Snow Days Don't Really Mean No School Days

This is a shot off my balcony...which is as far as I ventured outdoors today. Last night we received a "significant snow event," which always makes me laugh because it usually consists of a few inches of snow that effectively shuts down the entire region (mostly because Seattle is all hills and doesn't have a lot of snowplows). Meanwhile, my aunt in Alaska has been posting pictures of -20 degree weather...it's all relative, I guess. School was a late start on Tuesday, was cancelled today, and we just got word that it is cancelled again tomorrow, because it warmed up just enough to start melting the snow and then froze again.

For me, while I like snow, and am perfectly fine with snow when I am prepared for it (which I was), I prefer that it happen on a weekend. Especially when it happens the week before finals, and my kids need to work on their final project.

Here is where technology pays off...As soon as I heard we were missing school again, I immediately figured out how I was going to adjust the final project (which I gave the kids on Tuesday) and tweeted that out, asking the kids to retweet the information since not all my kids follow me. One of my kids tweeted me a clarifying question about the project, which I also answered on twitter. I was able to email my students parents from home, so that between those two mediums, 90% of my kids SHOULD know the adjusted expectations. In addition, all the information I gave them in class on Tuesday is on a classroom website hosted by my district.

Online, other teachers posted on facebook that they had texted the principal to ask if we were planning on moving finals (we aren't) and we discussed alternative plans and suggestions for finals. The other ASB coordinator and I were on the phone today for almost an hour, talking about plans for the spring, which we normally would have discussed at school, and I did spend a little time grading, and will finish that as well as entering grades tomorrow.

After I sleep in, drink more hot chocolate, and continue my Doctor Who marathon, of course.

Snow Day

When snow falls......

Teachers think
Please, no snow day! If I have a snow day it will throw off my whole unit, plus the kids will of course assume that a snow day means that anything we have scheduled for that day just will magically disappear into the stratosphere. A test scheduled for a snow day? Students will (and have) tell me that they thought we wouldn't have it since there was snow. And by the way, if we have a snow day, that means that we will not have a four day weekend in May when I am desperately going to need it. So no, please no snow day!

Kids think
AAH I SAW A FLAKE! I SAW A FLAKE! WHY HAVEN'T THEY LET US OUT OF SCHOOL YET? MISS CAN WE HAVE CLASS OUTSIDE? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! OMG IT'S SNOWING! WE'RE PROBABLY NOT GOING TO HAVE SCHOOL TOMORROW SO I'M GOING TO DRIVE MY TEACHER LITERALLY CRAZY BY BEHAVING LIKE A TOTAL MORON AS LOUDLY AS POSSIBLE.

Total snowfall so far? an INCH.

Let it Rain.....

I live in an apartment. I have lived in several different apartments over the last 10 years. There are positives and negatives to apartment living, but I do like this one fairly well. One of the things that I like about this place is that I live about 50 feet from the Green River. There is a trail that runs around my apartment complex and through my town, between the river and the actual apartment property. This is what it looks like.When the water is high, it looks like this.

And as of yesterday, it looks like this.

I'm not sure how these sandbags will affect the property value.

Here's the backstory. Last winter, when we had all the heavy snow and rain for so long, the Howard Hansen dam was damaged and while the Army Corps of Engineers did attempt to get it fixed, it hasn't happened yet. In addition, according to my mom (who watched the news a lot while she was here the last two weeks), when they created the banks of the Green River, "they" (whoever that is) did it incorrectly and they have been attempting to fix it ever since.

So for the last few months, there have been news stories, community meetings, mailings, and so on, all about what might be happening this winter if it rains too much. The dam can't hold as much water as normal, so there is a distinct possibility that if it rains too much, they will have to let water out...which would flood this area. And I mean flood a LOT. As much as 10 feet of water OVER the banks. In order to prevent massive flooding, for the past week construction workers have been cutting down trees along the banks, clearing out the brush, and when I got home from school yesterday, there was a line of sandbags, as far as the eye can see in either direction. (Granted, I have poor eyesight, but nonetheless...)

Me? Well, I subscribe to the point of view that if we prepare, nothing will happen.

I hope.

I Hate Seattle for One Week a Year

It's freaking hot.

It is hotter in Seattle than in Phoenix for crying out loud. It is hotter than Miami, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

It was 103 here today, the hottest temperature before this point was 100 degrees. It is supposed to be this hot tomorrow too. My house is about 95 degrees and WILL NOT cool down. I have two fans aimed directly at me and I am getting crankier by the minute.

At least I'm not wearing fur.

This is the DARK side after all.....

I have definitely realized over the last week that I am now thoroughly and completely Seattle-ized. Seattleites have a very narrow window of comfort when it comes to temperature - roughly between 68 and 73 degrees. Hotter or colder than that and we whine. A lot.

It started heating up over Memorial Day weekend and it has been getting steadily warmer ever since. I open both the windows at night and close the windows and blinds during the day and my house turns into a cave that is slightly cooler than the outside temperature. I don't have air conditioning, which is usually not a problem here.

Two years ago I lived in Dallas, where the average temperature during the day July through October is 95 and the average humidity is 80-90%. Every building and every car has air conditioning. No one goes outside during the day in the city unless they are suicidal.

No one has air conditioning here. You've been hearing about how hot my classroom is, and today it hit about 90 degrees outside (very unusual for June here) so my classroom was hot and S.T.A.N.K.Y. I can keep my room cool until about 1:00 in the afternoon, halfway through 5th period, and then it heats up fast - 10-15 degrees in half an hour. My infamous 6th period has actually been pretty good about not complaining when it is brutally hot inside my room, but I do sympathize with them. I understand it's hard to work when it's hot and humid inside.

So today I made them a deal - we could go outside into the courtyard and they could work outside, but their work still had to be done by the end of the period and if it got out of control we would never go outside again. We spent a little over an hour in the courtyard and they did pretty well. It helped that two of the Problem Children were suspended (one until the end of the year!!). We came back inside for the last ten minutes of class and my classroom was never quite as hot as when we came back inside, away from the shade and the breeze. At that point it was just HOT and miserable.

It was hot enough that I actually heard a student say, "I wish it would rain..."

Me too. I wish it was cloudy and rainy and cold. Dark, in fact. The sun is already up at 5:15 when I get up and it doesn't get dark until around 9:30. It's kind of weird and makes me think I'm late all the time.

There are 12 days of school left....tomorrow is the last day for classwork and Monday we start the final.

Hot and Stuffy

My classroom has no air circulation. It sits in the center of a cube, overlooking an indoor atrium (the commons) and is nestled on the third floor between two bathrooms and two other classrooms. Consequently, the shape of the room is long and narrow. There is a small, 8 foot hallway that leads into my room along the center of one of the narrower sides and the windows overlooking the commons are screwed shut since 16-year-old neanderthals can't help but throw things like staplers onto the heads of their frenemies three stories below.

All this means that my classroom is an oven for the approximately ten days a year that the outdoor temperature soars to the MID-80s. I know. Ridiculously hot.

To be fair, this was never an issue in Texas, the air conditioning kicks on in late February and doesn't get shut off until November. And here, it is usually cold. The kids were wearing hats and snow jackets just last week. But every now and then, it heats up, and the lack of circulation in my room actually caused me to change my lesson plan today.

Which actually worked well, the kids worked relatively peacefully and I graded. I have hit the point of this year where I have accepted the inevitable failure of some of these kids. I can't force them to pass my class. So, I assign them work. The ones who have matured to the point of being self-motivated will do the work. The ones who haven't matured, won't do it, and won't pass.

Seriously, this particular class of kids is so unmotivated. Out of 120 kids in my 5 classes, I have 26 that are failing just due to ATTENDANCE. That doesn't even take into account the kids that are failing due to their utter refusal to do anything that vaguely resembles work.

So. I have one more week of schoolwork, then 2 weeks to work on the finals, and I'm done. And the way this year is going....I'll see them all again next year.

Bring it on.

Snow and Track Meets

Ok, so it's not really snowing, but it LOOKS like it is. This is cotton from cottonwood trees and it is completely evil. This stuff blows everywhere and it has been so warm for the last week and a half that it is stacked up on the roofs and in every nook and cranny. It really looks like snow. I am pretty allergic to it though, so that's fun. In the picture below, that is all cottonwood on the ground.

It's on the roof as well....like I said, it totally looks like snow.

Here's a closeup of the little buggers.

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One of the things I do to make a little extra cash is work after school sports events. Last year I was trained how to use a computer system for track that takes pictures at the finish line. It is, quite literally, a photo finish system. There is a special camera that can take anywhere between 200 and 1000 pictures a second. It puts these very narrow pictures together to form a picture of the finish line at the time people cross it, so we can get very exact times.

The other guy who runs the photo system and I were hired by a local youth running club to work the timing system for their invitational track meet. I was pretty nervous about it for lots of reasons, but it went great. I have decided that little kid track meets are the AWESOMEST!!!! Those kids are better trained than the high school track kids at the meets we run at home, and the meet was run incredibly well. They seemed to be impressed with us as well, and apparently some of the other groups there asked about hiring us also.

So, despite the fact that I got sunburned on my right side only, it was a great day, I made a little extra money, and I spent the day doing something new - and better yet, doing it successfully.

Now if only I was this motivated to grade papers.

Spring Break has Sprung

It has been Spring Break for almost 24 hours now, but I am still barely aware of life outside my apartment. It all started with a dance last night. I am the class advisor for the class of 2011 and my officers threw a shindig last night. They did a good job, there were no major mishaps...and that's all I have to say about that.

So I went to bed late last night, and assumed I would be sleeping in late this morning. After all, it's been cold and rainy for weeks and I'm exhausted. Unfortunately, life had other plans. The sun decided to come out today, so my south-facing room was FLOODED with light at about 6 AM. It was brighter in my bedroom than in the rest of my apartment. Also I didn't sleep very well....so I woke up with a migraine that didn't go away until about 3:30.

Awesome.

So I have really not moved out of my chair for most of the day. I am off home for a day tomorrow, and plan on sewing this week. I also have some cool posts planned for later this week. See you soon.....

Rainy Tourists

My friend S came to town again in a research visit for a possible move to Portland and we hung out downtown for a couple of mornings. I would show pictures of us all together, but it has become apparent to me that I do not take pictures of people. I don't know why. I did take some pictures of the other stuff....between the SNOW AND RAIN. Seriously, it is MARCH!!!!! Time for some sun!!!

Here are some reasons I Heart Seattle.

Where else will men fling dead fish into a crowd of tourists and not be beaten to death by an angry mob?

It's here that you can find gorgeous, brilliant fruit from every corner of the earth And on every corner, street performers, musicians, jugglers, and balloon artists.....no matter what the weather. Here you can find ostrich eggs, goose eggs, and quail eggs....all on a bed of multi-colored chicken eggs.It's a place where everyone puts their spare change in a giant brass piggy bank and kids wear the back smooth and glossy by riding the pig....and across the street? Another pig, made of coffee beans, and affectionately known as "Pork and Beans."It's a place where you can get donuts the size of your head
...and fruits and vegetables like brociflower and pluots There's something about the light here that makes even the mundane beautiful.....
...like when you can see sun and rain at the same time.
And nowhere else in the world are they as self-consciously aware of their own idiosyncracies. (Why yes, this IS a set of full body, adult sized, tie-dyed, drop seat pajamas)

Library Cat Fight

First of all, an update. Remember on my previous post how Emma cried pitifully in her box down the freeway to my parents house? She sat in my lap for a while on the way home and we did make it home with quite a bit of accompanying whining.

It has been absolutely beautiful here for the last few days. I know those of you that live in the South enjoy sunny weather pretty much year round, but to have several consecutive days of sunny weather in Washington in February is very awesome. For that weather to coincide with a week long break from school is nothing short of miraculous, but that is what happened this week. The cats are enjoying the sun as well......

I got home from my parents house in Oregon on Wednesday afternoon, and yesterday the weather was just so incredibly nice that I decided to walk to the library. I needed to pick up a movie on the Renaissance that Clark and I are showing next week in class and I wanted to get some books to read, so I walked down there. It was a little brisk, but so pretty....spring is definitely on the way!!!

So while I am sitting at the computer looking up the call number for a book I wanted, I hear at the computer across from me, the following conversation/cat fight:

Small woman, late 40s, with overdyed red hair - "What did you just call me??"

Younger woman with her boyfriend - mumbling inaudibly

Red - "Did you just call me a slut?"

Younger - mumbling inaudibly

Red - "You can't just call me a whore like that!"

Younger - looks at her

Red - Stands up and fronts younger woman

Younger - says something else inaudible

Red - "You wanna get out of my face?" (ironic, since she was the one getting up in the other's face)

Short (barely 5' tall) male Library Worker - "You both need to leave the library"

Both women ignore him quite pointedly

Younger woman hugs boyfriend

Redhaired woman sits back down at computer, still muttering things about whores.

I laugh to myself as I think, "even when I'm not at school I see people fighting..."

And then I walked home. This has been a nice vacation and definitely makes me feel ok about going back to school. Having a break in February is nice and I feel ready to go back to school now and deal with the kids.

Rain Schmain

I know I've been talking a lot about rain lately, but there's good reason. Just to give you an idea of how high the water has risen, here is a picture I snapped a few months back......and here is one I took today.
Summer really is beautiful here, but we pay for it in winter.....we have had "hundred year floods" 3 out of the last 4 years. So I'm figuring, no more floods until 2409, right?

High Water Update

Compare to yesterday below.....For comparison, see the shed below the tree in the pictures below? You can just see the top of the shed next to the tree above.

Does Anyone Want Some Water?

The roads are closed, the water is high...but not quite as high as it was last November. However, I don't think it has stopped rising. We have had a LOT of snow over the last month and there is even more in the mountains. I think the bank is slightly lower on the other side, and there is still probably 3-4 feet before it would run over the bank on either side.

today......
and last November.

In school news, considering this was the first week back after the break, it has gone pretty well. It has been a little hard to get back in the mode of getting up early and going to bed early, but it is almost Friday. Today was a good day....we talked about ocean currents (not the most exciting topic) and the kids actually made the connection that that was why European exploration was slow to take off. The best part was I didn't have to tell them, I just explained the current thing and they started jumping to the logical connection! Woo hoo!! Next week we start working on final projects, so I hope this smartypants trend continues.

On the home front, I have one one week without ANY fast food (although I had a hot dog at the game the other night....does that count? It made me sick...it shouldn't count.). In addition, I have been able to stick to my budget ($20 a week for any shopping) for an entire week. Yea for me!! Last Sunday I made pizza, using this whole wheat recipe for the crust and topping it with tomatoes, turkey, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, and oregano. Yummers!!

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Please don't make me go back, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have to think about this positively. We had eighteen days out of school (which was a longer than usual Christmas break due to our two snow days) and when we get back there will only be three weeks until the end of the semester. There are two Mondays off in January and then 3 weeks after the end of the semester is mid-winter break. Then a long stretch of March.....and then April is sucked away by standardized testing and Spring Break. Which brings us to May, and the long stretch of May and June. The last day of school is June 19, which is LESS than six months away.

There's nowhere to go but up. Here's some pictures from a couple of years ago to carry me through....spring is coming!

In other news, I BROKE MY LAST SEWING NEEDLE. It's like a sign that the break is over. Waaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas in Review

Due to the horrible weather, my parents and I decided at the last minute that rather than try and fight the icy freeway through Portland, they would use Dad's 4 wheel drive pickup to come up here. They came up Christmas morning and mom brought lots of groceries and made Christmas dinner (yum!). They also gave me a printer!! I will finally be able to print business cards! In addition, it is a photo printer and works great! We went up to Pacific Science Center on Friday (very fun) and went up to Queen Anne on Saturday. I had a great time! They also took me out for my birthday which is coming up on Tuesday.

very cool clock at PSC.giant, oversized working guitar...that's dad inside.flowers inside the butterfly house.butterflies are pretty.....There are SO SO SO many reasons I don't live in Texas anymore....number one is at the top of this list....and number two is why I don't live in Alaska. =)There was a wall mural made of tiles where people made a tile that told something that they liked about the PSC. I am really hoping this was supposed to say "I LIKE the bugs..." but who knows. It is more funny this way. Happy Birthday to me....

Let's Have Some Global Warming...

I like snow. I don't like it as much as I did when I was a kid, but I do like snow. I have come to realize, however, that we here in Seattle (including myself) are a bit wimpy when it comes to snow. It started snowing a week and a half ago and there is now about 8" at my apartment, and we are supposed to get more tonight and through Christmas day. The thing is that there are a lot of hills here, and this is a temperate zone, meaning we don't have extreme weather swings. The average temperature in the winter is in the 40s and the average temperature in the summer is in the 70s. I love this. I hate hot weather, and you can only wear so many layers, so living in a temperate zone is great. But living in a place where you don't have extreme weather swings very often means that when we do, we are totally unprepared.

As I said, it started snowing over a week ago and the snowplows have yet to clear out the downtown streets (and if you've never visited Seattle, we live in a land of MANY hills). Because we're all earth conscious and stuff, the city of Seattle does not use salt on the roads, they use an "environmentally friendly non-salt mixture" which does not work as well or as fast as salt. In addition, the snowplows that we do have do not have sharp blades, so instead of clearing the roads, they compact the bottom inch of snow and ice into a slick sheet of solid ice. When that ice starts to break up, it makes the roads incredibly bumpy. It is like driving on a road made of marbles.

BUT.....after Christmas it is supposed to warm up to the 40s and the snow will go away, and so I will appreciate it while it is here. My parents are coming up, so I actually decorated a bit. I do love my Christmas decorations, but they are almost all designed for the tree and I don't have a tree, so they are hanging in the window.

Er....the stapler is just a bonus...not part of the plan. Oops. Lights from IKEA a couple of years ago that I had not even taken out of the box until yesterday.

I like stars and snowflakes the best, and the more reflective and delicate the better.