Evacuated
Hurricane Rita is barreling toward the Gulf Coast of Texas, so we got the heck out of dodge yesterday afternoon (Wednesday).
We left for Dallas to spend the weekend with Elo's parents. They called off school Thursday and Friday, so we just packed up the animals and headed out. We left around 5 and got here around 1 a.m., running into a lot of traffic on the way. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. We avoided Houston, but there was some. Not nearly as much as if we had waited until Thursday, but still. We're pretty lucky. Of course when we left, we didn't think it would really hit us, though it looks now like it's going to. So we just packed for the weekend. Elo got our wedding pictures, family Bible and document box, but I left most of my clothes. Ugh. One good reason to move elsewhere. ;) My parents weren't planning on leaving, but they called for a mandatory evacuation of Orange County as well this morning, so they have to go. They don't know what they're going to do with the dogs or cats. I'm glad we just went ahead and left, even though we had to take the animals with us. Elo's parents are just thrilled (kildding). Lily keeps barking like mad at them and of course, my autistic cat is traumatized. Hopefully we'll be back to normal Monday, but who knows.
So that's the hurricane news. We're safe, my parents are packing up to leave, my sister's husband works at a hospital in Jasper and he brought her with him to stay at a Dr's house there. Hopefully it's far enough in.
So we're just hanging out here. Today is Elo's birthday, so at least he gets to spend some of it with his parents.
School has been going ok. I really like the teaching parts. I had a parent conference with mom and dad of one of my students on Monday. One of the counselors sat in with me. The kid has an A in my class, so this was just annoying. They're complaint is that the work is too hard and the book is too hard. I can't do anything about that. I made sure they knew my tutorials, though the kid didn't show up the next day for tutorials before the test. The day after the test I had an email from mom saying honey was so upset about the test and she didn't recognize any of the questions and did they have all the materials they needed and I wasn't being fair to these kids and she's the only parent bold enough to speak up. So, you know, being a reasonable person, I went back over my test to make sure. And we had talked about, some in great detail, almost every question on that test. There was one higher-level thinking skill where they had to make an analogy and a read the experiment and answer questions about it, but it was really an easy, fact-based test. I tried to make it where it would save these kids' averages. Of course most of them failed miserably, but I know it's because they didn't study rather than a defect on my part. We did a whole concept map about lysosomes and they couldnt tell me on the test that lysosomes had digestive enzymes on the test. We colored a picture of the cell parts and saw them in the microscope and they couldn't identify parts. Anyhow, on the advice of a fellow teacher, I wrote back a glowing upbeat email about how the child made an 86 and how proud I was of her. I don't know what else to do. I can't dwell on it because I did all I could. I have a lot of animosity from that class in general. It's my 8th period class, and I generally have problems with them I don't have with my other classes. They constantly gripe about the worksheets I give, etc. They're from the book company. They are straight from the book. Almost word for word. I don't know how else to help them. They should be able to do them. I don't know how they did things in middle school, but geez louise. I had at least two kids go to the counselor Tuesday to see about getting out of my class. More power to them, but the office isn't going to let them out. So I have to endure parents of kids who have As and those who didn't turn in their work. How else am I going to earn that massive payment, I guess?
We left for Dallas to spend the weekend with Elo's parents. They called off school Thursday and Friday, so we just packed up the animals and headed out. We left around 5 and got here around 1 a.m., running into a lot of traffic on the way. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. We avoided Houston, but there was some. Not nearly as much as if we had waited until Thursday, but still. We're pretty lucky. Of course when we left, we didn't think it would really hit us, though it looks now like it's going to. So we just packed for the weekend. Elo got our wedding pictures, family Bible and document box, but I left most of my clothes. Ugh. One good reason to move elsewhere. ;) My parents weren't planning on leaving, but they called for a mandatory evacuation of Orange County as well this morning, so they have to go. They don't know what they're going to do with the dogs or cats. I'm glad we just went ahead and left, even though we had to take the animals with us. Elo's parents are just thrilled (kildding). Lily keeps barking like mad at them and of course, my autistic cat is traumatized. Hopefully we'll be back to normal Monday, but who knows.
So that's the hurricane news. We're safe, my parents are packing up to leave, my sister's husband works at a hospital in Jasper and he brought her with him to stay at a Dr's house there. Hopefully it's far enough in.
So we're just hanging out here. Today is Elo's birthday, so at least he gets to spend some of it with his parents.
School has been going ok. I really like the teaching parts. I had a parent conference with mom and dad of one of my students on Monday. One of the counselors sat in with me. The kid has an A in my class, so this was just annoying. They're complaint is that the work is too hard and the book is too hard. I can't do anything about that. I made sure they knew my tutorials, though the kid didn't show up the next day for tutorials before the test. The day after the test I had an email from mom saying honey was so upset about the test and she didn't recognize any of the questions and did they have all the materials they needed and I wasn't being fair to these kids and she's the only parent bold enough to speak up. So, you know, being a reasonable person, I went back over my test to make sure. And we had talked about, some in great detail, almost every question on that test. There was one higher-level thinking skill where they had to make an analogy and a read the experiment and answer questions about it, but it was really an easy, fact-based test. I tried to make it where it would save these kids' averages. Of course most of them failed miserably, but I know it's because they didn't study rather than a defect on my part. We did a whole concept map about lysosomes and they couldnt tell me on the test that lysosomes had digestive enzymes on the test. We colored a picture of the cell parts and saw them in the microscope and they couldn't identify parts. Anyhow, on the advice of a fellow teacher, I wrote back a glowing upbeat email about how the child made an 86 and how proud I was of her. I don't know what else to do. I can't dwell on it because I did all I could. I have a lot of animosity from that class in general. It's my 8th period class, and I generally have problems with them I don't have with my other classes. They constantly gripe about the worksheets I give, etc. They're from the book company. They are straight from the book. Almost word for word. I don't know how else to help them. They should be able to do them. I don't know how they did things in middle school, but geez louise. I had at least two kids go to the counselor Tuesday to see about getting out of my class. More power to them, but the office isn't going to let them out. So I have to endure parents of kids who have As and those who didn't turn in their work. How else am I going to earn that massive payment, I guess?