Friday, February 15, 2008

Update

We had a snow day today so I got a break from my black-hearted teacher and a little extra time that I am spending here, blogging. Things have not gotten better with her by the way... I called Ty on my lunch break twice this week crying in my car. She just does the most backhanded things! Case in point: She asked me to find some cute Valentine's day worksheets and activities a few weeks ago so I flagged some cute stuff in a teacher magazine. She won't give me her copy code so I had to wait for her to make the copies for me. When she gave me the stack, there were a couple missing. I didn't think much of it and just made those copies myself at home. About a week later, she says to me "If you can't find enough things for the kids to do, I found these really great worksheets for them. You should be looking for this type of stuff" and hands me the stack of missing copies! This happened again a few days ago with space activities that I had found and asked her to copy. Needless to say, I'll be making my own copies from now on. She also talked to my advisor for 20 of my 30 minute observation visit and complained about me the whole time. I want to get a job in this district so badly and I'm not sure if thats going to happen if she continues to hate me the whole semester. Blah. This four day weekend is a nice breath of fresh air to say the least.

Ty has not found a new job yet. Well, let me rephrase that. Ty has not yet found a job that will adequately pay our bills long term. He got hired at Discount Tire (thanks to Arnold) but has to start at a part time position and it only pays $8.50 an hour. I finally took matters into my own hands and called our bishop to ask him to keep us in mind if he hears of any open positions. He called right back and gave us a few leads of people to call in the ward that own their own businesses. I have been working a lot at Oregano's to make up for it, and we have a lot in our savings account, but I'm starting to get worried. Side note- devil teacher told me I'll have to quit my job if I expect to fulfill my responsibilities as her student teacher... She makes comments about it every other day.

Valentine's Day was really nice and mellow. My kindergarteners were so cute and loved exchanging cards and candy. Mrs Roth told me she was getting them pencils and crayons and I should get a food type treat. Thanks. We have one little girl with diabetes and another with a strict no gluten, no dairy, no artificial flavoring/coloring diet. I finally found some organic rice cake snacks that were packaged like pirate treats so I got Pirates of the Carribean valentines to go with it. The kids loved it and the parents appreciated it too, especially since Mrs Roth served milkshakes and frosted cookies at the party. It was the saddest thing to watch these two little girls eat all organic rice cake snacks when the rest of the kids were overdosing on sugar and dairy. What is she thinking?

Ty and I cooked a nice dinner and were supposed to exchange little gifts but he got me a really nice necklace with my birthstone in it. We probably shouldn't be spending money on stuff like that right now, but I like it so much that I'm not even going to think about it =) I felt sort of lame giving him a box of cinnamon toast crunch lol. I'll just have to step it up for his birthday this year.

Hope all is well with everyone. We may be coming down in a few weeks for my birthday and a job fair for the Gilbert district... And if anyone wants to take a little vacation up here to the snow, let me know! =)

9 comments:

Sheerstar said...

What's your birthstone?

ducklips said...

Oh, I wanted to come up w/ Tom and Natalie so bad, but since I just quit my job I am a little tight on the funds.

Your teacher sounds _____________! I think they look for the most cruel teachers when assigning student teachers. When teachers are such a needed commodity you'd think they wouldn't try and scare off new teachers out of the field.

Hope Ty finds a job soon.

Stick it out. All this will only last a couple of months.

NanaB said...

Hi guys. Shanda, your teacher lady makes me shudder. How can anyone who is in charge of children be so insensitive? Thank goodness you only have to spend a few months
in her class. Good luck.

megan said...

oh she just sounds awful! Just a few more months and then you will be a teaher with your own class and you will know it was all worth it. I hope your advisor sees past the ridiculous teacher and realizes what a great teacher you would be. Just try to become friends with all the other teachers and staff at the school and they will have good things to say about you. I hope Ty is giving you a big hug everyday to make you feel better. Make sure Ty follows up on those job leads, that is important. It wouldn't be so bad to get a teaching job down here. I know it is horribly hot during the summer and you don't like that but you can just spend your summers in Oregon with me.

megan said...

oh yeah reuben and I want to come up soon. reuben has a lot of mondays off work coming up in march so maybe then.

Natalie said...

Just a few more months and it will all be over. Teaching in your own class is much easier. We had a great time this weekend. Thanks for all the fun!

Emily said...

I agree and disagree with Natalie. I still think maybe you should have a talk with devil woman. Also, perhaps she is just trying to let you know how many teachers and administrators work in the real world. I mean, a retired-but-being-kind-enough-to-step-in-for-a-dying-colleague teacher brought all the teachers in the English department a copy of a Shakespeare quiz he had made up. It was in essay format, and he went on an on about how he created it and it showed proper writing style and everything an English teacher could possibly want. Unfortunately, my good friend and another English teacher was looking for Shakespeare info online. This quiz was one of the first things to show up on Google on another teacher's site.
Really, though, it sounds like this lady is just begging you to call her on her bullshit. I know it's really hard when you want this person to write a letter of recommendation for you, though. It's just one of the things that my mentor teacher told me was really important: standing up for yourself to your colleagues.

Emily said...

OH, kiddo! I can't read your blog anymore because the picture disappead and the words seem to have. Crazy!

Tomallama said...

Shanda, just so you know, Ty and I are a lot alike. I always go way overboard on gifts when Natalie and I agreed not to. To be honest, even though a box of cereal may seem like a silly present, I'm sure Ty enjoyed it. We enjoy giving presents way more than getting. Okay, that's not entirely true, but we do really like giving gifts. I love when Natalie wants to get mad at me for way overspending, but she just can't get mad because she likes her gift so much. Just don't expect them all to be so cool. I don't remember what I got Natalie for her birthday last year, but I don't think she really liked it, even though I was super stoked on it.