Pool

I was told that the pool in my apartment complex would be open on May 17. Apparently it opened that day but it was disgusting and needed to be remodeled. There are three other pools in my complex but I don't feel like walking that far. I found out yesterday that my pool was open. I went there but couldn't get my key in! I went back today and tried harder to get my key in and it worked. It was weird because no one was in he pool area except one guy asking me my last name and key number. I didn't end up going in because there was a lot of junk in the water.The guy thinks the filter isn't working. When will I have a working pool?

Kan Jam

At the pig picking yesterday, we played a fun game called Kan Jam. I've played it before. There are two basically garbage cans with slots in them and an opening at the top. You put them maybe 30 feet away from each other. You have to throw a frisbee into the slot to win the game. If you can't do that, you play to 21 points. You can get 2 points by hitting the can, 3 points by getting it in the can from the top, and 1 point if your partner helps you put the frisbee through the top. It's a ton of fun and a lot harder than it looks. It was a good way to meet new people yesterday at an event where I didn't know many people.

Pig Picking

I just got back from my first pig picking event. That's where an actual pig is slow roasted for many hours and then the pork is picked out of the pig. It's basically the freshest form of pulled pork. It was absolutely delicious. I was in Raleigh for the past few days. I was talking to some of the people and I kept hearing suggestions on where to go for the best BBQ. I should have written down the names of these restaurants so I could go back because I am still in search of the freshest most "real" southern BBQ yet. I've had some good stuff since I've been down here, but I think I am missing out on even better BBQ.

Military Town

I live a few minutes away from Fort Bragg. That means there are a lot of military people in the town. I get asked at stores all of the time if I am military because of my short hair. My response should be, "Do you see me? Yes you do because I'm not wearing camouflage, therefore no, I am not military." Military people get discounts at various stores. Trust me, if I were military, I would tell you so that I could get my discount. It's weird living so close to a base because I randomly hear bombs going off. My apartment shakes all of the time from the action on the base. It's creepy and a little comforting knowing military is so close. The first time I heard the bombs go off I jumped out of my skin. Now I'm used to it and hardly notice it even though they went off all day today.

Buffalo Wild Wings

Before I moved, I had been to Buffalo Wild Wings maybe once or twice. Since moving, I've been there at least a half a dozen times. My one friend loves to go there and he orders the same thing each time. Boring! I'm someone who needs to order something different because I like trying different things. I get bored of the same restaurant too. However, I'm never one to turn down food. I find it interesting that I don't like routine with that because I love routine in most other parts of my life. When I go to the gym to work out, I have 3 different work out routines I use each week. I have to do those exercises each day. If my machine is taken, which it almost always is, I get upset because my routine is thrown off. I need to start breaking the routine of going out to eat all of the time! Maybe one day I'll convince my friend to go somewhere else besides Buffalo Wild Wings, but I highly doubt it.

4th Grade Math

I was wrong when I said I'd be teaching 4th grade ELA. I found out today that I'll be teaching 4th grade math next school year. I think it will be easier to teach than ELA. It is much less subjective. It's either right or it's wrong. It'd be hard to teach reading comprehension in ELA. Math is easier even with many ways to arrive at the answer. There are 4 fourth grade teachers. Two will teach ELA and 2 will teach math. I will have 2 90 minute classes of math to teach. The rest of the day, I will keep my homeroom and teach them writing, science, and social studies. I visited my new principal today and he gave me a ton of resources for math. I have the exact curriculum I need to teach and I have a sample EOG test. EOG means end of grade. It's North Carolina's state test that they will evaluate the students and I on. I am very excited to start my new position!

g2g.fm

Towards the end of the school year, we were showing the kids movies from a website called g2g.fm. It has a ton of movies that are still in theaters. Sometimes it shows the Japanese subtitles during the movies, but the kids get over it. I'm sure it's illegal. I'm taking advantage of this website now. Yesterday I watched A Million Ways to Die in the West and today I watched Neighbors. It doesn't have every current movie and it doesn't have many of the much older kids movies we tried to show the students. I like it because it's a much cheaper alternative to going to the movies or red box. I'm sure I'll find many movies to watch this summer since I have nothing better to do.

Amazon Credit Card

I have had an Amazon credit card for 4 or 5 years now. I switched over from my other credit card company for one simple reason, my former company wanted to charge me an annual fee to have my card. No thank you! The Amazon card is great because you get points for each purchase. You get double points for purchases at gas stations and restaurants and triple points for amazon.com purchases. 2,500 points gets you a $25 gift card of your choice. They have a wide variety of gift cards to choose from. I got an Applebee's gift card with my points about a month before I moved. Shortly after, I saw that I could have saved my points to get a $200 Carnival Cruise gift card! I need 20,000 points for that. I currently have just over 11,000 points. If I hadn't redeemed my points for the Applebee's gift card, I would have had over 13,500 points. Either way, with the amount of money I spend on my credit card each month, I should have that Carnival gift card by the end of the year. I could use my credit card for rent, that would help significantly. However, there's a $17 charge to use my card for that. Are you kidding me? I'll pay rent from my checking account for free, thanks. My two pieces of advice to you are to find a credit card for a store you like, and don't spend more money than you have. Pay your monthly credit card bill back in full to avoid ridiculous interest charges.

What a Year...

At the start of the school year, if you had told me I would have finished the school year in North Carolina, I would have told you that you were nuts. If you had told me that I'd have the most challenging, dramatic, frustrating year of my life, I would have laughed in your face. This year was all of that and much, much more. My school year started off back near Albany, New York as a computer aide. I was going into my third year as an aide, still looking for a teaching job. Everything was going normal until Friday, December 6. I was doing my usual Facebook stalking when I stumbled across a status from a friend that was an RA with me at SUNY Potsdam. It said that his school in North Carolina was in need of a teacher. I almost ignored the status and didn't take action. Where would I be today if I had ignored it? Instead, two days later, I emailed the principal my resume. The very next day, he called me and asked me to fly down for an interview. On Wednesday, December 11, I flew down, had my "interview" where he asked me very few education related questions, and I was hired on the spot. On January 20, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I moved to North Carolina and started my job as a first grade teacher the very next day. Saying that what ensued over the next 5 months was challenging is the biggest understatement in the world. I have never been pushed harder in my life. I've told people that the most challenging year in my life was my junior year of college because of everything that went on during school and in my personal life. This year has topped that or is a very close second. There were days I would drive home and tears would come down my face. Then I would start laughing at the fact that I was crying. I was an emotional mess. I would call my mom at least once a week and she would tell my dad, "Shane's having a melt down again." The rural area I taught at was depressing. The kids came from nothing and had very little parent involvement. That's one of the reasons it was so hard to get these kids to behave. Many of them didn't have the strong parent support from home. The principal I worked for was very hard to get along with. He was very inconsistent, lacked communication skills, and could be aggressive when yelling at you at times. It was not a pleasant working environment for me. Believe it or not, I never once thought that I had made a mistake by moving down here. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. What are those reasons? We will never know. There were 7 or 8 other teachers at my school right around my age. I started hanging out with them regularly outside of school at the end of March. They are the only reason I was able to survive this mess. We were in it together. As you know from my other blogs, outside of school this semester, I have had the time of my life! I went to a Billy Joel Concert, two hockey games, a UNC game, the NCAA tournament, and three rounds of the U. S. Open. I would not have been able to go to any of those events if I didn't act on my friends Facebook status. I would not have become a much stronger person and teacher if it weren't for this school. One of the things on our checklist before we left was an exit interview with the principal. I was told he would ask us to give him something positive about him and the school and something negative. I had no idea what I was going to say. As I went to that school for the last time ever today, I picked up my check, he signed my sheet and told the group that was standing in the office, "Have a good summer, y'all." He didn't wish the many people that are leaving the school for the same reasons I am good luck or shake our hands or anything like that. We never had an actual exit interview with him. I think it was a fitting end to the way he has treated many of us all year long. Although this has been one of the hardest years of my life, I have made many new incredible lifelong friends throughout this journey. I have grown as a teacher and a person. I do not regret my decision to come teach in North Carolina one bit. I am so happy to be finished with that school and I cannot wait to start up fresh and ready to go at my new school in August. What will my first full year of teaching bring? We will find out in a few months.

Summer Plans

Tomorrow is officially my last day of my first half year of teaching. It has flown by. I feel like I just moved in even though I've been here 5 months already. As of now, I still have no job lined up for the summer. I get a supplement check and a tutoring check tomorrow that's supposed to hold me over until the end of August...right. I'll be going home to New York somewhere around July 20 or so for about a week. After that, I'm going on a trip to Fort Lauderdale for 2 days and a quick 2 day cruise to the Bahamas. I can't wait for that. When I get home from that, it will already be time for me to start training for my new teaching job. I'm looking forward to relaxing once tomorrow is over. I know I'll be bored after a short amount of time though. I need this break, I have definitely deserved it!

World Cup Soccer

As many of you know, I'm a huge sports fan. However, I'm not a soccer fan at all. I watch it once every 4 years. When I watch the World Cup, I only watch U. S. A. play. On Monday, they played Ghana at 6. I took a nap until 6:03 and missed their first goal! They ended up beating Ghana 2-1. They have 2 more games in the group round. They are in a group with 4 teams. If they are in the top 2 after three games, they will move on to the next round where it becomes single elimination. Their next game is Sunday at 6 against Portugal. If they win that game, they will move on to the next round. Go USA!

Running in the Rain

A lot of people run outside in the rain to get to their car or wherever faster so they don't get as wet. That doesn't work! I tried that today while it was pouring rain. You only get more wet because you are splashing in puddles and since you are going faster it just means more water is hitting you. My advice is that you shouldn't go outside when it's pouring rain if at all possible.

Whiny Voice

The whiny voice is hard to explain online. But a lot of my kids would whine all of the time. They would stretch out the last syllable of a word to stress their anger. It's quite annoying. Now my friend and I can't stop using the whiny voice because we find it hilarious. Everyone else looks at us funny but I'm already used to that so it's no big deal.

Best Spot

They told us workers that we would have the same spot each time we worked to make it easier. Nope. Today, my friend and I get to Pinehurst for our shift for round 4 and they said we are going to the clubhouse. We looked at each other and had faces like we were kids on Christmas morning. The clubhouse is where the players go and very few spectators are allowed there. They put me just behind the 18th green where I had a perfect view of the green, the practice green, and the tee box at hole 1. My job was to make sure no one without proper credentials got past me. I had a rope to block people. I worked longer than 5-1 today. I worked until 3:30 and was able to see every single group tee off at 1. I saw several come in at 18 as well. When we finished our shift, we went to the grandstand seats at 18 and watched 14 groups come in, including the champion, Martin Kaymer. The experience we had was absolutely amazing and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to work at and watch the U. S. Open!

Trophy Club

There are different types of tickets for the U. S. Open. Most people have gallery passes. Those tickets were $135 for today. The Trophy Club tickets were $220. That gets you access to one large tent that has tables, TV's, air conditioner, and food. There are also executive tents where the rich cooperate type people go and eat and drink for free. At the trophy club tent, you have to pay for food. While I was doing security this morning, a guy gave me two Trophy Club tickets because he didn't want them. I got insanely excited because I knew they were "better" tickets. It turns out that I needed those to get in since the lady who was supposed to give us gallery tickets after our shift wouldn't give them to us...long story. My friend and I went to this tent and it was nothing special. It was packed and lines for food were nuts. It is definitely not worth $85 extra just to get access to a tent with AC. One more day at the U. S. Open tomorrow! Will Martin Kaymer hang on to his 5 stroke lead? Probably.

Round 2

There's nothing like getting up at 3AM and being on the golf course from 4:30AM-6:30PM. I got to check caddie's credentials and then watch some incredible golf. I got to see Phil Mickelson in person and several other golfers. I lost 15 pounds of sweat. I got to watch golf for free. I checked my ticket and it was $120. So the fact that I got in for free was amazing. Other workers were shocked when I told them I volunteered to work. Most of them were getting paid and going home after. The reason I volunteered was to watch free golf tomorrow. I'm exhausted, up in 6 hours to do it all over again!

Is it Sad?

Is it sad that I didn't feel sad at all when my kids left today? There was literally only one student that I will genuinely miss. I will miss a few other well-behaved ones, but not many. I'm not sure if it's because I only had the students for half a year or if it's because their behavior was so bad, or if it's because I had a pretty bad experience at my school. Either way, as you know, I'm extremely excited for a new beginning next school year. Next Friday when I am officially done at my current school, I will write a much longer reflection of my school year.

Dishwasher

What's the point of a dishwasher? It's to wash dirty dishes so that we don't have to wash the dishes ourselves. I have known many people to rinse off their plates before they put it in the dishwasher. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the dishwasher? Its job is to wash dishes! I'm not going to waste my time rinsing off whatever before I put it in a machine that does that for me. Sometimes the food gets hard and congeals on the plate. I understand that. However, I'll deal with that if it sticks after I run the dishwasher. People who rinse before putting plates in the dishwasher are weird, haha!

Movies

This week and last week at school has been pretty much nothing but movies. Even the kids are getting restless. Part of me feels like school should end once testing is done. However, in North Carolina, kids in grades 3-5 have end of grade tests. Kids in my grade don't have any tests. So when is an appropriate time to end the school year? I'm not sure if my kids know I won't be there next year or not. I had one student ask me today if I was excited about getting the kindergarten class. I told her yes. I had another ask if I was teaching next year. I said yes because obviously I will be. She wasn't specific so I didn't provide more details. I'm not sure if I'm going to officially tell my kids that I won't be there next year or not. I'm sure most of them won't miss me anyway.

Practice Round

The U. S. Open golf championships for both men and women are at Pinehurst #2 in Pinehurst, North Carolina this week and next. That's only about 45 minutes from me. About a month ago, my principal emailed us with a volunteering opportunity for this event. My friend and I were looking at going over the weekend, but it was $150 a ticket. We looked into this volunteering and we have to volunteer for 3 days and then we can watch golf the rest of the day for free. Naturally we did not turn it down. We decided to work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Unfortunately we have to work 5AM-1PM each day, but the big name golfers and leaders will tee off well after 1. This group also offered us free tickets for any other day we wanted to go. My friend and I decided to play hooky today and go watch golf. There were some very big name golfers there. However, some of the biggest names like Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, and Sergio Garcia did not play today. I got autographs from Jason Day, Brandt Snedeker, and Aaron Baddeley. That was the highlight of my day. We watched about 8 hours of golf on this hot day. I also spent way too much money on souvenirs. Oh well, It was a ton of fun and I can't wait until Friday!

No Triple Crown

The horse racing world hasn't had a triple crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. We had a chance yesterday, but once again, it did not happen. The triple crown is when a 3 year old colt wins the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May, which is a 1 1/4 mile race, the Preakness two weeks later at 1 3/16 miles, and then the Belmont three weeks later at 1 1/2 miles. This year, California Chrome won the first two races, but got 4th yesterday. He didn't have his usual late kick to end the race. Early in the race, another horse accidentally kicked his leg, causing him to bleed. That is believed to be one of the reasons California Chrome lost yesterday. People are saying it's too hard to win the triple crown now and that there have to be changes. I say don't change anything. It's meant to be hard. There have been winners of the triple crown. Horses aren't winning now because they just aren't as good as the horses 40 years ago. I really hope to see a triple crown winner in the near future.

Hills

The start of my 5K today was a huge hill! I was tired as soon as we started. That's where training on the treadmill has hurt me. Then it went downhill. Then we had to turn around and run up a smaller hill. That was at about the 2 mile mark. I was crawling by then. I kept my feet moving as if I was running but I was probably going as fast as a slow walk. Then the race finished with a nice downhill stretch. That was the downhill road that was the hill we started on. I finished strong and got a time of 25:10. I finished 16th out of about 175. I got 2nd in my age group, which was 19-29. It's typically 25-29, so that was good. One of the top 3 overall male finishers was in my age group, so technically I got 3rd in my age group, but I'll take it. It was also a hot morning. I was drenched by the time the race was over. I'm probably going to sign up for a July 4th 4 mile run. That will be the longest race I have ever run. I better start training for that!

Training for a 5K

I will be doing my 3rd 5K run tomorrow since I've moved to North Carolina. I have no idea how I should be training for these events. I know for a fact that the way I "train" for them is not conventional. Before last race, I ate at a Japanese restaurant and got home at like 11 that night unbelievably full. Somehow I still ran the race with my best time. Tonight, I'm either having pizza or burgers at like 10 o'clock for dinner. That's not exactly the best meal right before a race. I know that you should have pasta two nights before you run. I had pasta last night. In terms of training with running, I only run on the treadmill to train. I only run between 3-5 miles each week, which isn't much. I am far from your typically runner. Somehow I managed to get 1st in my age group in the last two races. We will see how tomorrow goes.

Mailing Members

Well I either just got scammed or I have the opportunity to make some decent money. I grabbed one of those free magazines that my county puts out. I was looking at the classifieds and found a small ad for something called Mailing Members. I checked their website and they advertise that I can make up to $1,000 a week by mailing brochures. I read the entire website and supposedly they are going to send me all of the materials and directions on how to send the brochures and I'll get paid $4 per brochure before I even send it. I had to pay $23 so that they knew I was serious and so that they could mail me the materials. I looked at a handful of reviews for the website and every person said that they have made money off of the website so far. I should get my first kit in 7 business days. It sounds too good to be true and way too easy. I'm guessing that it will take a lot of time to prepare each brochure. If this turns out to be legit, then I have found my summer job that I can do from home on my own time. If not, then I wasted $23 and fell for a scam and I will look like an idiot for posting this publicly. We will see what happens...

Animals in the Road

I know I've written about road kill before. Now it's gone to a new extreme. Two days in a row, I've seen house animals dead in the middle of the road. That's right, yesterday I saw a dog and today I saw a cat. I am not a fan of cats, but seeing one dead in the road is depressing. On the road that leads to my school, there's always a small dog running out in the road. I make sure I stop so I don't run it over. I've heard other people say that they would just keep driving and if they hit it, oh well. I take that view for squirrels, but not for house animals! That's awful! I guess there are a lot of animals that roam the streets in this area. Very sad.

Donating Plasma

My friend told me today that she was going to this place after work to donate plasma. Basically they take blood out of you and take the plasma out of the blood. It helps save peoples lives. More importantly, you can get paid $200 a month if you donate enough times. Since I drove her to work today, I said I'd come along and donate too. Who doesn't want money for doing nothing? We drove through the ghetto part of Fayetteville to get there. The parking lot was packed. We go inside and there had to have been over 60 or so people in there waiting. We go to the front and ask the guy about getting an appointment. He basically laughed at us and said that people wait outside the building and camp out over an hour before the doors open to get an appointment for that day. It's an entire day experience. Needless to say, we didn't donate plasma today. He said there was another location that doesn't get as many people. That location is actually slightly closer to home. On our way home, we got horribly lost because a road was closed and our GPS obviously didn't know that. We drove through the even scarier parts of Fayetteville with our doors locked and windows up. It took us almost an hour to get home when it should have taken us about 25 minutes or less. Today, it was not worth the money to give blood. We will see how it goes when I try to go to the other location.

Dinner Schedule

Typically on Sundays, I look at what meat I have in my freezer and come up with a schedule of what I'm going to make for dinner for the week. I would always do that for my family at home too. It makes it a lot easier for me so that when I wake up in the morning to go to work, I know what meat to take out to defrost. I didn't make a schedule for the last two weeks because I've been going out to eat way too often. I finally made a schedule again yesterday and I plan to stick to it this week. We will see how that goes.

Consistency

One thing I absolutely have to do better on next school year is being consistent. I need to follow through on anything I say. I cannot tell the kids I'm going to punish them a certain way and then not do it. I also can't say I'm going to punish them with a ridiculous punishment that the kids even know I can't do. I believe that being consistent and following through will happen over time and experience. The fact that I'll be starting at the beginning of the school year will be a huge help to me. Even though I'm greatly looking forward to having 2 months off, I'm also very excited to start the next school year.