First of all , I am very proud of this thread . My post ( this post ) is the 100th post !! And that is a very good news !!

To stay on topic , I'm doing great and nothing more special !

today has went by pretty fine i got me a lot of stuff to eat. and plus my grandma has bought me a lot of yogurt because i told her that i like it a lot.

I've had a pretty good day. For the most part, I relaxed and did some grading. However, just like yesterday, the day DID seem to drag on.  I even took the time to go to the RGR room today though!  Aren't you proud of me?!

For me , I am feeling great now . I think this is because of my girl friend asking me to go with her for a date . And I accepted it ( as usual ) .

So , how about you what are you feeling today ?

I'm doing really great today!

Just took a good shower after some Soccer. There was nothing to worry about today.

Today was.... let's just put it out there... ROTTEN.  The bad part was that only one moment, really, is what made it so rotten.  It is true that the day as a whole was a little rough, but there are very few things that I would say make a day 'rotten'.

First, to give an idea of the impact the 'rotten moment' had, I need to backtrack a little.  About two weeks ago, I had a small issue with a couple of my students.  Honestly, such issues are rare, as I have established a reputations of being one of the more serious teachers.  If I establish a rule, you can BET your hiney that rule will be enforced. I don't care who wants to be treated special: it's not going to happen.  In fact, I had a few students try to bring me late assignments today.  While I do fully believe that both had completed them and forgotten to turn them in, my policy is a week for make up work.  If you wait more than a week to correct an assignment or make it up, the loss is your consequence to face. I refused the late work today.  The two students complained that they were A students, so I should believe them.  I -told- them that I did, but I also told them that fair is fair.  I made a policy and I will enforce it.

So as I said... I usually don't have too many issues with behavior.

(I talked about this in another thread when it happened, so I'm only going to summarize and skip all the details.)
Two weeks ago, I had to send two children out of my room.  They had tried to get into a screaming match with each other, and every time I raised my voice, they simply raised their own even higher.  When I had to raise my voice to the level of a scream, I said enough was enough.  I tapped the closest girl and firmly told them to leave my room.  I hated to do it because both of those students are severely struggling with my class, but at the same time they gave me no other option.

The next week, while I was teaching class, one of the girls decided to give me attitude due to the incident during the last class.  The first thing she did was indirect.

I give all of my students progress reports, and on those progress reports they are to provide me with feedback on how they improved or didn't, and on their plans for doing better on my class.  There is also a checklist of good and bad habits which they are supposed to check off depending on which habits they keep.  In this way, my students ideally realize their own accountability for their grades. Well, this sheet is supposed to be signed by their parents, so I have an area at the bottom which is for parent comments.  She had scratched out the spot and written 'student comments'.

If it hadn't been for the fact that she was trying to insult me, I might have laughed.  She wrote that, basically, her failure of my class was due to the fact that I have a 'bad attitude' and that instead of helping my students, I just want to be sarcastic with them and 'put them down'.  She said I NEVER help the students, and that she was trying to get a B in my class, but felt that it was impossible because I changed her attitude and I was a bad teacher.

Now, let me just debunk these statements.  I don't brag about much, but I am willing to take a stand and say I am a good (Nay, might I be bold?  A GREAT) teacher.  Keeping it brief, here is how I help my students:  I tutor two afternoons regularly and all other afternoons and mornings by appointment; I let my students come to get help during lunch, during their homeroom, or during two periods if they have an elective during those periods; I have a website which I stay on almost all hours of the day for them to ask me questions while they do their homework; I give them 'cushion points' (sort of like bonus points, but a little different) for attending things like ACT Academy and for participating in online math competitions; I drop their two lowest quizzes AND their lowest tests on the understanding that everyone at some point has a 'bad day'; I teach, I practice, they practice.  Every class.  And I walk around and visit each student individually until they get the problem correct.  Homework quizzes are basically problems FROM the homework, so if they've done their assignments, they can just copy their work and answers off their homework.  Also, every day, I post an announcement on my forum board which tells the students what is coming up, exactly WHICH words will be on the quizzes, and exactly WHAT type of problems will be on the tests.

This doesn't even begin to touch the tip of the iceberg of opportunities I give them to not only LEARN, but also to EARN a grade through educational means.

The second thing that I want to debunk is the fact that this student wanted to claim I am sarcastic.  For some VERY odd reason I have yet to figure out, students nowadays seem to have a totally different definition of 'sarcasm'.  Let me give you an example of what my students deem is sarcasm:

Teacher goes over a concept and answers questions.  Four students ask how the teacher worked the problem 1 + 1 and got 2 as the answer.  Little Susie Q, who had been giggling and whispering with her neighbor just then decides to show interest in the lesson, and she asks the teacher how she worked 1 + 1 and got 2 as the answer. The teacher responds "Well Susie Q, if you hadn't been talking to Bobby James a little while earlier, you would have heard the answer to that question.  I don't have the time to go over it a fifth time, so you'll have to ask me after class or during tutoring."  Little Susie Q then drops her jaw with a gasp and rolls her eyes.  "There's no need for you to be so sarcastic with me, Mrs. Teacher."

Am I just missing something!?!  Last time I checked, sarcasm and stating facts as a reason for a choice of action are two totally different concepts.  Am I wrong?  I was taught that sarcasm is something more along the lines of person 'A' stating something like "Sorry, I got lost" and then person 'B' responding "Oh I thought you just changed your mind and took a trip to Egypt."  THAT, to me, is sarcasm.

But no, teens these days think that any comment which offends them in any way by pointing out their flaws, is sarcasm.

Okay, so sorry for getting  bit off track (bad days make me rant!).

Anyways, I was talking about the student I had to send out of my room and her comments on her progress report.  Well, during the next class, she kept interrupting me every few minutes, stating that she didn't know what I was talking about because she had missed the last class.  Of course, this was a blatant attempt at disrespect and at trying to make a point.  I finally just stopped and told her that there was NO way that I was going to re-teach a whole lesson for HER sake because she had been sent out for being disrespectful.  She scoffed and stuck her nose in the air.

"Well, it wasn't my fault.  I wouldn't have gotten disrespectful if -someone else- hadn't been disrespectful with me first!"

I couldn't believe her audacity!

"Excuse me?!"  I had to ask.  "Just WHO do you think you are????"  I felt like sending her out right then and there, but not wanting a situation to escalate, I gave her a small chewing out and proceeded to ignore her looks of indignation for the rest of the lesson.

Now, how does all of this relate to today exactly?

Well today was a pretty tough lesson, and I'm quite aware of that.  However, just as with every year, the students seem to be getting worse and worse, with a weaker and weaker foundation in mathematics.  Therefore, today's lesson was already pretty irritating.  My last class was the worst, talking up a storm while I was trying to teach.  I eventually got so frustrated that I just kept writing without talking, and eventually they caught on and were quiet... for a little bit.  This cycle repeated a few more times, and after the fourth or the fifth, I was fed up.  I told them that if their conversations were so much more important than what I was trying to say, that I would just do the writing while they did the talking.  I would write one board of notes, and then sit back and let them discuss it.  Luckily, there were enough bright kids in the room that I knew those ones would catch on and explain it correctly.  (Besides that, my notes are color-coded, shape-coded, etc etc.  I use a dozen different visual tactics very subliminally, which the students usually aren't aware of.)

After that, I had tutoring, and about seven or eight students showed up.  They've had this worksheet which is worth a whole test grade and THEN some.  I assigned it two weeks ago, but in all honesty it's something that could easily be done in two nights.  I gave it to them for such a lengthy amount of time however because I know they have all my textbook work to do, PLUS work from other classes.  With them having two weeks to complete the assignments, they would only have to work ten problems a day.

Almost EVERY kid who came to tutoring was way far behind on it.  To some extent, I can understand, because most of the kids that come to tutoring are those that struggle with the math the most.  HOWEVER, there is one kid who has a VERY VERY low F in my class, and ... he had not done a SINGLE problem.  This thing is due in TWO days and he had not done ONE.  He also has not done the last several worksheets, despite the fact that we completed half of them in class.  (He didn't even give me what I had done for them on the board.)

Another thing you have to understand is that I do not teach at a normal public school.  I teach at a magnet school which means that the kids must apply to get into the school. They are supposed to be the 'cream of the crop' of our city. For our students to slack in their work is SUCH a shame.  This kid in particular, when I asked him about this worksheet and all the others, he just .... chuckled!!!!  That's right, he CHUCKLED!!!!

I had him call his mom and she said that she was aware he had a worksheet to do, and that he had just shown it to her yesterday.  He had given her the impression that it wad due two weeks from THEN!  So needless to say, she was a bit shocked, and he just seemed amused as I had this conversation in front of him.

I don't get it.  I really don't.

Well, after that bit of frustration (and after noticing that this kid only did about three problems the whole hour and a half we were in the tutoring session), I was just ready to go. However, I had one stop to make.  Apparently, one of the science teachers had decided to keep one of -my- students during my class, so that she could make up a lab.  I don't know if she is telling the truth or not, but according to her, the science teacher would not let her make it up during an elective.  He did not send me any kind of notice, no note of apology.... nothing.  And as you know, missing a math class is HARD, especially when it's as rigorous as mine.

I went to discuss the matter with the principal, and we had a short discussion about it.  I was about to walk out the door when she nabbed my attention, and she seemed not willing to look me in the eye.  She then proceeded to tell me that she had given the students her number at the beginning of the year, so that if they had any concerns about changes she was making or that needed to be made, they could contact her.  (She's a new principal for us, brought to straighten the previous principal's mess up.)

Apparently, some of my students have been texting her about my class, because they don't like the fact that it is a challenging one.  She said that she meant to come in and observe my class, but that she didn't have the time today, so that she is going to come in and observe my class tomorrow to see what it is that I'm doing wrong.

Now, I know I have nothing to worry about.  Even with the old principal hating my guts, I kept my job here for the last five years.  That's because in the five years I've been there, our scores have nearly doubled. Our pre-calculus and calculus kids walk into their math classes PREPARED.  There is nobody at the school that will deny I've had a huge hand in it.  The math department head raves all the time, how my students are so much better than they've had in the past, and that there is a very OBVIOUS difference between the kids who took me for algebra II and those who didn't.

So I welcome her in my classroom.
I guess well... I guess I'm just a bit upset that some students felt they had to do that.  It upsets me that when students struggle, they immediately place the blame on their teachers.  I understand it isn't entirely their fault. They've been through class after class which babied them and held sorry excuses for expectations.  They aren't accustomed to REALLY learning.  They don't trust that I know what I'm doing because they've never encountered it before.

But I guess the fact that students are actually at this state... that they feel they must whisper in the boss' ear, so to speak.... well it just doesn't settle well with me.

Knowing this.. well it totally ruined my day.  

Sorry for the rant...I needed to vent and cool off.

I'm doing alright, I suppose. Had to bring my dog with me because my mother was neglecting him, but I'm actually rather happy that he's with me now. (I mean, I'm not happy for the reason but... ah well. Beggers can't be choosers.) Having my dog with is giving me a reason to actually exist again, which is really nice.

Doing well, Just came early from school again.

Thanks Goodness vacations are getting closer...

I'm doing alright emotionally, but physically I guess I've developed a cold.  At first I simply had a sore throat, so I still went to work.  However, as the day progressed, I began to feel worse.  I asked the principal if I could go home during the last period, and to my surprise, she insisted I go home right then and there.  I was embarrassed, but I went home upon her demand.  She wasn't too happy with me for an earlier interaction with a student, but I wasn't sure how to try and explain it to her.  I also didn't want to leave because I've never left during the middle of the day.  She didn't make me clock out either, telling me she would take care of it.  It was awfully kind of her.  So I've been home.

The wooziness went away, but my throat has gotten worse and worse.  Right now, it hurts even if I try to whisper, and swallowing feels like I'm trying to push a ball of flaming needles down my throat.

Singelli : I think you got what I had lol. I've been noticing that a lot of people have been getting sick or are starting to become sick; think its just that time of the year where the weather is changing and alergies are making people's lives suck.

Oldschool41 : Well for me, it's probably also the fact that I go through summer facing only my own germs.  Then when school comes around, my body is bombarded with germs of about a thousand other people.  It took a bit longer to hit me this time around, but my throat feels horrible.  I shouldn't have pushed it by trying to teach for four hours.  what a strain!

awesomest day ever woke up took a shower got to school got to miss most of class hung out with my buds at lunch got hugs from some of the hottest girls ive ever seen had the most amazingest conversation with a girl about different types of candy,got to see my gf megan,and then i came home with the house full of groceries it was f***ing awesome.






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I have just woken up and I am already sore today. Sadly it is nothing new though.

A month ago, I started working as a package handler for Fed Ex. I mainly load trailers, but occasionally they throw me around to help with unloading as well. Unfortunately, my body still is not too used to it; my hands are typically covered in aching sores due to skin getting peeled off too much, my arms all sorts of sore from the constant lifting and placing, knees covered in bruises from when I am trying to place down a heavy package, but it slips my grip and hits them, and an occasional cut on my arm or face from a package with sharp corners. Every day before work, I have to take two Advil just so I will not be absolutely sore during and after my shift. I even used to take Advil before I go to sleep so I do not wake up in the middle of the night with soreness, but I recently stopped that; felt I was taking too much Advil. I still sometimes wake up in the night, but been managing to get back to sleep pretty quick.

Still, it is a tolerable job. My managers are nice, though they can be on the annoying side at times, and the other handlers are generally friendly to neutral enough to not be jerks. Plus, it is a great work out; I've lost about eight pounds since I started working there and my arms are becoming a little bulkier with muscle. I have also been doing some Yoga on Wii Fit every day before going to work, so I am usually flexed out enough to not sustain any injuries.

Recently, I managed to get some soreness near the bottom of my shoulder blade, though. The yoga offered on Wii Fit doesn't seem to really focus on the arms, but more so the back, spine, hips and such, which could explain how it happened. I am hoping this general soreness will go away eventually. My job said after 2 weeks, your body will adjust to it, but my body is taking longer than that.

At least I have the weekends off.Today will be some relaxing while tonight I plan to head to the arcade to play some Dance Dance Revolution and In The Groove, and other dance games.

Today is what I would've expected from any Saturday. Finished my homework, brushed my teeth, showered, and coming to Vizzed. If it wasn't for my surgery maybe I'd be at my friends house or something but thats pretty much how my Saturday mornings go.

I'm feeling neutral today

Good, I only just got hit cause I was watching south park.

Singelli : Don't say that, be glad that your alive and that you have a life!

Back to the subject. Just found out that I have 3 D's in Public Speaking, Microeconomics, and Psychology...which is both good and bad. Its good because I should have F's in those classes since my work isn't good (I have an A and a B in my other classes); but its also bad since D's don't transfer and it will kill my GPA if I don't get them up to a C.