Bemused musings

I hope you all have a great time tonight!


Goals for 2011: Be more organized and keep a better schedule.

Last year I tried to be better rested and that worked out pretty well.

Also, for anyone on my rlist who uses birthday notifications. Um, my birthday isn't exactly on the 1st. The age is basically right, the day not so much.

Have fun!

I apologize ahead of time for the disillusionment of any parent on my list.

NOT EVERY CHILD IS ABOVE AVERAGE!!!!!!!!!!

In fact, most children are about average.

Not every student belongs in the Honors class.

Sometimes the explanation for why your student is not in the honors class is, "You child is not qualified for the honors class. Your child is average and will do fine in the regular class which is the appropriate placement." I realize that this is a crushing disappointment for you, as your child is no doubt a bright and charming pixie of a student, but calling me 800 times to be sure that yes, they really really don't get a seat and there are a ton of others ahead of them in line, WILL NOT HELP.

Also, sometimes the reason your kid didn't do well is that they are just not very bright and lazy on top of it. Their "disability" is that they would rather play video games or make time with a member of their attraction group than do homework. Sometimes they don't need to be tested, sometimes they need to be forced to actually do the fricking work.

Also, I cannot magically tell you why your kid got a C last year instead of an A. Ask the teacher they had.

YES! I'M REALLY SURE THEY CANNOT BE IN THE HONORS CLASS!

Bah.

From the Head Curmudgeon of the society of "I am tired of your phone calls can I please just work now I need to do my job and some lunch might be nice at some point goddammit I closed my door for a reason go away."

I have returned from my journey weary and footsore but triumphant! I have visited the lands of the past and collected endless photos of the glory of the Golden age.

Or, you know, I went to Athens and Istanbul and on a Mediterranean cruise with the bro and the 'rents and had a great time. We probably walked about 6+ miles a day and I filled up most of a 16 gig thumbdrive with our combined pictures and it was amazing. However, I have huge blisters on my footsies and I'm a bit jet-lagged.

If anything important happened, let me know. There is no way that I can read 3 weeks of posts.

Hugs to the listies!

I will be absent from social networking for a while as I am going to go stare at the wine-dark sea for a while and do other moving about. Have fun!

So apparently the latest LKH is almost out but you can't mention it on the forum. It seems that even the number of pages is an OMG!SPOILER and will get you banninated for life. No I am not kidding. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

( Lost comment: Spoiler )

OK, self, you know perfectly well that we have lived our life in 4 year chunks and so we have itchy feet this year, but there is no need to go out of our way to make ourselves itchier than absolutely necessary. We have a perfectly good job right now and the place we live is fine. There was no need to go peak at the DODDS overseas website and notice that just about every Ed research job in northern Europe is open and has been for a while, or that we are, in fact, qualified for that job or that we have no house to pay off or romantic relationship to maintain or degree to finish.

SHUT UP! We are FINE!

Dear Mother Nature,

I regret to inform you that you took a wrong turn somewhere over the Pacific Ocean and delivered Seattle weather to Northern California. While it does smell gloriously clean, it is unfortunately and unexpectedly chilly and wet.

Much (though drenched) love,

Me

Title: Watch your mouth
Author: ME! MINE! ALL MINE!
Genre: Original. Magical realism? Contemporary Fantasy? Paranormal Snark?
Series: Angelitude (I have a couple of these type things floating around in various places. I think this is the first one on my journals though)
A/N: Mild heresy, don't read if offended by an off-center religious viewpoint.

( Er, well, it's a short blaspheme anyway? )

Waterpolo: It must have rules, but they are indiscernible. The entire game looks like one big foul to me.

I keep trying to read Heather Graham's Dust to Dust and am having a rough time of it. Reason? She puts a 4.0 earthquake in LA and has everyone going "OMG! EARTHQUAKE!! RIOT IN THE STREETS!! DAMAGE!! SAVE US ALL!!" when they should be going "huh. Earthquake? eh, whatever. 'K, back to work." A 4.0, frankly, is barely worth noticing and all the !!!!11!! in the book is driving me crazy.

Dear Author,

I love your books. I read them all, in hard cover even. I buy them as soon as I see them. However, writing the same damn book TWICE! TWICE! is not OK.

Disgruntled,

Me.


(the book is, I am not kidding, an exact rewrite of parts of an earlier book she wrote. Characters, plot, everything, and it isn't a reissue either, it's a rewrite using the same story but including a few different viewpoints, but still essentially the same. I bought it assuming that there might be some review- she has several overlapping series so you often see the same characters or bits of the same timeline- but I didn't figure the whole thing would be review. ARGH! I was hoping for, you know, NEW MATERIAL especially as I ALREADY KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING! ARGH! grump.)

I was talking to my brother and we were discussing spring break and he commented to me that even though the salary is lousy, at least they paid us for vacation. Now, I am in education and my parents are in education, so of all non-education people, he would be someone who should know how this works. He doesn't though and I'm betting that most people don't either.

Teaching/education salaries are figured on a days worked/hrs per day basis. Basically, we are hourly wage earners. Most teachers get paid for abt 183 days a year at however many hours their contract requires (usually 7-7.5/d). That is pretty much exactly how many days kids are in school + 1-4 inservice days a year (where you sing into training to learn mostly irrelevant things). I am not, for example, paid for spring break. I am not paid for winter break. I am not paid for labor day (irony, we has it) or veteran's day, or president's day. I am CERTAINLY not paid for summer break. In fact, we are considered laid-off in the summer and could theoretically file for unemployment. In the past, many teachers used to work other jobs during the summer, but with districts eating further and further into summer, it isn't particularly possible to get summer employment any more. I know many teachers dying to work summer school who can't get hired because even that only takes a very limited number of teachers in years when it is even running (forget counselors, they might have 1 per district total working summer school) and these days, summer school isn't happening.

We do get sick leave. I get 2 weeks a year, of which I can use 1 day for personal business. We cannot generally sell it back, though we can accrue it forever. The only thing it is good for is actually being sick or, when we are going to retire, we can (as a one time end of career offer) sell it back for a percentage amount and use it as time served to add to our years of employment.

So, for the next time someone says to you, "Those teachers are all lazy. They get paid for all those days off and still complain about their salaries and working conditions." now you know. In education, you do not get "vacation", you get, effectively, unpaid furloughs.

So. The immediate fam is going to the med this summer. (this has required years of draconian saving measures for me BTW, as the lowest salaried member). I get to make the hotel reservations. Why? Because I am on break this week which means I can be awake at hours when the reservation desk is open. It is also nerve wracking. I can make reservations in English, French, and if pressed German and probably Italian or Spanish if I looked into it. I cannot make them in Greek or (God forbid) Turkish. Please lord let the people on the other end of the line speak a language I can ask for a room in.

Dear screaming hissyfit woman,

I do not care about your daughter's 15 minute teacher detention. I might have cared slightly had you approached me with the smallest modicum of courtesy this time. I might have cared if you hadn't always shown up in my office screaming with white hot anger accusing the school of prejudicially punishing your older child over stuff she admitted doing. I might have cared if she had come to me herself. I might have cared if I hadn't already changed her classes this year over your temperamental inability to get along with anyone. I might have cared if discipline issues were my purview or if she'd been suspended for three days. I might have cared if you had not lied to me about the current teacher with whom you have an issue having been your older daughter's teacher as well. Remember, screaming hissy-fit woman? I was your older daughter's counselor TOO. I might have cared if any of those things had happened, but they didn't did they, screaming hissy-fit woman who appeared without warning in my office and ranted for 45 minutes about how horrible this teacher you haven't even met hardly is for having given your angelic child an entire 15 minutes of detention for talking. So, you know what? I don't care. Also, I do not have any appointments available until at least 2 weeks after you call, whenever that is and I'm afraid I was out of the office unable to get your message until 2 days after you called, whenever that will be in the future. I don't want to talk to you and if I can skate out the door every time you try and arrive in my office without an appointment from now on, I will. Send your daughter to talk to me, she's a reasonable human being most of the time. You, OTOH, suck and I don't want to talk to you.

No love,

Ms. Tired Counselor
Busting at the Seams Classes School

There should be more caper movies. Just sayin'.

My news tells me that they are thinking of making manufacturers put a warning label on hot dogs (this would be a skinny sort of highly processed bratwurst for those of you not of US origin) as a choking hazard. Apparently 77 children die of choking on food every year. Millions eat multiple hot dogs each, but 77 die of choking on some type of food so We Must Have Warning Labels.

Maybe we should just label everything: This product may be dangerous to your health if you have an accident or are stupid. Living may cause death if used improperly or for too long a period. If you experience difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, pain, or dizziness, please consult your physician.

This week I had my first district level meeting for scheduling and staffing for next year. My district along with pretty much every district in the state will be in its second year of millions of dollars of funding cuts. This pretty much guarantees a bad spring and a bad 2010-2011 year.

Why does this happen?

Well, here's why it happens in CA. Our state tax system is a federal mirror. Basically we use the same numbers for income and deductions that the feds do and then the state takes a smaller percent. This means that if the federal income tax revenues are lower, so are the state income tax revenues. Then we have sales tax, car registration fees, gas tax, property tax, etc (education is also supposed to get money from the lottery, but that keeps getting more and more redirected elsewhere). You may have noticed the economic and housing crises we had recently. This meant that both income and property tax revenues went down at the same time. The state legislature had a few ways they intended to fill the gap (mostly through taxing rich people and oil companies who made a HUGE AND INCREDIBLE AND UNBELIEVABLY LARGE profit last year) but the republicans in the state government wouldn't allow them to pass. Instead, that group thought that the best thing to do would be to cut social services (to the ill and disabled) and education and the salaries of not terribly well paid state workers. Fabulous. Thusly, the education budget was cut.

What does that mean?

There isn't a whole lot of wasted education budget at the state level, pretty much all the money goes to the districts so if the state education budget is severely cut, that automatically severely cuts the district one. The districts' primary expenses are buildings (schools) and staff (teachers, counselors, admin, maintenance, etc) of which the largest group is teachers. So when the district budget gets cut, guess where those cuts take place? You guessed it, schools are closed and teachers are cut and class sizes rise.

So what ARE the projections for next year?

It looks bad. Most of the districts in the state are consulting each-other so most of the possible cuts are about the same.

If you live in CA your district will probably not bus next year. There may be no extra-curriculars. There may be no elementary music. If your children go to a small elementary school it will probably close. K-3 class sizes will probably be up around 25 AT LEAST. 3-5/6 (where-ever your elementary school ends) will probably have more than 30 students a class. Secondary (that's middle school and high school) is looking at 35-36 students a class with PE between 45-50 students a class. There may be a shortened school day. There may be a shortened school year. There may be NO electives at all at your school. There may only be one counselor at your school or none at all. The classrooms may not get cleaned more than once a week. The school library may be closed. There may be no nurses to monitor your diabetic or injured child. Your science classes will probably not do labs. There will probably be no field-trips. Offenses that used to require a detention and an apology may suddenly become suspendable offenses and suspension offenses may become expulsion offenses because what can be tolerated in a class of 28 and what can be tolerated in a class of 36 are two entirely different things.

If you are a teacher in CA and it is only your first couple of years, update your resume. it's going to be that kind of year.

So, the way we make budgetary soup is to fire teachers, close classrooms, and increase class sizes. As a result, teachers spend more time baby-sitting and disciplining and less teaching and children learn less and are more likely to fail. Hurray! though, because not as many taxes and instead FAIL!students. Seems like a fabulous trade, no?

So, happy 2010 everyone!

I'd do a year in review, but nothing interesting happened for me this year. Mostly I worked. And worked. And stressed abt work.

My goals from last year were:

Revise the novel and start sending to agents.
Continue next writing project.
Increase exercise program.
Watch less TV.

I completed 50% of them, which isn't terrible I supposed.

My goal for 2010 is simple: Be less tired.

In order to complete this goal I will attempt to go to bed at a decent hour every night and get enough sleep. I will also attempt to get into better shape so as to have more energy and to take my vitamins on a regular basis. That's it, the goal for this year. Anything else I accomplish is mere windfall.

Um, just in case anyone uses the birthday notification feature, my birthday is not actually Jan 1. The age is, er, basically correct, but the day not so much.