Lots has gone in the past week, and even though I’m in the midst of a four-day weekend, it hasn’t been very relaxing. But, I’ll update you anyway, and throw in a bunch of random pictures I’ve managed to edit over this crazy week. Haven’t had time for any new photos, but I did take a ton over Christmas break (and as you can see I still have a ton to edit from my airshow set back in November) so let’s get to it.

Sprocket started behaving strangely Wednesday afternoon; he was moving about gingerly, especially when going to sit or lie down. Sometimes he leaps about too much and temporarily pops a knee out of joint, but it manages to pop back in quickly (gross I know) so at first that’s all we thought was going on and he’d be back to his usual sprightly self in no time. But by Thursday Doug was growing concerned, and he texted me to say he was taking the dog in to vet that afternoon. Turned out Sprocket’s temperature was quite high (106) and he appeared to be in pain around the spine. The vet recommended we bring the dog back in Friday morning for some tests that he would send to a specialist for analysis, and based on that we would decide what to do next.

I’ll keep the details brief because it all became a blur anyway, but it was late Friday afternoon before the specialist called us back and recommended we take Sprocket in for the night to be monitored and have more tests run. We rushed him up there around 5 PM, and after spending some time with the dog, the specialist (a veterinary neurologist) said she believed he had an infection that had manifested itself in his joints, and that he was basically in pain all over. Poor thing! She thought there was a slight chance of Lyme disease and tested for that too, but we don’t have the results yet and are fairly certain that’s not what he has (he’s never outside long enough to get anything like that). Anyway, the upshot of all this was that whatever he had was treatable, and he was not in any danger of dying, which of course was our concern. Sprocket stayed with the vet overnight and was back in our care by Saturday morning, but he was on a fair amount of pills, some of which made him goofy. By Sunday he was more bright-eyed, and his temperature has stayed down, but he still requires a lot of attention and care, and he’s taken up a lot of our time this weekend.

Without getting too much into it, though, I have to discuss this specialists’ clinic where we took the dog Thursday. I’ve dealt with them  before – they are the ones that nursed Sprocket through his distemper, as well as taking one cat there when she fell ill to be put down, and a few other specialty treatments over the years, one for a dog who had cancer, and another for Sprocket when we were concerned about his knee problems and thought he might need surgery (we decided against it because the specialist and our vet could not agree on a diagnosis about why he kept limping). Every time I’ve dealt with this place, I’ve come away from it feeling like I got mistreated and overcharged; they are terrible at communication to an extent that it feels it must be intentional, and I always get the feeling I’m being scammed and/or given a runaround. In fact, every time I do deal with them I end up swearing to never go there again, but there’s a catch: they have a load of specialists in their facility and they are basically the only game in town for specialist treatment for our pets (with the exception of driving over an hour through heavy traffic to another specialist clinic across town). Since they didn’t even bother to call us back until late Friday, we really didn’t have a choice but to use them – something I suspect was intentional. They basically called us at 4:30 and said they could take Sprocket, as long as we got him there by 5 PM. So, what were we going to do? We had to take the chance.

And, they were still shady. We knew enough to demand proper service from the beginning, and at least we got that although we had to sit around for about two hours to make it happen (the people in charge at this place are very good at never being available to sit down and talk to you – they prefer you talk to a lab assistant who takes notes and then delivers those to the vet, whom you only speak to briefly). We finally got to speak directly to the vet, who at least appeared intelligent and confident, but when we starting asking pointed questions about how many times we could expect to get an update on our dog and when exactly she would have an answer regarding a pick-up time for Sprocket the next day, she got visibly nervous. You could tell she wasn’t used to people doing anything other than bringing in a pet and leaving it in the hands of what they believed to be trustworthy veterinarians. But we were very clear that we hadn’t always gotten good service from the place, and wanted to be sure we got it this time. We did get good service, in fact, and our dog got a lot of attention – but that is only because we demanded it.

Now for the really shady part: after talking to us for awhile, the neurologist sent in her assistant to show us the estimate for Sprocket’s stay. We were given a “high” and a “low” estimate, then told we would be paying the “middle” between these two costs that day, before they’d done any work on Sprocket at all, and before we even knew whether or not they’d be able to help him. Out of curiosity, we asked the assistant what the clinic would do if we refused to pay upfront and said we wanted to pay after services were rendered, and of course she didn’t really want to respond with the answer, which was clearly yes. Now to me, demanding payment upfront when your clientele is pet owners who are, in many cases, beside themselves with worry over the health of their pet, is bad enough; to refuse to treat a sick animal because it’s owners won’t (or can’t) allow themselves to be forced into paying in advance is unethical as hell. Our “middle” estimate was three thousand dollars, which after much arguing and grumbling we paid; I get how people do not want to haggle like this when it comes to their pet’s life, but at the same time, this practice seems vile to me, and well, someone has to point it out to them rather than just doing whatever they say.

Also, on our estimate, not one line item was an even dollar amount, yet when we got our “adjustment” on Saturday before paying the bill, we were told that our refund amount was four hundred dollars even. We pointed out that was odd, given that none of the charges on our estimate were an even number, and asked to see exactly what it was that they removed from it. Not surprisingly, no one was able to explain what they’d taken off, and then, as we were still haggling with them over this, another guy came to get his pet out of the clinic, and they adjusted his bill as well – by four hundred dollars. So, I’m guessing they just overcharge everyone who walks through the door, then refund them four hundred bucks and hope no one questions it. Well, question it we did, but we were never able to get anything straight and were given a phone number to the manager of the clinic, who of course was not available on weekends. We are definitely going to be calling that person, and deciding what to do next with what we experienced. It isn’t right to fleece people who are trying to be responsible pet owners and take emergency care of them, and even though the treatment these animals receive is, in the end, successful, that simply doesn’t justify behaving kinda like scumbags when it comes to the cost.

On top of all that, I’ve injured my knee again doing nothing much whatsoever, so I had to go to the doctor for that (also Wednesday) and then had a mix-up over what medication the doc was to call in for me. First he called in the one anti-inflammatory med that makes me sick, so I had to call him again to get him to prescribe a new one, and that took me two days to straighten out; when I went to pick up the second prescription, I had once again received the wrong one (!), so I spent two more days trying to get that changed again. And, this is my second round of anti-inflammatories overall  and so far nothing is making much difference, so I’ll probably end up at an orthopedic specialist getting MRIs or x-rays at the end of all this. Sheesh! What a week.

Monday I go see another doctor, then run errands. Then, it’s back to work for another week. There’s been drama there as well, but at least it’s not directly related to me this time. Perhaps I can talk about it at some point, but for now I’m staying mum. Let’s see how things go this week!

Last night I spied a ladybug in our house, which my husband said was good luck. I scrambled to get my camera together before I lost her, and when I rushed back to the endtable where she’d been with what I thought was my macro lens attached to my Canon, I realized after trying without success to focus it that I’d put my telephoto on it instead. Needless to say, by the time I got the lens switched to the proper one and rushed back to the appropriate piece of furniture, the ladybug had vanished. But Simon was hanging around, so I took pictures of him instead.

I don’t know how I feel about that ladybug, and if it was good luck or not. The next day was a weird one – we buried my 91-year-old grandfather Thursday morning, and it was an odd experience for me. I have not felt particularly close to my family in many years, and I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it has more to do with me and my emotional detachment in general than anything in particular they may or may not have done. Plus, alcoholism. It is not rampant in my family, but it is definitely present, and the ones with that particular disease have it pretty bad (my grandfather was not one of them, by the way). And lately – they are really going downhill. One was so bad at Christmas Eve it was shocking to me; makeup slid all over the face and slurring words by 8 PM, that kind of bad. There was a time when these people could at least hold it together long enough to get home from the family gatherings, but those times are in the past. Several of them were drunk upon arrival at the funeral this morning, which began at 11 AM.

My grandfather holding my mother

Then my husband and I fought in the car on the way to the wake – he feeling cranky over the reminder, I am sure, of his father and his failing health, and me feeling out of sorts about being surrounded by so many family members from whom I feel oddly disconnected – so when we arrived there we were not speaking, which is always so easy to hide from others, isn’t it? I was already feeling strangely awkward and out of place among my own family, and then had to try and pretend (and fail) not to be pissed at my significant other, which made me all the more sullen and distant. We got tired of trying to ignore each other eventually, but it soured what little sweetness there might have otherwise been in the day (there are some family members I usually enjoy seeing and talking to, but not this time; I just couldn’t muster up a fake smile and some casual chatter until the meal was done and we both got over our anger).

My grandfather with his sister, Betty, who died long before I was born

The truth is I am not sure how to describe my grandfather. He was, I suppose, a simple man, as most people in my family are. He fought in WWII, came home, got a job in the shipyard where he worked until retirement, married my grandmother and had two kids. After he retired, he took up residence in a brown reclining chair in a corner of his den, and that’s pretty much where he stayed until my grandmother died. He was always sitting, and watching television, and occasionally cooking chili or taking trips with Granny to visit my aunt, who lived out of town. He was surly and a little scary, especially when I was a kid, and he had a sarcastic sense of humor with more than a touch of a mean streak to it. I am sure there is more to him than this, but as I moved into young adulthood I pulled farther away from my family in general, and never really reconnected to either him or my grandmother. After my granny died two years ago, what was left of his old mind finally snapped entirely, and he spent his last remaining days in a home, confused and frustrated by his fate.

I don’t know what to say about this one. Probably an odd choice to include it here. But as a photo, it’s kind of cool.

I felt it more deeply when my grandmother died, because even though we were no longer close, she had been a major figure in my childhood. But my grandfather’s death felt more like an inevitable conclusion than the end of an era, like Granny’s did. And I feel pretty bad about that. I was always a fairly detached person, even as a kid, and I guess because he was big and occasionally mean and sometimes scary, I shut him out early on and stayed disconnected. He’s not the only person to whom I have done this. I know we can’t possibly feel close to all of our relatives, and we all have our favorites as well as the ones with whom we never really bond, but the experience of sitting in front of his coffin surrounded by family members whom I rarely speak to or see, listening to them sniffle while inside I still felt distant and removed from it to a degree, was disconcerting and disorienting, nonetheless. I’d like to believe I possess that depth of love we are always told we will automatically feel for the people to whom we are related by blood, that bond my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles repeatedly told me exists, but the truth is I always questioned it. It seemed to me more was required to feel love for another person than just accidentally being related to them. It was as if to them love was a magical thing that just happened when you were born – sort of like how my mother described sex to me when I was a child (you meet someone and feel something special, then you get married, then SOMETHING HAPPENS and you have a baby – OK, later she did give me a book that explained it better, but still). I guess it’s thoughts like this which explain why I was such a detached child; questioning things like why I should love this or that relative is probably not the typical ten-year-old’s inner dialogue, but it sure was mine. It’s not that I didn’t love my grandfather, it’s more likely I just decided at some point that he wasn’t as lovable as Granny and we weren’t as close and never would be, and left it at that without ever trying harder, not even when I was an adult and he was dying. I’m a bit disappointed in myself, that I never reevaluated impressions I made while still in grade school about a man whose role could have been a bigger one in my life, but there it is. That’s how it was, and that’s what I did.

I’ll sum this ramble up by sharing that in the midst of the wake, surrounded by strangeness and still feeling very disoriented and distant, I went to the ladies’ room and locked myself in a stall, pressed my head against the cold door, and suddenly thought of Simon. I wanted nothing more than to be at home, so I could press my face into his warm fur and hear him purr and feel comfortable again. I’m not sure what this says about me, either. That I can feel more love for my pets than for my own family? Maybe that’s not so unusual after all. Simple relationships and all that. Or maybe I am just more like my grandfather than I know, and I prefer to keep things simple, to stay home and sit in a chair and savor the comfort of doing nothing. He was always the one who stayed silent at family gatherings, watching and listening rather than playing any big part, and with every passing year I do more of that myself whenever I am around them. In fact, I took on that very role today. I sat, and I watched, and I stayed silent, and I felt a little overwhelmed by it all, and I was relieved when it was time to get away. Who knows – maybe I understood my grandfather too much instead of not enough. Maybe we were too similar, rather than too different, to ever connect.

Anyway, for what it is worth, rest in peace, dear grandfather. I am glad the unpleasantness of your last few years are over. I am glad you died in your sleep, and it was peaceful. I’m glad you left your flag to my poor lost soul of a nephew, and I hope it strengthens him in a manner that helps him, at twenty-three, to finally grow up. I hope my grandmother was waiting for you, and I hope you are, and were, happy. The truth is, I could never really tell. But maybe that is just your generation, one that, as the military chaplain pointed out, is rapidly dying out. At ninety-one, I guess it was your time. I’m sorry I never got to know you better, but I hope I got to know as much about you as you wanted me to know.

Moving on.

I have to pop in and share this article I read today at washingtonpost.com:

This year, I resolve to ban laptops from my classroom

I haven’t talked much about my intentions for the coming semester, because I feel it’s probably pretty boring for most people. But when I read this article, I felt a big old YES about it, because it accurately sums up the problem I’ve been having. As I may have mentioned before, a lot has changed in the five years since I was last a classroom teacher, and the presence of laptops and cell phones is one of the biggest. Technology may be, in fact, the only change that’s occurred, actually; it’s just so huge it feels like 99 problems when it’s really only one (unavoidable joke, sorry).

I struggled all semester with the laptop/cell phone/internet problem, and until i had the chance a week ago to talk it out with a friend, I could not hit upon a solution. Were I simply teaching an English class, the solution would be simple: no cell phones in the classroom, for sure, and even though we are not allowed to ban laptops, I would have my classroom set up in such a way that I could see what they were doing on them most, if not all, of the time (had to do that in the past when I taught in a computer lab, and it’s quite doable in a normal classroom with desks you can arrange).

However, I am in this special program that does not have a content area, and one of the major accommodations our students with learning differences receive is the allowance of laptops in classrooms – primarily for note taking. So, I can’t exactly ban them outright when they are with me for their study hall. Furthermore, one of the things we want for the center is for it to be a more relaxed and open environment than a regular classroom, so I allowed students to have their phones out at all times, to listen to music while they studied, for example. The problem is, even when students did use the technologies available to them, they still ended up distracted by Twitter or Pinterest or YouTube more often than they actually studied. And the texting was non-stop (and was often coming from their parents!).

You’d think these things would be easy enough to control in a classroom of six students or less. But the truth is, these kids are incredibly skilled at appearing to be working when they are not (put a few books on the table, hold a pen in your hand, and look very serious). And even though I only have six students per class, I am often working closely with one or a few of them, and as soon as I am occupied, they’re off-task.

One thing I like about the article linked above is that it doesn’t shame or blame the students for this behavior – in fact, the author admits that he struggles just as much to stay focused when surrounded by technology as they do. My weakness in teaching has always been my ability to empathize with my students to the point of being lax, and I definitely fell down in this regard again in the fall. And, in all honesty, there were times when I myself got distracted by the Internet and caught myself sitting at my desk reading some article when I was supposed to be helping students! I don’t think your average kid engages in this off-task behavior on purpose, any more than I do – I think we all get called away from our purpose by virtual distractions before we even realize it’s happening; it’s not a conscious decision we make to check out of whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing (although I have a few students who are doing it decisively, but that’s another story). I’d like to be able to trust the students overall and give them the freedom to utilize whatever technology they need, whenever they need it, but it puts me in the position of being a constant “technology cop,” forever looking over individual shoulders and getting into conflicts with kids I catch off-task. I do not have the time nor the constitution for this approach. It’s too much work and too stressful and it puts me in the position of having to directly confront students on a regular basis, which is not my style.

But what do I do if I cannot ban technology entirely from my classroom? It’s true that for some of my students, listening to music may help them study. And certainly many of them are allowed to use laptops – it’s in their documentation. There’s also all sorts of assistive technology and apps they theoretically could be using to help them meet their educational needs (although to be honest, I’ve yet to see any app that’s all that helpful or impressive). My friend helped me come up with a few ideas:

1. Ban cell phones for a certain amount of classroom time. Classes at my school are an hour and half due to block scheduling (which I loathe, but subject for another time). So, at first, I decided they would be able to get out the phones and use them for the last 20 minutes of class in whatever way they see fit – including play a game or look at Twitter if they need a break. But then I read this article about taking small “tech breaks” throughout a class period to reduce the anxiety our social-media addictions create in us (I say “us” because I have it, too). I think this might work better, but I’ve just hit upon this research so I need to think through how do it realistically, in a manner that won’t get cumbersome for me to monitor. Bottom line is, they can use their phones to check social media or texts- at some point during the period. But not for the entire class. The truth is, they are simply not dedicated enough on their own to steer clear of the numerous distractions, and their work is suffering as a result. I think that’s what finally became clear to me – I actually have an obligation to keep them away from the distractions and assist them in learning how to focus without all that crap. I thought I was doing my job by allowing these things, but in reality I was doing them a disservice by allowing them to engage in sub-standard study practices.

2. Laptop use is allowed at designated areas of the room only. I’m not sure I can pull this one off this year, because I only have one big, jerry-rigged, makeshift room to work with and designated areas are hard to create at this point as the space is stuffed (remember August, when we didn’t even have desks or walls? Well yeah, that’s changed just a little – see the picture below as a reference). My friend suggested a few places, but it all seems a bit too forced to me to pull off, so what I may say instead is that any student on a laptop MUST have their back to me, so I can see what they are doing. What they do now is sit facing me – easy to do since we have those wonderful, inviting round tables that have turned out to be a bit of a pain in this regard – and then they incorporate way too much Netflix and Twitter into their study time while I can’t see the screen. It is not my desire to constantly pace around the room policing their laptop comings and goings, so if they sit with their backs to my desk (which is where I normally am) I can easily look up and see what they are doing. Much easier, and still little confrontation and conflict involved. Next year, we actually will have two rooms to work with (and two teachers instead of just me!), and I can be sure to create a ‘laptop friendly’ area where the use of them will be allowed while all other spaces are ‘technology-free’ zones.

I promise, we’re really studying! On our PHONES!

I have a few other ideas for how to be of better assistance to the students this year, but they aren’t technology-related and this post is probably already boring as hell. But it’s been on my mind since my break started, and I feel like I finally have solutions to the issues I had last semester. I do feel badly that I let the kids, and their parents, down in this regard: I left them to police themselves in an area where I should have been enforcing better habits. We even had a few kids fail classes, and while I know that’s always going to happen, I do feel that a few of those kids would have worked harder if I’d monitored them more – and yes, even forced them to work when on their own they allowed the distractions to get them off-task. But in my defense, I’ve never dealt with technology in a classroom before, as when I was a teacher it just wasn’t allowed, plus I was trying so hard to create a unique, comfortable, and trusting environment that I hesitated to put a stop to it when I saw it becoming a problem (plus, I just didn’t have enough time away from the situation to catch a breath and come up with a workable solution).

So them’s my new rules, and I’m sticking to ’em. I’ve actually written whole posts about this subject several times but always deleted them because they felt too work-specific to be interesting. But that article inspired me – interesting to hear what difficulty even colleges face when it comes to the subject of laptops and cell phones. By the way, I’ve certainly yet to see any way in which all these bells and whistles have added much of anything to the field of education –  I know it’s probably sacrilege to say such a thing, but one of the reasons I left teaching was because I got so sick of being sent to training after training chasing the next big technological advance only to once again have it fall short. Hell, I was still using a good old overhead projector when I left five years ago – never saw where a “smart board” did anything more than my overheads could do…and don’t get me started on the abject failure of all that “every kid must have an iPad” crap schools were all over a few years ago, mine included. I’ve never ONCE seen a student use an iPad for an educational purpose; I even tried to get my students to use ours to study and they chose to use pen and paper instead. Grrrrrrr – Kids these days! Get off my lawn!

Now, I swear I’m going to share all these photos I keep talking about in my next post. I just keep getting sidetracked.

I’m sure all you fellow bloggers got this in your email recently also:

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 22,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

But what the hell – I figured I’d post it here anyway. I can sum it up without requiring you to click on the report, though: Unsurprisingly, my most popular posts were the ones about wigs, as well as the Stitch Fix review the company featured on Pinterest. I say unsurprisingly because, as I’ve mentioned here before, when I ran a wig blog it got a crazy amount of hits per day, and I received emails from new people on a daily basis. It was actually way more than I could handle, and I eventually turned the blog over to someone else, who after a few years realized it was more than she could handle, and it finally shut down. And Stitch Fix blog posts are amazingly abundant on the internet, so it makes sense that people would go searching for more of them and come across my site – plus I still get traffic from the Stitch Fix Pin they shared way back in July.

So, my little photography posts don’t get much love, but as you can also see if you click on the report, I do get love from some of you regularly, and it is much appreciated. I do have things happen during the day and think, oh I will have to share about this on my blog, so you are all a part of my life now, like it or not. My virtual life, anyway – which, given the amount of time I spend online, is a significant part of it.

I used to write out a long journal entry summing up my year and pondering the things I’ll commit to in the coming one, but I quit doing that awhile ago when I realized I was saying pretty much the same things each time: worry less, play more, eat better (been making resolutions about that one since my 20’s and still haven’t done it), be kinder, keep creating, and be social. So yeah, all those things are on the list again this year, I guess.

I do know I’d like to be better at my job this next semester (but I probably say that every year too). I have some ideas for how to keep better tabs on my students and reign them in where they need more limits (good Lord, the smart phones! They are a blessing and a curse). And I’d like my photography to continue, which I am certain it will; just not sure where I’m headed with it right now. *And I’m hoping my FIL’s health continues to improve and he has a better 2015 too. I hope all my pets stay healthy, and all of you keep blogging and photographing and and writing and reading and sharing and stopping by.

I still have more creepy doll pictures to share, a LOT more to take, and another handbag restoration to write about. Not sure what all I will get to before the end of 2014, but let’s get to it regardless.

*A day after writing this, my FIL went back into the hospital due to extremely high blood pressure. So I guess 2015 is going to start off a lot like 2014 for him. 😦

Well first, some fun news: last Tuesday, I replied to a Flickr request on Twitter for hair photos, and on Thursday I got this notification from them:

This was a nice surprise, because it meant the photo that they chose got loads of views – 2,283 so far – and I haven’t had a photo get that much traffic since I closed my old account. When I was still using the old one, Flickr Explore would feature my photos quite often, and when it did I’d get thousands of views on that photo and several new followers. But since I’ve moved, I’ve dropped off Explore’s radar, and traffic has been steady but without those little bursts of activity that, even though I know mean basically nothing, still always made me happy. So, it was nice to get some attention again. The photo they featured, by the way, was this one:

Other than that, not a lot photography-wise has gone on since my session last weekend. Work was a bit stressful since it was the week before a holiday, and everyone is on-edge and trying to squeeze in last-minute exams and projects which makes my job a bit more difficult. Since I am basically a case manager for approximately 30 kids with learning disabilities, I end up dealing with all of their exams and projects to some extent, and at times it gets overwhelming – especially since I cover all grades 9-12 and there can  be loads of different things going on between the different grade levels that I have to try and juggle.

I go back and forth about posting work observations and/or complaints here, because I swore off doing it awhile back and my tune never really changes anyway (poor me, I don’t really like my job, blah blah blah) but at times it helps me clear my head to share my thoughts about my work situation, so I’m breaking my no-work-posting vow for now. But I don’t want to get into too many details that would make this ramble on and on, so suffice it to say that while this new role at the school is definitely better than my role as counselor, and in no way do I regret making the move, this job is still far less than ideal for me. Ideally, I would have been able to get  an English teaching position, but none were available at the school, and I didn’t want to put out the effort finding one elsewhere would have required, so I took this one. Plus, I figured I’d try something new and see if I liked it better. But there’s a lot about this particular job that I don’t really like, and many ways in which I am ill-suited for the position. It’s not a structured teaching job, and my role is more one of case manager than teacher, so there is really a lot of open-ended time with the students where I am basically monitoring them and getting up in their business to be sure they are keeping up with their classwork. It’s never been my nature to be a nag, and a lot of the times that is what this role requires – sure, at times I’m helping them take tests or study for exams or write papers, but a huge chunk of my time is also spent just chasing kids down and making them do their homework or forcing them to study for classes when they’d rather just play video games. I’ve had to spend way more time than I’d like emailing parents and wagging my finger at kids who aren’t motivated to do their homework, or mediating student-teacher conflicts with kids in the program who have attitude problems – not much in life is less fun than having to force a defiant eleventh-grader to go apologize to a teacher for giving them attitude, yet this has become part of my job this year. It’s so not in my nature to be this much of a parent to the kids I teach, but I’m trying to do my best, and for the most part people are happy with the program and saying great things about it, which is a bit odd since I don’t particularly feel like I’m doing anything outstanding. The school has even held fundraisers for the school that have focused on the center; I was invited to one of them and had to endure a standing ovation for the “great work” I am doing, which made me feel like a heel since I don’t feel like I’m doing anything all that great at all. It’s weird.

We’ve already gotten approval to add a second full-time employee next year, which will help immensely, and I wish we could get me some help this year but that’s not going to happen. And the director of the program has promised me I can cut back on my hours next year if that’s what I want to do, but I still have to get through this year on my own. However, we’re almost at the halfway point with the semester ending on December 19th, and it’s not like I haven’t had to grin-and-bear-it at my job before, so I guess I’ll survive. But still, I wish I were just teaching English instead of spearheading a new program that everyone has so much invested in; it’s a lot of attention on me at a point in my life where I don’t want it, and it’s unnerving.

Anyway I am off for a week, so that’s something, then back for three more weeks before I get another nice long break. Not sure how much time I’ll have for picture-taking, as the week looks to be filled with catching up on doctor visits and taking cars to auto shops and lovely errands like that, but at least I don’t have to nag a bunch of high school seniors this week to get their planners filled out and their homework turned in!

Here’s hoping everyone else who celebrates it has a lovely Thanksgiving.