Main » April 2005

April 27, 2005

The show must go on

It's been a rough week so far. My wife and I were faced with our beloved Daddy Cat having cancer. He had lost weight and stopped eating. The ultrasound today showed a large mass in his colon and one in his chest. We petted and sang to him while he purred and rubbed noses though he was in pain. We then said goodbye and I held and petted him as a barbituate was added to his catheter. He went peacefully in a few seconds. It was the hardest thing I ever did since Daddy Cat was like a child to us.

On the school front I am still battling my 6th period Biology class. Some of the students simply want to disrupt the class. They do not care if they pass or fail and do not care about learning. I sent one to the office yesterday and he did not arrive. Today I sent two more to the dean. I am convinced that I should remove the students who are a waste of my time and a hindrance to the others learning. I will continue to 'clean house' until the disruptions cease or until the administrators are tired of seeing the same faces in the office each day. These recalcitrant students don't even care if they are suspended. I've had two more students skip class last week. Around 1/3 of the class will be lucky if they get out of high school. At least I know that they are this way in all of their classes, not just mine. It makes me wonder where they will be in 10 years. I wouldn't be surprised to find some in the state prison.

With all of the stress the rosacea is very bad. I am still moisturizing and taking clonidine with limited success now. This job is slowly killing me.

Posted by at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2005

I fought the law...and I won!!

Miracles do happen. We had a science department meeting this morning one of our assistant principals sat in on. She said that the principal gave his blessing to letting us adjust our teaching schedules to suit ourselves! This is what I've been fighting for in the past few months. I'm so happy to actually have a little control over my teaching life. I promptly went to her with another teacher and we traded two of his Anatomy classes for two of my Biology classes. Hopefully teaching the older kids will mean that I get to stay in the main building instead of being moved out to the portables.

The rosacea is still rough. I'm moisturizing and taking clonidine, but the flushing is pretty bad. I need a vacation.

Posted by at 01:26 PM | Comments (1)

April 09, 2005

Weekend Update

It was the wife's birthday today so we went out to eat and shopping. We also took our new feral cat Freddie for his first checkup and shots. He did well at the vet but promptly flew under the bed when we returned. It took a few hours of him glaring at us before he relented and let us pet him.

The rosacea flushing is still bad. I've done about all I can do medically. If I can just lessen the stress level it would probably ease up (easier said than done). Last night I twisted my lower back while bending over, so today I've had back spasms. That's adding to the general stress of school to keep the rosacea blooming.

Posted by at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

April 07, 2005

Primal scream

The sinus infection/bronchitis is slowly clearing up, but it's been a rough few days. Lots of fluid in the lungs and I've had to sleep sitting up. This is one nasty germ.

The rosacea is worse due to lack of sleep and stress. I've upped the clonidine to 2 pills a day to combat the flushing. It helps somewhat, but a vacation would help more right now.

We got an email from one of the assistant principals. She stated that the assignment list for teaching positions next year has been sent out. So much for my suggestion that each department have input on deciding assignments. This obviously made too much sense so the administration chose to ignore me. After all, I only have 25 years of experience so what do I know? Bitter? You bet I am. This administrative crew has set a pattern for the past 2 years of treating teachers like we were children. They pump sunshine up our nether regions during faculty meetings by telling us what a wonderful job we are doing. When anyone tries to recommend a sane course of action to solve a problem, they just ignore us. We get no respect or honesty from the administrators here and it has lowered morale to the point that most of us just hide in our rooms and teach. This is the most dictatorial group of administrators I have ever worked with. It is affecting our teaching and my personal health. One teacher here complained about his portable being inadequate, so the principal visited him and informed him that he would be labeled a 'troublemaker' if he kept bringing this up.

I'm resigned to having the rosacea out of control due to the idiotic situation we are in here. At this point I'm doing my best to teach the kids well. I'm basically going to ignore the administration as much as possible since they are not helping. I will be doing as little as possible to help them in any way. Forget the volunteering to chaparone dances, work on committees, or anything that involves assisting this ship of fools. I am miserable here but I don't have any better place to go. I will probably be sent out to the portables next year and, like my coworkers out there, be given 34 kids for a room meant for 28 students. Retirement will be a real blessing in a few years. Maybe the rosacea symptoms will finally have a chance to lessen then. It is a horrible feeling to have no power to control my situation here.

Posted by at 07:31 PM | Comments (4)

April 05, 2005

Shoot me now!

I stayed out of school yesterday. I've had a sinus infection for a week now. The antibiotic I got from the doctor was ineffective so I went back. I have severe bronchitis as well now and have been coughing my lungs out for the last few days. A new antibiotic and some other medications were given, so I hope that things start getting better. I went back to school today and hung in there with a lot of sweating, fever, coughing, etc...

News from the school front at our faculty meeting:
1) 17 new portables are planned for next year.
2) Common lesson plans and exams will be manditory for next year.
How can I say "this sucks" in a nice, educational way?

I made it through the day ok until my 6th period "class from Hell".
They started a crayfish lab. I was proud of the way most of them handled themselves in this situation since most of their previous science teachers had not been brave (stupid?) enough to trust them with dissection labs before. Unfortunately the lab was marred by one psychotic student who decided it would be fun to cut through my radio
cord with his scalpel. The radio shorted out in a puff of smoke. He got to explain to his father on the phone why he chose to behave in this manner. He was then sent to the office and suspended for a day. He will also repay me for the cost of the radio.

With that ending of a lovely day I left school with a major migraine, which I still have. I feel too bad to look in the mirror and check the flushing, but it's probably pretty bad at this point. I just hope I can get up again tomorrow and function adequately at school. My energy reserves are at 0 from the illness and I'm spending most of the night sitting up in bed and coughing. I don't know how much more I can take.

Posted by at 05:10 PM | Comments (2)