Harrison

One of my students committed suicide last night. And though i wasn't particularly close to him, it's still a disturbing situation.

• He was an alcoholic. He was drunk when he killed himself.
• He tried to guilt the friends he was with into staying with him last night. He told them that if they left he would kill himself. So now those friends are dealing with the guilt he put on them.
• He hung himself. His dad was the one that found him.
• He has an eight month old daughter with another one of my students.
• He had one class to finish before earning his high school diploma.

During second period this morning, the principal called the staff down to her office one by one and told us that he had killed himself last night. We were going to meet as a school to tell the students, but they received texts about it before we could have the meeting. So these students, who obviously thought that it wasn't true, were talking about it and turned to me and said "It's not true is it?" And i had to be the one to tell them that, yes, it was true.

I really don't know what else to say about this other than i've been thinking about him, his daughter, his parents, and the rest of the students all day. I've been praying about it because i don't know what else to do. I ask that if you are one of the few people who still read this, that you pray for everyone that is involved.

October goal update

1. Finish writing thank you notes. Check!
2. Put away the rest of the wedding gifts. Returned two things we didn't need today. So we're working on it.
3. Get my clothes for colder weather out and put my clothes for warm weather away. Check!
4. Work out at least twice a week (I've gotta start somewhere right?) I only worked out once last week, but i started the week of right by working out today.
5. Drink at least eight glasses of water a day. I haven't made it to eight glasses everyday, but i'm definitely drinking a lot more water than i usually do.

Other than that, i'm busy with school. I had two days of parent/teacher conferences, an observation of one of my classes by the principal, a visit from a state senator, and an early morning where the student government cooked breakfast last week. Whew! This week should be a bit more calm, though still busy. I'm having the first meeting of the art club that i'm starting and the student government is going to cook breakfast again since they want to do it once a week. But the week after that is fall break, which means two days of relaxing for me! Yay!

Are we done yet???

I'm SO ready to be done with school for the semester. The students AND the staff are annoying me. I'm editing research papers (which i'll be grading next week), putting in grades from this semester, scheduling students for next semester, planning for next semester, and trying to keep student government and yearbook going. Thank goodness there's only one more week!

And i think i officially have a scrapbook obsession, but i'm totally okay with that because it's just so dang fun!

Phonebooks, crockpots, and money for books

Finally! The phonebook companies have decided to let you opt out of recieving phonebooks by going to this site. I'm especially excited since i got a whopping four phonebooks last month that supposedly all contained different information that i know i won't ever use (unless somehow my internet and my cellphone stop working...)

Other than that exciting revelation, i feel like i've been getting a ton done lately. I made a cute fall sign for my door since it was time to take down my Halloween one and, as much as i love Christmas, i can't justify putting my wreath up yet. I also cooked two meals in my crockpot. Last week i made chili, which was perfect with the weather getting colder. Then i made a pot roast this weekend to use up some of the potatoes that i've had sitting around. I also finished knitting two scarves and started a blanket. I cleaned my apartment and finally broke down and bought a new tv since my other one was showing a rainbow screen for about five minutes every time i turned it on. My new tv is a flatscreen and a widescreen so it seems huge. Plus, i never spend money on electronics so i totally felt like a boy while i was buying it. But it is really cute!!!

At school, i convinced my boss to let us have one Wednesday afternoon a month to lesson plan and grade papers instead of having a pointless meeting. It's not ideal, but i can only be opinionated for so long without getting too confrontational for my tastes. Let me tell you, having that hour this afternoon was totally worth it. I managed to finish almost all of my lesson plans for the rest of the semester. Yay! I also found out almost all of the grant money that the Carmel Rotary Club was working on getting for me, which means i have a whopping $5,200 to spend on books. Yay, yay, yay!!! The copy machiene is going to be lonely without me using it to copy books all the time... And after the success of the Halloween party, the student government has moved on to raising money for Thanksgiving dinners at Wheeler Misison. I'm hoping that we'll be able to provide at least a hundred dinner. We'll see how it goes.

The finished book list!

So, i stayed up WAY late working on my book list for the $8,000 grant that the Rotary Club is working on for me. Do you have any idea how many books you can get with that much money!?! I kept adding books and totalling them up and still having thousands of dollars left, so it definitely took longer than i was planning on. I finally finished around 1 in the morning and emailed myself the final list so i could print it out at school. Then this morning i got to school and realized...i sent myself the wrong list! Luckily, my mom wasn't busy this morning so i called her and she went to my apartment and got my laptop. (I would of had her just email the list to me, but she's not quite that computer literate yet, even though she's much better than she used to be.)

I had a rough week last week, simply because i was stressed and tired most of the time, but this week is looking to be much better. I spent a bunch of time over the weekend cleaning my apartment and rearranging some of the furniture so now my apartment is (most of the way) clean and looks much more spacious. It's amazing how much room i have now that i got rid of my papasan chair that i bought from craigslist sometime last year.

Other things random things you might want to know:

• I'm in charge of the yearbook at school since no one else would do it
• I'm also in charge of student government, but i actually get a stipend for that so it should be worth it. Besides, it's sure to be interesting since i've never been involved wtih student government at all.
• I'm going to finish One Red Paperclip tonight. It's a quick read and pretty entertaining. It's cool to think that this guy went from a red paperclip to a house simply by trading things with people.
• I've been getting compliments on my teaching ability from Babby (the principal) and Debi (the social worker) which is awesome since it's not like the kids are gonna tell me that i'm doing a good job, though one of my favorites did say today that he looks forward to coming to my classes. Yay!

"The attitude we take in our approach to life literally defines our days. For even though we may go through seasons of difficulties, those with a positive attitude will always end up stronger and more resilient. Could the reason the red paperclip story has captivated so many people be that we resonate with daring greatly? We may have grown weary but we still want to live significant lives. It's here that our celebrated Western individualism has tripped us up. Thinking we have to go it alone and just be strong, we have forgotten one vital component.
MacDonald could never have got that house without people who were willing to be part of his journey and cheer him on.
Like MacDonald, each of us needs people who can be a source of strenght and encouragement. Similarly, we have the privilege of being that for others.
Life's too short to be mean-spirited. Thos who encourage others often find that they themselves are bolstered.
A few kind words or a simple act of generosity can be all someone needs to spur them onwards.
We can live passionately and greatly. We need courage to dream big, determination to stay positive and people who will encourage us.
And every so often, we just need to remember how a bloke from Canada turned a red paperclip into a house." -Ruth Limkin, Brisbane, Australia

Working out worked!

For some reason, i was really stressed out over the three day weekend. I know. It's the weekend. I'm not supposed to be stressed. But i was doing a lot of things that, although they were fun, also meant i didn't have a lot of time to relax. To add to that, every time i went to sleep i was having really vivid dreams about school where i would be totally stressed out, even in my dreams!!!

School today was a little better because at least i was getting back into the grind, but by the end of the day i was exhausted and frustrated with some of my students. As cliche as it sounds, it all got better after i worked out! I wasn't even sure that i wanted to go to they gym today. I figured maybe it would be a better use of my time to sleep, but i didn't want to stand my trainer up, especially because i did that last week... Whoops! But i went and felt so energized that i actually spent 25 minutes on the elliptical after i worked out with my trainer.

I know that it doesn't really sound like a big thing, but it totally was for me because i've been so stressed and tense and i was finally able to relax tonight. Yay!

I was getting tired of livejournal, so i thought i'd give blogspot a try since i like all of the blogs i read that are from this site. I'm sure it'll take me a while to get used to the site, especially because i'm not so good with computerish stuff, but we'll see.

This week at school was good and bad. I'll start with the bad. One of mytwo favorite students got arrested for fighting, which means he's going to be out for a while. I'm pretty bummed about it, especially because he's gone downhill since last year but maybe this will be good for him. Hopefully...

But, on a good note, i found out this week that i'm getting a TON of money for books. Over the summer the school did a fundraiser with the Carmel Rotary Club to get some money for me to buy books with. That fundraiser made $600, which i was totally excited about. Then, the principal got a call from the Rotary Club this week explaining that they just didn't think that $600 was enough money so they've applied for a (get ready for this) $8,000 loan for us to spend on books!!! Keep in mind that when i started at the school, i didn't get any money for books and actually had to copy several of the books that i wanted to use. The whole book. About thirty copies of the whole book. That makes the possiblity of this grant a HUGE deal.

I'm in the process of putting together a list of books i want to get if we end up getting the grant, but it's hard for me to let myself even begin to think about enough books to spend all of that money on since i was excited about $600. I would love suggestions since i can't possibly know all of the books that exist in the world, though believe me i certainly try to;)