Main » September 2005

September 26, 2005

My First Pet Adoption !!

Saturday we volunteered again at the Goliath and Bebe's cat adoption day at Petco. There was lots of stress when we arrived as the head person had not yet arrived and there were around 10 visitors looking. The foster parents were dropping off their cats so I introduced myself to several I had not yet met. One was rather nasty, asking what experience I had in screening potential adopters. She said "Where is Lisa? I don't know you and I do know Lisa is good at this." I did not have a clue where the adoption forms were and was pretty much in a panic myself since I was new at this. I resisted the temptation to choke this woman and calmly replied that Lisa had been over the procedure with me in detail. My expression must have shown what I was thinking about her because she started apologizing and saying she didn't mean to hurt my feelings. I bit my tongue and told her that I was a teacher so it was difficult to hurt my feelings. Of course that wasn't true. I felt horrible being new and being challenged like that. Anyway, we reached an understanding of sorts and parted more or less amicably. To my credit I did try to push her cats for adoption instead of ignoring them but none of hers were adopted that day. Lisa arrived around that time and things settled down. I went over the paperwork procedure with her and took on my first interview. It went very well and I soon adopted out a cute little black and white kitten named Pandora. I did not have much time to celebrate since there was a steady stream of people coming through looking at the cats. Eight hours went by and I didn't get to sit down once. We had one person who was deemed unsatisfactory to be an adopter by his screener. The screener did not know how to tell him this in an acceptable way so I volunteered to take over and let him know. He became very defensive and nasty though I did try to be polite about it. That was the second rough incident in an hour for me and I was exhausted at this point. The next crisis was that the husband of one of our foster parents came in carrying a foster cat. He dumped the cat in front of us and informed us that his young daughter was mistreating the cat at home so the woman was quitting the foster volunteering. I felt so bad for this beautiful white cat named Russell. Fortunately we adopted him out near the end of the day to a nice couple. The next crisis came a few minutes later when a family came in and the husband shoved a duffle bag in my face. He said it contained three kittens from a female in their subdivision thay had been feeding. Of course they hadn't bothered to have her spayed so she had these guys. He informed me that if we didn't take the cats they would simply dump them off at the local shelter. We all knew that the shelter would probably euthanize them. I was speechless so I turned him over to Lisa who proceeded to dress him down verbally about his callousness and stupidity. After this she did present them the opportunity to have the cats neutered cheaply and then foster them while bringing them in on weekends so we could try to adopt them out. They said they would think about it and left. I imagine they went straight to the local shelter with the poor cats. We simply were full at the time and could not accept any dumps like that. Let's see... the next crisis came a couple of hours later when we discovered that a litter of new cats a foster parent had dropped off were completely infested with fleas. I cleaned out the cage while others bathed and treated the cats. There were so many fleas that the
bath water was red. What a tiring day! By the time I left we had adopted out 5 cats and shown cats to over 100 people.

Back to school Monday and the kids had a test on evolution and taxonomy. It was a quiet day overall. The rosacea is pretty quiet today and the heart hasn't been acting up much. I'm just bone tired from the weekend and I took a 2 hour nap this afternoon after school.

On a completely different note, some of my MIDI music is going to be used in a graduate level sociology linguistics course at the University of Louisville. I think that's a first for me. I haven't made a dime off of my compositions but they sure have gotten a lot of play on various websites and in schools. I really haven't worked on composing much this year since taking up the guitar. I guess I need to update the webpage and work on some new material soon.

Posted by at 06:46 PM | Comments (0)

September 22, 2005

Katrina pet situation in Mississippi

Last night I received an email from a fellow member on Petbunny, an internet group of indoor rabbit owners. She relayed a message from another member who is in the Army and works with the Red Cross at disaster scenes. It seems that the shelter she was currently at was going to close in a week. The residents were being moved to another shelter but their pets, 8 dogs, 4 cats, and 3 birds, were to be left at the old shelter. The PetBunny group went into action. We called several pet rescue services in Mississippi and had contingency plans that would hopefully have found foster care for these pets. Fortunately it wasn't necessary because the state decided to keep the shelter open in light of the influx of new people due to hurricane Rita. It's nice to know that we could have that much of an impact when it was necessary.

Hey, they finally fixed the door lock to the room!!! It only took 2 emails and 3 visits in person to administrators to accomplish this small task. You gotta love education.

Shaving this morning irritated my face a little. I'm leaving it alone for now and hoping the pinkness dies down instead of flaring up worse. Sometimes less treatment is the best course when minor irritations occur on rosacea faces. If the problem continues I will probably start with the aloe gel tomorrow.

Let's see...what did I do at school today? I had an early parent conference that was routine, we had a taxonomy lab in all classes, and we reviewed for the test Monday on taxonomy and evolution. After school we had round 3 of our Fall chess tournament. It's 10:30 PM local time now and I am tired, tired, tired.

Posted by at 07:08 PM | Comments (1)

September 21, 2005

Sometimes I travel in circles

It's Wednesday and I've just finished preparing for the day. I'm sitting in class now waiting for the munchkins to arrive. I'm starting to feel like a hamster on a treadmill. So much of my daily life is made up of boring, routine drudgery that is usually pointless. That's education in a nutshell. I'll take a deep breath and put on my 'happy face' for the Biology students again. Off to the races. Why didn't I pick a sane career like food taster for a dictator?

Posted by at 06:17 AM | Comments (1)

September 20, 2005

A suicide

I sprained my back a few days ago bending over at an odd angle. Monday I was in agony so I took a day off and rested. The anti-stress day helped the back quite a bit.

When I returned to school Tuesday I found out that a senior had shot himself after having a fight with his girlfriend Saturday. He was well liked and a lot of the students were upset today. The guidance counselors had their hands full dealing with crying students. I did not personally know this student but when something like this happens it casts gloom over the whole school. I think some of the students become upset because they suddenly realize that they may not be immortal after all. It's a hard way to learn this lesson.

On a lighter note, the door lock is still not fixed. I sent yet another email to the head of maintenance with copies to the principal and assistant principal pointing out that it was supposed to have been fixed two weeks ago. No one even bothered to reply to my email. It's wonderful to know how concerned they are about keeping the school running smoothly.

The rosacea has been in check lately. I started adding a couple of ounces of olive oil to the bath water and it's really helped to keep the skin soft. The only drawback is that I have to be sure to wipe the excess off after bathing or it makes my skin too oily. It's a great and cheap moisturizing treatment.

The SVT (extra heartbeats) problem has been under control the past few days. I go back to the cardiologist in October.

Well, that's about all that's new here. I worked my a** off today teaching and am decompressing tonight so I can do it again tomorrow.

Posted by at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 18, 2005

The pet adoption day

Saturday has gone and with it my poor swollen feet. My wife Karen and I spent all day at Petco volunteering at the pet adoption/neuter center for Goliath and Bebe's World pet rescue group. We helped with cat adoption and neutering information, swabbed out cat ears, and did tons of holding and petting the little guys. No adoptions but we did have 2 promising leads and one person who volunteered to be a foster mom (something they desparately need). The people were overall nice but a lot of them used the exhibits as a petting zoo for their kids. These rescued cats were the sweetest bunch. There was one special cat named Crazy Cat who stole my heart. She would lay in your arms and look up with those trusting blue eyes of a kitten. In the cage she played a lot with the other cat there.

One of the workers with us remember the cats Velvet and Beau whom we adopted from the group back in May. She was very happy they were doing well because she said that Velvet was very nervous that day and she had to brush him a lot to get him to calm down. She was afraid that with his shy disposition that he would not be adopted. It tickled her to death when we showed her a picture of Velvet and Beau
obviously happy and content in our home.

That's about it. I'm exhausted but happy at helping out and not getting in their way too much. With time we will probably be able to help even more. It's a good feeling and I recommend that everyone donate some time to a pet rescue organization.
Here are a couple of recent photos. The first is Velvet and the second is his son Beau.

Posted by at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2005

Pulse laser results

I had a fairly routine day today, if any day with kids can be called that. My last period class was a little rowdy so I had to bat down a couple of them. One student was sent out of the room and I counseled him, though it was more of a chewing out than a counseling. Like alligators, sometimes you have to hit them over their head with a stump to get their full attention.

It's late so I'll keep this brief. Here are my final impressions on the effects of the pulse laser on flushing. The redness has decreased rather dramatically everywhere except my nose. It's still a little red most of the time. I have one small bruised area where the tissue did not heal completely. Overall I would say it was successful as a treatment and the aggravation and discomfort was worth the redness reduction. Don't be fooled, though. It is not a cure for rosacea. I still have the dry areas on the face and the potential is still there for a relapse with more veins involved in dilation. I am still moisturizing each day and using Dove soap. Would I go through the treatment and subsequent bruising again? in a heartbeat. Anything beats the alternative of living with the burning redness.

Posted by at 09:04 PM | Comments (2)

September 09, 2005

We lost another science teacher

The big news today is that our new young chemistry teacher has received an offer from a lab and he will be quitting immediately. That makes two science teachers we've lost in the past three weeks here. This sinks the morale even lower. I think it stinks that he is bailing out on his classes after contracting to teach them for this year. The kids are really being cheated out of a decent education when this happens. It's getting harder all the time to keep good teachers here since the administration divided up the science department by sending the entire 9th grade out to the portable slums. I could say 'I told you so' but it wouldn't do any good.

The rosacea is a little worse this week with the high humidity and heat we've been having. Stress has been a factor too. The heart has been acting up on occasion with extra beats. I've really exhausted at this point, having put in a lot of energy this week in labs, lectures, and all the other mundane things that need doing at school. Nothing seems to go smoothly these days. My door lock has been broken for a month. I sent emails and notes to the custodial head with no results. An email was then sent to an assistant principal who forwarded it to the custodial head. I got a curt response from him stating that a part was ordered for the lock and it would be installed in a week. That was over a week ago and of course the lock is still broken. The only time I see the administrators is when they want me to do something. That's life at our little corner of heaven here. The little things never get fixed and every time we interact with the administration they make our teaching more difficult. They then wonder why teachers are leaving. Hmmmm....

Posted by at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2005

Colitis

It's 8:55 AM local time on a Friday and I'm sitting in the classroom waiting for my first class of the day. I've already tutored one student who unexpectedly showed up at 8 AM. We are having a test today on cells and she needed a little reassurance that she knew the material.

While taking a shower this morning an episode of colitis hit me with full force, causing lots of pain and diarrhea. I'm feeling a little better at this point now that the Imodium has kicked in some, but I still feel a little nauseous and shaky. The flareup was probably due to general teaching stress and the desperate need for an extended break.

I'll keep this brief since I need to check my mailbox before the kids come in. It's my planning period now but in 15 minutes the first group arrives to class. I did not feel up to checking the mail earlier but if I take it slow I think I can make it now without a problem.

The students really don't know what we sacrifice in order to teach them. They will come in today, take their test and complete their assignment, all without a clue that I'm trying not to double over as I talk to them.

On a related note, I got a retirement letter from the state of Florida telling me that I will have an estimated $27,000 pension at the end of 30.5 years of service. This is BEFORE taxes. Simply lovely. I can't even afford to die as a teacher.

Posted by at 05:53 AM | Comments (4)