Sistah Pat

I can’t believe I slept until 5:30 this morning. I was exhausted. I was in bed by 10:00 last night. It seems like my entire day was consumed with work yesterday. Get up for work, get ready for work, drive to work, work, drive home from work, work out, drive back to work, drive home from work, go to bed. Now I’ve got to hit the shower and get ready for work again.

6:15 - Okay, I’ve got my shower, hair, and makeup done. It’s time for the boys to get ready. I’ve been stressing out about work the entire time I was getting ready. How does it get like this? I don’t get paid enough to be stressed like this. I’m trying to figure out how I can do all the stuff I have to do and I just don’t see any way unless I bring it home over the weekend. The principal wants me to put together a 4 page newsletter about upcoming events and student achievement. It’s true, I volunteered to do it, but I volunteered to create a TWO page newsletter simply throwing a few kudos around and listing the names of honor roll kids, perfect attendance, students of the week, etc. She loved the idea. Then she spoke with our graphics department who agreed to publish it and distribute it to stores in the community and she started adding all these other things she wanted in there and now it’s gotten to be a four page newsletter. Graphics says they need two weeks for production so she wants it written and designed within a week. How come they get two weeks to run copies and I only get a week to create the whole thing?

I’ve also got my two year observation and evaluation coming up next week and I have to submit a detailed, written lesson plan and meet with one of the APs to discuss it, then she has to observe me, and I have to meet with her afterward to review everything. To give you an idea, everyone calls her a Nazi. I don’t know about the label but I DO know that she wants everything done in a certain way. Her way or no way.

I’ve got a STACK of paperwork (actually, two or three stacks) that I’ve got to take care of and I’m feeling like the more I run, the farther behind I get.

At least Mr. Scale is showing some compassion and understanding. He’s telling me I’m at 166.5 this morning. I know…I’ve been hanging around 166 for quite a while now.

5:30 - Just finished a grueling workout. One hour with a heart rate monitor. Phyllisann brought one in today for me to try. It’s a really nice one. Fits nice and snug under my boobs and shows the readings on a wristwatch. Okay…so here’s the really disgusting news…sitting on my butt all day at work, I only burned 955 calories. That was from 8:00 when we started it till 4:00, when I got home. That’s less than 120 calories an hour. I’m working my butt off but it’s all mental work from sitting at a desk. I was up and moving around when I was teaching but how much can you move within the confines of a few tables full of kids? Almost all day, my heart rate was around 75 to 80. So then I came home and did a kick ass workout and tried to keep my heart rate up as much as I could and I showed 548 calories according to the treadmill but only 333 calories according to the monitor. The bad news is…I tend to believe the monitor more than the treadmill. What’s ironic is that I have to stay off the treadmill to keep my heart rate up. The only time the treadmill was able to keep up with the aerobics was when it was on a 10% incline at 3.6 mph. Here’s another weird thing…the aerobics work me harder than jogging and the step aerobics work me more than floor aerobics. I would have thought jogging would be harder but, evidently, it isn’t. Of course, I was only jogging at 4.2 mph and 7%. Still…I’m surprised. I tried to keep my heart rate between 130 and 140 while I was working out.  It’ll be interesting to see how long my heart rate stays elevated after the workout. Right now, it’s been 20 minutes and it’s still up at 92. Poor Phyllisann, she may not want her monitor back after I’ve sweated all over it, slept in it, and showered in it.

I organized a potluck club at school a couple of weeks ago after one of the office workers freaked out about the prices in the cafeteria. They serve “kid size portions” even to adults. We get no discount whatsoever and all adult meals are ala carte. She got a baked chicken leg, 1/2 cup of nasty canned carrots, 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes, and a roll and just about had a heart attack when they charged her $5.75. Entrees go for $3.00, sides are $1.00 each, and rolls are $.75 each. That’s one of the reasons none of the teachers eat in the cafeteria. Another reason is that the food is horrible. None of it is cooked on the premises. It’s all prepared at a central location and then sent to the schools early in the morning so it can be thrown on the steam table to allow adequate time to turn everything to mush. Oh, yeah, as if that weren’t enough, who wants to share lunch with 350 screaming kids? So…here comes Sistah Pat with the bright idea of a Potluck Club. It’s $3.00 to join and that covers all the plates, tableware, napkins, and cups for the year. I set up a pretty strict set of rules that scared off most of the moochers. A 2-liter does not count as a contribution. Neither does a bag of potato chips. You can only eat when you contribute a dish and I made it clear that it was for members only. There are several other rules that we came up with to address the common problems we have with most potluck dinners. It’ll be interesting to see how tomorrow goes. I took the money I collected and bought all the cups and plates and stuff and GFS had a clearance on huge bags of those styrofoam compartmentalized containers like they use at restaurants for takeout. I bought a bunch of them so teachers can dish up and run back to their rooms with lunch in a nice sealed container. The first person to sign up said they were bringing chili so the next one said she’d make cornbread and another said she’d bring baked potatoes to fill with chili. Somehow, the whole thing took on a kind of theme. I’m taking my Black-eyed Senorita recipe. Black-eyed peas, pico de gallo, cilantro, etc. and some chips. If nothing else, I can eat some of the black eyed peas.

The principal is really happy about the Potluck Club. Our school was combined a few years ago to be both a middle school and a high school and there’s always been difficulty with a sort of ….hmmmm…dare I say it… “animosity” between the middle and high. The new principal is really trying to address that issue and she’s enthusiastic about anything that helps build “community”. I’m all about anything that helps me build a good relationship with her because my position is actually funded by a grant that pays half my salary. The school has to pay the other half and they have to be careful with paying for a teacher who doesn’t teach classes. There’s only so much money to go around. I could leave and go to another school or take another position but Andrew and Steven love this school and I don’t want them to have to transfer. We live so far away, there isn’t a bus for them and they only get to attend because they ride with me.

I’m really running on. Gotta run and make some Black Eyed Senorita!