H.M.S. Whinyboat returns

marigot — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:27:59 GMT

*beams* lambourngb ROCKS!! Just sayin'.

marigot — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:21:39 GMT

Happy Birthday Alex!!

marigot — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:29:42 GMT

Happy Birthday Babe!

What a day...

marigot — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:07:14 GMT

In a good way.

It didn’t start off that way. I was running late for the weekly staff meeting, looked as frazzled as I felt (hair sticking up, tennis shoes, wrinkled shirt) and sat at the very back of the room hoping no one would see me. So I’m slinking down in my chair and suddenly hear my name. About three or four times a year our principal recognizes a teacher for going above and beyond. So yeah. *grin*

I HATE standing in front of people (adults, not kids, obviously!), so now I’ve got hair sticking up, tennis shoes, wrinkled shirt and I’m blushing so hard I feared spontaneous combustion as he talked about how I’m working wonders with a particular child who is so difficult he doesn’t see how I manage to come back to work each morning. I got my trophy (a pointy hand on a stick!), people cheered, my teammates cheerfully harassed me, and I stumbled back to my seat praying I wouldn’t trip!

And THEN I got back to my classroom, checked my email and saw Reesa and I had sold another story!! Woooo hoooo!

Feel the happy

marigot — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:06:32 GMT

Reesa and I are finishing up the sweetest, most awesome Christmas-themed story EVER. *grin* Not that I'm biased or anything...

ETA: That was bought on spec!!

marigot — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:00:34 GMT

Happy Birthday Shan!!!

marigot — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:04:14 GMT

Happy Birthday Deb!!!! Hope it's wonderful.

And without further ado...

marigot — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:11:11 GMT

Our awesome website!! A Sister's Hand

Things are moving forward!

marigot — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:10:59 GMT

Got the paperwork filed today to get A Sister’s Hand incorporated as a nonprofit. Just a matter of waiting on the commonwealth of VA to approve everything. The next step is filing with the IRS for 501(c)(3) status. That’ll let the folks who donate take a tax deduction, and hopefully let us make tax-free purchases (still need to research that).

Web page is in the process of being moved from Go Daddy hosting to private hosting (thank you Stanley and Tom!) and I’ll publish it here when it’s ready to go.

My nonprofit is moving from dream towards reality!!

Home again, home again

marigot — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:56:34 GMT

Back from Peru! It was an incredible trip... there will be a report when I've had more than six hours of sleep in three nights! But in short, Machu Picchu was stunning and the Puericultorio Perez Aranibar Childrens Home left me crying and inspired at the same time.

Stress is...

marigot — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:49:44 GMT

A handicapped cat that won't eat for love or money (or tears or begging or...) and then a trip to the emergency vet who can't tell you what's wrong and the resulting forced-feeding with an eye dropper. Yeah, definitely have had better weekends.

My eye, my eye!

marigot — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:45:57 GMT

I'll never play piano again! Or something.

Out on a nice bike ride on the new trail at the park yesterday and a bee smacks me in the face... and then gets trapped behind my sunglasses. So yeah, I got stung right under my eye. When I went to bed last night, it was swollen on the side of my face. Now my eyelid's swollen too, and just enough to really mess with my vision.

On the plus side, I can see what I'd look like with collagen injections!

From my Amazon review...

marigot — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:24:20 GMT

Amazingly Solid Collection

It's not often that I finish reading an anthology and instantly think "Whoa, every single story in there was well-written!" We all know that it's a hit-or-miss situation when you're dealing with 12 different authors, and that usually there's a couple that fall flat. Not here. That's not to say that there weren't some stories I enjoyed more than others... "Fin de Siècle", "Fun and Games" and "Chat Line" come immediately to mind... but every story was well-crafted, with both interesting characters and unique plot lines. If you're a fan of a "Pretty Woman" happily ever after kind of story except with boys, you'll enjoy Sindustry.

Not that I'm at all biased since my darling has a story in there! *grin*

Chinchilli Days!

marigot — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:45:14 GMT

Celebrate! I was getting the oil changed in the truck and watching the TV in the customer lounge. This came on as the guy was trying to hand me back my keys. I was like "Dude! Trying to watch the commercial! Can't it wait?"

Job Angst

marigot — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:12:18 GMT

I have a job. A well-paying job that I’m good at. This job grants me seven weeks of vacation that just happens to occur in the summer months. It’s in my contract. And it’s not like I go without a paycheck those seven weeks… my salary is broken down so that the same amount of money comes in every month year round.

So why then do I feel SO FREAKIN’ GUILTY when I don’t take on extra duties and work summer school???

Yaaaay!

marigot — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:53:17 GMT

Happy birthday Tammy!!

*bounce* See you WEDNESDAY!

Blah

marigot — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:11:46 GMT

I've spent every day the last two weeks writing. Test reports, memos, IEPs, action plans. Necessary but incredibly boring stuff that sucks every bit of creativity out of me so that by the time I get home, I don't have the energy to write what I want to write. You know, like things that could be published or something.

It's annoying.

Test My Brain

marigot — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:55:14 GMT

Via Metafilter... Brain tests . Cool stuff AND you're contributing to science!

Some of my results:

You were able to discriminate 88% of the face genders. Based on the results we have so far, the average person who takes this test correctly identifies 78% of the genders.

You were able to discriminate 77% of the facial expressions. Based on the results we have so far, the average person who takes this test correctly identifies 66% of the emotions.

Now, oddly enough in comparison, I scored really low on facial recognition, but I guess I kind of expected that. I'd make a TERRIBLE eye witness in a crime.

Huh?

marigot — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:08:00 GMT

So my assistant brought the kids in from recess, and one of my little girls is sobbing. It took a minute or so to make out that she was saying "pink coat, pink coat" but because of her communication issues, that was all I could get. My assistant kind of rolls her eyes and tells me that her coat had been left on the playground from earlier and got dirty, so she threw it in the trash. Cue the sound of my jaw hitting my desk.

I repeated it back, just to be sure. "Her coat was dirty so you threw it in the trash can." She shrugged and nodded.

I'm a crappy supervisor, don't often give explicit orders, but I did today. "Get the coat out of the trash, put it in a plastic bag if it's that dirty, and put it in her backpack. Now please."

She looked at me like I was speaking Greek and just kept repeating (like 5 times) "But it's dirty!"

I'm counting it as a huge victory for me that I didn't scream "You don't fucking THROW AWAY CLOTHES BECAUSE THEY'RE DIRTY! And especially not clothes that belong to someone else. That's what a washing machine is for!" Which, I should mention, we actually have on-site because our homeless families don't have an easy way to do laundry.

My head still hurts.

Why

marigot — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:58:19 GMT

I hate why questions, especially the hard ones that come from my kids. One of my girls told the Art teacher that she hated her this morning. Which then, of necessity, prompted A Talk. It was prefaced by me saying that she doesn’t have to like all the teachers in our school, but that she does have to be polite and respectful to them. And left me faced with this furious crying little girl demanding to know why.

Right. So how do you answer that? “You have to be polite and respectful because you’re the kid and I’m the adult and I say so”? That answer wasn’t going to work for either of us. She was too angry for it, and I knew it would be a cop-out. So I tried to explain to an 8 year old that I don’t like everyone I see every day, but that I’m polite because that’s how the world works. *grin* That wasn’t spectacularly successful either. Apparently at that age, you don’t really care about getting along in a professional capacity with your co-workers. Who knew??

Any advice out there? I find I’m needing some!

Student Teacher from Hell

marigot — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:52:14 GMT

So I'm dreading going back to work tomorrow. I have the Student Teacher from Hell (STFH) in my room for the next two weeks. I've always been such a good sport about student teachers... For the last five years, I've taken in 3 a year, mentored them, wrote their reviews, coaxed them through that initial "Yikes, do I really want to do this?" panic. But this year's been kind of tough and I thought I'd take a break.

Not so much. Apparently my name is known at Mary Washington University or something, because I ended up with two more that I did not request. They just kinda... showed up at my door and asked to stay. One girl's okay, has her head on straight, takes things seriously. But my very own STFH? She talks. No, let me take that back. She gushes. "Oh my gosh, I want a class JUST LIKE YOURS! These kids are soooooo CUTE! Look, look, look, take a picture of me!"

It's all I can do to keep from screaming and tearing my hair out every time she opens her mouth. Yes, my kids are adorable (I may be a teeny bit biased) but that is NOT why you go into teaching. Especially teaching Special Ed!

Sigh

Squeeeee!

marigot — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:46:39 GMT

Because it's too much excitement to be contained on just Reesa's journal... It might explode from the overwhelming awesomeness!

WE SOLD A STORY!!!

marigot — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:15:50 GMT

Miss Claire is HOME!! Five weeks later, we've finally escaped the hospital.

Preschool, Day Two Scoring

marigot — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 02:01:58 GMT

Miss Michelle- 0
Eight small children- 2

They're kicking my ass man, kicking my ass!

marigot — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:49:17 GMT

Happy Birthday Tammy!!

I hope it's a wonderful day for a wonderful person.