Category: Current Status

After last week’s major reorganization of my day, everything IS getting better.

I didn’t do any school work last night and I didn’t do any uncontrolled stress eating. My insulin usage was actually under 40 units, which is the best it’s been since the initial announcement.

I still manage to go a few moments each day without something major i need. Yesterday it was the cell phone/blood sugar monitor bag. For an entire class period. Left it up in the other room. Also my coat. I’ve got to figure out how to handle that, because retrieving that hurt my knee.

I also forgot to bolus for lunch but did do the symlin. Blood sugar was 225 in the mid afternoon, which is not good when the room is 100+ degrees.

I thought it was either the heat or too much insulin the day before, but it was a simple missed bolus. Downloading everything each day is a wonderful thing!

My blood sugar has run a bit high all day ,and the corrections haven’t worked — in the 140 to 200 range. It’s one of two things, the heat in my classroom, I swear it was at 110 this afternoon OR it’s the after affect of pushing so much insulin in my body because of the agility trial.

The knee I feel on is a bit sore, not bad. I had loads of fun telling people about falling and still taking second. It was a good lesson, and a great opportunity to brag on Marcie. She’s got a big fan club at school since she come in every semester and teachs AP Psychology.

I actually decided not to do any school work tonight. I’ve got all Wednesday to grade — all math students (and my CS students) have to do a writing prompt that I don’t have to grade.

I’m in the middle of installing software at school. I have Microsoft.Net on 5 computers so far, and have 11 to go by Thursday.

So things are going much better. However, I never have what I need when I need him.

I haven’t posted this week partly because of time and partly because I don’t want to say that wrong thing.

BUT

I have learned some good lessons this year.

I am an effective teacher and it doesn’t matter what other people think. What matters is my results.

I had a very high passing rate last semester and my students like me.

I am effective in both the traditional and in the techology classroom.

I’ve lost a group of students and I’ve gained a group of students. Saldy the ones I’ve lost are very upset. The good news is that for the most part, the new students are happy.

The change has been hard and I spent the week stress eating. That has to end! Now!

Even though I’m stress eating and my insulin usage is hitting the roof — my morning blood sugars are still good — even on the weekend, so I”m doing something right.  I think I’ve got pretty much the right carb ratios and basal rates.

I think I’ve even figured out how to deal with physical therapy — good thing, since I’ve got another 3 weeks.  Basically I turn the pump down to 50% two hours before — the Palm alerts me.  Then when I eat dinner, I go to a 1:10 carb ratio instead of a 1:7. (Halved due to Symlin.)

Now if I only find my classroom keys this morning.

Even though I’m stress eating and my insulin usage is hitting the roof — my morning blood sugars are still good — even on the weekend, so I”m doing something right.  I think I’ve got pretty much the right carb ratios and basal rates.

I think I’ve even figured out how to deal with physical therapy — good thing, since I’ve got another 3 weeks.  Basically I turn the pump down to 50% two hours before — the Palm alerts me.  Then when I eat dinner, I go to a 1:10 carb ratio instead of a 1:7. (Halved due to Symlin.)

Now if I only find my classroom keys this morning.

My knee grumbled at me all day, but it wasn’t bad.  Better than it’s
been this weekend.  My PT did an evaluation and decided I need another
9 days.  I’m not arguing at all with that, especially knowing that I’m
competeing this weekend.

We did decide I still need anti-inflammatories and I’m back on it.

Frankly, I’m still scared and freaked out about the new schedule.  The good news is that I have a programming assignment for all my classes (except the one kid that is a APCS II kid, but I didn’t find his book until later in the day) and I know what I’m going to talk about each period.  We won’t get things settled for a few days but we are working on it.  Oh, and I lost my classroom keys, but I think I know where to look for them.

I’ve got a handle on books and materials, so I’m quite a bit farther than I was.  I also have an idea as to where my students are at.

I start out in one classroom, and end up in the same one at the end of the day.  The biggest problem, is that I can’t find anywhere to look things up in the other room.  The good news is that my stuff is still in my closets.  I just can’t get to them, as they are in another room.  Long story, but basically I used to have one very large room with a divider.  My students and I always filled it — but then they’ve practically killed the program.  We’re full up 2nd period, and then the rest of the classes are good sized.

The most fun was my AP kids.  About half of them took PreAP last year, so we know each other.  I’m not sure about the others as to whether they took PreAP or not, but I’m stuck.  One of my old students came in first, I high fived him, and he said — “I’m so glad you’re our teacher again”.  Two moments later he said, “But this means we have to do work now!”.

My knee grumbled at me all day, but it wasn’t bad.  Better than it’s
been this weekend.  My PT did an evaluation and decided I need another
9 days.  I’m not arguing at all with that, especially knowing that I’m
competeing this weekend.

We did decide I still need anti-inflammatories and I’m back on it.

Frankly, I’m still scared and freaked out about the new schedule.  The good news is that I have a programming assignment for all my classes (except the one kid that is a APCS II kid, but I didn’t find his book until later in the day) and I know what I’m going to talk about each period.  We won’t get things settled for a few days but we are working on it.  Oh, and I lost my classroom keys, but I think I know where to look for them.

I’ve got a handle on books and materials, so I’m quite a bit farther than I was.  I also have an idea as to where my students are at.

I start out in one classroom, and end up in the same one at the end of the day.  The biggest problem, is that I can’t find anywhere to look things up in the other room.  The good news is that my stuff is still in my closets.  I just can’t get to them, as they are in another room.  Long story, but basically I used to have one very large room with a divider.  My students and I always filled it — but then they’ve practically killed the program.  We’re full up 2nd period, and then the rest of the classes are good sized.

The most fun was my AP kids.  About half of them took PreAP last year, so we know each other.  I’m not sure about the others as to whether they took PreAP or not, but I’m stuck.  One of my old students came in first, I high fived him, and he said — “I’m so glad you’re our teacher again”.  Two moments later he said, “But this means we have to do work now!”.

The worst part about the schedule change is that I am getting a bunch of new students.  I never do well the night before getting new students.  In fact, I hate teaching students I don’t know.  That’s why I don’t like to do tutorial sessions when I have to teach new material.

I have a friend I teach with who I discovered is just as bad as I am.  We never sleep well the night before a set new of students, etc.  The sad part, is that she gets to meet all of hers in advance, I never do.  The good news, is that because of what I taught, I usually had (and do today) some students that I knew.  That helps.

I’m sure I’ll survive today, but it’s not going to be easy.  Tomorrow is going to be interesting too since we have prime time, and my first period class returns to me after 2nd period (I’d like to kick the person who came up with that concept.).

I’m not that worried about the new courses I start teaching tomorrow. For those who are new to the blog — I taught computer science for 14 years.

Nice retrospective — I started out teaching computer math, with BASIC on Commodore 64’s and AP Computer Science, which was Pascal. In the years, I’ve gone to teaching on real IBM PCs in a networked lab, teaching QBasic and Pascal, and then to Visual Basic and C++. Even last year, I’d been doing Java for a couple of years, and sitll was doing Visual Basic.

Yesterday was really good. We had a computer lab set up for the math students work do tutorials on. Four of our math teachers showed up included the math department chair. We worked in one lab for a while, then fed the kids, then moved them to a different lab. The different lab was my new lab, and I found the gradebooks. Now I know my student’s names and have some grades for them.

Since we had so many people, it freed me up to spend a couple of hours, even paid, to get situated.

I may even be able to move my Algebra I class into the building, we’ll have to see.

Right now, I’m working on getting my class website back up and working on lessons for the week.

I arrived at a meeting early today and got my new teaching schedule for Monday. I’m teaching computer science again, and I’m leaving my ELI kids.

I’m now teaching Algebra I repeaters, Computer Science (Visual Basic) I, PreAP Computer Science (Java), AP Computer Science A (Java) and AP Computer Science AB (Java).

I haven’t written any code almost a year, haven’t thought about CS in about that long, and sure haven’t thought about getting the kids to pass. I have no idea if there is any money.

I also have no idea what I am doing with those students.

Life is fun.

I have a feeling my TDD is going up, as I think I’m going to need cards to get this to work.

I’m going to try to keep in my the following:

• I can’t do anything if my diabetes isn’t under control.
  
• My diabetes isn’t under control if I am not exercising.
  
• If I try not to eat, it just makes it worse.