Pulling out the A/V Cart

Sometimes I need to take a break and remind myself why I know I'm going to LOVE this job. The Marion the Librarian dance remix is the best part.



This next one is a great video from TeacherTube that explains exactly what at teacher librarian does.  This might be a great thing to spread around to campus teachers and even students (you could show just the student portion to them) to help explain the role that TL's serve.

The Spoken Word

Fun fact: one of my five major switches in college was to broadcast journalism and I really wanted to my own radio show.  Unfortunately, my normal talking voice isn't that melodic or soothing to the ear, but that's okay.  Here is a podcast I completed for one of my teacher librarian classes.

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Totes Trending

Apparently I've started a trend of only posting at the beginning and end of summer vacation.  On to the updates!

End of 2012

In the fall of 2012 I started my new job at Tulare Union High School.  My husband graduated from there so he was overjoyed.  I was assigned three sections of regular freshmen and one double-block of intervention sophomores.  I was scared to death of that because sophomores are already angsty enough as it is.  It turned out to be great!  As my class was whittled down from 22 to 11, I really got to know these kids.  Many of them are going to be very successful.  I had a 60% passing rate on the CAHSEE, with which I'm overjoyed. Many of my students who didn't pass missed it by just a question or two.  Hooray!

Beginning of 2013

In January of 2013 I started my coursework at Fresno Pacific to earn my credential and masters in Teacher Librarianship.  As you can tell by my love of books, I am so eager to get out of the classroom and into my own library.  I plan to use this blog for both teaching and library items as I go.  The other great part about this semester is that I'M NOT LEAVING!  This will be the first time in my teaching career that I am not leaving a school and moving to a new place.  I AM moving classrooms, though, but that's a good thing.  My classroom this past year was so, so tiny, and I hated being there.  When a well-loved teacher took a job in Hanford, I jumped on the opportunity to request his room, as he has the room I'd choose out of all the options.  I have no idea when I'll be able to move in but hopefully starting next week.

We've been living in Tulare since July, and this will also be the first time in 10 YEARS (!!!!!!) that I haven't moved.  I seriously haven't lived in one place longer than a year since I was 16.  While this house isn't the best, it's really a nice place to live for now.  This year we watched our kitten Seamus grow up into a ginormous adult kitty, and we got a dog in October.  We rescued here off Craigslist and she has been such a delight to have at home!  She is an 8-year-old Australian Shepherd mix named Sydney.  We don't love her name, but we decided she was too old to change it. We refer to them as Bubbas and Pretty Girl, instead of Seamus and Sydney respectively, most of the time anyway, so it's not a big deal.  She really is a pretty girl.

Next Year

Next year, I am finally branching away from freshmen and sophomores!  ...sort of.  I will have two sections of regular freshmen, again the double-block of intervention sophomores, AND (drum roll, please!) a section of seniors!  Not just regular seniors, though.  I'll be teaching a section of ERWC (Expository Reading and Writing Course), which at TUHS is considered an upper level course.  It doesn't earn them an extra grade point like AP, but it is for college-bound seniors who love a good conversation.  I attended three trainings this year hopefully that one day I'd be able to branch out from freshmen.  I was successful and earned a new, much needed, bigger room in the process.  Hooray!  My B days are going to be terrible (Sophomores, then seniors, then freshmen), but I'm not going to complain.  I'm only a few years out from a library job anyway (hopefully).

Then Words Came

Today I finished a book that changed my life.



The quote on the cover of the book says specifically "It is the kind of book that can change a life."  Normally an exhausted hyperbole, this time it is true.  The proof?  I am writing.

The Book:

Every page is overwhelming.  The beauty of this writing cannot be wasted on one simply looking for a good story.  If you do not love the written word, these pages are above you.  I want to print anonymous flyers and leave them in the classrooms at my university or email a directory of librarians and spread the novel like a virus.



I have ready many books since I stopped blogging, but I loved sharing my experiences.  As an English teacher and future librarian, I still suffer through books.  The 550 pages of this one took me two months because every word drips with imagery, figurative language, and gut-wrenching emotion that it makes part seven of Harry Potter look like Dr. Seuss.  It is painstaking the journey required through some of these plots, and I liked having proof of my successes, a trophy case of characters drawn and lessons learned.  It is time to unlock the glass and start bragging once again.



At the top is a link to the books I have read.  The start of the page explains the goal I made for myself in January of 2011.  I wanted to escape from my job that was literally making me sick.  The final book on the list is Mockingjay, the final installment of the Hunger Games trilogy.  I finished that book on an airplane from Washington, DC to LAX.  My best friend got married in upstate New York, and I brought that book with to read on the plane, that and The Book Thief.  I started the book then, but decided to take a nap instead.  It was over a year before I picked it up again.  It seems fitting to commence the list of triumphs with the mammoth that held up the process in the first place.  Truthfully, I stopped blogging and reading so much because I got a new job at a different school.  I didn't hate that job nearly as much.  I didn't need to lose myself in Hogsmede.  I didn't stop reading, though.



Therefore, I am going to add to the list every book I can remember, and I promise to start writing reviews again.  I am a future librarian who strongly considers book suggestions the most crucial part of my job.



Please suggest books that changed your life.  But really.  Actually change occurred because you had no choice.  My fingers have been itching for months, and this book did it.  Tell me yours.



"I have hated the words and I have loved them, and I hope that I have made them right."

School Time is Here Again

I have to admit something: I really did not like my job last year.  ...in case you didn't figure that out yet.  I used my blog as a distraction during lunch periodically, hence why ZERO posts during the summer.  A lot has changed including a move up to Fresno and starting a new job, but to sum it all up, I'm A LOT happier.  Graham and I moved into our new place in Fresno about a month ago and it's been a great change!  We've gotten plugged into a church small group with our good friends Becca and Phil and are church shopping at the moment.  We've gotten to see several college friends, and with Graham driving 95% less we've gotten to spend a lot more time together, too. 

New job has been really great, too.  I know it's still very early but the differences between this job and the last have really changed my outlook on teaching.  It's still not what I want to do for the rest of my 35 working years, be in the classroom, but I am excited about this year!  I'm coaching freshman cheer and teaching freshman and sophomore English.  My classroom is ADORABLE!

My red and green apple theme borders on a little too girly for the fellas, but suck it up, guys!  My room is awesome.  Hopefully I will be able to update more often, but one last awesome thing about this year: no name confusion!  Every student calls me exactly what I'd prefer.  :)  It's nice.

School's out for summer!

I SURVIVED!!!!!!!!

They say that's the tell-tale sign that you'll be an okay teacher, that you survived your first year.  Due to my class assignment, I was definitely in survival mode for most of the year, and there was many an evening where I pouted lethargically instead of continuing to build my nest with my new hubby.  No more dwelling on that though; the year is done!  I have quite a lengthy recount of my job situation went down, so sit tight!

As mentioned in other entries, I got my pink slip in March because I had signed a temporary one-year contract in June of last year and was not guaranteed another year at Mission Oak in Tulare.  Because of this, I hopped on the job-search train and began Mission: Feed my Family by finding a job.  I applied to several places and interviewed at two.  I was offered a job at a middle school in Lemoore (a smaller town about 30 minutes west of Tulare and 30 minutes south of Fresno.  Living either place wouldn't really be convenient and we wouldn't want to live in Lemoore.)  I approached my current principal with this offer and he told me that he intends to have me back, but he can't say anything official until the district says he can.  I really didn't want to take the middle school job, so I told them "no" based on the 80% chance Mission Oak gave me.

I started to settle into the likelihood that I would be returning and began to plan for next year including taking over the yearbook.  I LOVED creating the yearbook my senior year of high school (I did about 75% of the book that year), and I knew early on that that would be a rewarding part of teaching.  It's  a class that students sign up for because they want to, which completely alters the mood of the class.  I didn't have to beg: Doug, the current teacher, was so giddy that I was interested that he practically gift-wrapped the sucker for me.  He couldn't wait to get out of the yearbook seat!  I was thrilled!  This was going to be great.  In the mean time, I kept applying for other jobs as the gig in Mission Oak was not official yet.  It took a while, but all the returning teachers received their contract, while I sat idly by, waiting for any time of surety.  Then Sanger High School called.

Sanger High is a nationally acclaimed school that I had first really heard about when a couple of friends from Fresno Pacific got hired there over the past few years.  It's a small town just south east of Fresno that attracts a lot of FPU grads to apply as it is just 15 miles from the campus.  Then, during my summer of professional development last year, our instructors mentioned Sanger High and its reputation for turning things around and making a successful campus.  They were named one of America's Best High Schools by U.S. News and World Report in 2008 AND 2009.  There has also been a lot of published studies on what that school is doing to achieve in the world of standardized testing and the exit exam.  It's the same demographic and socio-economic status as Mission Oak, so it's not the students; it must be the administration, both on campus and at the district office.  Needless to say, a job here is certainly appealing.  Graham works in Fresno now, too, so being able to move just down the road from his work AND being near all of our good college friends seemed like an awesome idea to me. 

I went back and forth about what to do, though, because we probably want to have our kids here in Tulare and my department here is so amazing AND they pay about $3k more a year.  Tulare still wasn't a done deal, so I needed to watch out for myself.  I blazed through the first interview with Sanger, thanks to my lucky interview shoes, and was called as a top-two applicant for a final interview with the principal.  That interview was so casual and comfortable, and I could already tell this man knew what he was talking about.  Plus, the two AP's were so supportive and welcoming.  As I walked to my car, one of the AP's called me back, saying they were going to briefly speak with the other applicant, and then the principal would like to talk to me once again.  I hung out in a waiting area near the office until they called me in an offered me the job.  I was ecstatic!  He even said that after this year, the yearbook teacher was ready to step down from that position, and he was eager to put me in that spot because of my interest and experience in the field.  I told them I needed one day to talk with my husband and figure everything out.  We left in good spirits about the next year.

The next day, after alerting my current principal of the situation, he asked for 24 hours to get an official word from the superintendent about the funding for my position.  I asked Sanger for one more day, but he said he needed to know by 5:00.  Oh, and this was at 3:30.  I prayed and called my mom, dad, mother in law, and Graham, and we all finally decided that Sanger is the better call.  I called the principal there and accepted the job. He said "You just made the best decision of your life!" and I thought "Thank you, Lord, for that big blinking sign I was praying for!"  He said he'd talked to my principal and was even more excited to have me on now that he knew that my principal and superintendent were fighting for me.  Tulare's principal came to my room not 15 minutes later and said they plan to keep me on.  No contract until the budget is approved on June 15th, though.  I'd already taken the job so I stuck with it, and that is that.

So to close this unnecessarily long story, I am now a Sanger High Apache and start my duties as Freshman Cheer Advisor on the 20th.  Yep, that's part of the gig, too, but the Varsity/JV advisor is really nice and is SO excited to have an extra pair of hands ( that can clap in rhythm) helping out with the girls.

Just planning ahead

I am years away from decorating the nursery, but I need to post this on here so I don't forget.  I'll probably do his/her names in there too but this is just too cute.