It's time for another week of...
Nora is a genius for coming up with this. All week I think about what will be in "wine" and what will be in "love." Wine = makes me want a glass (or several) of wine. Also could be considered what I "whine" about :) Love = LOVE.
Wine
1. Probably the top annoying thing of this week was when I received an e-mail from a parent of one of my students on Monday night. I've been working with this student a lot on her reading this year and she's making good progress. She has grade level skills but hasn't quite put everything together yet. That day I had sent her home with a predictable reader to read to her parents to help boost her confidence and excitement about reading. Well, the e-mail detailed how she had read the story to her mom and her mom had shared with her how she was CLEARLY only reading from memorization and using the pictures and she refused to use such poor materials to teach her daughter. It when on to attack my methods of teaching reading and suggest that I try something different because what I am doing is OBVIOUSLY not working. Yea... so, what's a teacher to do? I updated all of her assessments, scheduled a meeting with the parents and our reading specialist. Then two of us with Masters Degrees in Reading explained to the parents what we are really doing, the value of "memorized" reading and using the pictures when you are FIVE and the actual progress she has made. They admitted to overreacting, which I appreciated, but CAN PEOPLE PLEASE THINK BEFORE THEY SEND E-MAILS? Thank you! Oh, and PS. adding in "you are a terrific teacher" does NOT make up for the fact that you just trashed my teaching skills for the last 4 paragraphs. Thanks again.
2. Work in general. One of my kids did some impressive math to figure out we had 20 more days of school today, but instead of being impressed I was freaked out... I have SO much to do in that time!!!
3. I really dislike when I can't sleep. Sleep at the beginning of this week was not good, probably due to wine #1. However, I am against sleeping problems. If I am going to dedicate my precious time to lying in bed, I expect sleep to come. Thank you.
Love
1. I came home today and Eric had a giant bag of fortune cookies he got from work. Wahoo!
I love fortune cookies and the last time Eric got me a bag of them, he and my brother accidentally got me the "dirty" ones- which were so dirty I actually just didn't GET them for awhile until I figured it out haha.
2. Summer is coming after 20 more days of work. Wahoo! I am really excited about the kids I am tutoring this summer. They all seem really awesome. Today I had to meet one of the kids and his mom for pizza. I was kinda nervous about it because I don't eat pizza and kids usually won't talk much the first time you meet them. But, his mom is nice and the kid plays hockey and loves the Red Sox so we had plenty to discuss. I had a tiny slice of pizza that probably was not enough to hurt my stomach but was enough to look like I was participating in the pizza eating :)
3. Caroline is graduating on Monday and I am a proud older sister. It seems like yesterday I was jumping on the table at my grandmothers house yelling, "yay! i have a sister!"
4. Eric. He gets to be on the love list this week even though technically he always is, obviously! He provides hilarious comic relief during extremely frustrating situations (see Wine #1). Also, he is just in general amusing. For example, during a debate last night about the okayness of wearing black shorts with a black shirt (I say no), Eric defended his position by saying his character in Tiger Woods golf wears black shorts a black shirt. THE CHARACTER HE CREATED. Awesome.
5. My college roommate is coming to stay with me next week, starting on Monday! Wahoo :)
6. Cheryl (aka Eric's mom aka my mother in law- I need a who's who on this blog, don't I?) brought me spring rolls tonight that look like the ones I'm obsessed with from Not Your Average Joes or possibly better because they have seaweed salad in them! I am SO excited to eat them for lunch tomorrow. This will be a big improvement over my lunch today which was supposed to be a peanut butter sandwich... til I forgot the peanut butter. Go me.
It's funny ALL week I though this week was kinda bad, but looking back I guess the good outweighed the bad (or perhaps I just really like food). I love Wine and Love. What's yours today?
Posts
all your talk about food made me want ice cream. something you definitely didnt even mention. ha
ReplyDeleteOhmigosh--I love how you admitted that you think about what you will "wine" and "love" all week :) I said the same thing on my post this week!! :) And I can totally relate to your #1 whine. I got a HORRIBLE email from a parent early on this year. (I teach 8th grade English.) He was completely convinced that my way of teaching the kids to write 5 paragraph essays was TOO babyish and TOTALLY beneath his son. He TOTALLY trashed me---and I replied back (with a CC to my principal.) He ended up writing back and apologizing---also telling me that his wife was mortified that he had said what he did. I agree with you--some people just need to THINK before hitting "SEND" on an email! P.S. I think you should tell us what all of your FORTUNES end up being from that bag of cookies :)
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh. I can not believe that parent said that to you. I would love to send her a ripping email putting her in her place. That is horrible! I am sorry you had to go through that. :( Makes my week look like a walk in the park!
ReplyDeleteWine: It's going ot rain this weekend. meh. Tired of rain!
Love: My potential tenant just came by and he seems GREAT. He is going to think about it, but I am pretty sure he is going to rent my place as he moved up his appt to today instead of Sat as he was worried I'd rent it out by then!! So yea! i am looking at a condo to rent tomorrow. It's only .7 miles from work! ** jumps up and down ** and 2 blocks from the river, so close to lots of awesome trails. I fyou can't tell, I am a little bit excited. ;)
Boo to parent complaints! I get flustered when parents question anything even if they are not being rude/angry about it....it's hard to respond and I spend SO much time trying to compose a response!
ReplyDeleteYikes! That really sucks that parent said that to you... How lame. I remember memorizing a Bernstein Bear book when I was little and my parents were SO proud of me for "reading". Hehe.
ReplyDeleteMy wine this week was definitely work as well. I cried in the bathroom twice today it was so stressful! Luckily it wasn't internal stress but external (client and supplier stress) and my coworkers are fantastic. The new project I'm working on is just SO BUSY and time consuming!
Love: The beautiful, beautiful weather we're having. Clear skies and sun! I'm praying it lasts through the long weekend (my other love of the week!)
Strangely, we've had somewhat similar weeks!! Something bad happened to me too this week (details maybe later....) and I think I got about 6 total hours of sleep on Monday and Tuesday night....ugh. And, Nick's mom made some cheese tortellini for us, with zucchini and walnuts and it was AWESOME! haha, see, similar!
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to hear the parents ended up being reasonable and apologizing to you. Sometimes people need to STOP and THINK before hitting SEND! Ugh.
Wow, it sounds like you are such a wonderful and dedicated teacher. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteWine: Waking up early to go to the gym. I friggin' love sleep, and peeling myself out of bed is hard,hard work for me.
ReplyDeleteLove: That it's Friday! What would we do without weekends?