Vacation Wrap-Up and Nine Busy Days

Written on 7-27-17.

      This little vacation/family reunion is coming to a close.  Tonight is the last night up at the cabin home, and it’s now just the Virginia Swopes and me.  Mom, Dad, Bev, and Curt left yesterday morning.  Danielle left earlier today when the Virginia Swopes were kayaking, and Belinda left soon after we took off to go play golf for our second time this go-around, this time at the South Forty Golf Course.

8-18-17

     I’m sitting in the waiting room at the only Midas place in Farmington, and Belinda is here with me.  It’s a  Friday, and the busses we saw as we drove over here reminded us to pinch ourselves, because it’s the Friday of the first week of school, and instead of spacing out like a zombie after surviving the first week of school while sitting at our desks, Belinda had a relaxing day at home after working just three days at her new job, I played golf today with C.J., and we are getting a new exhaust pipe on our truck.

     I have had the busiest beginning of school year as a rewired teacher and an educational consultant than I have ever had, and...
it’s not even over yet.  I have a basic skills workshop on writing tomorrow with Michael (last name), and we have another one on math next weekend, too.  Over the summer, I also attended a 2-day training and a 3-day summer conference for my CORE job just before school started.  

     What follows tells about my last nine days.  On Wednesday, I did two one hour sessions at Koogler Middle School to review the Teach-To’s with their staff, and they also purchased ten Teach-To’s books.  I happened to have those books, because I bought a dozen for my breakout session for the RDA Summer Conference, so that worked out well.  

     On Thursday, I had a 1-day Time to Teach training at one of my CORE schools, Blanco Elementary, and that was a tough training to get.  We did our best to get the resource manuals shipped fast enough to make it on time, but that didn’t work out.  Another hiccup was that the main office thought that I was doing this training on my own and not through CTE, so they kept sending me stuff to fill out that I didn’t need to fill out.  That made sense, though, because I had originally planned a halfway technology, half-day writing workshop with the principal weeks before they decided to switch to the Time to Teach training.  We did it, though, and it was a successful training.  I just got an e-mail from Linda (last name), another Time to Teach trainer who works at Blanco, and she was praising the staff for a successful fire drill there.  That was one of the other difficulties in getting that training.  I was doing my best to be fair to her and to not step on her toes, but she eventually said that I should just do it myself; she was too busy.  She did, however, chime in with some great insights during my presentation.  

     On Friday, I had another full-day training at Sunrise Elementary in Las Cruces, the school where Jennifer (last name) is now the assistant principal.  This was my biggest training so far with 51 participants.  Nine teachers and two administrators from the school next door, Cesar Chavez, also took their work day to join in on the training.  According to Jennifer, the buzz was really buzzing before I came.  

     Belinda really saved me by driving quite a bit on Thursday evening to get us there safely.  This worked out really well due to the fact that Danielle was starting her job as an R.A. (Resident Assistant) at the Vista Del Monte Apartments.  Belinda got to hang with her while I was doing the training, and we all got to go out to dinner that night to celebrate the training and Danielle’s birthday.  We took her boot shopping after dinner, too.

     On Saturday, I had a CORE meeting at NMSU.  That meant that we got the hotel, the mileage, and my meals reimbursed while I was there for not only the Time to Teach training, but for our visit with Danielle, too.  Sweet!

     On Sunday, I spent a majority of the afternoon back home getting ready for Tuesday’s Santa Fe PD Experts + technology training on Google Apps for Alternative Assessments.  I really needed that time to feel fully prepared, for sure.  I drove to Santa Fe on Monday afternoon, met with my fellow trainers for dinner, and then got up early on Tuesday morning for another training.

     Today, Friday, felt like my first day off in a long time, so C.J. and I played a full eighteen holes together, and it was great.  The weather is gorgeous right now, and it felt like a fall day even though it’s still summer.