. With everyone wanting to take sides and not willing to listen to each other and often taking sides and then taking pot shots at each other it can make it for a very uncomfortable time for people. I am glad that it didn't happen and that it was a pleasant time for everyone that was there.

We also were able to enjoy some time with other podcasters at a great gathering on the 2nd of January down at Dave and Busters in Orange. I felt like such a little girl when I saw the Materhorn from Disneyland. Okay so maybe there is still a little girl inside of me that remembers how much fun I had there. I still want to go back there but with Chris hating crowds like he does, I don't think it will be any time soon unless I can find someone else who will go with me.

Overall it was a great time, but as the saying goes, it is back to the grindstone. I know that this time of the year goes by fast and the the end of the year will be upon me quicker than I think. I love these kids and every day am reminded how much I love teaching the grade level that I do. I can not get over how much I love the 6th graders. And to think that I use to think that I would only teach kindergarten or maybe up to 3rd grade and not a bit older. Oh what was I thinking.

Grand Plan Just Didn't Pan Out

Well I thought that I would have tons of time to sit down and write everything that I wanted to write and it just didn't happen. My first week back to work was much busier than I expected it to be but it was good. I started back on Monday with teacher meetings. These can some times be a bit dry and boring but nonetheless they are needed in order for us as teachers to feel like a team once again. I am to say that by Wednesday I really felt that our teacher team was strong and ready to tackle all of the battles that may be heading our way this year.

On Thursday I got to meet my class for the first time. I had 24 students on my roster and I am getting a new student on Monday. I also get two students at lunch time. One stays with me only for a brief time after lunch and then during P.E. time and the other stays the rest of the day. For the most part I have a great group of students. I have 9 girls and 16 boys. It is an interesting mix.

The first 2 days were spent with them getting to know me and me getting to know them. Also them getting to know each other. I have quite a few new students to our district so it is neat to see the students getting to know each other. I am still hoping to get those other topics written about. I may work on a couple of them and hold on to them so all I have to do is simply upload them, rather than write them for the first time.

Some Thoughts

Okay I keep wanting to come here and type a new post but when I think about all the things that I want to type about there are just too many things that I want to write about that I just don't have the time to do it. So I am going to write down tiny things and then write more about each of them each night this week.

I am wanting to get back into the passion of writing because I want my students to be passionate about writing. I am passionate about reading and therefore they are often the same. Now I need them to be passionate about writing so I feel that I need to be as well. I also need to become more passionate about math and that will come as well.

So here are some things that you will get to feast your eyes upon later this week:

*The Hurt Locker - A movie that deserves a post all on its own.

*New Year's Resolutions - The year is over half way done. How have I done this year

*A New School Year - This week school starts back up again.

*Friends - I have some friends that just inspire me and I want to take the time to talk about them.

*Podcasting - We are coming up on our 2nd anniversary of our podcast and I want to talk about that.

So I will write about each these topics and post one each night this week. That is a promise.