Preparing for Year 2

Life is slowing down a bit!  I've been married for 12 days now and so far I'm experiencing a blissful marriage!  Life just doesn't get much better than this!  We should be moving into our house by mid-September, at the latest.  Other than that, life is good.  I can now focus more completely on teaching (and crafting, as I have a couple craft shows to prepare for in a few months).  I have so many goals for this year, so many things I'd like to modify to help encourage learning. Here's a list of what I'd like to do:

Goals for 2012-2013 School Year

1. Morning Opening - Add "Good Things" and a variety of open journal questions (may choose to share or not share).  Start checking student journals.
2. Student Planners - Get students used to using a personal schedule and adding things to their personal calendar.  Also, maintain school daily schedule and incorporate into personal schedule.
3. Conversation Jar - Create a jar with questions on popsicle sticks or pieces of paper that students can choose and read to help facilitate conversations (social interactions/social skills).
4. Follow-Up Questions - As a class, come up with a list of follow-up questions to FAQ, i.e. "How was your day today?" or "What are your plans for this weekend?"  Come up with questions that are more personalized.
5. Art Class - Incorporate art into the monthly calendar.  Probably every other Friday.  Develop a list of possible art projects to work on.  Will also need to gather necessary art supplies.
6. Homework - Although my students are adults, I'd like for them to have "homework", something that they're responsible for and should be working on and practicing while at home.  Examples include: memorize address, wear job interview appropriate clothes tomorrow, etc.
7. Year-Round Projects - This program is vocational oriented, so I'd like my students to be working on an employment portfolio and resume throughout the year.  To introduce this, I'll have to explain what a portfolio and resume is at the start of the school year by showing and talking about my own.  I'd like students to be able to take their portfolio and resume home with them by the time they graduate from the program.
8. Personal Goals - I'd like to emphasize the importance of goals.  We talk a lot about goals, but I'm not sure if my students can see a distinct correlation between personal goals and how they are related to their behaviors and actions shown toward achieving their "goals".  I need to help them light a fire of motivation in order to really understand the importance of goal-setting and how it relates to their peers in the real world.
9. Afternoon Wrap-Up - Continue to include the "How was your day?" question, but add a high/low (best and worst part of your day).  Follow this by weekly evaluation sheets and calming music (working on those coping skills).

These are just a few of my goals.  I know that I probably have a lot more, but I can only accomplish so much.  If I only accomplish a few of these throughout the year, I'll be content.  Last year my focus was on increasing student ability to communicate with others (i.e. conversational, greetings, initiating and maintaining conversations, body language while communicating, etc.) and I consider that a success.  I've even heard back from one student's parents that they have noticed this achievement in their young adult.  I love to see that others are noticing these adults continue to learn!  I have such a special job, and I'm so excited to continue to make improvements this year!

Mid-summer break

So, the wedding is in EXACTLY 2 weeks (well, 33 minutes short of exactly...) and...we bought a house a week ago! We still have to pass inspections, appraisal, mortgage qualifications, etc, but we put an offer in and it was accepted! That's a big deal considering we were one of two people putting an offer in on the same house. Needless to say, life just got a little more stressful.

Summer 2012

I just finished my first two weeks of summer school.  We only work Tues-Thurs for 6 hours (7:30-1:30pm), two weeks of school, two weeks off for the whole summer (although the last week - in August - is only one week of school).  Today, there are 23 days until our wedding, we're looking for houses (we've already seen 4 houses and we're going to see more this weekend), and I'm under a lot of stress!  I'm hoping that after the wedding I'll be able to de-stress, focus on work more, and get on with my life.

Open Bid Continued

Open bid day 2 was to start at 8:30am; however, it didn't start until about 10am.  It was run the same as the day before (by seniority dates).  I made my debut in front of HR at about noon, presented my preferred position (although I did qualify for quite a few that were posted), which was my "current" position, and was accepted.  What incredible news!  I HAVE MY JOB BACK!!!  I have stability.  I have a pay check.  I have insurance.  I HAVE STABILITY!  I have fantastic staff!  I have amazing students.  I'm beyond lucky and blessed to have such caring and wonderful co-workers and friends.  I'm part of another miracle.  Again, I have one serious guardian angel that no one can mess around with!  I am so blessed.

Today's Funny:

At open bid on teacher asked HR, "Is there WiFi?" HR said,"Yeah.... it's LoudWhale." Teacher asked, "Is there a password?"  HR says, "The password is peach92."  HA! I think I was too amused by this verbal exchange.

Open Bid

Today I spent 4 hours sitting in a room with about 100 other GRPS employees in a similar position as me. We signed in, writing our name and seniority date, then waited. The open jobs were posted on the wall, each job on a different piece of paper. When our name was called, we were to go to a room and present our preferred job to HR. So, seniority dates from 1998 to present started bids at 12:30, one-by-one, people were called to present the job they wanted (or were highly qualified for) to HR.  If you didn't qualify for any of the posted jobs, then you were left "unassigned".  We thought that people were being called by seniority dates, as the invitation we got in the e-mail stated; however, about 2 hours into bids, they said that they were calling people based on how early they came and signed in.  It was all based on the sign in sheet... not seniority.  We couldn't believe it.  After a long conversation, we, as a whole (well, majority rules), decided to base everything on seniority starting at 1998 seniority dates.  The bids were supposed to end at 4pm, but by 5pm they had just gotten to 2010 seniority.  2011 (my seniority date) and 2012 were to come back the following day.  

What a restless night sleep...

End of the Year Update

I haven't written in a while and a lot has happened.  I had a fantastic spring break, and everything has been a blur since.  Time has flown by!  More recently, the students and staff (mostly staff) at the school I teach at threw me a surprise wedding shower on Friday!!! My heart is so full of gratitude and happiness for such a thoughtful surprise that they planned for me!  I literally didn't have words for such a fantastic surprise in my honor! The students weren't aware of the surprise either;  in fact, 5 students wished me happy birthday and 1 asked if I was retiring.  And speaking of retiring, I got an e-mail today notifying me that I will not have my current position in the fall.  While I felt so full of happiness and gratefulness on Friday, I'm feeling quite the opposite today.  I'm confused and hurt.  I can't imagine what I'm going to do or where I'm going to go from here. Retiring really does seem like a good idea!  I could just stay at home and sew all day.  Maybe make it big on etsy...

Needless to say, I must learn to take the good with the bad.  Hopefully positive news will find me in the future, but for now I'll continue my search.

My 25th Birthday

Yesterday was my 25th birthday.  I turned a quarter-century old.  I've officially reached an age where it was hard to handle hearing the number of years I've been on this earth.  It's not an old age, but it still doesn't seem like long enough to accomplish as much as I want to accomplish in my life!

At any rate, my students were eager to celebrate my birthday.  They secretly made me birthday cards (which I LOVE!!! And my day was complete after I received them), they all wished me a happy birthday (one congratulated me... multiple times.  Still not sure what the congrats were for - I guess just making it this far!), and one of my students even realized that I was still younger than some of the students in the class! That was exactly why I didn't want anyone to know my age - so that they saw me as a teacher instead of as their same-age peer.  Regardless, they were happy to celebrate my day with me.  We went to Laughfest and enjoyed our morning (although I think I was the only person out of the 5 students and 1 other staff in my classroom that went to Laughfest, that was actually amused), then dance and choir in the afternoon and back to the classroom to finish the day.  My staff made me a birthday cake (and birthday dinner - I'm spoiled!), lit a candle, and one of my students MADE ME leave the classroom, turn off the lights, and then walk back in so they could put their hands in the air and yell, "SURPRISE!"  So I blew out the blue candle (requested by this student) and made a wish.  Unfortunately my wish didn't come true, because the day had to come to an end...

But before going home, we had 4 hours of conferences (including 3 IEPs) - back-to-back.  One of my student's parents brought me birthday cake.  How wonderful and thoughtful!  I am so blessed to have such loving and caring people in my life.  When conferences were over, we ate meatball sandwiches and salad, that my staff made and brought in for my special birthday dinner.  They are so awesome!

When I got home, Nick had bought birthday cheesecake and we also had birthday Thai food (Drunken Noodles Medium Spicy.... YUMMM!!!).  What a wonderful day!  I didn't want the day to end so I just couldn't go to bed that night!  Thank you to everyone who made my day extra special.  I am so blessed.