Chronically Sleep Deprived

Want to know what we spent on gas this month? $84.53 And since we pre-paid for two annual public transit passes last month, we didn't have the usual $40 or so in transit fares.

Trea had her first dance class tonight. She's been begging for months to dance; I called around to some studios, but it seemed ridiculous to spend $35-40 a month, pay a registration fee, a costume fee, a recital fee, and buy her a bunch of dance clothes. She's three. She changes her mind a lot. I'm not making an investment until I'm sure she really likes it. So, I found a class in our community learning catalog. Six weeks for $39, no performance, no special clothes. The class description was "basic creative dance steps in a fun, positive, and nurturing environment" and stated that children would learn "creative skills of expression." Excellent. I took dance at Trea's age, and I learned "I'm a little Teapot" and danced around with a scarf. I loved it. She can try it and if she hates it, no big deal. I told Trea in the morning that we were going to dance class that afternoon. She asked every half hour after that, if it was time for he...

We have no more openings at my school. Sorry, I know so many of you were eager to work there - but the positions have all been filled. We now have M, a BYU grad who majored in Spanish and has a TESOL cert from the U; I like her, though I wish she'd stop snickering when she hears me attempt Spanish. I know it's probably hard NOT to laugh, but some appreciation of how difficult it is would be appreciated. We also have A, who used to be a tutor for our school way back in the day, and liked it so much she lived in three different countries as an ESL teacher before coming back to the U.S. for her master's. She's partway through a Ph.D program. A little intimidating, all that education, but she's very nice and not at all more-educated-than-thou. I like her. Rounding out the staff is our lone representative of the male gender, R. R is Iranian by birth and speaks Farsi, Arabic and a little Turkish. He has a master's degree and oodles of experience. He also has a smile r...

In an effort to help Kate recruit teachers to fill all the empty slots at our school, I contacted an old instructor (who remembered me, yeah!) and asked her to send the job announcement to students and new graduates who fit the requirements. She was happy to help. Yesterday, I received an application - which right there tells you that she didn't read very carefully, because the instructions clearly indicated that inquiries and application materials were to be sent to Kate. In her cover letter, she stated that she is majoring in Geography/Global Studies, with minors in TESOL and International Development. Ok, so far so good. Then she wrote, "I have studied abroad in Hawaii , Country A, Country B, and Foreign City A." A geography major is claims to have studied abroad in Hawaii. Heck no.

I just watched Barack Obama accept the nomination (I know, I'm late, I was at work when it happened and I forgot to record it on the DVR). He made big promises - to get out of Iraq, responsibly; to create five million new jobs; to reduce taxes for 95% of Americans; to end dependence on foreign oil in ten years; to invest 150 million dollars over ten years in clean energy. He addressed healthcare, education, the environment, and the economy. He was inspirational. He looked like a president, someone who could go abroad and not embarass my country. He sounded educated, but not entitled. I don't know if he can deliver on everything he has promised. It sounds impossible: deliver everything you want, and at a lower price. It sounds too good to be true. But I have to vote for him. I don't have a choice. McCain is too aggressive in foreign policy. He is too invested in the "trickle-down economics" idea to change. He doesn't know how many houses he owns. He is not the ...

My nieces (aka babysitters extradanoire) have gone back to school *sob*. My sister-in-law (their mother) has graciously agreed to watch my kids from the time I leave for work until one of her girls can get home and take over. I think this is partially motivated by a desire to help me out, and partially motivated by the fact that both girls a) owe her money and b) are less likely to borrow even more money in the future if they have a steady income. Enter me and my kids. So, I loaded the kids up the car yesterday - it's only across the street, but it seemed silly to walk over, drop off the kids, and walk back to get my car - and as I turned the key I noticed the car was nearly on empty. Me: Oh dang it, the car needs gas. Trea: Mommy, are you talking to yourself? Me: Yes. Trea: You really need to talk to someone about that talking. What the heck? Then, I come from work, and John tells me that he noticed a mark on Trea's leg. He asked her where she got it. Trea: Do you want to know...

As I may have mentioned before, we have three teachers leaving the school. Kate, so far, has hired one replacement. It's not like she's not trying to hire replacements, it's just not that easy. Apparently there is a dearth of qualified ESL teachers who want to work 17 hours a week, some of it at night, and deal with volunteers not showing, students not showing, never having as much money as we'd like, etc. Go figure. Kate actually hired a teacher who backed out, then hired another teacher who didn't work out for reasons I will not go into. Then, another teacher gave her two-week notice last night. I've been at my job for almost four months, and in a few weeks I will be the third most-senior staff member (including the director) out of a staff of seven. That's a little nuts. I'm trying to convince Kate that this is a great opportunity, that the experience she's losing in her staff will be compensated for by the enthusiasm of newly hired - and probably...

We have a suggestion for you. Olympic fencing would be so much more interesting, John says the other night, if it weren't just straight back-and-forth movement in a confined area. So I started thinking, why don't they hold Olympic fencing competitions on movie sets? The qualifying rounds should be held in the room where Inigo Montoya killed the six-fingered count in "The Princess Bride." Semi-finals, in the cave where Captain Jack Sparrow killed Captain Barbosa in the first "Pirates of the Caribean." Medal rounds will take place at the tops of the Cliffs of Insanity. Who wouldn't want to watch that? Extra points awarded for witty repartee.

I had a new tutor start on Thursday night. She is wonderful. First off, she showed up, on time. Already she is ahead of the tutor who was supposed to start on Tuesday night, and failed to show (and that tutor is also a member of the board, so that makes things. . . awkward). Second, this new tutor, M., is engaging and flexible (um, hey, I know it's your first night, but could you take two extra students? Really? Thanks!). Third (and this is the absolute icing on the cake) she's a speech pathologist. She is exceptionally skilled at teaching people to make sounds they don't know how to make, thereby improving their pronunciation and allowing them to be understood. Unbelievably useful when you're teaching ESL. I'm hoping to pick up some tips from watching her and talking to her. Also, one of my students passed her citizenship test on Thursday. It was her second attempt, so if she'd failed, she'd have to start all over. I'm so, so, so happy for her. She'...

I forgot to mention that we sold the old washer & dryer for $50 to one of those places that refurbishes/repairs them. So that money counts as a discount on the new one, sort of.

We do a lot of testing at work. We test students when they first enter our program, to find out what level they are and group them with other students at similar levels. Then we test them every sixty hours to measure their progress. Some students get really nervous about the testing but most take it in stride. Some of our students have advanced to the point where the test we use doesn't really measure their progress, since it's designed for basic students. For these more advanced students, Kate has started offering the TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education). This is a test commonly used in adult education programs for native speakers. Students are tested in reading and math, and given a score and a grade equivalent. If they get a grade equivalent of 4.5, that's halfway through fourth grade. A 6.1 is the beginning of sixth grade. I'm not sure exactly how they decide what is normal for each grade but I'm assuming it's an average of some kind. So, several of my stude...

Cause I always have a lot of random, unrelated thoughts, and it would really be better if I did a lot of short, frequent posts instead of long rambling ones. Need to work on that. So. A few months ago, when we moved into this apartment, we bought a used washer/dryer. Just a cheap set. Honestly, I didn't really think too hard about this one, because it was the only set in our price range available when we were moving, and I just went with it. In the future I will never buy a used washer/dryer set from a woman who has five boys. After getting it into the apartment, and really looking closely at it, it had this gunk on the outside of the tub. And to clean it really well, I'd have to take it apart. So I did. And this is what it looked like: That stuff all over the inside of it? Yeah, still don't know what it was, but my father-in-law's guess is crank grease. It took a whole lot of 409 and a few scrubbing sponges, but I got it clean. It's a good thing I'm not pregnan...

1) The Fourth of July! We're going to a pancake breakfast, complete with a "parade" - as in, all the neighborhood kids biking, triking, and walking around dazed. To be followed by cheeseburgers, swimming, and fireworks, the first time we've actually planned ahead since we got married. 2) Bus passes. I work for a charter school and I can get ANNUAL bus passes for $65. They are coming in August, and we plan to use them a lot. If gas continues to climb, we can use them even more. 3) The community garden. John found out that the vacant lot behind our neighborhood library is a community garden. They have community lots with assigned pick days. All the produce you want to pick for free! And it's organic! They also accept compost contributions. I feel so guilty throwing out all the peels and leftover bits of fruit and veggies. It's all going to the community compost now, and that makes me feel so good. 4) The 13 x 9 inch pans I finally went and bought. Already this w...

I was getting Trea dressed the other day, and suddenly she starts singing. Trea (singing): We will, we will, ROCK YOU! Me: Where did you learn that? (just curious about where my 3 year old is learning Queen.) Trea: My Primary class. (For you non-LDS people . . . Primary is what we call the kids' Sunday School. I have no idea why Queen would come up in her Primary class). Tuesday I went into work, and my student Marcos was talking with Dorothea. Dorothea told me that Marcos had misunderstood the certificate he'd received for having 96% attendance; he'd received it at the graduation ceremony, and thought that he had to leave the school. He was so upset he admitted he'd cried on the way home. Ahhh. Note to self: must work on Marcos' literacy skills so he can read the difference between "graduation" and "attendance". Dorothea also announced on Tuesday that she's retiring. She's worked there for 37 years, since the program started. When I met ...

Last night was Graduation. You can't really "graduate" - we don't offer a diploma - but we have a five-year limit on providing services to any one student; so, instead of just telling students to leave, they "graduate." Sounds much better. Last night, there should have been four students graduating. One of them was my student Victor. He actually showed up for the first time in several weeks, but when he realized it was graduation - and he'd be called upon to stand up in front of a crowd - he split. He did tell me how much the school had helped him. He told me that when he started, he could hardly speak a word of English. He's made amazing progress - he's one of our highest level students. Ricardo technically should have graduated last night, but he drives the "bus" - the little van that picks up some of our students who live nearby, and don't have transportation. Finding someone who will reliably come to work a split shift two night...

Kate tagged me on Thursday. I know, some of you are thinking, "when I tagged you, it took you freakin' weeks to get around to it!" I know. But Kate's my boss. So there. I also think this meme (or some form of it) may already be on here, but what the hey. The rules: 1. Post the rules of the game at the beginning. 2. Each player answers the questions about themselves. 3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog. 4. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer. What were you doing five years ago? June 2003. . .actually a relatively quiet time in my life. I'd been married about 8 months. I was working as a test development coordinator for an online university; I learned more about project management and test development than I ever thought there was to know. I also took...

I keep trying to organize my posts around themes. My junior year of high school, my teacher, Miss Brady, drilled in the fundamentals of good writing. I keep trying to write these well-planned posts with controlling ideas and supporting details. I wonder if that's part of being a former English major, or part of who I am? What came first, the OCD-ish tendencies in my writing or the BA? Anyway. I have a tutor - we'll call him Phineas. He tutors at a table set up on the landing in the stairwell at the far end of the building. I never thought I would take to avoiding a stairwell because of one person's body odor, but I have. You can smell him from either floor. I try to keep conversations with him short, and stand upwind. I don't know how his student does it. She must really want to pass her citizenship test! Went to Wal-mart the other day and tried to buy pajamas for Adia. But all of them had these little appliques on the chest; they were stiff and scratchy on the inside. ...

Wanna know how much we've spent on car repairs this month? $4,000. Give or take a few bucks. And it still needs a muffler! If all of the repairs had happened at once, we probably would have chucked the car and bought a 'new' one. As it happened, they came a few at a time (or at least were discovered a few at a time). The kicker was when the compressor of the air conditioning BLEW UP and shot shrapnel throughout the air conditioning system, causing the whole thing to need to be replaced. Original quote? $2600. We were lucky, we got a deal on parts and labor (long story) and paid less than $2100 for the air conditioning and the power steering rack to be replaced. The AC's cold, now, too. And you know, (this is the trite part), it's easy to be bummed about spending all that money on a freakin' car. But then I go to work, and a) I'm so so so glad that I have a job I like, that is actually in the field I studied, and is flexible/part-time so I can still be with m...

Sorry for the lack of posts, we've had a lot going on. The new job is going well, I think. I really enjoy using my education and the students and tutors are really cool. I have a student from Burma, she's been in the U.S. a couple of years I think. She spent eight years in Thai refugee camps and speaks a little Thai. We had a short (like two sentence) exchange in Thai, that's about maxing out my abilities! Her mom lost her roof in the cyclone but is otherwise OK. My parents were here last week and took some pictures of my kids with their awesome camera. How cute are these girls?

I decided to take the job. I can always quit if it doesn't work out. I'm excited but a little nervous too. This is the first job I've been hired for where I have doubts about my ability to do it. But that's how you grow, right? Right. My sister-in-law is probably going to take the baby girl I've been babysitting part-time. She lives nearby and wanted another part-time child to watch, so hopefully that will work well. I hope this works!