Three regular school days left in the academic year of 2008 2009. Then two half days for final exams (which means grading essays but it's worth it.) Then the list of things to do over the summer goes on and on. Here's a partial:
Take Introduction to GIS classes at The University of Denver in my continuing efforts to introduce an additional stream of income into my life. Steven Covey calls it increasing your Production Capability. I'm hoping for some part time work or contract work or even if I have to volunteer part time to build the resume while keeping my teaching job it'll be worth it.
I'll pursue my contacts and spread my network. I have some very solid ones. People I know well and are willing to help me out.
I'll do some mapping, GPS storytelling, and geocaching all summer long to sharpen my skills.
Don't be a whiner and always ask why not? Why can't I earn another couple of thousand dollars every year working on the side even for grunt work in the field or data entry and manipulation?
I need to fight off the feeling that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Keep this teaching position even for another four years and apply for a sabbatical to a foreign country or apply for a fulbright and then never return. Just kidding, four years from now I'll have debts paid off too like my car and all personal loans. It's a good idea. Long range plans. Stick with them.

Happy Holidays

Working hard on getting the holiday spirit out to friends and family. And it's a real crunch time at work. The school year ends on the 19th and all grades and finals and postings and comments and phone calls home and documentation and you get the picture need to be done and sealed.
Home life is going well although I need to do my dishes and laundry and clean the kitchen. Everyone needs to do those things.

metronome

We're already two weeks into the second quarter. The days go by at a phenonemal speed. It's like sprinting for 50 minutes at a time but only for four or five sprints a day and then you're finished and exhausted and want to go home and watch TV and totally eschew any and all contact with humanity except through the comfortable anonymity of a coffee shop (or the occasional bar).
My job is like living in a metronome set at a high speed. My mood vacilates wildly between good and bad days. Today was a good day and most of them are.

Coming up on the month of November. This is a short week and I've already taken one day off. Yesterday I called in a substitute teacher for a personal day. Everyone does it and it's guaranteed by contract in fact. I had good sub plans and apparently the sub went over very well. Comments like that make me wonder what my students really think of me.

Historically, the months of October and November have been very good months for me. I like the fall anyway. This is my second fall at my new house and the second year I've had to clean up the leaves dropped from the four very mature and very big deciduous trees in my yard. I have two Silver Maples, an American Linden, and a good ole' fashioned crabapple. And, although the squirrels take care of my crabapples, I have to take care of the leaves. I'm also learning a lot about composting. The mixture of carbonaceous material to nitrogenous material is hard to get right. They say 70 to 30 percent. This requires a lot of leaves to make 70 percent to the 30 percent of green grass clippings that are high nitrogenous. I've gotten my compost pile up to 130 degrees farenheit before.

Just because it happened to you doesn't mean it's interesting

I've always believed this to be true and I'm not the kind of guy that needs an audience or that needs to always be at the forefront of attention. But in these days of blogging, it doesn't matter if what you're talking about is interesting or not only that it gets posted for anyone to read it.
I'm an ELL teacher at a suburban high school in Colorado. ELL means English Language Learner. At first glance it seems like this would be an easy kid to identify but nothing could be farther from the truth. Even a student born in the US can be an ELL kid. A student who you can have a perfectly correct conversation with in English can be an ELL kid. Some kids just in from another country aren't considered ELL while some whose families have lived in the US for a couple of generations are still considered ELL. It's a complicated issue. And one that takes time to sink your teeth into. More later and then still more later.