Quote of the Day

From an honors student...

"What if it's just some filament of our imagination?"

I love my job.

Such a Hard Question

Okay, so I had planned not to teach summer school this year, for the following reasons:
1. I am on the every-other-year-plan (at least in my head).
2. Last year was totally stressful, and the students were mean and terrible and made it impossible to teach them.
3. I want to take a class or two from the community college instead. I would like to someday move to the next column on the pay scale, and it's easier to do classes over the summer and earn more units in my time off.
4. We had planned to do a vacation in July. I still don't know if Isaac will get into Academy, so we may still do a vacation, and our income may not change if his job situation doesn's change.
5. With budget cuts, it looked like it was going to be very hard to get a summer school job this year at all.
6. I didn't get a break last year, and running right into new curriculum this year has been super hard, so especially not knowing what I will teach next year, a break is very appealing.

Then I got an e-mail this week from the Summer School Principal saying he thought I did a great job last year and would like to hire me on again this year if I was up for it. So I started to reconsider my no-summer-school-09 pledge.
1. Isaac may be in Police Academy May-November, which would cancel our vacation.
2. The kids might be better this year... not likely, especially since it is at the scariest junior high in the district instead of at the best as last year... but possible.
3. I could still take a class in the evenings. Since I already have a beautiful binder full of lessons and materials, all color-coded and ready to go, I would have less planning this year.
4. If Isaac is in Academy, he may not be able to work and at the very least, would have to cut back hours, and if no one hires him early on, we could be out a lot of money over the next six months, so the thousands I could make at summer school might be very useful.
5. Am I just being lazy if I pass up the opportunity to make more money?

(sigh) I have been sick this week, so maybe I'm just not thinking straight, but I have no idea what to do. I know I should e-mail this principal back soon with some kind of response, but I'm just at a loss. Do I suck it up and teach even though I honestly don't want to, or do I take classes and prepare for the fall and possibly suffer a shortage of income before the year is over (not that summer school would totally alleviate that possibility)?

Opinions? Poll in sidebar...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Isaac worked the lunch shift at Elephant Bar tonight, so I wrote a test and exercised and worked around the house. After Isaac got home from work, we went to my parents' house for dinner and enjoyed steak and lobster, risotto and Brussels sprouts. It's a good thing we live near someone who cooks because neither of us really do. Plus, steak and lobster is about as good as it gets for Isaac.

We mostly read the rest of the evening. There was some movie on that had something to do with snowboarding, but I didn't pay attention. In any case, it was a relaxing day for us, and we hope everyone had a pleasant Valentine's Day!

Hitting Four Timezones...

Isaac pointed out to me recently that I will hit every continental US timezone in the first four months of 2009. Besides residing in California, Mom and I went to Oregon/Washington at the beginning of January for Scott's wedding. In March, I have a Service Learning Conference in Nashville, so Isaac is flying out with me so he can visit family while I attend the conference. During Spring Break in mid-April, I am spending a few days in Utah to visit friends. A week and a half later, Isaac and I are flying to Louisville, KY for Matthew and Stephani's wedding. I just found out that Louisville is just barely in the Eastern Time Zone. What a busy start to the year! It looks like Sophie will be spending a fair amount of time with Haylie as my parents dog-sit for us. Good thing they're friends...

This is them snuggling on the couch yesterday. It was adorable.

You know you live with an English teacher when...

...a riveting three-day weekend consists of going from this:

to this:

50 ELD paragraphs, 40-something extra credit assignments, 95 rough drafts for Honors (skim and stamp), 95 Essay by Design analogies, 75 Dialectical Journals, 32 Victorian Literature papers, and 95 "My Favorite Teacher" narratives later... and poor Isaac volunteered to do some recording for me.

I wish I had finished it ALL. (sigh)

Congratulations Scott & Dana!

Last weekend, Mom & I went to Portland for the wedding of Scott, son of Mom's best friend Lori. The weather was much more tame that weekend than the week preceding the wedding, and we only experienced a little snow and sleet. It was fun to travel with Mom for a few days and leave the husbands at home, and it was great to see the Thomasys; we see them less since they moved from the Bay Area to Idaho a few years ago.

Jane and Lori, 40 Years of Friendship! :)

P.S. I love the atrium in the Portland Temple. It was lovely for taking wedding pictures, and it was NOT FREEZING like it was outside, lol.

Phantom of the Opera

Tonight Isaac and I went to see The Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco with my parents and siblings. We left from a family dinner at my grandma's house around 6:30 to get to the Orpheum Theater to pick up our tickets at will call. It was great timing, actually, because we got our tickets, took a few pictures outside, and then got to go sit in the lobby, out of the cold, until the house opened and we could find our seats.

I didn't much care for Raul, but I basically liked the other people. This Carlotta is the longest running Carlotta worldwide, supposedly. She has done over 4,500 performances. The weird thing for me was the chandelier. It was always close to the stage, and when it "fell," it sort of coasted onto the stage slowly with a flash but no crash. I swear when I saw it 13 years ago, it fell straight down over the audience and then swung onto the stage. Tonight the chandelier was pathetic, really. Oh well. The rest of it was cool. The stage was beautiful, the music is enchanting as ever, and this time I didn't even have Patrick sobbing in the seat next to me!