Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Ramble On
I'm still subbing regularly, averaging one day off per week, but not much of interest has been happening so I'll take some of the things I've been meaning to post and put them here in one big ADD-esque entry.
Yesterday I was having kids take notes on a website during class. One girl was not being quiet nor doing the work. I went and asked her if she was done with the assignment. Of course, she wasn't. She complained that this was just busy work. I reminded her that the notes were due the next day and commented, "If it's busy work, then you should be busy... and therefore, quiet." She didn't give me much trouble the rest of class.
In my post about money I failed to mention that even though this wasn't the best idea, or the most well planned idea, financially; it has already shown benefits. I am much happier now than I have been in a long time even though I enjoyed computers for much of my IT career. I still like them, but it's definitely in a different way now. I recently subbed in the AP Computer Science class, and after they were done with the assignment I talked with them a little about different programming languages and the relative merits of such. They were amazed that I taught myself Java since they're learning it in class. I enjoyed talking about this, but I still don't want to be a programmer again.
It's been very important during this time of career change to have the support of family. My wife has had to shoulder the burden of being the breadwinner of the family. She has been very supportive of what I'm doing even though it's tough for her to be so far away and working so hard while I'm spending much of my time with her family. My parents-in-law have been great by letting me stay in their home while I work in the position my mother-in-law helped me get. My sister-in-law and family have been keeping me entertained and full of ice cream. My brother has offered to let me stay at his house if I need to be in the DFW area. My parents have been very supportive, too; even from half a country away. I imagine it's tough for them to not be able to do as much as they would like. My mom tried to get me a long term sub job at her school. I just got some ties from them in the mail today that will be good for wearing at school. I'm still working on making my wardrobe more teaching friendly; fewer polo shirts with computer company logos, more button downs and ties. So while I could probably have done this on my own it would have been much more painful without everyone's help. I know I couldn't have done this without my wife's support.
I ran my first 10k race this weekend. I've done innumerable 5k's and 2 marathons, but this was my first 10k. I clocked in at 48:12 averaging 7:45 per mile and negative splitting the 5k's by about a minute. This while running in the rain.
It's difficult in the classroom sometimes to keep a straight face and tell a kid to be quiet when they've just cracked a very funny joke. Ah, the trials of teaching.
I hope you were able to follow all that. You never know where my quick mind will tu...
Look, a shiny!
Edit: Changed the title.
Yesterday I was having kids take notes on a website during class. One girl was not being quiet nor doing the work. I went and asked her if she was done with the assignment. Of course, she wasn't. She complained that this was just busy work. I reminded her that the notes were due the next day and commented, "If it's busy work, then you should be busy... and therefore, quiet." She didn't give me much trouble the rest of class.
In my post about money I failed to mention that even though this wasn't the best idea, or the most well planned idea, financially; it has already shown benefits. I am much happier now than I have been in a long time even though I enjoyed computers for much of my IT career. I still like them, but it's definitely in a different way now. I recently subbed in the AP Computer Science class, and after they were done with the assignment I talked with them a little about different programming languages and the relative merits of such. They were amazed that I taught myself Java since they're learning it in class. I enjoyed talking about this, but I still don't want to be a programmer again.
It's been very important during this time of career change to have the support of family. My wife has had to shoulder the burden of being the breadwinner of the family. She has been very supportive of what I'm doing even though it's tough for her to be so far away and working so hard while I'm spending much of my time with her family. My parents-in-law have been great by letting me stay in their home while I work in the position my mother-in-law helped me get. My sister-in-law and family have been keeping me entertained and full of ice cream. My brother has offered to let me stay at his house if I need to be in the DFW area. My parents have been very supportive, too; even from half a country away. I imagine it's tough for them to not be able to do as much as they would like. My mom tried to get me a long term sub job at her school. I just got some ties from them in the mail today that will be good for wearing at school. I'm still working on making my wardrobe more teaching friendly; fewer polo shirts with computer company logos, more button downs and ties. So while I could probably have done this on my own it would have been much more painful without everyone's help. I know I couldn't have done this without my wife's support.
I ran my first 10k race this weekend. I've done innumerable 5k's and 2 marathons, but this was my first 10k. I clocked in at 48:12 averaging 7:45 per mile and negative splitting the 5k's by about a minute. This while running in the rain.
It's difficult in the classroom sometimes to keep a straight face and tell a kid to be quiet when they've just cracked a very funny joke. Ah, the trials of teaching.
I hope you were able to follow all that. You never know where my quick mind will tu...
Look, a shiny!
Edit: Changed the title.
