The pastel sunrises this week have been amazing. The last two mornings the colors have been so spectacular that I have a hard time concentrating on the road while driving to work.
We are still in a heatwave, reaching 80F during the day. This is nice, especially what the people in Chicagoland or New Jersey are experiencing. However, we need our winter rains. So far we have been a half-inch BELOW the February average of .623 inches. The dryer it gets now the earlier the wildfires will begin, and that is always a fear of mine. We are too close to the National Forest to be safe even if fires break out in the mountains.
At any rate...school is coming along great, all my classes are inspiring me and somehow the local school district keeps calling ME to sub for all the PE classes. That's because most sub teachers are retired school teachers who refuse to do PE since most of them are too out of shape or too old. That's good news for me, as the added weight training I have been doing this week have worked wonders on my lower back pain.
Yesterday I ran a mile after the students ran theirs and today I did a minute worth of sit-ups after the students did theirs as well. Although I have slowed down profusely since two years ago, I'm still faster than most teen women with a 9:53 mile; my sit-ups today added to 35. (It didn't seem that long ago that I could easily run a mile in under eight minutes...could I still do that after some serious working out?)
The Arizona Daily Star reported today that the University of Arizona is cancelling its BA degree program in secondary education degrees for history, foreign language and English (but not math and science). This does not affect the Graduate degree program, even though I had hoped to take a few undergraduate methodology courses this fall before starting my Master's Degree.
All that aside, this week at the high school has been a blast. Not only have I been motivated to get back into shape (admitting that I HAVE let myself go this past year until about two months ago). I'm trying to learn students' names but the infrequency in meeting them makes that hard without daily contact.
Today four out of five regular P.E. teachers were out of the classroom and four subs filled in. Two of them were much older retired men who basically stood in the corners of the gym and supervised. Another retired Army NCO and I were in the same gym and both of us were pretty frisky when it came to interacting with the students. Chuck was recently hired, about a week after me, and I gave him a few tips on how to hasten his certification. He is a history major and I am the Foreign Language Guru.
Next week I'm back to teaching History...and, finally, my first French class.
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/282038.php
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http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_11787538
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/27/juarez.mexico.violence/index.html
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