i will

Okay, so, life. I had my meeting with Suzanne... was both worse than and not as bad as I expected. Tracy thinks I'm behind on school work and I've been taking off days/being late to try to play catch up, and not talking to her about it. Which is far from the case. So, not quite what I expected, but at least she doesn't (exactly) think I'm a huge slacker. On the other hand, Suzanne warned me to expect Tracy to look in on me. Didn't happen this week between MSAs and Tracy having jury duty, but apparently I can expect her to pop in and see if I'm doing everything properly. I mean, I don't have the lesson plan book I'm supposed to, but aside from that... I do what I'm supposed to, so it should be okay.

I gained a ton of respect for Tracy at the seminar today. She let the class rant for an hour about how unreasonable and condescending our reading assessment professor is at the university and gave us advice on how to handle it. Very frank, helpful advice. And she demonstrated yet again how knowledgeable she is about classroom management. She has a treasure trove of random examples/experiences I never in a million years would have imagined. I'll be honest; I let my view of her as a supervisor color my view of her as a teacher. She's a fantastic teacher. She's not even a bad supervisor, she just has certain ways about her that don't mesh with my style, for lack of a better description.

Life is hectic. Danny is amazing through all of it, as I was practically bragging to Katie today. He drove to Whetstone during rush hour yesterday to fix my random flat tire, and drove my car for me today to get it fixed while I was at my internship. The thing with Morgan was hard, but I really think it made our relationship even stronger in the end. I think we both appreciate what we have more. I love the hell out of that man, and he's always showing the ways he cares about me.

My classmates are in a panic over our reading assessment class with Brie; I've had her before and she's crazy and condescending, but I'm making a high A in her class (I've only lost half a participation point overall so far, everything else has perfect marks) and although the upcoming workload seems overwhelming, I know I'll get through it like I always do. I did volunteer to speak to her with a couple other students about our concerns though--based on the advice Tracy gave. Some really great ideas. Approach it as the needs we have in order to get out of her course what we know she wants us to get out of it, like better clarification of expectations on assignments, examples of assignments before they're due instead of after people have fucked them up, and less of a workload. I told Lauren, who's ring-leading this confrontation, that I don't want her to feel we're ganging up on her, so I don't have to come, but if they want the support I'm there.

I also told Katie I'd look over her papers before she submits them if she likes. She's not a writer the way I am, which makes it hard for her. Brie, from what we can tell, is super-biased against imperfect grammar and writing mechanics, so I'm thinking if I can fine-tune Katie's papers she can get better marks.

I have some great behavior incentive stuff to try when I get the chance. I'm thinking I'll order the mailbox thing I want for the classroom, too, even though it's really more expensive than I want to pay for right now.

Big plans for SynTru--another example of money I shouldn't spend but really want to. Assirra has offered to add IP.Blog, and I want IP.Content too. Each is $50. I think they could really work wonders on the site... meh. We'll see how that pans out. Right now we're kind of surveying member opinions to see how popular they'd be if added. Assirra and Zap have worked wonders with SynTru since I haven't had time for it anymore. I'm constantly amazed by their dedication.

Speaking of, I have a piece of feedback due today. I think I'll go do that now.

Hope everyone had a good Valentine's Day :D Danny and I celebrated Saturday. Just stayed in with alcohol, video games, Magic: the Gathering, and movies.

I've made lame money the last few shifts at work. Here's hoping the weekend will be better, because we'll need the money. Haven't heard back from Baka, our real estate agent, in a few days. Last we heard, the bank's figuring out the amount left due on the loan for the place so they can come back with a counter offer. I hope they get to it very soon. We need to get the heck out of this place.

School is hectic. Well, life in general. Internship 8-4 Monday through Friday, with an hour-long commute--though I do tend to leave around 3 fairly often to get to work/uni class/mandatory seminars. Three days a week at Hard Times--generally Monday and Friday evening, plus either Saturday or Sunday. Tuesday evening class at the university. Tutoring Shane on Wednesday. And a seminar about every other week on Thursday in a random location.

Teaching is good. I vastly prefer math and reading to science or social studies. I look at science and I'm just kind of like... "What am I going to do, exactly?" There's so much to choose from, but so little time to teach it. I'm taking over science now (slowly), so it's... blah. But reading is really good. It's so freeform you can do almost anything. And the kids are really taking to their writing journals. They love getting feedback.

I had to leave early today for my IUD appointment. I am the proud owner of a Mirena IUD that cramped like a bitch for the first couple hours. It wasn't super painful, just like really heavy duty menstrual cramps. But really gross since they had me come in and get it done on my period; apparently it hurts less then. I guess it's nice of them to consider my pain over their probable preference to not have to stick their hands in a bleeding vagina. For the next week I have to use backup protection, but then I'm good for five years. What what.

Also, I'm getting published. Alt Hist picked up Death in Theatre for its second issue. It's a new magazine, but it's been reviewed by Locus, among others, so it's getting good press. So that's looking up. Not that I've been writing. I'm really busy lately and feel pretty drained, and I'd rather not write unless I really feel like it because forcing myself to in the midst of all my other crap would just not be pleasant.

And I thought I did terribly on my Praxis II tests for Middle School Math and English, but I passed with flying colors. So I'll be qualified to teach middle school, either math or English--in theory at least. I'll be applying everywhere in Montgomery County (and possibly Howard too... or maybe Anne Arundel... depends on where we're living and such...) and then weeding through my options to figure out what I want to do. Because I really don't have any desire to teach science or social studies, but I want to teach math AND reading, so... blah. Makes a choice between middle and elementary school complicated.

Guess that's it for now? I mean, I've been reading--the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld and now I'm working on the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare--but eh. That's it. Overall life's good, just hectic and somewhat stressful.

Oh wait! Mirage Games accepted my response to the first work order they sent me and sent me confirmation of the credits earned, but I haven't heard about anything else forthcoming. So that's kind of sad.

Morgan reactivated her Facebook. Talking to her makes me pretty deeply sad, but I think it'll pass. I suppose if we want to be real friends again we'll have to sit down and talk... but we'll see.

( Bit of TMI )

Anyway. Suffice to say. I did not sleep at all last night, and I was run down all day at my internship. My fifth graders were asking me what was wrong with my eyes and I had to explain I didn't get any sleep and my eyes were protesting, but a couple of the intuitive ones did not miss the fact that puffy eyes come from crying.

Fuck my life right now.

It'll get better. But I think... this might be the lowest I've been... maybe ever, and if not, certainly in a long while.

Meh. I'm enjoying my internship. There are very frustrating parts, which I suppose is to be expected when working with kids, but overall it's a terrific experience. Fifth graders, ah. I had to switch one little girl to a new seat because the kids around her made fun of her when she tried to behave well (her mom works at the school, so if she doesn't behave she gets in big trouble), but when I moved the boy she traded seats with to her old seat, the kids who'd been making fun of her immediately said, "Ew, I don't like him! Can't he sit over there?" And he's a sweet, quiet little boy, which is why I thought it'd be a better seating arrangement, but apparently these kids are just jerks.

Anyway. I adore my mentor, and she has nothing but good things to say about me, so I think it's a good arrangement.

I recently finished reading Hero by Perry Moore and Eon by Alison Goodman, both of which I enjoyed quite a lot. Hero was a superhero story where the main character is gay, and I loved the whole premise and the eventual romance, even if the early crush in the story (on Ultraman) was a little awkward to me. Eon was a fantasy based heavily on Chinese culture, and I loved everything about it except one frustration: I hate it when the main character can't figure out the solution to a problem that is completely obvious because it just makes them seem stupid. For the most part it wasn't too bad, but there was one particular scene in the story when the main character's dense-headedness made me temporarily put down the book, sigh, roll my eyes, and squash my annoyance down before I could continue.

I should get back to The Way of Kings soon, but it's very heavy reading for all the stuff I have going on lately, so I'm hesitant to get too deep in just yet. I'll probably read Blood Ninja first. (Ninjas and vampires?! Hells yes!)

God, so much stuff coming up for my uni classes. I've got to find an efficient way to organize everything and get my crap together.

There's lots more, but meh, I don't feel like typing. I feel like reading. :)

Danny is home. We just watched Jerry Maguire, which was good, and now he's watching preseason Redskins, which is less good. I like watching the Redskins live, but I get bored easily watching it on TV--especially preseason games. I've never been a sporty person, so I guess it's not surprising.

I ran another lesson today with the kids. I brought in a whole bunch of books for a lesson on how to pick a book to read for fun. It didn't go perfectly; the power had been out for a while and remained out for the whole lesson, and making kids concentrate when it's dark and hot is pretty difficult. One group in particular was very disruptive, with the throwing my books around and yelling. Frustrating. But Alice thought I did very well, even if afterward I couldn't help thinking of little things I could have done better. I guess that, since it's only my third day, not doing brilliantly is not altogether unexpected. Especially under the circumstances. But many of the kids were really excited about my books, which made me happy. I just wish I had extra copies to lend out... but I'm not comfortable lending out a bunch of my hardcovers. I did lend out the Halo book that follows the first game, though--mainly because I don't mind if I lose it. I found it to be boring. I liked the prequel book better; Shane has that one, and I know he'll return it.

I still need to get Graceling back from Megan, and the Keisha'ra books from Yuka. I'm definitely more concerned about getting Graceling back. I don't think I'd miss the others terribly.

Anyway, so far I love the internship. I could do without the University classes, but ah. They'll be done in a couple months. And they'll probably be a huge help despite being annoyingly jam-packed with assignments.

Things I'm concerned about: The actual curriculum/making lesson plans by day-week-month-year; being a disciplinarian for the kids; and of course fitting all the University work into the internship and what limited "free time" I have. Oh, and writing. x_x;