With Bated Breath

   I have started the totally on-line application for the final teaching license of my career. With my past experience with online re-licensing-- I may suddenly be retired by machine. Just signing up, doing all the security questions, picking a name, a password, oh lordy lordy another password. should I photo it and save it on the phone? Right now it's just on paper. I have all my paperwork in the car in my Hello Kitty binder! Cute huh? but unforgettable, as long as no one comes by and burns the car to the ground before I get this done! I easily play on the computer, but for something as important as this, I'd rather deal with a human being. I like to check out at the grocery store in a line with a human being, I like to go in and renew my license plate with a human, and our License branch is fabulous-- I got signed up on Medicare and social security sitting with a human being-- I like that! My CPR card may arrive in the mail and, I hope, it is the last bit of info I need. I didn't think it would take this long to arrive.
   The middle chunk of my day will be with the dentist, I need a filling AND a new crown... I do not dread this as I dread on line re-licensing! Isn't that funny?

How I Ruined My Summer Vacation

    The nurse will call. Not if the doctor doesn't tell the nurse to call, so I let time go by on my knee replacement. This is how I WAS going to spend summer vacation, rehabbing from knee replacement. As I have said before, I really know how to party. THEN, July 31 became the earliest date, 10 days before school starts. I asked for a Thanksgiving date. I am rethinking that to fit in better with a grading period. I don't know how many corporations do this, but mine builds up sick days to a certain amount then rolls what's left every year into an annuity. Let it be said I have maximum days and a huge annuity for the length of the program. I think I missed half a day this year to go to a meeting in the building. My school is in the worst turmoil of all the new shit that is being piled on teachers and students with a chaotic administration, and for the first time in 25 or 30 years or MORE, a churning faculty. Teachers come to our school and either die or retire from it. We love it so much, I have taught the children of students, while the teachers the same age as me have taught grandchildren! Those families come back with love and we stay with love. Until now. Now our best and most experienced are looking for a way out of a miserable situation. Experience, history, connection is no longer valued.  We'll see how a churning faculty helps test scores as that is the only thing that counts now. We are NOT to help build better human beings! We are only here to teach curriculum and raise scores. These words have been said. So I am contemplating an earlier retirement and TWO surgeries in one school year! This is after being a teacher who teaches no matter what!

UH OH-- just had what I consider and exciting phone call from my principal. I am at loose ends not rehabbing and he calls with a new idea for summer school with ART for FUN and a small reading and math component-- I told him what I miss about the regular classroom is reading to my students which turned out to be something he wants! All of a sudden things just got better-- I can do skillet monsters ala Dan the Monster Man! my former 6th and 7th grade students are my targets! WOO Hoo, wonder if my eye appointment needs to be rescheduled. hmm better check.