to san francisco, in celebration.

Wednesday I got my bad news. Friday was my 25th birthday.  Excellent timing, in my opinion.
I was still feeling a bit down, but didn't want it to detract from the festivities since we were going to San Francisco.  Here's a relatively short recap of our trip.

Sidenote: This trip was also fun because it was the first time I really got to use my camera I got for Christmas.

After getting settled in the hotel, we walked to Chinatown.  We didn't really stop, but it was my first time to see it.

We continued walking through the city on to Little Italy, where our dinner destination was.  We went to a little restaurant off the beaten path called Bocce Cafe, which was delicious.  I think we all enjoyed the meal.  We were tired and the walk back was uphill, so we got a cab back to our hotel. 

The view from our room.

The next day, Saturday, we had breakfast at a little cafe/diner we had found on a previous visit to SF.  Then we started our journey through the city at the Ferry Building.  Outside there was a Farmers' Market.

Inside we found a doughnut booth, which Mom was obviously thrilled about.  In the background, Dad and Lindsay are waiting for their Peet's Coffee.

It was a gorgeous day, as you can see.  We walked all the way down the Embarcadero toward Fisherman's Wharf.

Loving my telephoto lens!

I don't particularly like birds, but this one was just posing for me.

We walked on to Pier 39, which I had never been to before.  We then made our way to Boudin, where we had lunch.

We walked on to Fisherman's Wharf

We continued on our journey...

Top: Without and Bottom: With telephoto lens :)

Ok, enough of the picture taking...time for some Ghiradelli!  In case you were wondering, yes, we did eat all day...

The Cherry Coke she had been dreaming about...

She wanted her own hot fudge sundae...

Thanks, Mom

My delicious warm cookie sundae...it was pretty amazing...

The trip wouldn't be complete without a cable car picture

After all of our food, we headed to the downtown area to go shopping.  Overall, it was a fun, relaxing day.  Sunday morning we went to the same cafe for breakfast.  Then we drove up to Coit Tower to see it up close.  Lindsay and I got out and took some picture at the outlook (we refused to pay $14 to go up the tower). 

The Golden Gate Bridge just never gets old...

Coit Tower

What a fun birthday weekend! (Thanks Mom and Dad)

change of plans.

Almost two weeks ago, my world changed...a lot.  I was called into my principal's office and she told me she had submitted my name for nonreelection next year.  She told me she had been worried about me back in January and that is when she had to turn in names.  And even though she had seen improvement since then, once my name was submitted there was nothing she could do about it.  I numbly accepted her words, sitting there in complete shock.  She gave me a fake hug and asked if I wanted to sit in her office awhile.  I politely said no thanks and headed back to my classroom where I had to maintain enough composure to teach the rest of the day.  I felt shock to the point of not feeling much of all.  I texted my family (in front of my class, but really didn't care) who were also in shock and totally caught off guard.  I managed to hold back tears, minus my eyes welling up a few times, until the end of the day, when I was finally alone in my classroom after school, and just let myself cry. I pulled myself together enough to tell my BTSA support provider who was coming that afternoon about my news.  She, who has worked most closely with me this year, was also absolutely shocked. 

See, here's where I have the problem.  It's not that I thought I am so perfect that I had no room to improve.  It's that I wasn't given a whole lot of support at my school, least of all from my principal.  Those who I was working with were positive, helpful, and encouraging always, knowing that there's a learning curve to all of this.  There's no way you can go into your first year of teaching knowing everything.  You should also know that my principal had walked through my classroom less than ten times this whole year.  She had never given me an ounce of feedback until my preliminary evaluation in January.  Which I was told not to worry about since it was just a preliminary evaluation, and the second one was the one that would count this year.  Only I was never given that second chance. 
She also mentioned in passing the fact that my test scores had dropped.  Of course, this is a comparison of apples to oranges, comparing 4th grade CST scores to a more difficult 5th grade Benchmark test (which was again given after only a couple of months of my teaching). 

I just feel like I wasn't given a chance.  It's still hard to cope with because it seemed like this job was so long awaited, such a big answer to prayer, I was settling in, getting to know my coworkers, and figuring the whole thing out more each day.  And then I got the rug ripped out from underneath me and lost a huge part of my motivation to do my job well.  After all, they had already fired me...

That's the part I didn't mention.  Her submitting my name for "nonreelection" means I literally cannot work for the district ever in the future, not even as a substitute teacher.  The only loophole, which I will be doing, is to submit a letter of resignation before my contract ends in June.  That keeps my options open more because I could potentially be rehired in the future.  Even still, the whole thing feels harsh.  I don't know what I did to earn this sort of punishment.  I honestly think she didn't like me personally and this was some sort of vindication.  I don't know what I might have done, but still...

Oh, and here's the kicker: my principal is retiring this year, which gives me even more questions about why she did what she did to me.

Now, before I end this post, I should let you know that I'm trying really hard to have a spirit of peace and not bitterness.  I trust that God is in control and completely trustworthy.  I know that He has something else in store for me, whatever it might be.  I will continue to work hard, mostly because I care about my kids and they would ultimately be the ones hurt if I didn't. 

However, I did take today off...just because I could...

still alive.

I'm glad that my New Year's Resolution wasn't to blog more, because I definitely have failed.  February is flying by at a rapid pace and I'm managing to stay as busy as ever.  I've come to accept that that probably won't ever change, which I'm ok with.  I don't mind being busy, but I still need days like today where I don't do much of anything at all.  I got sick a couple of weeks ago, started feeling extremely tired on a Friday.  I spent the entire 3-day weekend lying in bed (and catching up on some TV shows).  Amazing how your body knows better than you when you need to rest sometimes.  I was so thankful for those 3 days because I think it helped me from getting the worst of the sickness going around.  The cough is still lingering, but I've been feeling pretty good all of this week. 

Work continues to consume my time (for obvious reasons) We have just over a month of school days until state testing and the pressure is on.  I went through a short phase of being worn out and my heart wasn't fully in my teaching.  After talking to some people and through their encouragement, I'm excited to keep going.  Despite the early mornings, I'm excited again for school.  As much as my students wear me out and can be annoying (with their complaints and attitudes), I love them all.  They are funny and make me laugh.  I can't always hold in the laughter, which is sometimes a good thing.  I've tried to lighten up a little, not be so consumed with trying to make them act perfectly, and just really enjoy them and being their teacher.  (Ok, that makes it sound like I was obsessed with being serious and perfection, which is not true.)  Still, though, life is good, and I can't really complain.  Hope you've had a great February.

I'm going to *try* to update more.  No promises. 

lazy days.

Words cannot begin to describe my weekend so far.  However, I'll try to do it justice.  I left school yesterday afternoon right around 2:45, which is pretty rare for me to leave on time.   Rare as in never.  I drove straight home and did nothing.  I laid in bed and watched some shows from the past few weeks on my DVR.  Literally nothing.  It was great for awhile, but also made me feel really lame.  I got up and had a quick dinner, helped Mom unload the car from her trip to Costco, then proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the evening.  I couldn't even begin to count the number of times I looked at Pinterest (first clue I need to get a life?).

I woke up this fine Saturday morning around 7:30, decided I wasn't ready to get up, read a little bit of my book, rolled over and fell back asleep until 9:15.  That's more like it.  Had breakfast and read my book for a bit.  My mom decided she was going to wash all the dogs and asked if I would take drying duty.  Sounds easy enough, but it's a big job.  Finished that job right around 12 and decided it was nap time.  I woke up around 2, took a shower, laid in bed and watched TV.  After dinner, I know find myself sitting on my bed.  And, yes, I'm still sleepy.

I'm justifying all of this lazing around by the facts that 1) I didn't get to sleep in at all last weekend and 2) I've been on the edge of getting sick (but not ever actually getting sick) all week, so I think my rundown body is trying to catch up on rest or something.  I did, at least, get out my stuff to finish planning for next week.  I want to actually do something, though.  Maybe I can find something fun to do after church tomorrow.  I should soak up these lazy days because they are rare, but I can't help but wish I actually had something to be doing besides work.

another weekend gone by.

I survived my 10-hour, which was technically 9 hours, training this weekend.  It was long.  I had to wake up way too early for a Saturday and sit through an informative, on the edge of boring, training.  I have another one in a couple weeks that I am contemplating skipping out on.  Not that it wouldn't be awesome to do that again, because it sounds delightful.  Really.

Ok, so, really, it wasn't so terrible.  Honestly, it was probably way worse because I had serious sinus pressure and sinus headache issues all morning.  My face hurt to touch it since the pain woke me up around 4am.  It subsided enough to make it through my day, but I spent most of the day subtlely applying pressure to my cheeks and forehead, desperately trying to make myself feel better.  It wasn't until after a late lunch with the parents and a trip to Rite Aid that I finally got some relief (around 4pm).  I was completely convinced I was getting sick.  Once the pain went away, I felt a ton better with just a remnant left on Sunday.  Thank you, Lord.

My hope to do something fun this weekend was unsuccessful.  It was church (not that that was not fun, but not exactly the fun activity I was hoping for), lunch with Gramma (always a party), report card and planning time on Sunday afternoon (no comment), and back to church (not really fun, but good).  The end of the day was most exciting.  I always love seeing friendly, familiar faces at church.  And, after a long wait for dinner, I went to Dewar's and picked up ice cream sandwiches for my parents and myself.  Not that we needed them, of course, but 1) it was dinner and 2) I had to check out the new location.  Definitely justified.

back to the grind.

I put off this post because I didn't know what to write.  School was back with a vengeance on Monday the 9th.  My kids were a little bit nuts, as were the teachers, as we all tried to readjust our sleeping schedules after vacation.  It's amazing how two weeks off can really throw you off.  I had been going to bed later (despite me telling myself I would stick to my routine...ha) and eating lunch whenever I was hungry.  Not anymore!  By the time we were all getting back into the swing of things, we had a 3-day weekend last weekend (not that I'm complaining).  It was nice, really...a sort of easing back into school.

Like I said, though, school came back with a vengeance.  We immediately had to plow into reviewing everything they had learned prior to break and forgotten in those 2 weeks off.  After squeezing in as much review as possible, I had to give Winter Benchmarks.  Which I was nervous about.  Because, at the school I'm at, test scores are King.  One of the first things I heard was "Don't let your high kids drop."  Oh, great, no problem...and no pressure.  As I'm looking through the tests prior to being scored, my hopes weren't terribly high.  I'm not really a "teach for the test" kind of person, but am being forced to be to some degree.  I guess you pick your battles depending on the school you teach at.  On top of all that, I had round one of my BTSA stuff due this week.  Oh, and I also had my first evaluation with my principal.  Tomorrow evening and much of Saturday I have 10 hours worth of a math curriculum training.  And Monday and Tuesday evenings I have 6 hours worth of Classroom Management Seminar.  Awesome.  Let's do everything in one week!  (Sidenote: I'm definitely going to need something fun Saturday night and/or Sunday to recover from my training.)

On a positive note, my birthday is 6 weeks from tomorrow.  I was just telling my mom that it seems like not that long ago I was teasing my sister about hitting the "quarter century" mark.  Now it's my turn.  It doesn't really make me feel that old, especially with how often reminded how "young" I am and hear, "oh, you're still a baby."  In every circle, I'm always the youngest...I guess that just means I'm mature. 

Alright, I have work to do, so I must go.  Until next time...

another la day.

I took advantage of my last weekend of freedom and headed to LA one more time.  This time I went to Burbank to hang out with Lindsay and our cousin, Jessica.  We got there Friday evening and went to dinner, had Yogurtland for dessert, and walked around downtown Burbank a bit.  We spent the rest of the evening playing a new version of Clue (who knew?) and Phase 10. 


Saturday morning we had a late breakfast in Burbank and then headed to our ultimate goal for the weekend: Mood Fabrics.  It was nowhere near where we imagined it to be, but so fun to be there and check out what they had.  We had to buy something to use the Groupons we had purchased, so Lindsay got some fabrics for her apartment, like to cover her dining room chairs and make some pillows. 

In what context would one actually use a button with the Mood logo on it?

We definitely found the fabric that was used for these looks...either that or it was almost identical.  I choose to believe the former:



We were really close to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, so we decided to head that direction and check it out.  Apparently we've driven down it before, but I was too young to remember, so it was fun to see.  Of course, the shopping on Rodeo Dr. is a bit out of our budgets, but the area around it was fun! 

We were walking down another street when we spotted someone with a Sprinkles Cupcakes bag.  We knew it had to be around there somewhere...thank you iPhone for helping us navigate the two blocks to get there.  It was both mine and Lindsay's first time tasting their cupcakes.  My favorite was the Red Velvet, but all (well, the 4 kinds I got to sample later) were quite tasty! 

We decided to walked actually walk down Rodeo Drive on our way back to the car. 

Proof we were really there.

I decided that since I was taking pictures, I should take some with us in it.

Lindsay and Jessica...and yes, I do think Jess looks like she is growing out of Lindsay's shoulder/neck/head

Oh, you know...Just hanging out on Rodeo Drive.

A short ways down the block and this is what we saw:

Thank you, random man, for getting in the picture too

It was getting to be late afternoon so we decided to head out and back to Burbank.  Of course, there is no real fast, direct route out of the area, so we wound through Hollywood.

Actually a decent picture from my phone considering the distance and amount of haze/smog that day

We had Porto's for dinner.  If you're keeping count, yes, that was the second time for me that week, but still delicious!  It was back to her apartment from there, and back to Bakersfield for me...to celebrate one last day of vacation until reality sank in today.  It was fun while it lasted, though!

Question: Did you read the title as "LA" (as in Los Angeles) or "la" ( as in a note to follow so)?  Just curious.