3 Dec
Dude, Where’s My Portfolio?
Yeah. My internship class starts in January. That’s when my portfolio needs to be completed.
I have already complained that no one is evaluating my portfolio right now, but I expected that it would at least be there the next time I logged into Brighten.
It’s not.
The entire portfolio is gone. Poof. Vanished.
I would like to say that I’m sure that I’ll get it back, but I’m not sure about anything anymore with these bumblers at Lamar.
Let’s see how long *this* request takes.
Can I just reiterate that Lamar Academic Partnership is *not* worth the headache.
Caveat emptor!
1 Dec
I know the warning signs…
For me, it’s sleeping a lot and loss of appetite. The anxiety over nothing. I’ve hit the doldrums.
The darkness doesn’t help. I sleep when it turns dark – it’s my internal clock. And it gets dark early these days. I could fall asleep right now if I let myself.
It just seems like everything is a fight lately. Lamar. School board. Computers. Students. The house.
I’m tired of fighting. I want someone else (who’s more effective than me) to pick it up.
Just because I know how to recognize them, however, does not mean that I know how to shake them. Let’s see if the gym can’t shake these buggers off.
24 Nov
Thrift Store Adventure!
Mom’s in town right now, and today, we are embarking on a 12 store run in and around Houston today. God, I love Google maps. We’re starting down in Pasadena and just working our way back up 45. We’re skipping a lot, but I think this will keep us busy for the entire day. I just hope we skip rush hour – I kind of forget about things like that when I’m on vacation.
Gregg got the dining room set all taken care of, and I immediately littered it with china and chargers! It’s beautiful! Unfortunately, the mustard wall color is a little distracting, but I still don’t know what to do about all that stupid painted over wallpaper applied directly on the wallboard. Daud suggested that we just replace all of the drywall, but that scares the crap out of me. I was thinking maybe I’ll just try to paint over it for a little while, but that just seems like a waste of time.
Had an estimate to replace the windows – we really want to do it all at one time, but Gregg’s still on the job hunt, so we had him give it to us in three sections: 1. All upstairs; 2. The eight giants windows downstairs; and 3. The rest of the downstairs windows. I think we are just going to wait and see what happens when Gregg gets a job – the large 8 windows were a little cost prohibitive right now, and I don’t really want to compromise with those since we’ll be losing some of the pond view if we go the cheaper route.
Speaking of the pond, Gregg and Daud have started to cement it. But it’s going to take a lot more cement than they originally thought. It looks really, really nice though. Gregg needs to take a few pictures for posterity.
I’m nearing the halfway point with my portfolio – I think I’m making pretty good progress on it right now. I only have three entries left for my course embedded hours, and then I have to start working on my campus supervised hours. I just wish that I knew what I was doing. Since I started my portfolio so late (thanks to Lamar, we got it almost a year after we started the first class), I had to log fewer hours than everyone else in in the program, but I don’t have any confirmation that I am still on that plan. They have also added and changed elements of the portfolio that I have not heard anything about, because I was not an “official” student. My current course instructor is not familiar with portfolios since he’s involved with teachers leadership and not administration, and I really hesitate e-mailing Lamar for any assistance or help at this point.
Yes, HL e-mailed me an apology, but Carolyn Crawford has not sent me anything. No apology. No explanation. No “whoops”. Nothing.
I’ve been talking with a few other people who have gone through this program, and realized that if this is all that I have had to deal with, I’m pretty lucky. Even though I have gotten this far, I won’t consider anything to be a victory until I have that degree conferred and I see a pay increase in my salary.
I bought a 20lb. turkey for about 5 bucks the other day! Thank God Mom is here, because I’d have no idea what to do with it if she weren’t. I would love to deep fry a turkey, but I think I’ll go traditional this time around. Next year, maybe I’ll go the deep fried route.
14 Nov
Happy Dance
Sometime today, I’ll be getting my dining room table and chairs. I came home one day last week and discovered that Gregg had gone out and bought them as a suprise for me. What a sweetie pie!
So, I’m taking a break today from the portfolio (got a lot done today!) and went to one of my blogs only to read a comment disparaging Houston’s crime rate. This was written from a resident of Louisiana. What cheek, I thought! So, I fed the troll by leaving a message. I just think it’s funny that someone from LA who sent over all of the Katrina refugees (yes, I say refugees) has the gall to comment on Houston crime.
It’s not like we were squeaky clean before we accepted almost 200, 000 Lousianians, but we did see a spike in crime. Not all of that was because the New Orleans residents, but I’ll go out on a limb and say a lot was.
It just struck a nerve with me, which is probably what the intent was. I’m not a huge Houston defender, but I feel realtively safe, as long as I’m not driving on the freeway. Hah.
POnd should be dug and be relined by the time Mom gets here next week, but I’m not demanding it. My new time frame for the pond to be complete is Christmas. I don’t even need fish by that time – it might be nice to have some floating candles in the pond
13 Nov
The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Class
I’m almost ashamed to admit it, but after getting denied and ignored so long, the Miller in me just couldn’t stand it anymore. I didn’t think that my complaint was really and truly an ethics complaint, so did something else.
I e-mailed the Vice-President of Student Affairs.
I got the name of yet another person, but she was on the ball. A tiger! I sent her e-mail last night, and she responded within an hour.
And then today – I got an e-mail with an apology and an offer to take a make up class starting November 16, with my Internship to start on January 16th. I really didn’t expect this at all. Of course, I accepted and have already paid for the class.
The victory is bittersweet, however. One of the ladies I started the courses with is graduating next month. Another woman I work with who started almost a year after I did will graduate a few months after me. But that doesn’t really matter, right? What matters is that in a few months, I will have my M.Ed.
Now I just have to get back to working on that portfolio. Hah. I took a look again it it today, and it’s not completely scarce. Also, I’m racking up lots of experience that I can use – writing curriculum projects, presenting in-service to the school, textbook committee, writing the ELAR newsletter, Superintendent’s Advisory Council - that sort of thing. I think I’ll have way more hours than I actually need. I’m an overachiever.
I really wasn’t planning on walking, but then thought Mom and Dad would really want to see it. So, I’ll swallow my pride, get a cap and gown, and walk across that stage. Since I did it all on-line, it really doesn’t feel like I did when I graduated from Sam or even SoHo. I don’t have any friends who are walking with me. I don’t even have many people who will show up. I wonder if they will make the distinction between people who earned the degree in a traditional setting and the people who did it on-line? Again, no matter. I’ll be there with my family and I’ll be happy.
And how do I celebrate this victory? Why, with a burnt pot pie and a MIA husband! Gregg’s at the HOA meeting right now, concerned about the Klein 2008 Bond project. We’re a teensy bit worried that when the district rezones (and MOVES the location of the high school), that’s we’ll end up on the wrong side of the road to feed into the high school we want to feed into.
I’m a little cranky about this new development, because we waited to buy a houseuntil AFTER the bond passed and there was a plan developed. So we bought a house right next to the high school. Now the plan has changed (or at least, it will) and we’re going to be left wondering for some time. I guess it’s better to start talking now and let the KISD Board of Trustees know that we don’t want to be rezoned into a different high school.
I was never political until we bought a house and started thinking about a family. Now, I’m starting to get more and more vocal about what politicians are doing (or not doing). I’ll have to post more on this later – right now, I want to breathe a little. Get away from the computer – I think I sit incorrectly when I’m typing and it hurts my back.
10 Nov
Teeth Grinding
I had fully intended on working on my portfolio tonight, but I’m so upset with Lamar right now that I don’t even want to open the damn program.
I’m trying not to infect Facebook with my loathing, but it’s so hard for me to resist posting nasty comments in the Lamar Academic Partnership student group. I have to refrain from posting updates every day about my status with Lamar. I grit my teeth everytime I see a post about December graduation. I sit on my hands in order to hit “reply” when I get e-mails promoting Lamar.
I am really trying hard not to be “that person”. But I think I am failing.
After much considerating, I think I am going to make an official ethics complaint. I don’t think anything will happen of it, but at least I have the complaint in writing. I don’t even know if what I am experiencing is a true ethics violation or just gross incompetence, but I suppose I’ll let the ethics committee figure that one out.
9 Nov
Nearer and nearer!
Got an e-mail today that basically told me to complete a Student Status Change Form. However, the Word doc I was sent was uneditable in Word, so (with Gregg’s help), after some IT hocus pocus and much gnashing of teeth, I finished! It should have only taken me five minutes at the most, but with troubleshooting and changing all of the form fields, it ended up taking me almost an hour.
I don’t understand why everything has to be do difficult with Lamar. It sounds great in theory. Even now, I find myself questioning my situation – surely *I* did something to screw things up this badly, right? I don’t think so. Even know, after everything, I still stand beside most of my decisions. If I had to do anything over again, I would have started Lamar on ONE computer (rather than trying to install the software on my work computer – hah!) and I would have worked on my portfolio during my time off. After June, when I had a few glitches with Brighten, I decided to hold off on submitting items to my portfolio, but I stupidly decided not to work on my portfolio. Sigh. I guess I was just over the whole Lamar thing that I pretended I didn’t need to work on it.
Don’t get me wrong – I have been working on it – it’s just I need to get it all put in one place and submitted to Brighten.
Ugh. Let’s see how Applying for Graduation turns out.
If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.
8 Nov
Devilish Swing to my Step
You wanna know the truth? The dirty, rotten truth? I’m a teacher because I’m a show off. When I’m in the classroom, I havea captive (literally) audience. I can sing, dance, yell – and they all have to sit and watch me! <insert evil laugh here> But sometimes, I get tired of competing with the laptops, curriculum, and students who are also show offs, so I have to get my fix from a second job.
I work as an independent actor for for companies like Frowbiz and Best Entertainers. In fact, if you go to to Frowbiz, they have four pictures of me on the front page of the site. (I’d suggest clicking “thumbnails” under the pictues to see them all). I love it! I get to do some of the wackiest things and make a little extra money doing it, too.
I’ve been a Deadly Sin, a pirate, a saloon girl, a tv reporter, a random woman in pj’s and curlers, a siren, Mary-Katherin Gallagher, a Russian, a Prohibitionist, and a Parking Fairy. Last night, I got to be “Demon on Swing” – it was GREAT FUN!
The swing was scary at first – it was a skateboard on a chain, but once I got used to it, it was great fun! The only thing is that I wished we could have interacted with the audience a bit more – I had some great lines worked out, but we were so far up that no one heard us, nor us them.
I kicked two people in the head – one was a guy dressed up as a Cardinal, so he had on a really high hat. The other guy was just really tall, and wearing a wig with snakes, and my foot caught his wig and pulled it right off! I felt a little guilty about that, but hey – I’m a demon!
It’s gigs like last night that get me excited about the next one! Can’t wait!
