School!

Hi everyone! I'm sorry it has been so long since an update. I'll do my best to catch you up.

Well, this weekend I had a great surprise in RACHEL JAKAB. We went to see "The Switch" on Saturday night, and it was a GREAT movie. It was also nice to go to see a movie with someone, as opposed to just by myself. I like that. :) We spent the rest of Saturday watching Leverage and Project Runway on On Demand. Again, we were talking back and forth and it was so great to just have someone to BS with, you know?

Sunday was a little bit of more of the same. Honestly, I don't really remember much of what we did. Oh, I did some syllabus writing, and Rachel had housing issues. Most of the afternoon was spent pausing "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" to accommodate those things. Rachel stayed until today, which was so great. Monday, we hung out again, went out to dinner, and it awesome. Tuesday was equally as cool. So...Rachel Jakab and having someone to talk to for four days? AWESOME.

This brings us to school. Monday was our first day of inservice as a full district; last week was just new teachers. Monday was a lot of being talked at, very little time to get things done, running around trying to get an office, and generally being disheartened. I came home and just felt so horrible. CR is making a ton of changes, so a lot of the teachers are in the same boat, but it was still so very, very frustrating.

Tuesday was a completely different story. The morning was great; our superintendent is HILARIOUS, and gave a great beginning-of-the-year presentation. We had some quick meetings in the morning, but they were really helpful as opposed to just frustrating and confusing. I had a place to work, so I brought in my school stuff and put it in my floating classrooms. I got my books and whatnot packed up, and I proofread my syllabus. It was a really productive day. I spent the last hour talking to some drama kids, and they seemed extremely excited. It just made things so much better, and I was so much more pumped for today.

Which brings me to today. I have a ninth grade home room, so I got to do a lot of clerical stuff this morning. It's going to be a process, I feel. They are really nice kids, though, and I'm excited to see them each day. My drama class was a lot of fun, too. I think I made a good first impression. I had the kids climb onto the stage and explore the space, and then I talked a mile a minute about how I am so excited and I don't know what we're doing (specifically) this year, but I'm excited for some acting and some learnin' and it's gonna be awesome!

I have all my syllabi printed out tonight, and I was browsing the theater textbook I got from the school. Generally, it's just been a really good night.

Sorry for the lack of good adjectives and impressing, witty repartee. For whatever reason, I'm stuck in the "AWESOME! COOL! GREAT!" phase of the English Language. :)

Also!

I met the guy who designed the Delaware State Quarter.

:-D

Hint: It's the Dr. Ault-ish ex Drama Teacher!

Thursday!

Hey everyone!

So, my two days of teacher initiation are done. :) After many long days of sitting and staring (or maybe just two) I have a lot of information, a new laptop (relatively speaking), and a lot of forms to fill out.

Yesterday, we took a tour of the school district. Our tour guide was the twice former drama director, and he is amazing. I've been trying to think of someone to compare him to, and the only one I could think of is a more sane Dr. Ault. He had the clothes down, the voice, and the awesome-ness. It was great. We also got to go on to the air base, because there are two schools on the air base. I thought that was so cool.

So, I just took a quick break to run to the library to pick up some stage tech books, and a boy was sitting on the bench outside. As I walked by, he was like, "Hey, sweetheart, what's IUP stand for?" So I told him (I was wearing my IUP hoodie) "Indiana University of Pennsylvania" and tried to keep on walking. He asked a few other things, and I just kind of muffled responses, and he was like "We're gonna have to chat about that for when you come back!" So I tried to stall in the library, because I didn't really want to talk to a random person in downtown Dover. Of course, there was nowhere for me to sit and stall (the library is always PACKED. And it has its own security guard inside. He's old and decrepit, but he's there.) So, I leave, planning to just keep walking with a quick wave or something at the boy. And we end up talking for like 10 minutes. Turns out he lives in the apartments behind me--I guess--and he managed to fit in there that he has no girlfriend, and no baby-mama drama, and he runs his own freelance business. He asked for my number, which I declined (very politely, I might add). He told me I was very pretty and that he liked my shoes. I told him I would be working 60+ hour weeks (which sounds not-out-of-the-realm-of-possibility, for what I am going to be working on), and I was gonna need to sleep some time. He was nice enough, though, and I told him maybe I would see him again at the library--not as like a promise, but more like a polite thing, I think; it's what I tried to come off as.

So, anyway: now I am slightly worried that he was just pumping me for info about my apartment--he asked if I had pets, or dogs--and then I feel really bad because he's probably just a lonely soul like me, and I need to stop worrying that everyone I meet on the street is going to try to hurt me in some way, shape, or form.

So, back to the school part of this post: generally, I feel OK right now. I'm going to be making a syllabus tomorrow whilst I EAGERLY await the arrival of one RACHEL JAKAB, and then after that I will be making my vocab powerpoints, which we are going to do as dailies in the classroom. It's going to be an exciting day. Then, the weekend will be spent not worrying at all about my job, and hanging with RAHEL JAKAB. Exciting!

Love, Bethie

Tuesday!

Hi everyone!

So, I am too jazzed to sleep right now, so I thought I'd update you on my last few days. I went for a bike ride today, which was a lot of fun. There is a really tiny lake right down the road from me (I didn't even know it was there, and I parked right next to it twice) and the roads around it are great for biking. Apparently, things are not so safe about four blocks around me, so I have to watch where I go. (This is according to my nice old neighbor). I took some pictures of the legislative buildings around the area, and just generally enjoyed getting out. Pics are up on my shutterfly site.

Yesterday was a doozie. I started out at the HS around 10:30, meeting with the former drama guy and learning about all of that. I am so incredibly overwhelmed right now. Apparently, I'm going to be putting on up to three shows at once: the drama club fall show (Harvey), the Drama 2 class show (whatever I pick?) and (thank God not right away), the Drama 1 one acts--if I'm interested. Drama 1 is history of acting and theater for starters, so that's a semi-nice reprieve. What's great is that I'm not even worried about English 1o. I was at school until 1:00 getting information on everything. My head felt like it was going to explode.

I came home for a quick bite, and figured that I would run to the post office to get some stamps and mail some postcards. Yeah...one person working, and a line that was about 25 people long. I stood there for about a half and hour to buy a book of stamps. It was air conditioned, so that was nice.

After that, I ran around trying to get a prescription for my face. I thought I had a face eating rash, but it's the newfangled thing called "acne." My face just got horribly red and blotchy, but only in spots. Me being me, I was trying to see a doctor and get prescriptions, as earlier noted--we thought I was having a reaction to the ocean water or something. Of course, no one wanted to take my out-of-state insurance. I finally called the insurance people, and they told me that if I went to the emergency room, I would be covered.

So I went to the emergency room. And waited three hours. For what ended up being acne. *thumbs up, beth!* I felt like an idiot, too, because I was like, "Look, I'm only here cause my insurance is stupid. I know I don't have an emergency! Really, now!" My doctor just looked at me and said, "Yep, fair enough. It's acne. Here's a paper about rashes." and walked away. They were all really nice about it, but seriously! If I would have gone to a Doc in the Box or Minute Clinic, I would have had to pay $125 + out of pocket. Redic. Yay, America's health care system!

So I got home around 7:30 or 8:00, exhausted, because I essentially didn't have lunch (I had eaten some quick white rice, but I thought I'd be back really quick from the post and munch on things for the afternoon). Instead, I threw in True Blood and laid around for the evening.

I spent today trying to plan for things and reading "Night" by Elie Weisel. It was so depressing. It's about the Holocaust, for those who don't know, and it was heart wrenching. I have to teach it to the 10th graders, though, so I have to figure out something.

Other than an outfit crisis for tomorrow (I need to be dressy, but not too dressy) the rest of the night has been pretty low key. Pasta for dinner, a run to the store, a little bit of glee. I'm gonna try to sleep now. I'm actually yawning, so maybe that'll happen sooner than I think, eh!

Hearts!

Lazy Saturday

Ok, just read this on facebook: "Whew! Only six more months till Obama is out of office."

Now, to give some context, he was writing this on the wall for "Election 2010!" and "Get out and vote!" The comments made toward him were quite hilarious.

Now on to me.

I went to Cape Henlopen today, and boy, did I chose the worst time of day to head out! It took me two hours to get there. Once there, the beach was PACKED. The waves were insane. I'm not good at judging height or anything, but while I was there, a guy almost drowned and was saved by a lifeguard. I had never seen this happen before (still haven't, actually, as the beach was PACKED and it was about 100 yards away from me) but the waves were *so strong.* I went into the water right when I got there (about 12:30?). I had forgotten a chair, so that sucked, and I only had one towel, so that sucked, and my beach umbrella kept falling over, so that sucked. I came out of the water after a while, and tried to lay down and read, but I hate the wet sticky feeling, and I had sand *everywhere* because I had to lay on my towel. All in all, I was kind of cranky. But still, it was a beautiful day and I did take a walk up and down the beach. I stayed for about two hours and then just couldn't take the people and the sand anymore. I got in my car, and started to head home.

Of course, I went to the wrong way--the *long* way around. However, this was a good thing, because it gave me a chance to see the *real* cape! I found this tiny little parking lot, and I could see a lighthouse through the trees. I parked and got out and followed the little trail down, and found the kind of beach I had been looking for in the first place: there were about 15 people tops on it, there were no waves, and it was so peaceful! This was in the bay area, I guess (?) (I'm possibly really misunderstanding nautical terms). No matter what, that is where I want to go to tomorrow.

Pictures will be up on the around dover site! Here's the link again, if you need it!

www.arounddover.shutterfly.com

Good Friday!

No, it's not Easter. It has, however, been a good Friday. I slept in a bit, decided against going to the beach (due to the weather again) and did some little things around the apartment. THEN. I finally went for that darn walk I've been wanting to take. It's rainy and windy outside, which means it's finally liveable out there. I wanted to see the Biggs Museum of American Art, and take some pictures of State Street. While I didn't get all the way down to state street, I did get some. The Biggs was interesting. I was literally the only one there, and it was a nice small museum, so it felt very cozy. I'll definitely be going back.

I added pictures to my shutterfly. Here ya go!


http://arounddover.shutterfly.com/

The mail I just got from my mommy and daddy

I cried. :) In a good way.