Nosy Nancy?

Asking how someone is doing or how their son or daughter is doing is not being nosy. Asking if someone is okay is not being nosy. 

It is being polite. It is being concerned. It is being human. It is being kind. It is being considerate.

It is part of being southern.

In the south we have good manners and use them often. We are hospitable – and part of that is asking about someone’s well-being. It is not meant in any way to be intrusive.

Just throwing that out there.

Sarcasm font

I am sitting at school (been here since 4:30 because we had Open House tonight) listening to our group meeting through Google Hangout. I won't be having ANY input during this meeting, especially since I am such a troublemaker...

 

I really wish I was teaching this class right now. Having to wait until January really isn't what I had envisioned for this class. I hope to have it next year during my 1A block so that I will have my students from August through May.

Oh!! Danielle has moved to Tuscaloosa and is now the principal at the Tuscaloosa City Schools Career Tech Center. So we have been without a CT Director for the past few weeks. The position was posted and they finally hired someone tonight at the board meeting.

Ashlie!! So now we have no librarian lol 

BUT we have someone who understands Career Tech AND someone that knows we aren't idiots. 

I've gotta get back to this meeting although I am pretty good at multitasking, but I definitely don't want anyone emailing me this weekend and scolding me about my behavior.

 

See?? I can multitask :)

There definitely needs to be a sarcasm font... Because I would use the heck out of it...

The worst students

So... I got in trouble for my behavior during our Google group hang out this past Thursday evening. It was the first time I had been successful in joining a hangout (Internet issues all summer at my house) and I found the draw feature while the meeting was going on. I didn't realize everyone in the meeting would be able to see what I was doing. 

I promise I meant no harm in what I was doing. I eluded to this in the post I made with the image from the Google Hangout from last week.

I am very excited to be a part of this group and I hope I have not caused any problems for anyone. I received an email from a group member (kind of like the team-leader actually -- much more seniority in the group than I have) that berated me any my actions. I was out to eat with my husband, son and father-in-law when I received the email (not exactly what I wanted to read in the middle of my meal) two days after the meeting.  I hope to be able to continue as a part of this (in my view) prestigious group. This is what I honestly believe God put me on this Earth for - to teach kids about computer science. I have never been this happy as a teacher before. 

I honestly hope they know I did not mean any harm, and I especially did not mean to hinder anyone from being able to pay attention or to receive help during the meeting (which is what I was accused of doing in the email). My personality is not that of a "normal" teacher; I have always felt more comfortable in a programming shop or in my computer lab at school than I ever have been in a normal classroom. 

This whole incident has caused me to feel anxiety whenever I see an email in my inbox about anything to do with the CS project from this summer.  It's ridiculous and I hope it goes away soon...

I guess teachers can be the worst students sometimes...

I didn't realize until I was in my twenties that I actually love to learn. I had already graduated from college and was working as a programmer and I couldn't get enough knowledge. I would read anything and everything I could on the Internet (this was in 2001 so that net was still young but not in its infancy -- kinda like a rebellious teenager -- everything looked kinda off and CSS was just coming to the forefront of web programming which was helping everything finally become more polished and professional). Up until that point learning had been my job. I was a student and had been since I was 5 in kindergarten. I learned something new every day and I took it for granted. I never looked at it as something I should be grateful for.

Now, I am absolutely grateful that I had wonderful teachers in elementary and high school, and college. Some of the teachers that taught me are the ones I currently work with now. (Some of them are teachers I never had, and I am grateful that I didn't have to sit through them lol)

I hope that both of my children are as blessed as I was in school. Having a bad teacher can change your life. If someone doesn't believe in you, or someone is mean just for the sake of being mean, that can color your judgement of learning and can change your entire life. I want to be a positive influence. I hope I have been over the past 11 years.

Censored

I finally got my daughter's report card from last year (I wasn't worried about it because now that parents can log in to the home portal and view grades, I had kept up with her scores) and included with the report card was a ██████████████████████████████████.

Now, last year was the first year I had not checked up on her teachers to make sure that the standards were being taught. I had never had an issue with any of the teachers in the past, and I started a new program at my job (going from curriculum to another) and in hindsight, I was a slacker. I put my job priorities over those of being a good helicopter mom... *snicker*


Her grades on her report card ███████████████████████. Now, I had issues with ███████████████████████ and even got ███████████████████████ over my ███████████████████████. I ███████████████████████, even if only ███████████████████████because at the time it didn't matter much anyway. What was done, was done.

But ███████████████████████. I cannot go back and undo what I did, or even redo it. It wouldn't make much sense now anyway. All I can do is put my faith in the teachers she has now. And I do have faith in them. Every one of them is good at what they do and she is a bright child.

Oh, and ███████████████████████.

P.S. If you (███████████████████████) see fit to ███████████████████████. The old ███████████████████████. Can you say, BLOCKED?? Sucks, huh? :)

5 Indicators of an Evil and Wicked Heart

http://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/5-indicators-of-an-evil-and-wicked-heart.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fbpage&utm_campaign=cwupdate

These points were taken from the above article.. I have found solice in the fact that there are other people in the world like me. We are the ones who absolutely do not understand why anyone would want to be so mean and evil to other people.

1. Evil hearts are experts at creating confusion and contention.
2. Evil hearts are experts at fooling others with their smooth speech and flattering words.
3. Evil hearts crave and demand control, and their highest authority is their own self-reference.
4. Evil hearts play on the sympathies of good-willed people, often trumping the grace card.
5. Evil hearts have no conscience, no remorse.

They want you to believe that:
1. Their horrible actions should have no serious or painful consequences.
2. That if I talk like a gospel-believing Christian I am one, even if my actions don’t line up with my talk.
 

friends

I have realized lately that because of the changes in my life (my divorce, my marriage, the birth of my son, among others that I can’t right now place) I have gone from being a very popular friend, to having very few, if any, friends at all.

Honestly, this scares the crap out of me.

I have watched my mother be friendless almost her entire adult life. She spends virtually all of her time now taking care of her parents (my grandparents – one with Alzheimer’s and the other with more physical maladies that I can fit into one blog post). The days she is not there, she is working part-time for the health department helping mothers who are on the WIC program learn how to feed their children with allergies and sicknesses that I hope to never have to understand. Her best friend in my sister. She takes the time every now and then to make a trip to visit my sister and her family (which is about 3 hours away) and it gives her a nice break from being the sole caregiver for my grandparents.

I don’t want to be like her one day.

I can name four people I consider my true friends. Each I have known for over 10 years. I don’t talk to any of them every day.

I realize that there are people who once were a part of my life that no longer are because the only time they reach out to me is when they want something from me. I don’t care to be someone who is taken advantage of because of certain skills I possess. The people (some of them in my extended family) that I have chosen to exclude from my everyday life because of their snobbish behavior are assuredly not worried that I don’t include them in my inner circle. If they were, they would make more of an effort to be a part of mine and my children’s lives. I absolutely hope and pray that I raise both Janie and Si to be better people than some of the adults they encounter.  

obnoxious

Just because you think you're right doesn't mean that you are. Everyone has an opinion. You don't need to be the loudest and most obnoxious person just to get your voice heard. The squeaky wheel may get the oil, but it may also get replaced.

You might feel better for a little while if you prove your point. But you will likely cultivate an enemy or at least some animosity between you and the person you just caused to feel inferior.

Never interrupt someone when they are speaking. Unless someone is on fire, about to fall off a cliff, or drowning, let whoever is talking finish their thought. When you interrupt someone you are subconsciously telling them that their voice is not as important as yours, therefore they feel as though they aren't worthy. It's a horrible feeling.

hornet's nest

Some things aren't worth fighting over.

Over the weekend, i think SIL#1 and I buried the hatchet, so to speak. I apologized to her and she actually apologized to me. It felt good to get it over and done with. Not that I see us hanging out as BFFs any time soon. We are just different. And we're family. We don't have to be best friends just because we are family. We don't even have to agree.

Things didn't work out as well between Fiance and SIL#1... I told Jason it was like coming up on a hornets nest, and I wasn't one to poke at a hornet's nest.

Hopefully things will blow over and everyone will play nice.

Jason and I went to Needham, Alabama on Saturday. Janie spent the day with Chris, so it was just me, Jason and Si. There's less than 100 people that live in Needham. I'm pretty sure they knew we were out-of-towners...

They have a small park in the town that is centered around the old Walter Wilson gristmill. There is also a log cabin that has been re-built using timbers from old homes that were donated to the town. It's a nice park. Much nicer than I expected for a town of only 94 people...

The rest of the pictures I took are on my flickr page.