I.T. to Teacher

I kept track of how many hours I was working during the week before Thanksgiving. I don't think I have ever worked so many hours in a week! I worked nearly 70 hours that week! Monday through Thursday I was working 14-15 hours per day.

Either despite this, or because of this, I am starting to get more jealous of my time. I've heard other teachers talking about telling students they can only come by on certain days for help. I always thought that seemed a bit harsh, but I'm starting to find it easier to do. You know what? I've found the students don't usually care too much when I tell them they need to come on a certain day.

So far I haven't been able to see any benefits from this change because I have to turn in my final exams by Friday for approval. I realized this on Monday. I asked my mentor teacher for advise on writing a final. Her first tidbit: "If you haven't started writing them, you're screwed." No big deal; I'm used to getting things done at the last minute. Well, I finished my first final and review sheet today. I have to finish the other one tomorrow. I should make it. It won't be perfect, but nothing has been thus far.

(I tried to post this yesterday from school)

Today I woke up with the hiccups. (hic) They haven't gone (hic) away yet. It's a perfect day for them (hic) since I'm testing all day today. Nothing like a quiet classroom (hic) with the teacher hiccup(hic)ing all through class. My seniors were fine, but my jun(hic)iors had fi(hic)ts of giggling after my first (hic) few hiccups.

Ugh, this is getting old. Correction,(hic) it's been old for a while now. Fortun(hic)ately, I'm done with class for the day so they'(hic)ll probably stop soon.

My nerdy superpower is out in the open. A couple of days ago, after school, I mentioned to a few of my students that I can solve a Rubik's Cube. They wanted to see, so I showed them I could solve it in under 3 minutes. By today, all of my students are saying, "Mr. .... I hear you can solve a Rubik's Cube."

This morning our broadcast journalism class sent a few students over with a camera to film me solving the Cube. I think they're going to put it in fast forward and use it for the introduction on the morning announcements for a while.

"It's so not fair! If I had just done the summer reading I would have gotten an A!"

I've been told high school girls are much more oblivious than we give them credit for. Here's a shining example.

Girl, talking about golf: How much did you win by?
Guy: A stroke.
Girl: So, you guys didn't have to have your stroke off?
(guys in the area are trying not to laugh)
Guy: Uh..., no. That's not going to happen.

Ok, maybe it's just a guy thing.

I had a guy who kept putting on a girl's letter jacket. Finally, she put his on in retaliation.

Me: You two stop wearing each other's clothes!
Guy: Hey Mr. .... I bet when you started teaching you never thought you'd have to say that in class.

He's right.

I'm trying something new to see if I can be more efficient with my time. I'm starting to stay at school longer with the goal of getting as much done as possible while I am at school. I would ideally like to do all of my work at school and not have to bring anything home. That's not going to happen this year, but maybe I can come close. Well, closer, anyway.

I'm planning on keeping a log of my time this week to see how my work hours break down between home and school. Could be interesting. Check back later for more.

I've gone and done something I told myself I would never do again. I made a website. And more than just making a website, I've made a website from scratch. I tried using the wysiwyg editor available through my hosting company, but it just wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. I guess that's the price I pay for having been a web programmer in another life. Anyway, I got fed up with the editor and wrote my own site. Before anyone asks, the program I used to create the site is vi. For those of you not Unix/Linux savvy enough to know vi, it's a text editor. A text editor for geeks and programmers, not for mortal man. (cue evil laughter)

Unfortunately, since I'm trying to keep this blog fairly anonymous I can't tell you where it is. Those of you who know me can find it, though. If my last name were Nahasapeemapetilon (like the Kwik-E-Mart proprietor), then my website would be mrnahasapeemapetilon.com. Got it?