Thursday, May 31, 2007
prom pie toss
so the prom committee needed a fundraiser, so they thought it’d be great to do a pie toss at the teachers....
they charged them $0.50 to throw a sponge topped with whip cream at a line full of teachers - and then they charged $1 to be able to be one step closer, $2 to be even closer, and $5 to “throw” or smear the pie from an arm’s length away. i think the $5 line was genius - i didn’t think they’d pay that much to throw things at the teachers but apparently they were willing to!
here are some pics thanks to sarah and andy:
here i am daring them to ‘feed’ me more pie
whoops he missed my mouth!
bill the farm manager
oh look, they got me! but i think barbara got hit worse!
three hits to kim right before this pic - the last 2 by her own son joey =)
tina wore a prom dress in the spirit of things, it was rather fun of her to do so
the group of teachers after the event - the principal and a few teachers decided to not participate and didn’t even show up to watch the fun, but the 6 of us sure had a lot of fun!
oh, and we raised $190 in less than 30 minutes. coolness =)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
my brother's cat cody
looking all pear shaped and fuzzy
and reminding me of snoopy looking like a vulture
what a cutie
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
super macro rocks!
i was just playing with the super macro in the small garden in front of my mom’s place… some of these pics you can enlarge by clicking on them
and then i found this ant crawling all over the flower…
Sunday, May 27, 2007
and i'm posting pics again!!!
i was headed out to rita’s on thursday night for the long 4-day weekend (that’s right, i scheduled all my parent teacher conferences on thursday to add an extra day to my memorial day weekend!) and then i realized my camera was gonna be delivered on friday sometime, so i decided to wait at home for it to be delivered so i could use it for the whole weekend.
and so i’m gonna share alot of the pics that we took =) i’ve had a 5 month drought and i’m so excited we took 169 pics already just learning how to use it =)
indoor lighting at the blue beet
kerry, rita, and me
kerry takes more pictures than i do! but she also is starting her new photo business, so i guess she has a valid reason to
the view from upstairs at the blue beet
playing with the super-macro and taking pics of the carpet from an inch away
marlene, shailu, and me on rita’s stairs
we walked around, went grocery shopping and carried it home
marlene eating at our “picnic” on the floor in rita’s living room
shailu and rita
marlene and rita enjoying the bonfire we ‘inherited’ from some random youth group
and the view from the other side of the fire
i do like my new camera, i love all the settings and options, and i can’t believe i got it for only $99! yay!!!
i should be posting more regularly again =)
Monday, May 21, 2007
jill is graduating with her MFT
and we celebrated in style by going to grad nite 07!
actually, i had to chaperone my seniors and i dragged jill (see her brand new blog here) with me so that i could run around disneyland with someone… we got there on thursday night (may 17) and stayed till friday morning 6am, so we got to run around the park for 6 hours free, since we were chaperones!
we mostly ran around acting like we were seniors though =)
taking goofy pictures
actually, goofy is in this pic =)
hahaha… aren’t these stuffed animals so cute? pluto’s the funniest, just one big orange circle… i love it!
i didn’t want to brave the 2hr line to get on space mountain, but i rode star tours, drove through autopia, visited the haunted mansion, rode the pirates of the caribbean, survived the teacups (and alice in wonderland) did the big thunder mountain railroad twice, and of course, rode the matterhorn. we had free breakfast in the chaperone lounge, and it was just an all ‘round fun experience....
yay for grad nite! and yay for being chaperones!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
randomness
i woke up today feeling very very sore… my stomach hurts, my right shoulder aches, i keep on stretching out my calves and rotating my ankles… i just remembered how good it feels to be active playing volleyball again =) how happy am i? =)
talking about being happy being active, on wednesday i took the senior class bowling - and i was practicing doing a curve ball for the first game. but the second game i decided to see how high of a score i could get bowling straight like i know how to - and i bowled a 149!!! i think i cleared 7 frames (2 strikes and 5 spares)! it was pretty cool - i think that’s the highest score i’ve ever gotten!
rita stayed over last night - that was fun! but she’s not here right now, she already left for church this morning. i have to get ready and head over to my uncle’s house where my mom and my aunts are at - my uncle benny had open heart surgery a little over a month ago and is having post-surgery depression, if such a thing exists. and he’s not healing as fast as he has previously, so the doctor is slightly concerned. anyways, i’m headed over there to have a little bit of family time and just try to cheer him up with family company, and i wanna ask all you praying people out there to pray for his recovery. thank you!
Friday, May 18, 2007
i thought this was some type of jamba juice fresh fruit commercial...
and i ordered my fujifilm f650
so i did a search on dpreview.com looking for all those features i wanted in a new camera, and the only camera that comes up in the ultra-compact range is the Pentax Optio SV that was announced in 2004… and then in the compact range, there were many options but most of them were in the $300 price range.
and then i found out that circuit city restocked the fujifilm f650 with a $100 discount, so it was only $99!
and so i bought it!
so my camera is on its way! with it’s 5x zoom, aperture priority, shutter priority, white balance override, and continuous drive, all for $99! affordable, feature-packed, and mine =) as soon as it arrives in a week or so…
and i’ll take pictures of my condo just for you, laura! =)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
so desperately in need of a new camera
my cameras have always been used and abused by me.... they’ve lasted me approximately a year and a half each.... it’s not that i don’t take good care of my cameras, it’s that i get ALOT of use out of them. in that short amount of time, i think i’ve gotten 15,000 pictures or more out of all 3 of the digital cameras i’ve owned.
my last camera died in mammoth, being frozen to death and never coming back to life =(
and so i am now camera shopping again. and i need help, or input, if you have any =)
features that are important to me, in no particular order:
- size
portability, mostly since i bring it everywhere i go. and i mean EVERYWHERE. so it has to be portable - picture quality
i really liked my fujifilm f700 (specs and review), i think it took better pictures than my canon sd450. i had a lot of trouble doctoring up the pics to my liking on the canon, any image manipulation showed the pics to be more grainy, i didn’t care for the color nor the sharpness of the photos, and my loss of control over the focus and flash meant dark corners on my photos in unfavorable lighting conditions, or graininess, and blurry photos. =/ i don’t remember having as much trouble with my other two cameras, although my first camera was my first… didn’t know much, it was a bulky toshiba pdr-m model that used 4 AA batteries. ugh. - shutter speed priority, aperture priority, macro, and manual settings
talking about the ability to take great pictures, i find that i would like to be able to take charge of my settings more often, as i did with my fuji f700. i even took great photos with smaller aperture with the sun in the background and could force a ‘starburst mode’ that would do the starburst where the sun was.
from my toshiba (2002-04-07):
from my fuji (2005-04-16):
from my canon (2006-12-27)(using my hand to shield the sun because otherwise it turned the whole screen white):
- must have proprietary batteries.
simply because i cannot be bothered with buying AA batteries or having a separate potentially bulky recharger. i’d like to be able to plug my camera in and use it while it’s plugged in. so the fujifilm wins on that one cuz the toshiba had AA batteries and on the canon, you had to remove the battery to charge it. booo! - a nice zoom would be nice. apparently, there are cameras that have 10x zoom now. and they’re nice! the problem is, do i sacrifice size to get zoom? on the other hand, none of the cameras i’m looking at are super super tiny, so it would only be a slight size difference that we’re talking about. hmm..... but i guess technically it’s not necessary...
- and of course, last but definitely not least, price has to be taken into consideration. because given my heavy volume of picture taking, cameras end up lasting 1-2 years, and i can’t spend a TON of money on something that ends up getting used up. yeah, i know, it’s a digital camera so i don’t pay for film, but i still have to get a camera case, the right type of memory card, etc, and it starts adding up. especially having to buy one almost every year. and knowing how cheap i am. so yeah, i have to make sure it’s really affordable.
anyways, given those parameters and my past experiences, i’ve decided to stay away from canon, and i don’t know anything about toshibas nowadays, but i don’t think they’re big on the market. so i’m looking at the fujifilm f650 (with 5x zoom and aperture/shutter/manual/macro settings, $170 at best buy) and the panasonic lumix dmc-tz2 with 10x zoom. the lumix is $189 at costco w a 2gb card
neither of them are as small as i would like them to be, but i guess that’s the sacrifice i have to make if i want to have more control of my pictures. i’m gonna go back to best buy and test drive the cameras to see if i like the start-up time and the time in-between shots, but otherwise, i don’t know how else to make a decision
-sigh-
does anyone have any bits of information for me? or anything i should be considering that i have missed or left out in my comparisons of features? or any cameras that you would like to recommend that might make me happy? i’d love to hear about your camera and why you chose it or why you think i might like it =)
comment here or just email me.... thanks =)
Monday, May 14, 2007
done with BTSA!
ohmygosh i am done with BTSA, aka beginning teacher state accreditation, aka a big expensive pain in the butt hoop that CA teachers have to jump through.
i mean, after paying $8000 to UCR to get my credential and my masters, i then got a teaching job, and found out i only have my preliminary credential. in order to clear a credential (aka stop jumping through hoops), beginning teachers need to do a two year program. TWO YEAR PROGRAM. get this - it costs $8000 per year to go through this program.
oh, and what does this program consist of? well, since i was at ucr, we were the test pilot for the program. which means that this two year program is a series of online forms that is EXACTLY WORD FOR WORD the same online program colloquium i did for my masters. so basically, i just paid $16,000 over the last two years to mimic what i had completed in one year at UCR. interesting how the state of california gets you, eh? not only are beginning teachers on the bottom rung of the pay scale, we have the most expenses. such as the $60 to get fingerprinted to work in a district (which i had to pay twice in my district because apparently they need a new set of fingerprints when you become a teacher, because the substitute teacher fingerprints somehow aren’t good enough). oh, and there were about 50 teachers at that meeting today, which means that for my district alone BTSA earned/cost $400,000. crazy, right?
at any rate, i’ll stop complaining about the busywork they add to the life of a beginning teacher trying to prepare for the classroom every day not needing extra work to do and just proclaim loudly that I AM FINALLY DONE WITH BTSA!!!!
my two years are over, and i’m a free woman! =) now just two more classes i need to take before they clear my credential!
DONE WITH BTSA!
can you tell how happy i am? =)
Sunday, May 13, 2007
i'm on a cleaning streak
over the last 2 weeks i got sick and the house became a mess as i just left things all over the place. i finally felt better on wednesday and thursday and started cleaning up, and i haven’t stopped!
on friday night i got a phone call from a potential roommate who wanted to check out the place, and so i cleaned up some more - all the piles of mail and the stuff i had left in the hallway upstairs (since i’m the only occupant up there) had to go! and so i cleaned upstairs and downstairs and everything looked good except for the piles of mail still in my room.
and today, since it’s mother’s day and everyone is spending time with their moms, and my mom is in arkansas spending time with my grandma, i’m home cleaning again. i tackled the garage this time and moved most of the stuff to the side and you can now walk easily through the garage instead of tiptoe-ing over boxes. and in the spirit of procratinating for this coming week and my presentation for BTSA, i am going through all the paperwork in my room. i’ve already thrown out a big pile and am still organizing the bills and leftover important papers, but it’s almost done. finally! especially since some of these papers have moved with me =) hahaha… yeah, so i’m getting all organized and clean and stuff!
so proud of myself =)
Friday, May 04, 2007
kimi and sarah's great adventure!
man.... i love wednesdays at my school.
check out what sarah and i did!
Thursday, May 03, 2007
go golden state!
oh my gosh! the only team from CA left in the playoffs is sure making their presence known - after not making it to the playoffs since the early 90’s, and now they’re ahead in their first series, and about to seal the deal, since their 23 point lead leaves them currently at 82-59. jackson is shooting 100% 3-pointers, 7-7 right now. i just saw some dude dunk over dirk nowitzki. and i’m just seeing dallas making miserable mistakes, turnovers, short shots, etc. i don’t have to watch the end of the game cuz i’m pretty sure i know what will happen…
but it’s so exciting to see!
go Golden State!
i hope they can keep it up throughout the next few rounds....
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
more changes in my life
ever since spring break ended almost a month ago i’ve been extremely busy.... i went to the board meeting on the second day back and found out that my principal was resigning, which prompted a series of teacher meetings and more board meetings trying to decide the future of the school. i knew that there was a potential the school would not be the right place for me next year, but i was still hopeful. so while i was looking around for other job opportunities, i still thought that my school would live up to its potential. i was also hoping that they would make an offer of pay that matched what they promised me after the first two years.
the busy-ness has continued over the past 3 weeks and i’ve even interviewed at another school which i ended up not liking. and now, i know the busy-ness will continue even longer.
yesterday i got my job offer for next school year. first off, they relocated me to the farm campus. i think the decision behind this was probably cuz they need to hire a math teacher to replace the principal who taught calculus and pre-cal and that person should be on the high school campus, thereby bumping me to the junior high. i’m not qualified to teach calc or pre-cal according to my credential, so it makes sense to move me instead of hiring someone on the farm who teaches the two higher classes.
secondly, they didn’t match the pay that was promised at the time of my hiring 2 years ago. this makes sense for them because they don’t really have the money in the budget for me, but i’m a little disheartened by the way in which that was handled. even though i’ve had this conversation with the school several times, i was told yesterday that they don’t remember those conversations. i would have been more impressed with the offer if they acknowledged the promise and then said they couldn’t fit it in the budget instead of telling me they don’t remember it. currently, i feel like i’m not being appreciated as much as i would like to be. not just the pay thing, but that they can’t keep their promise to me or even make me feel like they’re sorry about that.
over this past month, i realized that there’s three aspects to a job when i consider whether or not to take it - i CANNOT be underpaid, overworked, and not like my job. ideally, i would be paid well for a job i like and not feel extremely drained at the end of the day. and moving to the farm school would keep me even busier than i am now, and i would be underpaid (anywhere between 8k-20k less than other districts!), and it isn’t the job i want it to be. i might enjoy being at the farm, but i really want to be with my students at the high school! so looking at the offer, i know it wouldn’t be a good fit for me…
and even if i took the job, i know now that i will not be teaching at the high school next year. i’ve been planning next year’s projects and winterim trips with several students and i know there is no way i will be able to do that anymore. i won’t be their teacher and at the closest i’ll be at the farm.
but i don’t think i’ll even be there at the farm - i’m now looking all over the place…
and so once again my life is up in the air, and i’m looking for changes. anything’s a possibility! i’m even toying with the idea of going back to classes and picking up another degree =) who knows, i might like doing something else! right now, the future is very uncertain but i’m gonna look at it as the best opportunity to pursue anything i want!