SPRING BREAK!

So, I haven't blogged in over a month!

The last four weeks have gone by quickly despite their extremely intense nature. I've been preparing application packets for summer internships (so far, all education related), getting report card grades ready, stepping up my lesson plans so that my students would be ready for our third Science benchmark exam, and then I also had a midterm for my graduate course.

The last two weeks have also been a bit difficult for my partner teacher, Leanne. Earlier this year, her doctors discovered an orange-sized tumor pressing on a major cardiac artery. They've run many tests since then, but never discovered what caused the tumor, or what type of tumor it was. They were able to verify it as benign, but beyond that were essentially clueless as to its nature.

Leanne took last week off for surgery. They weren't able to remove the tumor in its entirety, but removed the part that was pressing on her heart. She'll spent all of Spring Break (possibly longer) to recover from the operation and hopes to return to school ASAP after Spring Break. She goes home from the hospital today.

Paula, my other partner teacher, and I had been taking up the slack in Leanne's absence. Coupled with the fact that it was so close to Spring Break, our students went absolutely crazy with one of their teachers out. Paula and I spent all of our time going between our classes and Leanne's trying to keep the situation under control. To make matters worse, her substitute teacher was sent home Thursday morning before school began due to a poor decision she made the day prior. Turns out, during dismissal she sat at her desk and took pictures of the kids with her camera phone. I have no doubt that she was simply a nice old lady who was fascinated with the new technology, but you can imagine the liability this opens the school up to. Paula and I spent the next two days with 34+ students in each of our classes. Not the best way to spend the last two days prior to Spring Break.

I also had to pick up Leanne's responsibilities as Team Leader for our team of teachers. Basically, she represents six teachers for the administration and serves as a go-between for important tasks like grades, new policies, school-wide decisions, etc. Whenever our principal wants something important to happen, she will utilize the Team Leaders. It was nice to be able to take care of these things for my team, but needless to say, it added a bit more stress to the pile.

So, you can see why I went AWOL for a while. But, now life is great because I survived to see Spring Break.

Last night I enjoyed the Houston Rodeo and a grand performance by Sugarland (the lead singer, Jennifer Nettles, was my 4-H summer camp counselor in fifth grade)! Though it was in Reliant Stadium and we were so far away, I still had a blast with Genivieve, Christina, and Sam.

Jennifer was as hot as ever and her voice was flawless! Sugarland got an amazing review by the Houston Chronicle.

Today, I'm waiting for the car shop to finish with my Jeep. I needed new brakes, but come to find out, I needed several other things too. Funny how you always go in for an oil change and they find about 500 other things you need to fix too!

Today, I'm also doing a very small amount of work which basically equates to plugging in exam grades to see how my classes did for our third benchmark exam. Then I have to figure out how to file taxes. Hmmm... I wonder if the IRS has a helpline?

The rest of my Spring Break is pretty lax. I'm hosting the UGA Alternative Spring Break group for dinner at my house Wednesday night. Eleven girls traveled to Houston to volunteer with an immigrant support center in town. Thursday, two of my roommates and I will be traveling to New Orleans for the weekend - St. Patrick's Day, here we come!