ueYEAH!

What a week, what a week indeed. I'm way tired at 10:45 on Friday night, but wanted to give a quick recap of my week before hibernating in bed for the weekend.

Yesterday was the end of first quarter. Wow, how time flies. It seemed like the shortest quarter on earth, but in fact, it was the regular 9 weeks. At the end of a quarter, we have to post final grades on the computer in order for them to be printed on the students report cards. We had to have it finished by 5pm today; being the over achiever that I (sometimes) am, I posted yesterday during lunch.

We had to go in today for at least 1/2 day in order to receive the professional development/re-licensure points. It was a student non-attending day and boy, was the silence nice! I had two training meetings: 1, Photostory 3, which is like PowerPoint on steroids, and 2, Classroom Management and discipline techniques for the difficult student. All in all, both were very informative and for once, I didn't feel like I'd wasted a bunch of time.

I could have stayed at the school until it's closing, at 6, but I thought I'd start my vacation early. (For those not in Utah, Monday and Tuesday is UEA--Utah Educators Association--we get those two days off to go to the conferences in Salt Lake, thus I get a 5 day weekend--sweet!). Anyway, after one hour of really doing a whole lot of nothing when I should have been working, I realized I was in an unmotivated mood and that I desperately needed to get out of there and truly take a break.

So, I did the only logical thing a person can do in a situation like this. I went to the doctors! You see, I've been having major ear-ache trouble for about 3 weeks. On Wednesday the shooting and stabbing pain in my left ear was almost too much to handle. I felt ooey and gooey liquid coming out of it on Thursday, and finally put my foot down on the pain, despite how much I despise the doctor.

Ben met me at Instacare and we waited for one hour to be seen by a very non people person doctor who checked me out and found nothing. Nada. Zilch. The doc looked in my ear only to find the scar tissue from having tubes in my ears looking much like normal scar tissue. He said, however, that my throat was swollen and red, much like strep, so he gagged me and did a strep culture. After another 10 minute wait, knowing before hand that I did not, in fact, have strep, he came back and said, "Nope, not strep." He sympathized with my pains and prescribed me some numbing drops for future bouts of the shooting pain as well as a nasal decongestent because... apparently that's what he thought would help.

After all of this, I ended up getting my flu shot right there and now my arm hurts as if I had been punched or something. I hope I don't get sick for the rest of the year. That's my goal, think positive and I won't get sick.

The students seemed to already be hyped up on Smarties and Tootsie Rolls this week. I did, however, feed the problem by bringing candy in to reinforce positive behavior. I do that rarely because I know they already get too much sugar, but it seemed appropriate at this time. I can only imagine what next week will be like; we go back to school on Halloween and then have the two days after to suffer through the sugar high's of the students.

I have finally finished the three books in the vampire, "Twilight," series. I'll admit that I enjoyed the first one the most, but the others were well written and enjoyable. I have loved seeing my students get so into the books as well. Now I'm reading the teacher book club book for the month: Austenland, By Shannon Hale.

It may not be a post-filled weekend for this blog because I'm trying to really relax and take a break from school. I'll be back, refreshed and strong, next Wednesday. And after Halloween, it gets to the fun part of the year where there are so many breaks for holiday's, the quarter will really fly!

Hugs and loves.