Wow! Busy Week!

I will write some school/work updates. But first,  I want to share something personal. Because I consider myself an alcoholic, as in I used to drink to the point where it interfered with my life and my health and my relationships, I am hyper aware of when I choose to drink now, and how responsibly I do it. It's a Friday night, the beginning of Spring break, and I am choosing to have some beer and wine. I went to the liquor store for cigarettes and considered some vodka then declined it because I know that would just make me feel ill. And although I intend to get a 'little' drunk tonight, I do not wish to make myself intoxicated to the point of illness, as I have done in the past. Thankfully, I still have memories and am able to compare my intake and frequency and know that I am definitely not that same person anymore. That person who would go to the store after work and get a six pack of PBR and a bottle/box of wine and drink it all the same night. I was just thinking about all of this and wanted to write it down. I am grateful I am different, but also that I can enjoy some drinks once in a while now, and not feel like I need to do it on a daily basis. Peace.

TGIT

I will be brief. I need to practice brevity. Tried to color my hair burgundy and made more of a mess than anything. This is Fine. Slideshow presentation day and neither of Gabe's team partners came to class. Fortunately, I had finished it the other day, so that he could get credit for his pages he worked on with me. I just added a few more stats and a couple graphs and charts for visuals. I need to spend some time sitting with him and teaching him how to use the software (mostly Google suite stuff) so he has more independence and competence for future classes.   Honestly, I need a lot more practice with it too, and there are both pluses and minuses in trying to teach something that you aren't competent in yourself.
Ceramics class was cool because I found out where the kick wheel splash guard was stored, trimmed the bottom of the dish student made and got to help a few kids with some tips for throwing pots, which I hesitantly shared, because of my inexperience, but I tried to sound confident anyway. I'm going to try and go after school soon to practice throwing again because I really, really want to leave this class with a few mugs and plates/bowls. I still intend to pay the materials fee but need to wait till payday. The best thing was picking up my finished pyramids. They look pretty cool. Glazing improves clay pieces the way matting and framing improves drawings.
In last class, I helped the teacher by cutting some railroad board for her other art class. Gotta remember to pick up/pay for the hoodie that Emilia told me via email was ready. I didn't even know if it was a size they had available, so that's a cool surprise. PEACE.

Wensdee

I spent four hours after school in the ceramics room glazing my strawberry and donuts and making Cameron a new box copying the one someone else did that he admired and said he wanted one like it. I'm going to have him glaze it when it's ready; so that he can at least do half the work. If I put the glaze colors into little labeled cups then he might do it. It's understandably difficult to do the glazing because unlike paint, the colors look very matte and dull and almost nothing like the colors that they will become after firing. I also spent time reorganizing the glaze bottles that were out of order, but they were much better since I fixed them the forst time and affixed signs indicating where to put the big and little bottles.
There were some participants for the school student walkout today to protest gun violence in the U.S., but not as many as I was expecting. We weren't allowed to join them, but I took two students out to walk on the track and the group had gathered there to speak, so we got to see them anyway.
After school, I got to go book 'shopping' in the library where they have several cartloads of giveaways in preparation of an inventory overhaul. I got about a hundred pounds of books, mostly for myself and Steven, but a few for the classroom and a few for the art room. Oh yeah, I also had fun organizing the books in the ceramics room. I really want to borrow some, he has some great books.

So, they were mostly reference books, and I was going to get this big Gray's Anatomy book, but then I saw a familiar blue binding of the Merck's Medical desk manual, and I remembered growing up my mom had one in the house that she used sometimes. It was from 2006 which wasn't that long ago, and it is significantly smaller than the Gray's, so I got that instead. There were also some amazing books on physics, and I got several while thinking of the passing of esteemed astro-super-physicist yesterday Stephen Hawking. And a nutrition book or two, one about herbal medicines, which I am excited to have to look at. When we move into our new apartment (fingers crossed), we are going to need a few additional bookcases.

Gabe was talking all through History class today, interrupting constantly and telling Lori to 'shut up' and 'stop looking at him' a lot. We have to figure out how to address this successfully because asking him to listen or be quiet wasn't working. His slideshow for a different class is due tomorrow and I helped a lot more than I probably should have, but he was doing it with a group and I don't want them to get a bad grade. What I need to do is create some flash cards for him because he is lacking comprehension and it's really important material. Not that flash cards will solve it all and create depth and understanding, but I think they will help him to be aware of the information, and help me know what he does and doesn't get.

I helped Boris with civil law again and learned a lot about discrimination in voter laws. It is some reprehensible bullshit! Then I was going to read with Lori and she reminded me that I had said we could take a walk for our reading time since we didn't have time the other day, so we walked and talked and listened to Bruno Mars...Peace!

Is it Tuesday Yet?

I guess I'm off to a good start this week because I feel like the week is almost over, but it's only Monday. Yesterday was daylight savings time....time. SO, we were all kind of discombobulated and tired at work. The first class, I read Thor with our kid who needs tons of remedial reading practice and helped another student make her safe driving/don't text and smoke, I mean text and drive poster, second class I helped my student work on designing a computer-generated helmet from a template with the teacher's video example, third class I helped a student with his eating disorder research project, then got a school burger and frosty fruit drink for lunch, came home to get a different student's birthday flowers I cut for her, and last class helped a student read his law assignment about unreliability of eyewitness testimony, and did half an hour of reading with my regular reading practice student. After school, I went to art club and there were only two kids there, and I just worked on my drawing example for the other art class as the teacher and we all talked. There was a kid from the yearbook there and he took my and the teacher's photo and statements about working with kids for the yearbook, along with some student work photos, so that was pretty cool. Then he referred to us as 'girls' and I was like, woah there Nelson, don't call women that, they will most likely give you a beat down and kick your ass. No, I didn't say all that, I said it was disrespectful or something and that it was better he hear it from me than someone who would get really upset about it. I could've explained in greater detail, but I didn't know that he needed a lecture on the nature of feminism and patronizing linguistics because he had apologized right away and thanked us for letting him know, rather than saying why? Who knows. I reacted instinctively in calling him out, because it so rubbed me the wrong way, and that's good that I spoke up. He was just a teenager though, and I would like to know if I would have reacted the same if he were a grown ass man. I certainly hope so!! But he would not be so easily excused or forgiven, and it would seem an adult would 'know better'!

OMG, I was doing laundry and transplanting plants from the little mini garden, when the phone rings interrupting a Crabfeast podcast with Kumail Nanjiani, and it says "Mexico". Who do I know there? It was Adrienne! Quelle Surprise! So we talked for a while and got cut off, and she called back and we talked more, then got cut off again, and she texted saying she was out of minutes. She is doing very well, living very simply and seems happy about it! I wish I could have her address, but she says there is no address because she is illegal and only rents a room. I hope that she is safe. She invited me to visit which was very kind of her.

Laundry all done, and Steve kindly (and generously) took me to Plaid and bought me a special drink and candy to take to school as semi-bribes/rewards for two kids I promised them to. Something something, watching new American Idol now, and last night, we saw the second season premiere of the indomitable Timeless, which was supposedly canceled but had a huge backlash from fans responding with online petitions (which I definitely remember signing too!). The police came to our apartments looking for someone upstairs and I was doing laundry and heard them knocking and that was about it...then later more knocking and loud voice of (neighbor?) calling her boyfriend's name. I wonder if our other neighbor called cops about them fighting or something, or if she called police because she was worried about her boyfriend...? Don't know. Hope they are okay. Peace.

Catching Up

I mostly successfully helped guide the kid I help in Animation class with creating a 'cartoon hand' because I had spent hours doing it at home and failing until I got somewhere halfway okay. I was following along with the teacher's tutorial and he was going so fast I had to slow it down to half speed, and even then I was pausing it after almost every step. I'm learning a lot in that class about how I learn. I learn new technical information slowly and with much repetition. There are so many options and commands at your disposal in the Maya Autodesk software program, it's overwhelming until you become familiar with some of them and what they can do. And then you find out there are like three different ways to do the same thing and that is overwhelming too. I think if I could do it for a couple hours every day then I would be getting it. Next (today/tomorrow) I am going to work on building a castle with a very helpful Youtube video I started the other day, and then I can show the student how to do it.
The parents of students come in for meetings with special staff and teachers sometimes but we, the teaching assistants, are never invited to meet them for some reason, which seems odd since we are the ones who are with the students one on one for hours every week.
I tried my van the other week and it were ded.  So I waited awhile because I didn't think we had AAA anymore, but it turns out we do, bc Steve had renewed it, Thank you, Steven! So I got it jumped by one of their really nice people and he said you should take it to Les Schwab  for a super charge to give it reliable power because when you jump it, it's just a 'get started' charge and stores up minimal power as you run it for awhile, but you think your alternator is charging the battery as you drive, but it's not (he told me). Or maybe it is, but never fully. I don't know, I thought I understood it at the time, but I should look it up. He also said it could have 'died' because of a combination of not driving it and really cold snow and ice weather. Anyway, I went to Les Schwab after school one day and worked on school computer stuff while I was waiting, and then they said you really should get a new battery, and I said I thought it wasn't that old, but really I don't remember, and I'm tired of it unexpectedly dying, so g' head! It was $150 so I was really glad I still had money from my last paycheck that I had brought with me. I helped them move the seat to take the battery out, and put the cover back on afterward.
Fred Meyer had some awesome warm Carhart socks on sale so I bought a bunch thinking I'd send some to Uncle, but decided to keep them all because I'm always 'running out' of socks, and also I keep and wear good socks for five years (or more) so it's worth it to buy good ones that won't fall apart. I probably didn't even get enough. I had a letter from Uncle that talked about him dying and I became so very sad that I wrote him and said don't die!! And he called me a week later and assuaged my fears somewhat, but I miss him so much. I wish we lived closer.
I've been helping a kid with law class and another with health class and I see they are trying to do the work but I question their comprehension so I'm thinking of making them some flashcards so they can study more conveniently. I didn't start to utilize flashcards myself until college and they were really helpful because you could carry them in your pocket like a phone (though I didn't have a phone in college) and use them whenever for refresher studying. Can I make them in Adobe Spark to use on a phone?
I haven't worked on my kids' book idea since November and I feel like I don't have time, but I'm just not making time. I went to school today (Saturday) because I forgot my computer last night and have to charge it and use it for the computer tutorials. Well, maybe I could have looked them up here, but then I'd need that on one monitor and Maya on the other instead of watching something else while I was working from the laptop. We had Friday night order pizza night yesterday and watched old Doctor Who episodes which was really dope! I went to Winco to get us some drinks and got a super pretty yellow tulip plant too. It has like five or six bulbs and flowers are almost blooming already.
The kid I am trying to help practice cursive at school is having trouble with the connecting letters concept, so I should maybe make some blown-up cursive sheets so he can see the idea nice and big.
I keep using this for lots of personal stuff, which is fun for me, but I wonder if I should only write about school and work stuff, since that was the original plan for this as a job blog. . . Peace.

AGAIN with the Belated...

I haven't blogged for a really long time and now I feel like there's too much to catch up with. See, you there, self, that's why you need to do it every day even if it's only a sentence. This will not stand! Now I'm conflicted about whether I should go back to days ago, or just start with today. And how do I prioritize when many things have occurred since last time I wrote? Okay, whatever, I'm in danger of not finishing what I start again and I do hate myself a lot when I do that. It would be so much better if I could type faster and without looking at my hands. Stupid hands and eyes. Can't do the two simultaneously. And why is 'everything' one word, but every day is supposed to be two? Argh. Ugh.

Today I went to the ceramics room after school because there was supposedly ceramics club but nobody was there. The art teacher let me into her room and said she thought it would be fine though if I went in through the connecting door and worked on my stuff, so I tried to throw a pot on the kick wheel while watching a youtube video on how to do it, failed mostly, but it was fun, just frustrating, then painted my little pyramids I had made with glaze, started to paint one of my ceramic donuts then decided it was going to take too long, then organized all the bottles of glazes because the mess has been driving me nuts every time I saw them for weeks now. Wow, that was a pretty long run on sentence, but I'm not going to change it now. I also ate a real donut because they were going to throw them away when they're only two days old. Baked goods aren't really healthy, but they also don't go bad, right?

My reading student didn't feel like reading and I said that's fine, I can just read to you, so she followed along while I read How to Steal a Dog. It's a very good book. It was our school secretary's birthday last week but I didn't know that, and I had brought her a rose just to be nice the day before, and made a card for the principal's birthday the other day, which was also the same day everyone found out a beloved teacher whom I didn't know had passed away, but tonight I will make her a card too and it will just be late. It's okay to be late sometimes. Our teacher gave me a thank you card for giving her a bday gift the week before and that was really nice. This one kid in class has started asking me for help with criminal law and first of all, they have criminal law in high school? And second of all, it's really interesting, so I'm glad he lets me help him. I kind of think I just gave him a few of the answers, but he seems like he understands most of it and is working pretty hard, so that's important.

Another kid from health class, where they are doing a long mental health unit up until Spring break, is struggling with prioritizing and being organized so I'm having to work on that myself in order to facilitate helping him through the work. It's heavy on curriculum and participation, but not a lot of homework or studying is required, so you just have to be 'on top' of it and try not to fall behind.

Today in 'Life Skills' the group of (boys only) kids got to make simple pancakes from scratch and then eat them, which is the best way to end a class. I'm out. Peace. Hopefully I will be here again tomorrow...Friday, yay!! P.S. We saw the opening night of the school musical last night, and although it wasn't as overall good as years previous, there were lots of fun moments and some lovely singers.