I'm back...

...and I nearly forgot the password for this thing.

I've been away, busy working and busy relaxing. I haven't had much to say or any great stories yet, hence the long period of silence.

School is school. It's going well and I'm just trying to keep up with my vow (work at work, play once home, asleep by 9pm) and the pacing of this new schedule. Because I only see my students 4 times out of the week, I feel as though I'm chucking information at them at a fast pace and testing them nearly immediately. It bothers me, but the students seem to be used to it. In fact, I'm understanding more and more how busy these teenagers really are, so I try to work hard with them in class so as not to give them too much outside of it. Most of the time, kids do their homework over breakfast the day it's due anyway...

My coworkers are great, but everybody splits the second they are done for the day, or for a chunk of the day, like 2-3 hours. Since I have no home on campus, I'm always working in my classroom and I generally get the whole 3rd floor to myself after 3pm. I often feel like a nerd, but what can I say? I have a lot of prep with new textbooks and empty files at a new school?

My biggest (and only?) problem at school is communication. No one is good at it. Either that, or everybody assumes someone else is communicating information to us newbies. The heads (administrators) probably think I'm getting answers from my department, who thinks I'm getting answers from my French coworker, who thinks I'm getting answers in my new teacher meetings which don't exist. Unfortunately, my department meetings are worthless. The week of department meetings before school started was cancelled because our chair was on vacation. Our first wasn't memorable and I didn't have any questions then, our second was about "what everybody did over the summer" and today's was cut short because CDL holders had to complete a random drug test. The last thing my chair said was "Remember midterms are next week and don't forget the email from ... about Blair week and exams in November". I nearly laughed out loud!! Those just happened to be the 3 topics I had been hearing about and was hoping to be enlightened about during today's meeting!! This time I had to be proactive, so I grabbed a Latin coworker and asked "what's involved in midterms (they're not tests)? what's Blair week? what's general policy on end-of-trimester-exams?" Thank the Lord for him and his time. Finally some answers from my department, who, as you may see the irony in this story, are supposed to be "experts" in communication?!?! Sheesh.

In other news, I have scoliosis. Do not panic. I already have and the storm has blown over. I had been feeling enough pain in my lower back ever since moving out of Syracuse two summers ago that I thought I should have my back checked out. I thought I had injured something from paking/lifting/moving boxes, then camping in Montreal for a week on the hard ground... Turns out, I just have a deformity of my spine and it's mild. Sure, it can worsen, but according to my knowledgeable PT sister-in-law, it can also get better (and the pain more manageable) with stretching and strengthening. I will probably go to physical therapy for a short while and learn things I can do at home.

Meanwhile, Matthew is having a great time poking fun at me calling me "scoli" and "tiny tim"... He thinks it's hilarious that I'm happy that there's a diagnosis for my pain, and that I think I'm special, and that I need extra care and attention because of it. The fact is, he's right! Now where's my back rub?