Evening, all.
I figured that I'd stop by and say hi to my virtual friends since I wasn't able to get home for the Jewish New Year. My district is very strict on only allowing 3 religious holidays a year, and with the hours we have (9-4), its impossible for me to get to my mom's house before the sun sets and the holiday begins. I thought about going to a shul locally for services, but most of them started the price for non-member tickets at $200 and up. If I have $200 to spare, I'm super sorry, but I'm going to see a show on Broadway in New York! Not a very religious attitude is it??
I hope things will go well in my classroom tomorrow: I left everything organized. I'm trying really hard to get my TA to understand that there are things that need to be done and I can't do it all on my own, plus she needs to anticipate... but ASK when she anticipates. She finally finished a project I gave her when school started... and then labeled the binders I keep stuff to photocopy in... I didn't say a word about the labels even though what she labeled them with is not what is in the binder. It makes sense to her... Like, the one binder is labeled "Shopping Mall Math", but that isn't all that is in there or even most of what is in there. Its a binder full of functional math word-problems. But, like I said, she did something on her own and I didn't say a word! Of course, that was after she took a double-lunch break for an hour and 10 minutes! So she was only able to get some of the copying done because she has hall duty too. She keeps praising me too, like telling me how organized I am (I made sure my plan book was super organized so the substitute could find the notes I left, class rosters, etc).
Ginny: I hope you survived the craziness of Monday. I think about you when I have bus duty (EVERY morning and EVERY afternoon!!!). I bet you're not all that computer illiterate... you aren't scared to death of it, right??
Kerry: Yes! And its a total success! I had to pull tricks out of my bag today till it was nearly bottomless with my ED kiddo... even some mild cursing (not my style, but I'll use it if it gets through to them). He finally got settled, and we sat down with the audio CD and 3 worksheets I did on the computer: One character sheet with spots for description and role/job, one setting sheet, and one summary sheet. The summary he gave me for the first chapter was totally awesome. He is very into the story, so it was worth the fuss on the phone with Audible yesterday and the 6 CDs it took to burn the book. He's never used a screen reader or a audiobooks before, and he really wants to learn how to use the stuff because he recognizes that it will make his life easier. I can't wait till I can get him typing on his own, but we don't have word-prediction yet, and the school is using Word 2000, which odesn't have the accessibility features of Word 2003. His spelling is atrocious. I am amazed everytime I work with him about how much he grasps, and can't understand how ANYBODY could have thought he was mentally ******ed.
I'm going to try and go to the gym I want to join tomorrow since I'm "off" for the Jewish Holiday. I can't go home, and I can't go to shul, so I will do some important to me stuff... like finding a place to swim!!!!