So I'm really not happy with my job right now. I don't feel like our administration at both the building and district level are really on top of things.

I feel like every day I'm getting emails telling me I need to do something ASAP. Some of them are easy, some take some planning.

In addition to that, I'm really unhappy with this 7th grade class that I'm teaching. The boys in the class are total jerks. And I never feel like I'm more than a day ahead of myself. I feel like I'm floundering. And the sad part is, I'm staying until like 4 pm most days and still feel that way.

I feel like I walk around in a cloud most days and I'm just so eager for the end of the day to come when I can just go home. I'm wondering if some of it is a pregnancy fog. I'm worried that it will only get worse when my maternity leave is up and I have to go back to work after having Baby M.

Job sharing is sounding better and better....so is being a trophy wife. I still don't think I can be a full time stay at home mom, but I'm telling ya, this job is getting harder and harder. I just feel like there are a million hoops I'm being asked to jump through. I didn't feel this way at all last year. I'm so eager for the next 11 weeks to go by, just so I can get away from my job. Isn't that sad? Of course I'm super excited about finally meeting my kid, but the idea of not having to go to work every day and deal with all of that crap is just as exciting to me right now.

I really need to figure out what's going on....

Oh, and they still haven't found a long term sub for me. I'm getting really stressed about that too. That's a whole other drama that I just can't get into without getting upset....

A Quickie...

I finally had to succumb to the DD bra.....*sigh* It's a sad, sad day.....

Maybe I'll get lucky and shrink to a B like Karen did....*smirk*

Here's the other updates:
1. Hate my job
2. Only 11 weeks til baby
3. 4 baby showers in the month of October
4. My mom was sick and in the hospital last week and that why I haven't really posted. She's home now, but we still don't know what's going on. She has more tests this week to determine the real problem.

Chuck!

This is for Karen who said she had never heard of Chuck. It just highlights what the show is about.

Listing

1. Poor Maggie- She really wants to lay in my lap, but there isn't much lap left right now. She keeps trying to get in it and she sits next to me and paws and my stomach. Like she can make it move or something. It took her a good 10 minutes to settle down next to me while I was surfing the 'Net on the laptop. She kept trying to figure out ways to rest her head on my lap or my stomach, but nothing seemed to work. So she gave up on that and is laying the other direction with her butt partially on my lap and her head on a pillow. What a spoiled little doggie....

2. Did anyone else do this when they got married? Checked their registry to see what people had purchased so far? I'm SOOOOOOO tempted to go look and see what people have purchased off of our baby registries! I can't help it! I want to know what I don't have to buy! :)

3. We got our first official "registry gift" in the mail the other day. Friends from Colorado sent us one of the bibs that we registered for and some baby toys. It was quite the surprise and we were very pleased to see that one of the things they got off of our Target registry was on clearance. It pleased us because, one it didn't cost them a lot and two we got it before it disappeared off the shelves. Target seems to do a lot of that. It's annoying.

4. What is up with this stupid weather? It's the end of September and it's still in the mid 80s here! This is once again extremely annoying as my warm weather maternity clothing was NOT designed for my larger belly. All of my comfortable expandable pants are for colder weather. I don't know what I'm going to do if this weather lasts much longer. I'm heading to Target tonight. Maybe something will be on the clearance rack......

5. Many of my TV shows are getting ready to start their season premiers. Here's the thing- since many of them went off the air with the strike and didn't come back in the late spring, I kinda don't care. There are only a few that I can say I'm really looking forward to. The others I'm just going to TIVO and see if I'm still interested. On my short list of "still excited" shows: The Office, Grey's Anatomy, and Chuck.

6. I leaned forward on the couch and Maggie is now trying to stand on my leg. All four of hers on one of mine. She's getting so needy! I just kiss her on the head and tell her she's crazy.

7. You'll never guess who is still obsessively mowing their lawn??? *grin* You got it. And we keep mowing one day after her just to make her come out and mow again. MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Long awaited....

I can't say I'm thrilled with this picture of me, I look too much like my dad's sisters in it....but at least it's a photo...


And just because it gives you some perspective on how my belly looks to me and because it's a funny picture....

I finally caved and created a Facebook page.

ps. I'm officially starting to get tired of being pregnant. I LOVE that M is active and that I'm reassured everything is okay...but I'm tired of not having many clothing options (I refuse to buy anything else that is meant for hot weather) and my stomach getting in the way of doing things, like BENDING OVER!

I Think She Nailed the Part

??

I keep hearing this advertisement on the radio in the morning while I get ready for work. It's the voice of a child reading off a list of countries that are scoring better on standardized testing than the United States. Jamie Lee Curtis then chimes in that parents may become angry while listening to this message. What I find unfair about this commercial is that it makes Americans sound like idiots.

In no way are the size of each of these countries or their educational philosophies injected to give a clearer picture. The ad doesn't sponsor either presidential candidate. It just sponsors stronger schools. If you go to their website at least there they say that parents need to be involved. But when you look at the countries that are beating us, they are primarily Asian or small European nations. Here's my take on this: America is not only 10 times larger than many of these countries, but we also deal with the greatest "melting pot" of students and parents. We are not only trying to educate children on math and science and reading, we are also trying to educate them on life. In some cases, we are better parents to these kids than their parents are.

Example: Just last week we pulled a kid into talk to him about the fact that in the first two weeks of school he had done little to no homework for his classes. When we looked at his permanent record it showed that he has achieved nothing over a D or F in the last THREE years in our building. He has barely passed each school year and yet, these grades are not an accurate reflection of his abilities. It's obvious that he is a bright child. Spending just 8 days with him I could already tell that. When we asked him what his parents said to him about these grades he responded, "Nothing. They really don't care about grades." He wasn't lying. So tell me how I am supposed to match the graduation rate of Sweden when I have a kid whose parents don't even care that he's practically failed every school year since the 5th grade?! His test scores were actually fine. He can take a test. But how is that helping him in life? There are only 9 million people living in Sweden. There are 301 million people living in the US.

Here are the other top ranked countries and their populations.
Finland- 5.2 million
Canada- 33.3 million
Japan- 127.4 million
New Zealand-4.1 million
Australia-20.4 million
Netherlands-16.5 million
Korea-72 million
Germany- 82.4 million
United Kingdom-60.7 million
Czech Republic-10.2 million
Switzerland- 7.5 million
Austria- 8.2 million
Belgium- 10.4 million
Ireland-4.1 million
Hungary-9.9 million
Poland- 38.5 million
Denmark - 5.4 million
France-61.8 million
Iceland- 301 thousand

Not even one of these comes close to the size of our population. There are more people in the freaking greater Dayton area (over 800 thousand) than in the entire nation of Iceland. I didn't even have TIME to research their income/welfare/economic status in relation to ours.....

Sorry for the tirade.

Cranky

So I'm really getting tired of the crap going on in my school building right now. We currently have three "extras" teachers (music and PE) that only teach 4 out of 8 periods a day. 50 % of the day at 100% of the pay. The administration claims that they are "responsible for kids" two other periods a day, but after looking at their schedules for those two extra periods, I'm not accepting that. One of the two "responsibilities" is recess duty. Seriously?!?!! They're getting paid full teachers salary to have 45 minutes of recess duty?>!?!?!

Now I know that I could have become a music or gym teacher, but this just doesn't seem fair. One of the administration's excuses was that if they hadn't come up with something like this, they would have had to cut a teacher. Now don't tell me that if numbers were so low that they didn't need me that they wouldn't have cut me. I just don't believe it. They'd really pay my over 50k to do nothing just so they wouldn't feel bad about cutting a job? I'll believe it when I see it. And I would have GLADLY taken recess duty instead of getting stuck with an extra class of kids in a subject I've never taught before while getting ready to go out on maternity leave.

In addition to that, one of these three teachers is double dipping. She's getting paid over 3k to "teach" handbells. But she's doing it during her contract hours!!!!! How is that fair? It's supposed to be a club held outside of school hours.

Grrrrrr.........

Two Posts in One Week!!

My Thursday Thirteen

1. Have the new Jonas Brothers CD. I'm not ashamed to say that I LOVE it. It's upbeat and easy to listen to. Even though half of the songs are about not being tied down to a "girl" I just like listening to silly stuff sometimes. Burnin' Up is definitely light and easy.

2. Maggie's skunk breath is getting better. Yesterday morning I got out of the shower and laid down for 20 minutes. When i turned over, her head was laying on my pillow like she owned the damn thing. It was cute. But still a little stinky. It was so cute though that I adjusted my face so I didn't have to breath it in and we shared the pillow for another 10 minutes.

3. Has anyone else noticed how AWESOME Lays potato chips are when you just eat them plain?

4. I just finished reading the entire Twilight series in a matter of a week and a half. I didn't think I'd like books about vampires but Jessica asked me to try them and they were great! I couldn't put them down!

5. Only the top half of my belly button is popping out when I stand. When I sit the whole thing starts to poke out. When I sit and talk, it pops out all the way whenever I place emphasis on something. I have noticed this while teaching.

6. I hate the spiders that live around the twisty knob on our propane tank on the grill.

7. I had a "stubborn standoff" with a kid today. I told him that I had 15 extra years of experience at being stubborn and that he was never going to win. I also told this same kid I would drag him "kicking and screaming" to the 9th grade. Remember- it's only the 2nd week of school. Yeah, he's that bad already.

8. I've decided that red leaf lettuce is superior to green leaf lettuce. It's less tough along the edges.

9. The best part about being pregnant is the kicking. I love, love, love when M kicks me and I press on my belly and then M kicks back again. It's like a fun little game that only the two of us can play. We're playing right now.

10. Sarah Palin is hot. Too bad she's Republican. If she and Obama were on the same ticket, they'd make the hottest team to ever campaign for office. ;)

11. I was so sweaty the other day that I stripped down naked in my living room and just laid on the floor in my 69 degree air. I LOVE central air. The dogs wouldn't stop licking my sweaty arms and face. While it was gross it was also funny. I tasted like a salt lick. Sorry, this one was probably TMI.

12. Now that school has actually started, I'm rethinking the whole, "I want to work all the way til my December 18th due date."

13. I saw two "sweet" cars today. One on the way to work, one on the way home. The first car was a silver Ford Taurus with two black racing stripes (like the kind you see on a Mustang). It was only going 50 miles an hour. You should not be allowed to put racing stripes on your car if you won't drive fast. And there was nothing else pimped out on the car. Weird. The second car was a plain, ordinary looking car that randomly had the words "Party Wagon" painted on the car with what looked like blue house paint. Yeah. I totally tried to get a picture with my phone, but couldn't find it fast enough.

Exhausted

So I never thought I would be this exhausted from teaching while pregnant. I'm really hoping that it's just the heat and once things cool off I'll feel a little better. Things have been pretty miserable in our building since we don't have air conditioning and have poor ventilation.

I checked the weather report at 2pm today and it said that it was 91 degrees outside. That means it was at LEAST 100 in my classroom. And on top of that the breaker kept blowing for my corner of the building. It might have to do with the fact that the guidance counselor and the asst principal both have air conditioners running on my circuit. I kept calling the office to get them to fix the problem. The custodian was very nice and he kept coming up to reset things and moved some of my fans around to try to help. The thing is, now all of the fans are on one side of the room and there is even less circulation of air.

When I told the building principal he said to me, "I don't know what to tell you. You'll just have to figure it out. Try the computer lab, it might be empty." What?!?! It's not your problem!??? That's essentially what he was saying to me. Has he forgotten that I'm over 6 months pregnant? I was pissed. I almost felt like crying. After the second time that the fans went out I made the decision to go up to the lab. I saw the asst principal on the way there and told him I was headed up there. He told me that I should stay there for the entire afternoon and that if anybody else tried to come use it I should send them to him.

This is a perfect example of how drastically different my two administrators are this year. Many of the people in my building are very unhappy with our new building principal. He used to be a teacher at the school and then spent one year as our asst principal. The old principal retired and they gave the younger guy his job. He just doesn't have enough experience or the right personality for the job. The new asst principal on the other hand is amazing. It's only his second year as an administrator but he has the right personality to be working as a boss. He's caring, he's always looking for ways to make the staff feel appreciated, and he listens. He gets the job done. I can't tell you how many times I've wished that their job roles were reversed.

I should mention that I've had to bust out my "bitch mode" way too many times in the last week and a half. I've already had to have the "diva" talk with a girl. You know, the one where I say that this room is only big enough for one diva personality, and mine has already taken up all the seats? Yeah. Oh, and we've already caught several kids cheating, had a cell phone stolen, and had a kid tell me that he fell asleep in my room because he was bored. *sigh* It's going to be a long wait til December....