Back in Time

I Don't Want to Overanalyze

the Past

as I have known myself to do

in the past, but I think it would be helpful and therapeutic to go over it a little bit and spend some time thinking about decisions I made and things I chose to say or not say and I can use that thinking to do better this year. Basically, I want to bitch a lot and clear the space in my head for new and positive things and memories I have yet to create.

It's difficult to come into a job already feeling undertrained and then not receive the training you had expected. My boss was also a strong personality type who was hypocritical, micromanaging and extremely passive aggressive. He had a large ego, and was not good at delegating. He wanted things done his way, but didn't communicate what that was. He didn't explain to the subs what they were to do, and so I had to. Glad to help, but it was his job. And worst of all, he didn't have a sense of humor. Which is vital in that job, I think. I'm saying all those things and thinking well, that sounds a bit harsh, doesn't it, but I think it's good to call it out and this is my safe place to do that. 

Disclaimer: if I ever use names of people, they are not their real names, because although this is true about me, I don't want to compromise their anonymity in any case. 

The teacher Mr. Sullivan seemed really glad I said I was interested in learning and wanted to do everything I could to do a good job. He gave me a fat printout from a comprehensive class on autism that I could read. I did, and took a lot of notes, but what I really needed was to sit down and discuss what I was reading with someone like him, and he didn't care to make time for that. 

Then I got called into a meeting with the assistant VP and apparently I had been "asking too many questions" and not "using my time wisely". I was so surprised. Not only had the teacher not felt comfortable discussing this with me, he had judged me without giving me a chance to explain how I felt. I felt like I was not wanted in that class. How annoying to really want to fit in somewhere, and to feel marginalized. How frustrating to be in an educational environment where the students and learning should come first, and have personality conflict detract and derail from that. 

I did not feel supported and encouraged, most of the time. Sometimes I did. It was not 100% awful, or I would not have stayed. Well, after that meeting I did try to apply for a different position, but the interview was during school hours. I don't know why a school HR would do that. Anyway. It was just not my visionary ideal of what working in a school full time would be like. After volunteering for over two years in the art classes, library, and reading programs of different elementary schools, I had pretty different expectations I guess.

I was also confused about the roles of the peer mentors in the class. They were doing the same job we instructional aides were doing, but for school credit. This wasn't shared with me, I just had to figure it out. So not only was I supposed to help our class, but help these helpers as well. I just wish I had been informed of so much in advance. 

One of the things that I think messed up my cohesive immersion into the school and class experience was being instantly assigned as a bus aide. I try to not lie and be an honest person; I think there should be a special punishment for people who call in sick to work claiming they have 'food poisoning';  but I wish sometimes that I had said my car had broken down (as it currently is, as a matter of fact!) or something and that I could not do it. It would have been different if I had lived really close to the student's house. But maybe first year new employees should not be required to do that. It would have been fine if Sullivan had done what every other class seemed to do, and had a rotation schedule. I think I am most of all pissed off by that. Unfair things that are forced upon you and you feel obligated as a new employee to do, just piss me off. They are clearly taking advantage of nice naive people in those situations.

I have a lot more bitching to do I believe, so I will continue later. Thank you and Goodnight.

Now I know!

So Now I Know

The consequence of not completing 

What I said I would do 

is the minor but annoying punishment of not allowing myself to use Twitter...

I agreed (in my head) to the rule of not using social media until I had written at least 500 words. I did not do that, so I didn't get to log on to Twitter. And I really wanted to. I watched two movies at home and I really wanted to tweet about them. I had some screenshots all ready to share, and I was disappointed that I wasn't able to do that. So I guess I proved to myself that it is a rather strong motivation to write.

I did watch a music video on YouTube that I wanted to share, so I shared it as a blog post and that was okay and different, but it didn't count as words.

Back to School

I finally checked my emails from school and Gmail, and sorted out as much as I could. There were hundreds of things because it's been weeks. I also went to the school I'll be working at in Fall and said hello and looked around a bit. They said there will be a meet and greet later in August. It looks like a great school, not as new as the one I was at before, more lived in and old school, pardon the pun.

Oh, the Cars

One of our cars has been overheating and Meineke couldn't tell us why so we went to a radiator specific place and they said head gasket! Yikes! The other is even older and although it passed DEQ two years ago, it failed two weeks in a row this month. Then it just died on the way home, and I was frightened, so we dropped it off at Meineke. Because although they aren't the best, they are nearby and familiar to me. Fortunately, I am able to ride my bike to school. But car problems are never fun. I suppose any problem isn't fun unless it's a challenge that you can personally figure out and solve; it usually just ends up costing lots of money.

Attitude of Gratitude

I want to try and be more grateful for the blessings and positives that I have in my life. I know that you get out of life what you put into it, and I think I need to do more work toward that goal. Oh wait a sec. UPS is here! The ukulele hath arrived!! Yippee Yi Ay Aloha Ay!

Okay, I am immediately so very grateful that this has finally come. Thank you God, Thank you Steve, and Thank you Amazon. Also, Thank you UPS, Thank you Donner ukuleles and Thank you to the people in China who worked to assemble this musical instrument. I am very excited to try to tune it and learn some songs! I think that I will have a lot more success with it than with guitar. God Bless!

The Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love?

Dynamic Discord

Distinct Disconnect

Disturbing distraction

Deleterious dissemination 

One of the most prominent things that became clear to me throughout the school year and then even more at Summer school was the serious disconnect of communication about the kids between the teachers at different schools and the families with the teachers. It was an endless on and off frustration because you are trying hard to determine how the student learns best and how to communicate with them (especially if they are non-verbal) most effectively (verbal, written, pictures, gestures); and no one can just tell you. But I found out they can. They just don't share the information. It was weeks before the last school sent over the box with all the student's folders, and while there were some helpful written notes, what would have been great is if there had been a conversation with the last teachers. And the parents too. 

All this could be written down, but should be very clear and explanatory, in one place (folder, notebook, etc.) and always precede the student's arrival in the classroom. There was so much the lead teacher had no clue about and spent so much time trying to figure out when (I found out later) it could have been easily explained by information that the last school and the family had through experience they already had. We spent so long wondering: maybe it's because of this or maybe this...and while it was a learning experience for us, it was detrimental to the student who was even more frustrated with us not already knowing.

They hire lead teachers who have a lot of schooling and are relatively experienced, but tend to be pretty young, and then several support staff who act in the role of teacher, but are titled instructional assistants, and could have undergrad degrees, like me, or not, but are deemed qualified by personality, character and past work experience. I definitely believe that there is not enough (none really) training for these positions. I assumed (incorrectly) that my classroom teacher would spend a lot of time working with me to help me learn on the job how to best work with the special needs students. I thought (also incorrectly) that we would have weekly, if not daily, meetings to discuss how things were going and cover questions and talk about what to address as far as lesson plans and behavior modification ideas.

I want to be a great teacher, and I expected to learn a lot working in a school full time. So to say I was disenchanted and disappointed would be an understatement. When I was finally transferred to a different classroom after Spring break, I was so much more impressed with the communication level between the teacher and the support staff, I was wondering why it was so much better. But looking over my notes from the year, I just determined that my first teacher was a very strong passive aggressive personality and the other teacher was not. That can make a big difference in how you get along with people and especially how you choose to communicate with them.

But the students in the classroom suffer when the information needed to work with them more successfully is not shared between staff, teachers, schools, and families. And that's the biggest disappointment.

I Messed Up...

Whoops!

I messed up.

#500Words a day for a week BEFORE you use 'social media' was the goal.

I did this successfully for three or four days, and then today I was watching YouTube videos (stand up comedy and Nardwuar interviews) and just needed to share some of them, so I clicked the share on Twitter button, forgetting that it is not only social media but my preferred number one 'go to' social media platform that I have been writing in order to earn every day. I have been writing in order to earn going on Twitter. To read posts and share photos and random things I observe and am thinking about. It may not sound important or interesting, and it really isn't, but it's what I like to do. It's like my thing, so for me, it is a reward. 

Because I am going to give myself a break, and because there really isn't any punishment or negative consequence of merit if I actually do social media before writing, I am going to be cool and kind to myself and just carry on and not worry about it. Because I wasn't intentionally breaking the rules, I was just acting on impulse, as I do quite often (with both negative and positive results). So this will be okay. But I do wonder. What is the consequence of not doing what you said you would? What is the result of not keeping a promise you made to yourself? I guess nothing. I guess, you just miss out on what you would have accomplished or learned. So that's just on me. And it is sad. 

I mean, when I was a kid I had piano lessons every week. And I was supposed to practice certain things every day so that I could then be up to speed with what I was learning and be ready to learn the next part. But I didn't always practice. I would play all the time, and I got really quite good at playing what I liked, the fun stuff that I already knew, but I *wouldn't always (*rarely) work on what I was supposed to. So the next lesson would often be me and my very patient teacher, Vera Valachova, simply working on the piece and doing during class what I should have been doing on my own. I think I just really needed one on one attention from her while I was playing. Like I would have been a great rich kid who had their music tutor there every day while they practiced. I say 'rich kid' because piano lessons aren't cheap, even back in 1980, and to take them every day, well...

I haven't thought about that experience for a long time so it's cool I remembered it. I remember always feeling totally ashamed when I walked down the hall of my teacher's apartment building (which was super nice, and for single people only, there were no children allowed to live there, and her apartment was all white, including the carpet and the grand piano, which was in total contrast to our house), with my music under my arm, approaching her door to knock, knowing I would have to lie, and try to fake it (I often did this rather than admit my total incompetence), or sheepishly admit my despicable failure at fulfilling her simple request to practice my fuc*ing C# minor scales.

Okay my peeps, my luvs, my dears. I've had a few beers and I've tripped down memory lane here.

Take Care, and love one another. Peace out.

History Mystery

So Little Sleep

In honor of all the sleep deprived people going to work and walking around and doing their best, and myself getting only a few hours of sleep last night, I want to talk about how your sleep schedule is determined by your work hours. Technically, we, as humans, should rise with the sun and sleep when we're tired. This is rarely possible when you have any kind of work schedule outside your home. I read about a place that incorporates naps into the workday. Like kindergarten. Sounds great!

The earliest I can remember having to wake up for a job was when I was working in the cafeteria at Emanuel hospital as a temp, hoping to become a regular employee (they paid well above minimum wage, as it was a union job). I had to wake up at 3:30 am, I think? To get ready and be there by 4:15. I was training to be a sub so it was part of a two-week rotation for all the different kitchen positions, and that was the one where you had to cook all the bacon, so it was the earliest arrival time. This was the most difficult to get up for and I was only saved by the fairly robotic functions of the position, and the pretty early quit time. But it was really impossible to make myself get to bed in time to make sure I got a reasonable amount of rest the night before. I'll tell some more stories from there later...

                                                       Very Similar to the Hospital Cafeteria

The next earliest wake up I can remember was at Walmart, just a couple years ago, when they wanted me to try and train in the baking department. Even though everything you were baking was frozen, there was a lot to make, and the start time was 5:15 am. The gal I trained with was amazing. She knew sign language and was in alcohol recovery, and had a great sense of humor. She had terrible back problems and crappy health insurance though and was making barely any money especially considering how hard she worked. Supposedly Walmart will raise its minimum wage starting pay to $10 an hour soon, but you still cannot live on that. I wished I could continue to work with her, but when given the choice, cashiering was better because of the hours. I rode my bike there as often as I could, which took almost an hour, but mostly bike paths, and I didn't want to do that so early. 

So when I started at          

the high school last year and the hours were supposedly 7:15 until 2:45 I was okay with it. It was doable. It was reasonable. It was expected to work school hours at a school! I'm not a 'morning person' but I am not grumpy or anything, I just prefer to stay up late and wake up late. I have worked swing shift hours in retail, late nights in restaurant/bars, and other sporadic part time hours at different jobs. At the senior apartments, I worked in their fine dining restaurant (full table set up and tie and dress shirt) and I had to do split shift every day because they didn't have many customers for lunch. So I went there from 7-11 and 4-8. Sometimes not even both. The manager was terrible at scheduling and the shifts could be erratic. A few times I got to work the 'day shift' for the regular gal who took a vacation. Her mom also worked there as a housekeeper. The day shift was 7-2, breakfast and lunch service, doing laundry (tablecloths, napkins, and aprons), sometimes room service, and other cleaning and prep work like vacuuming and napkin folding.

 I liked it, you were on your own a lot and it was pretty peaceful but there was no way I was getting her job, she loved it too. It was pretty easy. The only thing lacking was tips. The money was sh*t and tips would have helped a lot. Everything was prepaid so there was no money to deal with, which was an aspect I liked a lot after being fired from OMSI 'science store' (ie gift shop!) for letting a deposit bag out of my sight for two minutes. Nothing happened to it, but they weren't happy about it, or me in general, so that job was way more stressful than it should have been, and after that experience I just wanted something that was a little fun with little to no money handling. I will for sure tell more stories later from both these jobs. They would have been great if I could have recorded them at the time, but I'm sure I'll remember some things, just not some of the sparkling conversation gems...maybe it will come back to me if I write about it in greater detail...

                                                 It's absolutely tried, tested and proven that sleep 

                                                         deprivation is BAD for your health & stresses u out.

The problem with 7:15-2:45

was that it turned out to be 6:15 to 3:30. Sometimes longer. Because they needed me to be a bus aide. Supposedly no one else could do it since I ended up doing it every day until Spring Break when I transferred classrooms. I was actually prepared for something like this because it was mentioned in my interview, however, they gave me the impression it would be an occasional job and not a regular thing. I think they knew how it was supposed to be and my class was the one who fucked up with that. So I had to wake up at five to drive to the person's house, ride the school bus with them, and ride home with them, then drive myself home. Talk about a pain in the butt. For so many reasons. Like you don't get paid for the driving time. And just all the sitting. I missed riding my bike and also gained a lot of weight. I'll rant about this later. And then I discovered (when one of the other bus aides who got on the bus about halfway to school told me) when I finally asked why they had different people all the time, that their class rotated people to be bus aides so that the same person didn't have to do it every day! They switched about every two or three weeks. So logical. So nice! 

I'm way over word count now, I'll hit this up later holmes, TBC; LOVE & Peace Out!

Day 3 of #500Words

Uninspired but Writing Anyway

Why do you need to feel inspired to write in a (stupid) blog anyway?

You obviously don't,

because I didn't write for 11 months, even though I had a ton of stuff to write about, and was finally inspired to continue because I got inspired to bribe myself. No social media distractions (or reward as I call it) until I do my thing. It's a lot like the kids at school. There is usually something that they want (to watch videos on i-pad, etc.) and don't want to work for, but are reluctantly willing to do so in order to earn it. Today I didn't exactly cheat, but I didn't want to write right away so I watched some TV comedies and wrote some 'jokes' (what I call the supposedly funny things I think of) in my 'journal' (my spiral bound calendar datebook that I only use to take notes and make lists, not put down appointments or such sh*t ... I use an old school paper wall calendar for that:)).

And then when I really can't procrastinate any longer, I finally begin, and I'm like, okay, what was I supposed to write about today anyway? I am not even sure, so I will go back to basics and write about the subject at the creamy (or is it crunchy?) center.

Work work work...

                                                            Alright, aalright, alrighhhht!

So this year is a little bit different than last year (when I was assigned to a school but not told where so I had to figure that out on my own). And I didn't have district email yet so I didn't even know about the day for staff to meet and greet, etc. so I totally missed it. No big deal, but it would have been useful to have been there. Now I am already hired by the school district, and I know what school I will be working at and where it is in advance. However, I do not know any of the same people because they dissolved the programs at the school I was at all year and transferred all the Sped employees to different places (fortunately, I met someone at Summer school who will be at the same place in the fall so I got to talk to her!) So it's like I'm starting all over again. But I guess I have a ton more experience going in, I just need to discover how to utilize it, and take advantage of knowing more now than I did then. 

It was a confusing time dealing with packing up the classrooms and not knowing who was going where but I was already up for a change, just to experience a different environment, so I wasn't too upset to move. I did build a lot of friendly and positive relationships at the old school though, and I am a little concerned about being somewhere new and starting that all over again. But there's a learning curve with everything!
Working in education was one of my career goals but I don't know if I want to remain a Sped instructional assistant. I don't know if I want to continue working with older kids. I don't know if I want to try to become qualified to be a teaching sub ( making more money) or if I want to get the extra education required to be a Montessori teacher or something else. I don't know if I want to try and learn enough sign language to work with deaf kids, or enough Spanish to work with bilingual kids. I really loved working with the bilingual kids at the Summer program I did at the elementary school last Summer. They helped me learn more Spanish too, which I have now forgotten from disuse. I don't know if I want to stay in this school district or even this city. I just don't know! 

Time to PRAY!

In times of trouble and confusion, in times of uncertainty and pain, in times of low confidence and indecision, it is always a very good idea to pray. So. I will do the best I can, but I will ask God for help, and that's all I shall do for now. God bless you and stay safe, we can all do better to help each other, so in the words of the great Barack Obama: Be Useful, Be Kind.
 Peace!