Catching Up

In fact, I seem to be caught up. I still haven't tackled the BIG PROJECTS I had hoped to get to the summer (i.e., the basement), but otherwise, I have a blank to-do list. I'm having a facial on Friday, I have an appointment at the Apple Store Monday morning to take care of a few computer details (I STILL LOVE MY MAC), and I have an appointment for a ... *ahem* ... procedure on Tuesday.

In other news, the new living room curtains are up, I got new couch pillows, my living room looks as good as it's ever going to. I could actually invite a stranger -- or someone I know, more likely -- into my house and not die of mortal embarrassment. My kitchen is clean and neat. You know, I had said very early in the summer that I usually clean as soon as vacation starts but that I didn't do it this year, and I've also had issues with it not feeling like summer vacation. My house has now achieved my desire level of clean/neat. So that feels very good.

I went to the chiropractor again today, and I'm giving it the old college try, but so far I don't so much see the point. The only good thing is that if my back goes out, I can get an appointment with someone who knows me right away, more or less. Otherwise, it's just weird. But I'm going.

We had insane thunderstorms last night and this morning, which were cleared up by eight or nine, but which had done their damage by then. There was a tornado in Brooklyn, which is not so terribly far from here, maybe 25 miles, if that, and all the city commuters were totally screwed. R's train line was flooded, but fortunately for her, there was a power failure on her block, and by the time it came back and she was ready to leave for work at ten, the trains were running again.

Stopped for a bit just now to have a nice talk with the Sibs, who is away for a few days with her hubs and their youngest, Little K, to look at colleges. (He's starting his senior year next month.) Looks like they may have found a good one, just by dropping in to see the school his father went to, so that would be nice, if he liked it and they know he can get in. Interview tomorrow; he's a very personable kid with great grades and excellent activities. Fingers crossed for Little K.

And now it's late, so I'm posting and collapsing.

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1547

Obladi

I have been Simpsonized.

I am terribly amused by this picture. Not only does it kind of look like me, it looks a lot like my mother. In fact, it looks more like her than like me, although the hair is more me than her. But Simpsons, as a rule, have no chins to speak of, and Shirl had just a wee bit of a receding chin, whereas I have just a regular one. But I think it's a funny picture anyway; I may add it to my page permanently somewhere.

Other than a visit to the chiropractor this morning -- and let me tell you, he is one strange individual -- I've done very little today. Oh, I did do the exercise video in the morning, so that was good. It was damn hot outside today; my sister and I were going to do an errand together in the afternoon but it was just too hot to be out and about.

Not enjoying my reading so much today; I think I'll give up on this one. It's a biography of Ingrid Bergman, which is interesting in and of itself, but this is not so well written, just a list of anecdotes and quotations, really. The biography of Cary Grant I read last year was really fascinating, with a lot of insight into what made him tick. So far, this is just boring, and I really like Ingrid Bergman. I'll have to see what's next on the stack of books.

Nothing else to report. I have Bobby to watch from Blockbuster, which I'd like to get to this weekend. Generally I seem to keep them forever. I finally started to watch Borat the other day, but within ten minutes I had no patience for it. I could see it was going to be the same joke again and again and again. And if a stranger came up to me on the streets of New York to kiss me hello -- although I noticed they didn't show him approaching any women -- I would have dropped dead on the spot, and if I survived that, you can be sure I would never venture into the city again as long as I lived. I guess I identified more with his victims that with his character. Sent that sucker right back.

Got my car serviced today and all it needed was an oil change and that basic stuff. 124,800+ miles. I'm holding onto it until I go over a bump one day and all the pieces parts start to fall off, like in a cartoon. Although I may not have much longer to wait.

WATCHING SVU :: ENTRY #1543

Life in the Ivory Tower

boxx commented about the extra hours she puts in at school, uncompensated, and I know this is so because it's often in her entries: that she'll go in and work in her classroom on a Sunday afternoon, for example, to get things ready for the coming week.

No one does that here.

Now, lest we think that all the teachers in New Jersey are uncaring, I shall explain. I have never known any teacher here, at any level K-12, to go in and work on a weekend, at least, not in their classrooms. I'm sure that in my school district, for example, classrooms aren't accesible to teachers on weekends. The elementary and middle schools are locked up tight, and the high school is only open for the sports activities, i.e., the locker rooms and gyms may be open, but nothing else is. Or for certain activities, like the drama club, which rehearses on Saturday mornings, and the auditorium is accesible to them. Otherwise, there are heavy gates pulled down to block off other corridors and areas of the school. So that's one thing.

But every time boxx says something about working weekends, it makes me think. Certainly, most teachers do not work according to their agreed upon, contracted hours; anyone who says that teachers have easy hours really doesn't get it. No teachers do that. Here at my school, where the first class starts at 7.55, many people come in early. The SCM gets in most days around 6.45, and his isn't the only car in the parking lot. Yes, some people rush into the building at 7.54, and just make it to their classrooms. These are the people who are more likely to stay until 5.00 in the afternoon or so. (The last class ends at 2.35.) Here's part of the difference, I think:

Elementary school teachers often use the extra time in their rooms to work on the room itself (putting up bulletin boards and displays, arranging work stations for the next day's lesson), and I routinely see teachers' cars parked at the elementary schools around town until five or six. (Their day of classes ends at 3.00.) They don't spend the extra time with kids because little kids go home (or to an after-school program) right after school because of safety concerns. And in a lot of places -- not here in B-Town, though -- kids are bussed, and so of course they have to leave when the busses come.

It's different when you're in a high school. Teachers who are staying late are less likely to be preparing for the next day's class, or grading papers, than they are to be giving kids extra help, or working with a club or a sports team. (Most teachers I know do their preparation and paper grading at home.) When I was the junior class advisor, I met with my officers one morning a week at 7.30, with the full class council one afternoon a week from 2.45 to 3.30 or so, and one night a week to work on whatever project was at hand, either preparing for the big Spirit Week pep rally, or for the junior prom. When we put up the decorations for the junior prom, we worked for two days, a Thursday and a Friday, from 8.00 am until we were done, which was often 10.00 pm or later, and then came in Saturday morning to check them and then back Saturday night for the actual prom. (The kids working on it were released from classes to put up the decorations.) And coaches, in season, work with their teams every day after school for hours.

Some of this, though, is compensated. A coach gets good money, outside of a regular salary. I got, I think, $1500 a year for junior class, which came to something like 25 cents an hour. I didn't do it for the money, nobody does. Teaching is a solid job and career, but nobody is doing it for the money, other than the survival aspect. It's not the road to big-ticket success.

Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this, just showing a difference, I guess, between different places and how things are done, no value judgments. Oh, and I think we have very strong teachers' unions here in New Jersey, so that may account for something. We've had years when the Board of Ed wasn't willing to negotiate a new contract with us, and our union put us on "job action" status, which means, among other things, that no one works outside of contracted hours. This sucked for elementary teachers, who normally went in during the last couple weeks of the summer to set things up, and others as well, but you do what you have to. I've always come in and done certain things during the summer, but I always did them while hanging out with the Colleague, so I don't know what I'll do this year.

Back in the real world

I've been thinking of going to a chiropracter, but I'm still too chicken to pull the trigger and go. The only one I know of is the one K goes to sometimes, whom I've met and he's very very nice, but also chatty, and his kids go to the high school. Hmmm. But I've had this ache in my shoulder/neck, and I'm thinking I should go, but ..... still not so sure how I feel about chiropracters; I had a weird experience years back. Not sure if I'm ready yet.

Okay, time for more Harry. Tomorrow.

watching Raymond :: entry #1468