School is out for the summer!!

I already feel more relaxed and calm!  Although I'll technically be working all next week, the kids are gone and that makes everything so much easier.  I can actually get my stuff done for 8 hours instead of juggling teaching and the eight hours of administrative work that needs to be done.

I know that I've totally neglected the blog and if you're not a Instagram or Facebook friend you've seen nothing for months.  I promise to get you up to date with all the pictures I've been taking!

Academy Conference

 March 10-12, I went with Monique and Phyllis to the Education for Careers (Academy) conference in Sacramento.  Both ladies are so much fun to be with, so although we "worked" and had a few really boring sessions, we still had a good time together.  Above is us in front of the Historical Governor's Mansion--we walked by it.

 After the conference, before our flight, we toured the Capital Building.  Our tour guide was fantastic and took us directly into the Senate chambers and pointed out the gargoyle in the ceiling (I've toured this building at least four times and that one was totally new to me).

Sharon

This is Sharon.  She was in my ninth grade reading intervention class four years ago (my first year at AHS).  Our year together was great for Sharon, she joined the AVID program and started getting good grades. Fast forward to this fall, as a senior Sharon has decided that she wants to join the Army but was concerned that she wouldn't be successful.  She main the hard decision to apply (and was accepted) for the Sunburst Youth Academy.  This is a five month residential program designed for at-risk students.  She asked me to be her mentor.  Fast forward another few months and Sharon has been at SYA for nine weeks.  Last Sunday, I went to the "mentor training" and then had a hour time with Sharon.  I'm proud of her hard work and look forward to our mentor relationship.

January Disappearance

January Disappearance=Midwinter Prep, Pep Rally and Dance

 Dave did a few projects at home (balloon stands, lollipop walk-way, lollipop stands, foam cutting) and Andrew helped.  Andrew loved all the extra time spent outside while daddy worked.

 My Freshman had the Lord Licorice section of the gym and started working early (November) and then continued every Tuesday until they finished (way early too).  I had a few seniors in my group and enjoyed watching/helping the seniors mentor the freshman; there were a few moments of total nerdy teacher joy involved.

dance centerpieces in the process

 I also had a ten other committees of 3-4 kids that were responsible for other little projects for the pep rally and dance.  Although they should have started early, most of the groups didn't start working until Finals week (Jan. 15-18).  I supervised/encouraged/taught the groups after finals from 1-5ish each day.  Although it was a lot of "my" time, it was great to watch the kids rise to the level of my expectations, help each other, show great talent, and most importantly, show a huge desire to be involved.

lollipop walkway

 Dave and Andrew stopped by to help finish some of the construction jobs.

the front stage (minus the red carpet)

 Pep rally set up was January 31st from 4-9 pm.  Putting all the pieces together is always time consuming, but awe-inspiring.  Not only was the gym decorated well, but the kids were proud of their work. 

 The freshman section

 Friday (Feb. 1) was the pep rally and all went well.  Friday afternoon, we moved all the pep rally decor that we were using for the dance to the venue, I packed a very last minute items and tried to sleep.  At this point I was also REALLY, REALLY sick (and trying to ignore it).

 Saturday morning (Feb. 2) my dance committee met up at the Vecino building to decorate for the semi-formal dance that night.  We sent the girls home at 11 am and the rock-star advisers finished decorating.  My mom came to help and make the candy bar look fantastic!

 Cassie, my partner in crime, was an amazing helpmate for the day!

My fellow ASB Advisers

Back Row: Cassie, Lisa, Louie, John, Melinda, Theresa

Front Row: Jennifer, Ivette, Claudia

Missing you...

I have so much to say and so little to say at the same time.  I'm not sure how that works, but I do know that I get irritated when I read the same saying at other people's blog without much substance behind it, so I'll give you a random list of my things to say.

My home list:

1. Andrew is becoming such a little boy.  Every single day he surprises me with what he does, says, and understands.  He shows total brilliance (I am biased).
2. The temper tantrums are epic.  They are exhausting.  I probably should just cherish the "smallness" of my kid, the moments where I can teach him how to respond properly to situations, show anger/frustration, etc but I mainly just want to pull my hair out.
3. The "I yous" for 'I love you' and the kisses are enough to make any day better.
4. I haven't cooked in weeks, okay, lets me honest, months.  We've lived on way, way too much fast food and things from a box.
5. I'm behind on everything and by the time each weekend gets here I am ready to sleep, but that doesn't happen a lot.
6. I've been sick for weeks and finally took myself to the doctors on Thursday.  A sinus infection and double ear infections greeted me and I'm on antibiotics so hopefully the daily headache and constant congestion will go away too.

My work list:

1. Life at work is overwhelming.  Not necessarily my teaching classes, nor the extracurricular stuff, nor the admin responsibilities... but all of it combined is just a bit out of control.
2. I know I shouldn't do as much as I do at work.  Others telling me to 'just say no' doesn't help the situation.  Actually, it makes me angry.  I do most of it because I love it. 
3. Working with students in a true teaching/learning environment (outside of class) is powerful; it's the part of teaching that I greatly miss about yearbook. 
4. One of those hugely time-consuming extracurricular tasks is as one of the ASB class advisers. The job description is ever changing based on our expectations of ourselves and my open-mouth-give-idea-execute-idea problem. To be honest though, I wouldn't change it for the world.  Building leadership capacity with these kids has been totally worth it.
5. Change is in the air all over the place at work and it sort of stresses me out.  Not necessary the actual change, but the uncertainty of the potential of the change.

And no post is complete without a picture:

ASB CADA

I haven't written a real blog in well over a month and a half, but school is out for Christmas break, and I'm going to get caught up! In chronological order, I'll start back in November for Thanksgiving week.  Although I technically had the whole week off, I spent Monday and Tuesday at the ASB CADA conference in Anaheim. 

One of the reasons I've been non-existent on the blog this school year is because of ASB.  Officially, I am a freshman class advisor (along with Mr. Diaz), however, the responsibility has grown as I've accepted more responsibility in order to help Arlington and these hard working kids.  I love getting to work with the student and teaching/modeling good leadership skills, but it is a HUGE time commitment.  Most recently, we have been prepping for Midwinter (the formal dance of the year + spirit week + pep rally) and I've been leading the girls on the dance committee.

Anyway, for the CADA conference, we left AHS at 6 am and arrived at Disneyland Hotel around 10:30.  We attended the CADA conference together (all 38 students and 5 advisers) and then explored the Disneyland hotel area.  Dinner together and more exploring ended the night with 10:30 pm bed checks.  Bright and early the next morning (6:00 am) we went to Disneyland with early admission.

Ivette (junior class advisor and my buddy) and I were expecting to be ignored, but these group of girls decided we were cool enough to hang out with all day! 

We arrived back at AHS and all the kids were picked up by 11:30 pm!

A long, but worthwhile, two days!

It's been awhile...

but school is over (technically--I'm still working Monday).

The past three weeks have been a nightmare at school; the students were nightmares, the assignments needing grading piled up, the administrative requirements came so fast that I couldn't maintain consistency with anything, and then the kicker was that I had to move classrooms with three days' notice.  I was out Monday (for a fun trip to San Diego--blog to come), got the phone call late on Monday afternoon. Tuesday was the last "real" day of school and was filled 100%. Wednesday-Friday were finals and everything had to be graded, submitted, and exported by 4 pm on Friday.  Needless to say, I had pretty much figured how my week would go and had my "plans" in place to be ready to start summer.  Un-decorating and packing a classroom wasn't on my agenda.

In the grand scheme of things, the classroom move will be a convenient thing, but right now, it's a giant pain in the butt.  I have way too much stuff that I cannot get rid of (and some I can and did).  Unlike most high school teachers, my classroom is actually decorated with bulletin boards, borders, posters, etc.  Anyway... I had twelve students help me take everything down, pack up a few things that will actually go in boxes, and carry the class set of textbooks, dictionaries, interactive readers, and workbooks into my new classroom.

The new classroom is much closer to the Media Arts computer lab (where I travel to teach my Media Arts elective class).  It is a portable; the air is controlled individually, there are no noisy neighbors (a current problem), and it is really close to the bathroom.  The teacher leaving that rooms reports that it is a "hidden gem."  Once everything is moved and redecorated, everything will be fine and dandy.  But, for now, it made for a really, really hectic week.

Random List of Confessions

1. Andrew started saying Mamamamama and Dadadadadada this week.  I'm not sure that he means anything by it, but it is clearly a different set of sounds than his normal 'talking.' I want him to keep doing it.
2. I'm 65% done with Christmas shopping.  In less than 8 days from now, I plan to be 100% done.
3. Five days of teaching are in store for me this week, then a week off.  Thanksgiving break can't get here fast enough.
4. I have really good students this year and I should feel lucky, but I don't. Seven year burnout?
5. Andrew is really clingy to me in the afternoon/evenings after work and some days I enjoy it.
6. I can't remember the last time I cooked dinner.
7. Andrew is sick again (runny nose and cough); a huge part of me feels like it is my fault for not being able to provide him breast milk and having to put him into daycare. 
8. Somehow people at work think that I am so sweet and nice, but they have no idea the mean things I say into my head.
9. On Friday (Veterans Day), I had the day off and sent Andrew to daycare in the morning to be productive at home.  I did manage to work on the Arlington website, but I also watched four hours of TV on the DVR in my pjs.
10. I was basically told that I wasn't going to be teaching Yearbook at AHS anytime soon and it makes me really, really mad.

First Week of School

Two weeks before Andrew started daycare and I attended trainings, buy-back days, and all school staff meetings. As I wrote about before, Andrew had a great time at daycare. He laughed, played, and did what he what other happy babies do. He struggled with napping (too much going on and too many people to play with) and took his time eating, but you'd never know that he wasn't an old pro.  He spent most of the afternoon with me asleep or eating to catch up on what he missed at school. He slept a lot all weekend to catch up on the sleep he missed while playing.

Last Monday was my first day of school.  I started the year with a downright awful attitude. Who knows if it is the seven year itch (as it relates to a career) or if it was the fact that I wasn't getting to be at home with my baby, but either way, bad attitude Jennifer was in the house.  I was extremely mad about teaching Read 180 again, mad that I was considered "the most qualified" even though no one making those decisions has ever seen me teach, and mad that the class from hell was going to descend upon me again. 

Anyway, bad attitude Jen stayed through all the week before prep, the Saturday classroom prep and even Sunday "get ready for school" stress.  After talking to Des, I decided I needed to suck it up and at least pretend to be happy and "normal." 

It's a good thing I did because I was pleasantly surprised on Monday at my students.  My Read 180 class starts the day and they were not overly rude on the first day (like they were last year) and the number of tough boys is only two.  My Media kids were eager and my Intro students were FANTASTIC.  My bad attitude was quickly replaced and by the end of the week, I actually felt like myself and I was actually EAGER for the day to start.

Andrew had another fantastic week at daycare.  He's learning to nap there and actually had three days with at least one "good" nap.  He did start rejecting his second bottle, but I'm assuming it is because he knows that I'm coming shortly (he eats it about 2:30-3 and I get there around 3:30). 

The four day week upcoming holds promise and thankfully bad attitude Jen hasn't reappeared.

Back to Work and Off Again

This week I went back to work for three days... three minimum days at that. 

It really shouldn't count as "going back to work." 

My mom came out to take care (and play) of Andrew and I headed back to my classroom to give finals, clean up, and sign out for the summer.  The first day I cried on the way to school, but as soon as I walked into my room I realized how much I had to get done in the 15 hours I had to work.  I got busy and worked non-stop while at work.  This afternoon I turned in my final grades, signed out with the administrators and prepared to leave.  I do have to go back tomorrow or Monday to finish a few things I didn't have time to do (unhook my computer and lock everything up), but really I'm home with my baby boy for the next  12 weeks!

And yes, Andrew's birthday was planned around school.

Media Arts Baby Shower

This lovely lady, Darrelynn, and the rest of the Media Arts crew of teachers further spoiled Baby Andrew and me with a baby shower today! Darrelynn organized everyone together to show their love! We ate Bakers together and had cake/ice cream sandwiches :)

Gina helped assemble the yummy dessert!

I was showered with more gifts!

(Lots of the practical things that we still needed--baby monitors, diaper genie, genie refills, size 1 diapers, crib sheets, and a gift card to Babies R Us) Patricia and Tracie

Phyllis

Although I am 38 weeks and 4 days, I think I actually look pretty normal in this picture, so I had to share it!

Celebrating Drew

Today at lunch, Mr. Toner (from Central, now at AHS with me) walked in with the cutest cake ever! Toner's wife and daughter made the yummy lemon cake to celebrate Drew's arrival. A few minutes later, Calvin and Shana (the other Central converts) came in to celebrate too!! It was a mini celebration for baby! So cool! We ate, talked, and had a great time at lunch today :) Only three more days of work for me!

Week 38

I LOOK: Other than the fact that Drew is clearly lower, I have nothing to say so I'll use other people's words.

• "You get bigger every day Mrs. Pfeffer," says a ninth grade girl on Wednesday.
• "It looks like you have a basketball in there," says a tenth grade boy on Friday.
• "He is a lot lower than yesterday," says a co-worker.
• "Um, are you sure you're not going to pop now?" says another co-work.

I had minor swelling on Wednesday and Thursday after two really long days and hotter than average temperatures. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be a daily issue and it goes away pretty quickly once I get home and put my feet up. I have eleven (yes, I counted) half inch (yes, I measured) stretch marks that have appeared this week where my B-belly use to indent, but has now completely turned into a D-belly. I thought I wouldn't get any considering how many I have from childhood/teenage years, but it hadn't occurred to me that my significant indent would stretch out so significantly. It is pretty funny considering they are all across the middle/frong of my pregnant belly.

I FEEL: sore. My hips and lower back hurt a lot whenever I get up in the morning. The pain goes away as the day goes on, or at least I'm not focused on it at work. By early afternoon, the pain comes back depending on how much I stood during the day. By the evening, everything hurts no matter what. Getting up and down from a chair, couch, or bed isn't comfortable. Oh well, such is life at 38 weeks pregnant. Overall though, I can say that I'm not totally uncomfortable.

• Baby Preparations: everything is done baby wise. I spend some more time working on the baby book and organized the nursery more (not that it needed it). Most of my "baby prep" this week has been on maternity sub plans. I'm sure I'm making them much more complicated than I need to be... but between four different classes for nine weeks... that is 180 hours of unique teaching that needs to be done. It makes me tired thinking about it.
• Baby Movements: Lots of pushing around... sometimes it feels like Drew's head is bouncing off my hip bones.
• Weird Pregnancy Symptom: On Friday morning, I lost my mucus plug. Yep, it is just like it sounds--a whole lot of mucus--this means pretty much nothing in the grand-pregnancy time table. After losing your mp, labor can start in one day or two weeks.

I CRAVE: after weeks of not being hungry, my hunger has kicked into full gear. I'm pretty much hungry constantly--I've been eating a lot of string cheese, apples, cuties, and ice cream.

I THINK: it is a really good thing that I have five days of work left (last day is March 25) and I'm questioning why I didn't decide to stop working earlier. I'm pretty sure that the "cleaning" nesting stage won't come, or if it does I won't have the energy for it.

I HOPE: Drew stays an inside baby until at least next Friday or Saturday. I really, really don't want to start labor at school, nor do I want to have to suddenly not be at school. I hope that I'll be able to finish Act III and IV of Romeo and Juliet before Friday. OH, yeah, on the baby front, if he does decide to come out this week I hope that he's happy, healthy, and I actually survive labor.

I'm EXCITED: to meet our son! And to only have 5 days more of work (repeat from last week)!

DOCs SAY: Appointment tomorrow--I'll update then :)

This week was a bit stressful with Dave getting sick (he's now feeling a lot better), me sleeping on the couch and in the nursery (not a good idea), and trying to prepare for nine weeks of maternity leave (I haven't left school before 4:45 pm).

Last Day of Work

I made if official this week, I'll be starting March 25th.

It is super strange to think that in 11 school days, my kiddos will be in the hands of another person... it is even more strange to think that I'll be 39 weeks and 5 days when this milestone comes.

My sub plans are pretty much done for English and Media Arts. I have a few things left to do for Read 180 and there is a bunch to do in my classroom to prepare for other people to "take over" (read: clean up all my crap).

I have a super sub for the first six weeks who I trust explicitly; he did his history student teaching all first semester at AHS and got pretty involved. He knows all my Media students because he had them in History for the semester. Because he has a history credential and not English, he can only legally sub for 30 days. So after his six weeks are over, I'll have another sub for two weeks. I do not know who this sub will be yet, but we do have several other long term subs that have "good" reviews.

The current plan is to come back for finals week (May 31-June 3) and then be off for the summer! If Andrew comes late (heaven forbid), I may not even need to come back for that week!

oh Romeo

My dear friends, we've started reading Romeo and Juliet in my Intro classes. Last year, I dreaded starting it, but this year, I've been giddy with excitement. The kids REALLY love it and get into it! Some of the best conversations/statements we've "heard" over the past three days of class...

• "Who would have thought that Shakespeare would be such a perv!"
• "Mrs. Pfeffer, you should always play the Nurse because you play the crazy, loud, bossy women well."
• "Why in the world did women not breastfeed their own children?!? And didn't the women like Nurse think that it was strange that they were having another person's child suck their boob?"

And on the subject of breastfeeding, from male students in my class...

• Where does the milk come from?
• How does it go away?
• What does the nipple do when they stop?

I LOVE ninth graders--they make me laugh!

Best kids ever

I haven't blogged about school in forever (which I'm sure that no one is complaining about--they are probably pretty boring), but today it struck me that I because I haven't blogged about school, I haven't bragged about my kiddos either.

This year, I have the best English classes I have had in all of my years of teaching. Period 1 and 4 are the best parts of my day.

• They are kind and sweet; they ask about baby Andrew daily and show actual concern when something appears to be wrong.
• They are respectful; I have given less ten minute detentions to correct mini-issues than any other years because I just give them a look and they stop. I haven't needed to call a significant amount of parents, nor gotten anywhere close to writing a referral
• They are responsible (or at least pretend to be); there is no whining, complaining, or excuses. They do their work (or don't) and generally have very little issues doing it on time.

I feel kinda bad that these amazing, kind, sweet, respectful, and responsible kids aren't getting the best teacher (in me) that they could have because of pregnancy, but at the same time I know that they classes are a GIANT blessing from God.

Teaching Changes thanks to Baby

Yesterday afternoon, I had pretty intense cramps for a few hours. After asking a few people about the feeling I was having (trying to figure out if it was normal), I called Kaiser. When I explained the symptoms to the nurse, she recommended coming in to get everything checked out "just in case."

I was actually pretty calm, drove to Kaiser, and got up to the OBs office. Mild panic set in when the OB sent me to Labor and Delivery. At L&D, mild panic turned into a big more panic when the RNs put a hospital bracelet on my wrist, hooked me up to the contraction and heart rate monitors, and I saw three nurses and a doctor pretty darn quickly.

My blood pressure was through the roof when the nurse checked it the first time after hooking me up, but went back to normal after a little bit. The baby's heart rate was steady in the 140s.

They determined that the cramps I was feeling were pretty strong Braxton hicks contractions. Normally, these shouldn't hurt so they were worried that I may be in pre-term labor. After checking my cervix and a vaginal u/s, they were able to confirm that I was not having real contractions because my cervix was "long and closed." The pain is possibly from a pulled muscle from overdoing it this weekend.

I was given pretty strong warnings about my future behaviors. The doctor told me that I should be sitting down at least thirty minutes in each hour and avoid standing as much as possible (walking is okay) during the day at school. When I get home, I'm suppose to put my feet up and let people help me... I also am suppose to drink even more water (which is a bit crazy considering how much I already drink) because I was showing some dehydration symptoms. It was also pretty clear that if I didn't make changed, bed rest would be in my future.

Today was my first day "sitting" as much as possible. My 9th grade English kiddos were sweet and pretty encouraging; I sat almost the entire periods. In Read 180, I didn't sit much because they can't quite handle it, but I tried to continue walking as much as possible (versus standing).

Back to Work

My air conditioning/heater in my classroom was broken today. Sure, it isn't nearly as cold as Oklahoma, but it is freezing for Riverside. When I got to work, it was 47 degrees. When I walked into my classrom, I noticed that my room seems a bit colder than normal--it was 58 degrees inside!!

Even after it was supposely working, the warmest my classroom got was 64 degrees. BRRRR! Despite the freezing weather, the kids were amazing and actually several told me that they were glad to be back at school :)

Tomorrow, I'll be more prepared with more layers!

Training...

Today (actually right now) and tomorrow I'm sitting in a Read 180 training from 3-6:30 pm. I'd love to say that this is a good thing, but I've taught all day. I'm tired. I'm hungry. I'm really over thinking about school...
Normally these trainings would be held during the day, our sub would be called and paid $110 ($220 total) per day and I'd get a day to actually process the information without a shot brain, tired feet, and aching back.

HOWEVER, we're in a budget crisis... so instead I get paid $32.10 an hour to sit here and want to go home. (And no, we do not get paid our hourly rate for this, but instead the staff development rate). Overall, my time will cost $192.60. The district is saving $27.40.

That is unless a laid off elementary school teacher happens, by chance, to decide to sub one of our classes--then they'd get paid their daily rate...

School System Thoughts

Whether or not anyone cares, I have pretty strong feelings about our failing school system. Most of my opinions are opposite of the "norm" or at least opposite of the teachers' unions that "speak for teachers."

Tenure is bad. Teachers are the primary reason that students fail (and more importantly succeed). Our teachers unions protect the worse teachers. Principals hands are tied. They cannot remove bad teachers. They have all the pressure and responsibility, but very little control over the worse problems that face our school.

All that said, I read this pretty fantastic blog written by a principal and superintentent (ThePrincipalsPage.com). He brings up all of my opinions and write it in such a way that it strikes a perfect cord. He's also pretty funny in a corney way.

Some of his recent blogs that are right on:
On a Reluctent Staff
Pressure for Superintentents Too
How Money won't Fix our Schools