Good Morning, Mrs. Alburger

I went yesterday to the school district office and picked up the packet for being licensed as a substitute teacher. I'm sort of excited, to tell the truth. I can work less, if I want to, because it's my choice whether or not to take an assignment. I won't have as much responsibility, since I'll only be there for a day. I'll get to mix it up and work at all four schools in my district.

Also, if it comes down to it, I'll be able to home school Nick next year. And I'm afraid it might come down to it. The high school is so innovative when it comes to 99 percent of the students. But for the one percent who have special needs they really drop the ball. There is no teacher. They've hired a long-time aide to be the teacher, but come on. There's a reason that getting a special education endorsement requires a full year of education. This woman has a degree. In sociology. And the scariest thing is that I seem to be the only person who has a problem with this. None of the other aides are the tiniest bit concerned. I guess because they're kids aren't going to be taught without a real teacher.

The school has this weird policy of making the special needs kids stop work at the end of the second hour to help set up the lunch room. Who are they helping? The kids who are on in-school suspension. Which ties the job to a punishment. I actually feel a little sick every day when I take the kids out there to do the work. It's just so WRONG. They don't disrupt any other class to make the kids do physical labor. When I've mentioned it, I've been told that the resource kids need to learn responsibility. Because, you know, all the other 500-plus kids at the school are shining examples of responsibility.

Yeah, I think I need the option of homeschooling Nick. Hopefully next year they'll have a teacher. Definitely next year I'll be making a stink about the lunch room thing. But just in case, if I'm working as a substitute, my (and Nick's) options will be open.

Casey Junior

One of Ely's MANY (tongue firmly in cheek) claims to fame is the Ghost Train. At the tail end of the summer we took the kids in the summer youth program I was the director of to ride the train and my kids got to come along (Adrienne and Nick were too old to join the program and Ruby was too young.)




The train is a really awesome part of living out here. Twice a day you can hear the whistles blowing and the train making it's way slowly (SLOWLY) down the track. The steam engine goes from Ely to Ruth and the diesel engine goes from Ely to McGill. We saw a little herd of Antelope in one the bottoms that you can't see from the highway, that was real cool.

Every Christmas the steam engine gets dressed up like the Polar Express. I can hardly wait!

Have you missed me?

It's been a really long time since I've posted a blog. I decided to just have this blog and give up my previous blog for good. That blog was so focused on my weight that I didn't feel right posting about anything else.

My life is crazy, but in a good way. I'm going to school full-time, studying Social Work. I love it. I'm working full-time, too, at the local high school. I don't love that quite as much. The work is good, but I would rather do less of it. I found out last week that my student is moving to Phoenix, so it might not be much of a problem for much longer.

Adrienne has jumped headfirst into the high school experience. Drama club, playing drums in the Jazz Band, singing in the choir, learning French, writing, learning, boys. It's practically a full-time job just getting her around to her bazillion things.

Nick has been totally integrated at school this year (regular classes instead of spending all day in a self-contained classroom.) I didn't expect it to work, and I've been incredibly pleasantly surprised. He's passing all his classes, doing the same work as everyone else, and he's holding it together emotionally and behaviorally for the most part.

Ruby will be three in six weeks. Amazing. She's talking up a storm, as opinionated as her mama, and absolutely fearless.

Kevin is still Kevin--working hard. Still would like things to always stay the same, forcing us to find a balance between my need for change and his need to never ever ever change ever.

That should catch you up on us all!

Here's somethings I'm sure I'll be writing about in the next few weeks:

I'm advising the school Writer's Club, which I'm totally in love with. I have half-a-dozen kids all jazzed up about Nanowrimo. They've made their goals and we meet every week to discuss their stories. They have so many great ideas, I'm feeling inspired. I've mapped out my own Nano story. Because, you know, I don't have enough on my plate. Luckily we have a lot of time off of school in November...a whole week for Thanksgiving, plus an in service day in there.


I submitted a story to Amazon's Breakthrough Novel contest. It's the novel I wrote for Nanowrimo in 2005. Keep your fingers crossed for me, eh? And send me some good publishing mojo.

I also submitted a short story to Ellora's Cave. It made it past the first editor, and now I'm waiting to hear from the acquisitions editor. More mojo, please?

The Alburger family is attempting to get a little greener, a little simpler, a little less consumption-driven. I'm certain that I'll feel moved to post about my thoughts on this topic. Sometimes they are the only thoughts I have.

And pictures. My goal is to post a bunch of them.

One more thing...have some cake today. It's my birthday! I'm officially closer to 40 than to 35.