2008 Year-end Review

2008 seemed to just fly by. Looking through my 2008 calendar, I wonder if I ever took time to breathe. Ah, yes, there were a few nice vacations in there. Let's see, what are a few things kept me busy in 2008?

January: Holy crap! I subbed EVERY day possible in January, including the first day back from Christmas break, which is amazing. I was at North Side 10 out of the 18 days and LaOtto 4 of the remaining 8. A cancellation took away a North Side day. How did I ever know where I was going each day? Somehow I had my schedule memorized because I can remember people rattling off dates, and I would know where I would be and for whom I would be subbing.

February: The calendar appears to be just as full of sub jobs. I was so lucky to be booked ahead of time most days. Getting that call at 5:30 and having to rush to get ready was a pain. I do see an empty week on the calendar. I had been feeling worn out on a Friday, which I just assumed was because it was a day I was in four different classrooms at North Side. By Saturday I was not wanting to eat and my fever kept spiking. On Sunday, Chris dragged me to RediMed when my fever reached 103.6. They shoved some Q-tip thing up my nose to run some tests. I had the flu, and the doctor told me I was not to enter a school building for at least a week. Rats!! I had to make a few phone calls to cancel on some teachers, which I always hated doing. I don't remember much of the first few days of having the flu. I spent all day in bed and ate very little. By Thursday, I was ready to eat again so Chris brought home pizza rolls from the local bar. Yes, I was sick, but I was craving pizza rolls for Valentine's Day. Eating pizza rolls in my big, comfy sweats with my nappy hair... now that is some Valentine's Day love right there. The upside of having the flu: I lost 7 pounds. Hmm, a week off of work and losing weight, why did I get a flu shot this year? Oh yea, I don't like missing work and the way the weight was lost wasn't pleasant.

March: In 2007, I had the pleasure of experiencing KMS's Disability Day as I was subbing in an 8th grade classroom that day. In 2008, I was asked, although I believe I volunteered first, to help put together a PowerPoint presentation for the end-of-the-day assembly. I found an awesome rap song to play during the presentation and also included one of the songs Tami requested. I had a blast going all out on this project. I could do some of the screens ahead of time as they had informational text. That day, I ran all around taking a ton of pictures. After I was forced to stop and eat some lunch, I locked myself in an empty classroom for about forty minutes to crop, resize, edit and insert pictures into the presentation that lasted about 7 minutes. I finished just in time to run into the gym and set up the projector and laptop with a few minutes to spare. It was such an awesome experience seeing all the different sides of this eye-opening day.

April: This was just another busy sub month. Looks like I didn't sub just two days... one the day after spring break and the other day the job was canceled the night before. I do remember that my mom actually took a sick day, first time in like 10 years, but she couldn't get me because I had a teacher call the day before to book me. Mom wasn't too happy when she called in, and the sub service listed me as unavailable for the day.

May: So one Sunday morning I am at the church cutting cardstock for the Jr. Church lesson I am going to teach that morning. I got frustrated by the piece-of-crap paper cutter. It kept slipping on the paper. So I slammed the blade down on the paper in frustration and also because I was shown that this is the best way to make it work when cutting cardstock. For being such a dull blade, it had no trouble going through the end of my thumb. I took off about 1/4 of an inch of the tip of my left thumb. It went numb pretty quick, but I lost a lot of blood. I refused to allow anyone to take me to the emergency room. Instead, one of the Youth members took me to the EMS station to have it wrapped. Once back at church, I taught as if it didn't look like I had a whole roll of toilet paper on the end of my thumb. I then went to the after-hours clinic to have it checked out after church. The doctor couldn't even take all the wrapping off as he said it would just start to bleed again. He improved the wrapping and sent me with orders to return in a few days. Did I go right home after the visit? No, I went to North Side to do prep work for the week. See, I was in the middle of teaching during a maternity leave, and I had a lot of work to do that day. A few days later, I went to RediMed to have the wrapping removed and have a look at the damage. The doctor said I was lucky... no nerve, muscle or bone damage. He said it would grow back in time, but I had to change the bandages often and keep it wrapped for about a month. I am just glad I cut the left thumb instead of the right. What would I have done if I couldn't write? A teacher who can't write is like an accountant who can't use a calculator. I guess I would have gotten by, but I would have had to let all the people who offered to help me actually help me. Let people help me? How unJennlike is that? ... Oh, the thumb? It has grown back completely. You can only tell something happened if you look closely... thumbprint didn't come back on a portion of the new skin. I know the doctor said there wasn't any nerve damage, but as the person who experiences the feeling, there is something missing under the new skin.

June: I started my summer job the day after school was out. No break time for Jenn. My summer job was a lot of fun and a big boost in my science resources. In interviews, I would reply to the weakness question with the answer of science. Teaching for the Botanical Conservatory's Eco-Adventure Day Camp everyday changed that answer. I can now make rockets, make a tornado-proof house, run with the buffaloes, teach kids to row a boat (I could do this before summer camp though), eat weeds that taste like syrup, catch butterflies, lean over the edge of the Lincoln Tower, hose down five kids at a time with bug spray, make a trash bag poncho and wear it with pride, and many other useful abilities.

July: During my only week off of the summer, we drove to Florida and back. We made stops in Louisville (Slugger Museum to personalize our bats), Alabama (peach ice cream ROCKS!) and Bloomington (spent the last weekend with friends here because it is the most awesome place in the whole state). We had a lot of fun relaxing on the beach and eating too much food.

August: About the middle of August, I had to choose one of three job options. I had the option of holding out for a corporation that told me they would hire me if a teaching position came open, and I had two options at one school in another corporation. I didn't know what to do, so someone told me to make a pro/con list for each option. What a brilliant idea! It made the decision so much easier. More to come on this. ~ I spent a weekend in North Carolina with Chris as he was there on a business trip. I flew out right after work on the last day of summer camp. We extended my stay into a long weekend since I didn't have to report to school until Wednesday. What a beautiful area of the country. The mountains were gorgeous!

September: So the job I decided to take was getting into full swing. It took me awhile to settle in and feel real comfortable. I didn't want to overstep my position, but I wanted to do more than just what I was being paid to do. I'm an overachiever, I always have been and always will be. As a sub, my overachieverness was welcomed, and I always felt my opinion was valued. This new environment was going to take some getting use to. I mean, I had been on their sub list, but I was only there a few times the previous year. Would they like me? Would they welcome my work-a-holic attitude? Would they accept my crazy sense of humor and sense of adventure that never seem to take a day off? Would I grow to love Wayne Center as much as I love North Side and LaOtto? OH YEA!!! I obviously made the right choice, and not just because the one corporation didn't end up having any teaching positions come open. I can't imagine being anywhere else. I love it at Wayne Center. I feel valued and accepted. I have grown to love the students and staff, having the honor of calling some of the staff members my friends. My job is awesome. I mean, for real? I get paid to listen to kids read to me. I get paid to help them become better readers and writers. If this job counted toward my teaching license, I would keep it over a classroom job for awhile. It took awhile for some of the students to warm up to me and realize that I wasn't going to allow them to quit or just slide by. Now I see improvement in all 42 students I have the honor of working with. I love each and every one of them. In a classroom, I would have 20-28 students, and I would probably feel like I never gave any of them the attention and one-on-one work they needed/deserved. Here I work with 42 students in a small group setting that allows me to focus on individual strengths and weaknesses. Yes, I feel like I need to do more for each of them, but what teacher doesn't feel some sort of inadequacy? We want to do everything for every student giving them every opportunity to learn and excel. ... I'm rambling here. Let's move on to October, shall we?

October: So some of my co-workers and my boss decided to decorate my little corner of the school for my birthday. No, it wasn't with happy birthday wishes. My desk was covered in stinky crap - a Purdue cup, a Purdue hat, Purdue this, Purdue that. How disgusting! It was awesome. No one has ever given me a bigger taste of my own medicine. It was well-deserved and pretty funny. The best part is that I wrapped up the PU $=;& for my white elephant gift at the staff Christmas party. HAHAHA!!!

November: CHARACTER COUNTS! was in full force, the 40 Faces of Mrs. Pashea came out awesome, and of course, there was Turkey Bowl 2008 as Grandma Stella... did I tell you I love Wayne Center?

December: What a crazy-busy month!! My days were full of the school work with side trips to take yearbook and website pictures with after school tutoring and evenings filled with Christmas gift preparations. I spent countless hours getting the school's CHARACTER COUNTS! website ready to go live. It went live just before we had the big ice storm, so I am not sure anyone but the principal has really checked it out. I went to school on two of the cancellation days to work on the yearbook, which is more work than I had realized it would be... but it is a lot of work when I want to include cool features that will be well-worth the extra hours, so I am not complaining in anyway here. (Wow, were you able to read that huge run-on sentence in one breath? I'm on break right now so its not like I am trying to teach you how to write.) Christmas was great. It was full of food, fun, family and festivities.

All in all, 2008 appears to be all about work for me. We had some nice vacations and a lot of fun with friends. My niece turned two in December, and my nephew turned one in October. Our families are doing as well as to be expected given all the circumstances that surround each person. We are pretty blessed. I mean, we both have jobs. We have a nice house. We live in a great neighborhood. We both get plenty to eat. We have clothes to keep us warm, which is good since my husband isn't wanting to turn up the heat. We have plenty, and we give as we can. We have the love and support of amazing friends and family. What more could we ask for, right?