Author: kathleen

Yeah, NOT about diabetes but about the thing near and dear to my heart.

‘No Child’ Requirements Eased for Rural Teachers (washingtonpost.com)

I like the attitude this article shows. I believe strongly that the education system is broken and it needs to be fixed. I personally think that “No Child Left Behind” is a good start, and when the conversation about it starts in the teacher lounge, I walk out of the room. Much better for the blood pressure.

As long as the Powers that Be, can wake up and smell the coffee and fix things on the fly. They did with LEP (Limited English Profiency — I hate that acroynmyn), and eased up on testing standard on kids new to the country.

Yeah, I’ve dealt with those babies. I can’t help them much until they hit Sheltered Algebra or Sheltered Geometry — and I did a good job with the two batches I got dealt with. I only taught math my first 6 years of teaching, and may be back to that. And I’m doing a fairly decent job with the group I have in the unmentioned, not certified to teach class.

I am SICK to death of dealing with children who were not taught the basics before they got to my room. Personally I think we need truant officers to go to their house and investigate every single absence in 1st grade, and then 1st and 2nd grade, and then 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade.

My good students attend class each day. Very few students can keep up without attending — I have one this year who could in regular Computer Science, and I am regretting that she didn’t take PreAP last year EXCEPT she’s disappeared. I’d have loved to see her in my AP program, but she has since disappeared. (See they have to come to school every day).

After we get every kid coming to school every day, THEN we need to make sure they learn everything they are supposed to learn in their grade level. If they don’t, they should have to go to summer school, and if they still don’t, they should be held back. The threat enough was enough to fix my sister and her child.

But about this article. I should not ever ever teach a class I’m not prepared to teach. (Nor should ANY teacher) I did it last year and I’m doing it this year. I don’t like it, I’m not happy with it, and it shouldn’t be happening. It’s not good for the kids. It’s one thing to teach webmastering — I AM trained in it, and I HAVE been figuring out how to get those kids to try it. Spending last summer in an online course on teaching it really helped. The key is remember that their heads implode if you try to get them to do two different things in a single class period.

Hopefully I got it through this year’s Dean head, that life would be better if I taught Geometry. I’m certifyed in math, that’s my best math education test score, and you can bet your boots, I’ll be signed up and in every staff development on geometry this summer if I am teaching it. I did that when I got stuck with 3 units of webmastering!

However, if you want me to teach the other class, that I am NOT certified in — you as my principal need to pay for me to get certified in it. I’m already certified in 3 teaching fields (math, computer science and technology apps). If you really need me to teach in a 4th teaching field, you have to pay me to do it. And make it worth my while.

Besides, I should have had two classes of regular CS I, 3 of webmasteirng and one combined PreAP/AP. I’m hoping next year to have 2 regular CS I, 1 PreAP, and 1 AP, and the rest webmastering. Again, if I don’t make that count, have me teach geometry.

Okay, off my soap box and back on diabetes.

I like him. He did have me change my nighttime basals. Oh, and suggested I lose weight — my response — I’m good at losing weight, not the keeping off part, and that I’d lost 10 1/2 pound in 3 weeks since I put together my home gym.

I really like his RN CDE, and I have a feeling you see more of them anyway. She likes math teachers — and computer science teachers are just super math teachers — I said this, she didn’t, but agreed:

CS teachers, and math teachers are very anal and controlling, so we do well as diabetics. Plus we understand numbers.

She wrote my script for test strips the way I wanted and also got the doctor to do a C-Peptid test since one hadn’t been one before. That will be interesting.

Cardiologist in the morning.

My blood sugar is back where it belongs!

WHEW! That was no fun. And much easier to fix than shots were.

Yep, I’m still working out, using iShape. I’ve lost 10 1/2 pounds since have started. I’ve got my insulin use down to under 65 units when I am not fighting highs

I feel better. I actually went shopping to several places yesterday. in a row. Actually getting my blood sugar down to a reasonable amount did more good than anything.

I really recommend iShape. They give you strength exercises, cardio suggestions, and they let you log everything. I’m careful not to go in a calorie deficient more than 500 calories average. That means I am really eating a lot, but I am keeping track of it.

Anyway, can you tell I’m thrilled!

Yahoo! News – Surprising Warning Signs Could Signal Diabetes

I’m not sure what happened, but watching TRENDS, all day, not just the individual numbers would have alerted me to what was going on.

Here’s what happened, after several days of feeling bad, I realized that I had gotten the 3rd reading in a row of over 130 fasting in the morning. I called my pump trainer freaked out.

Unfortunately I didn’t realize it wasn’t the 3rd reading in a row, it was more like a two week trend! I normally have fasting blood sugars in the 100-110 range, so having 7 days at over 130 is an issue.

Then I started looking harder, and the trend was worse than I thought. No one I was feeling bad, my blood sugars were running 130-190 all day. To feel good, I need to have a range of 100-140. Occasional forays into 160-170 from miscalculations aren’t bad, but much more than that, and I start feeling like doggy doodoo.

Well, I finally got it down to a normal reading last night — actually went a bit too far, and had to get up and treat a 77 reading. I grabbed some gummy bears and a diet coke and that did the trick, as I was 99 at 8:00 am.

The good news, is I am seeing an endo on Monday.

Pump trainer is guessing some type of illness, but I really don’t feel much worse than usual. Some muscle soreness from weight lifting, some stuffiness from pollen, and some heel pain from the heel spurs — oh and some carple tunnel pain.

But I seem to be more sensitive to pain when the blood sugar is too high. Heck my whole life sucks then.

I keep seeing the news items on the FDA today, working on obesity, and I keep wondering how much energy is being taken away from approving new products.

Hopefully they are completely different departments and issues, but I can’t help but wonder, if it pushing back the approval of the continue glucose monitor.

We need this now. It’s the next step to a closed loop system, but darn it, maybe it would have solved last week. Don’t worry, I’ll do a seperate post.