Spring Break, Baby!

I did it!!!

I made it to Spring Break! (I was a little nervous that I wouldn't)

"How am I celebrating?" you ask?

Well it's 5:30pm, and I'm still at school getting stuff ready for Monday after the break. I haven't even touched the mountain of grading...but that will likely wait. :) I haven't been able to use my prep period in three weeks with crazy scheduling and hiring stuff, and it's catching up to me. :)

But who cares? It's Spring Break, baby!

Ample

So in case you didn't know, I took the Praxis 4 weeks ago. It is a "lovely" test teachers get to take in order to keep their job. I have a hard time with tests. I freak out when I take them, so I took a review course our district offered and talked to several people who have already taken it. The biggest piece of advice was, "Write fast." They all said they were really rushed for time, and some didn't even finish every answer. I've always been a slow test-taker, so I was freaking out.

Well, everyone was right. I was writing so fast! I felt really rushed and felt that my answers were horrible. I still don't know if I passed. I read somewhere that you could get your results on April 10th (yup, that's today!), but I have to pay $30 to get the results by phone today. Now I have to wait until Tuesday...so stupid!

ANYWAY, in the process of finding out if I could get my results today, I saw this lovely bit of information about taking the Praxis on the official website...

"Plan on approximately 25 minutes per case history. This amount of time has been AMPLE for most examinees to read the case study and respond to the short-answer questions."

AMPLE? According to www.dictionary.com Ample means "fully sufficient or more than adequate for the purpose or needs; plentiful; enough: an ample supply of water; ample time to finish."

Their example sentence even includes "ample time". This is ridiculous! :)

Now that's more like it!

It is such a BEAUTIFUL day today!!!
It's probably about 70 degrees and SUNNY!!!
I'm so happy!
(which you may be able to tell from my excessive exclamation points!!!!!!)
At the end of 3rd period each day, we have 15 minutes of reading time at our school. You better believe I took my class outside to read! I need to do that more often, because ever since I got back inside, I have been so much happier! Plus the fact that spring break is days away helps!
Summer is coming!!!

I'm ready for Spring Break

I don't get it

How can it be sunny and 75 degrees one day and a BLIZZARD the next day? I don't get it!

But hey, at least it's not raining ash like it is in Anchorage! Good luck with the volcano, Kristy!

I feel so lost

All day today I have felt like something is missing in my life. I feel so confused
...
so lost
...
so incomplete
...
like I have no direction.
What is it that's missing in my life? You may be thinking, "Poor girl wants to get married and have kids."
Nope!
The reason I feel so lost and confused is because
I left my cell phone at home!
It's KILLING me!
It's not like anyone ever calls or texts me, but I still feel like I've lost my little companion. Pathetic?
Yes indeed!

Chicago!

So I know I'm way behind in posts, so I'll try to catch up on it over the next couple of weeks. I'll start with my trip to Chicago! The department chairs at my school all got to go to Chicago February 23-25th to visit a few schools out there that are leaders in Professional Learning Communities. Our flight on Monday morning was delayed, so I spent the time teaching the older teachers how to send text messages. They were so funny! Some of them caught on really fast, and others gave up after sending one. :)

When we got to Chicago, we were surprised to see limos waiting for us! Apparently it was cheaper to get a limo than a van. They weren't the nicest limos, but it was fun! Everyone got to see the real side of Shannon...We quickly checked into our hotel and quickly took a shuttle to a nearby brewery for dinner. I know you're probably worried that I have a drinking problem. I swear I don't. :) It was the closest restaurant, and we were in a hurry. :) The waiter and manager thought it was funny that none of the 14 of us ordered any beer. :) (I'm sure they also thought it was funny that there were 13 women and one man...we called ourselves the sister wives of our principal.)

That night we met with the superintendent of one of the schools out there. I'll spare you the details, but it was great information!! On Tuesday, we spent the day at Adlai Stevenson High School. It was HUGE! I think there were 4,600 students! It looked like a junior college! We had a really great experience there...seeing how they run everything and getting ideas for our own school.

On Tuesday night we took the train into Chicago! It was so fun! We missed the train by 5 minutes, so we entertained ourselves in the train station.

Dianne taking a little napI'm no photographer, but I thought this looked cool...I loved the benches!

We took the train into Union Station. I loved that place! It made me want to watch "My Best Friend's Wedding" :)
Terry put his debit card into the ATM and couldn't remember the PIN. After a few tries, apparently the ATM keeps the card. It was pretty funny. :)We went to Giordano's for dinner. We wanted REAL Chicago pizza, and we sure did get it! yum!
We also went to Sears Tower and went to the SkyDeck. I met Barack Obama there...or just this cardboard cut-out. :) (not the most flattering picture of me) :)
On Wednesday we went to Twin Groves Middle School to see how things were run there. Not as impressive as Stevenson H.S., but still pretty awesome. We left there at about noon to head back to the hotel and off to the airport. It was such a fun trip! It was really fun to get to know the other teachers better.

One last thing...while I was there I found out that one of the teachers at our school (Cathy Jolley) grew up with my mom in Santa Monica! Cathy was SOO excited when we figured it all out and made me call Mom on the spot. :) Here's a picture with most of us (Mom, Cathy is standing right above me on the far left)