I don't want to be here anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

home, ugh!

I want to go home! It's getting much colder here which is making me think of home much more, kind of weird, huh? Walking out the door to crispy cold air every morning over this past week has made me think of home much more... I miss it!

1 more week and it is Thanksgiving break, thank God. I need a break from circus conducting. I need some sleep and some peace. These children are CRAZY. My teaching partner is out for the week due to a death in the family, the other 5th grade English teacher is out due to illness, this leaves the new teacher (who started a week ago) and myself to hold down 80 5th graders. And! I got a new student today! And! I have to miss this afternoon to go to a training on how to login to a website. UGH.

My sickness is going away, I am still fairly congested, two weeks of this crap! But! I did not miss a day of work.

Home, home, home. 6 more months of teaching.

The good news is that now that I am teaching Saturday school, I am only working at the running store on an as needed basis... so I am not going to be on the schedule every weekend... I get to tell them when I am able to work. This is a lot of relief and will relax a lot of anxiety that comes with having to work on the weekends.

Anyway, enough of my mindless rambles. I miss you all. If you ever want to send me mail or packages from Oregon, California, or Washington, or wherever you are, I would appreciate it! At this point I need whatever to get through this last 6 miles of my 26 mile (month) marathon!!!!

Robert Street
7009 Almeda Rd #1436
Houston, TX 77054

Love you all!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert

College Station

Sometimes you just need to get out of the city and see a little country. My buddy Jake and I went to College Station last weekend where I was able to experience the real Texas. Living in Houston does not really give me the pleasure of seeing the stereotypical Texan antics that Texas is so known for, yes, there is an occasional cowboy on his horse on the side of the freeway near downtown and yes, sometimes I see boots and cowboy hats and occasionally get some tobacco spit on my car from a passing Ford F350. But, the 60 mile drive to College Station? On the drive, indeed, I was reminded, I am in Texas. Texans are weird. There was a wreck on the freeway on the way up to College Station, so what do Texans do?! Forget waiting patiently for the wreck to be cleared, let's off road around the disaster through the mud and gravel right through an active construction site!

We went to College Station for the Texas A&M versus Oklahoma Football game. I was again reminded of my whereabouts by the Texan blonds in their mini jean skirts and cowboy boots, not one, not two, but probably 90% of the coeds I encountered fit this description. Drunk at 11 am? Yes, Texas.

In all actuality, I had a really good time getting out of Houston for a day and taking off the weekend from work. It was great spending time with a friend not involved in the teaching profession. College Station is a neat place definitely centered around the University. A&M is a pretty campus (sorry Jake, not as pretty as the University of Texas at Austin) and home to the Bush library, a field trip to be completed in the future.

I got home from College Station and came down with a VERY nasty fever and sickness. It sucked. I am feeling a lot better now and didn't even miss a day of work (I should have).

I have to teach tutorials after school now Monday-Thursday, not too happy about it. A school day from 7:30-4:30 is just too long on top of Saturday school and planning, etc. I am going to HAVE to quit the running store, any advice on telling a company that you can't work for them when you have only been with them for 3 months?

Man, I am excited to be home for Christmas, I CAN'T Wait! All the Christmas decorations are out and the streets are all lit with Christmas lights, the malls are decorated, and the 3 month Christmas spirit is alive... is it like that in the NW? I forget.

Love you all!

Not really anything new to report other than school continues to be extremely demanding and not the happiest of all places. I feel like it is beginning to not be a very positive place. So many expectations and very little positive feedback. I am confident my students are where they need to be. However, I don't really get much feedback on how well they are doing. The only feedback I get is why I am not teaching Saturday tutorials, or why I am not differentiating, or why I am having them do a writing assignment, etc (Remember writing isn't state tested in the 5th grade, therefore, writing should not really be taught according to superiors. I really wish I could do projects with them and more authentic instruction instead of continuously teaching test taking strategies... I should be hired by Kaplan. One of the fifth grade teachers on our team, who I get along with really well, was removed from her classroom and sent to teach elsewhere and was replaced by another corps member, just creates a lot of awkwardness. I feel she was unfairly removed and not really given the chance to turn things around in her room, she's only a first year TFA teacher!

I am excited for Christina to come and visited for Thanksgiving break... I have a HUGE pile for her to file and many little classroom projects just waiting for her to arrive and complete them.