time for an update...
It's hard to believe that three weeks have gone by since my last post. It's been so busy around here, I don't know whether I'm coming or going most days. Time for another list-style update, for anyone who's interested:
- I went to a friend's 60th birthday party - she's a math teacher at my school, and even though the invite said "best wishes only", I had to get something. Of course, it was something I'd ordered online before actually receiving the invitation, so technically I was okay - besides, I think just about everyone got her something. Anyhow, this really appealed to me, particularly as a gift for a math teacher, and I must say, it was the hit of the party.
- I updated my first aid training/CPR certificate. The school board offered a weekend course (or four evenings ... a weekend is easier to swing, trust me!) and it was the first time I'd done a course run by a private company - other times it was always through St. John Ambulance. It was a good course - several instructors and a large enough group that we split up and weren't always with the same instructor all the time, and there was a fair amount of hands-on stuff. I almost got really hands-on, the second day, since there was a winter storm and I slipped on some snow-covered ice at the board office. My knee is still quite tender, and the bruising extends down my shin. In all, a good course, and I got to spend some time with people at work that I don't see often.
- I went cross-border shopping in Buffalo with some other friends from work - it was something we first discussed at Commencement, over two months before we actually managed to go. We had a good drive down - only about 90 minutes - and a quick crossing, at 8:30 am, and got to the Walden Galleria before the main mall opened. I bought shoes and a purse (wine-coloured leather, at different stores, and not quite the same, but close enough to each other and the new laptop bag I bought that they'll work together), and bought a bunch of soaps at Bath & Body Works for my MIL to give to her friends at work - plus some lip balms for me. I bought Sonja a set of underpants with the Seven dwarfs on the bums (the alternative was "days of the week" which seemed corny), and figured out Victoria's Secret - only Vicki's models look good in her stuff.
- Work-wise, I've been doing the exam timetable, and spent a day at the board office with our new VP learning that the way we already do it (with the bug-ridden software that likes to crash and change times on us) is better than using the board's computer system to do it. I also have two exams to set by the first day of school in January - grade 12 higher level biology and grade 9 academic science, and the one I don't want to do? The grade 9 ... we have 5 classes, with 5 different teachers, and at least one isn't teaching everything on the curriculum. How do I prepare an exam for that??
- Earlier this week I was re-introduced to the wonderful world of probeware - temperature & pH sensors that can import data directly to a graphing calculator, or even better - a computer. Now, if only we had the budget to get enough to make using them for a lab ... practical.
- Today, I was a judge at our school's first annual talent show. "Talents" ranged from singing, dancing, and various musical instruments to a kid who whistled through his teeth (screechy & very hard on the ears), a musically-coordinated jump-rope dance routine, and a kid who did an extended beat box routine (once the microphone worked properly, that is). The winners? A duo who remixed a rap to include details about our school. For rappers, they weren't bad...