Step Away From the Cake

 Yesterday was long. I had the staff meeting in the morning - thankfully that was quick. Then I had the prom last night. It was from 7pm to 10pm. A long night and way past my bedtime. But it was fun. The other 2 teachers working with me are funny and we had a good time. At least it made the time go quick. And it's fun to see the kids all dressed up. So it ended up being a fun night, but a long one. I didn't get home until 10:30pm and I was tired.  I've been working with Claude to try and refine some of the procedures and my classroom policies. He's surprisingly helpful. I think I have a good system for missing work. I actually think I have a good system for a number of things, I just need to make sure it becomes a habit for me. I have to make sure I have the follow through to keep these systems up. I started bellwork this year for the first time in 17 years and have managed to keep it up the entire year, so I have hope for other systems.  I am really falling into the AI...

 Of course we have a meeting today which means a trip to school, but hopefully it won't be long.  I did cruise Facebook a little bit yesterday. But a couple of times I caught myself and one time I did it on purpose. But never for more than a few minutes at a time. I'm slowly weaning myself away from that sh*tshow.  Yesterday was weird. I was like on edge the whole day. I ended up telling my 4th period that I was just done and did not have the energy to fight their talking. I went over to my desk and sat down. They, of course, got super quiet and just sat there. Eventually, I handed out the worksheets and gave the lecture, but they knew I was not in a good place. But the whole day was weird.  I had something I wanted to write about and now I can't remember. I had ordered some burrs from this company called Bear Woods. I ordered them in March. I still haven't received them. I've emailed and emailed and emailed. This week I've emailed twice and gotten no response a...

 So for the last 2 days I have actively avoided social media. I did get on Facebook for a few minutes last night, but I was on my business page so it wasn't too bad. Though once I realized that I had started doom scrolling I was out. It's hard to break the cycle. Whenever I have a few minutes down time, I automatically think of social media. And the thing is, I'm aware of the affects of it. Imagine you are a kid with little self awareness. You have no chance against social media. So I'm working on it, though it's hard.  Yesterday I had 2 meetings and back to back and it was annoying. The first one was a mother who wanted all these things for her son after saying what a great student he was. Okay, this is the kid who cheated on one of my quizzes. Yes, awesome student. Hard to keep a straight face and hold my tongue when the mother is carrying on about how great a student he is. Ugh.  The second meeting was for the science department heads about the new curriculum map...

 Had a great idea last night on what to write about today, but now it's gone. I should write these things down.  I had a dream that we lived back in Hawaii. In fact, we were in the Kualoa beach house. Weird. I don't think I want to live there again. I don't think I will ever visit there again. But there we were. I wonder if my subconscious mind knows something I haven't admitted yet. I don't think so, but you never know.  I did just realize that I haven't filed my state taxes in yet and I'm probably in deep trouble. Need to look into that, maybe today.  The seniors are into single digit days now. We are down to the last few days and it's exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. I can't wait for this to be done.  I am so looking forward to summer. So many things I want to do and so much rest I want to get. Yes, I can't wait.  So my friend is leaving her husband next week and moving into a condo in Scottsdale. Initially it won't be a probl...

 I really did. I feel like I hardly moved and I slept really, really well. I love that kind of sleep.  I spent some time with Claude over the weekend and tried to come up with an organization plan for school. I think I kind of have a plan and I just need to implement it. I may do that this morning. I have papers to grade, but I may put that off until this afternoon. I'm going to be listening to presentations all day in chemistry so there will be no getting anything done. I don't know.  Okay, I totally lost my train of thought just now. I was going somewhere with the above, but I can't tell you where now.  Trying to think of something to say and nothing is coming this morning.  We have only 14 more days of school. Since we meet twice a week that is 7 classes. Of those 7 classes, today is for presentations, 1 is for finals and 1 is for review. So that leaves 4 classes to actually learn something. And the seniors only have 10 days, or 5 classes. 1 for presentations...

 So yesterday started with us taking Akua to the park. We like to take him out on the weekends to different places to expose him to more and different things. There are lots of dogs at the park and I have to be very vigilant about who gets near us and how close they get. At one point a nice man asked a question about Akua and I stopped to answer. While my attention was diverted for one second, this fool decided it would be a good time to run up on a lady and a small dog. I wasn't paying attention and so was unprepared. He took off downhill and the leash came right out of my hand. He ran up on the dog, the lady got her dog out of the way and I tackled Akua. I ended up with scraps on my knees because it was on the sidewalk, and I was shook. I got up, took him and started walking away. I was so mad. Mad at myself for letting my attention be diverted. Mad at him for doing it. And mad at myself again for not following through on his training. So I came home and immediately started looki...

 So writing here is hard every day. It's hard to come up with things to talk about. Luckily, as I write, things usually pour out of me.  I forgot yet again to do the soccer awards this weekend. I think I'm blocking them on purpose. I'm going to try and get them done today before we head out to a friend's house. We'll see how that goes.  Yesterday I started on my Intarsia butterfly. This one is tricky because I have to cut from different woods and fit them together. So I cut some and they don't fit. I'm trying to figure out the best way to get them to fit. I'm thinking of tracing the piece that comes out of the wood that I need to fit another piece into, if that makes sense. So I took the butterfly wing and cut out a section to add another color of wood. If I take that section that I cut and use it as a guide to cut the other color of wood, maybe I'll get closer to the actual size? Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. I also got some purpleheart ...