New Adventures?

It was almost a week ago that I chided myself for not writing more often. I decided that because there are so many changes coming my way that this would be a good time to pick up the old blog again. Do people even blog still, or do I really need to do something more cutting edge? I see in my feeds that some of my old friends are still writing away, so that is a good sign!

Next year, there will be exciting changes at my school. Some good...some bad...all potential for new adventures I've told myself.

• Our school was chosen to do a 1:1 iPad program. Very cool, right? We used to have a 1:1 laptop program in our magnet program, but my entire school is not magnet, so it was a little different. This is school-wide. I've had mixed feelings about this all along, and a few years ago, I struggled with its use in the classroom and decided that since it was a such a personal device, it was hard to use just one in the classroom. I have tried it a few times with my low-level ELL high school students, but it is difficult to find apps that are appropriate to their maturity. My trepidation this time relates back to my experiences with our 1:1 laptop program, when in reflection, I realized that we have to be careful that we are not using technology to novelty's sake but as a tool to help students learn. For example, students are often so obsessed with the product of their project--like how cool it looks--that they skimp on the content and quality. Or, what about administrators hound us to use certain programs that are not more effective than what I have to offer as a teacher? I know how to deal with the students, but the administrators are trickier for sure! I have already been exploring, and I have district training this summer, so the adventure has already begun!
• I made it through one year of Common Core Standards. It was pretty "exciting" last fall when it was dumped out our laps, along with a new district website where we were mandated to do our lesson planning. I kind of blew it off, as we have gone through several years of new and revised standards, and in the end I was always teaching English. My administrator claimed that these new standards would help us align more to IB standards. Since I have been complaining for years how complicated it is to align IB ideals with testing mania standards, I really wanted to believe her. So how did it all work out? I still do not understand the hype, but it has been easier working with these standards than some that have come before.
• I'm still excited about IB. Although, I've been teaching in an IB program for years, it is a complicated program to use in a public school obsessed with testing. Some years I really tried, but I was ill-prepared and floundering alone. This year we had a theme coordinator who was out of her classroom for half the day to assist us, and we really focused on assessments. I was one of the few in my department--and maybe across the school--who was using IB assessment, but then after I attended specific training on it last spring, it really had to walk the walk. Between that at CCSS, things have been pretty rigorous in my classroom, and that is the way I like it! I'm looking forward to refining next year. I drink the IB kool-aid. Might as well enjoy it.
• We are losing so many teachers next year, and I'm so bummed. We are slated to lose 7 positions at our school, but half of those were unfilled from last year anyway. No, I'm losing dear friends, and it will change the dynamics the 8th grade and of our school. In the 8th grade, we are losing our algebra teacher of 5 years (leaving education entirely...) and our department chair, the one of who had a way with the way-ward pre-algebra students and who had been at our school longer than anyone, passed away suddenly from a heart attack two weeks ago. We had another strong algebra teacher come in this year, and I am sad to see him go, too. It's hard to find math teachers, and it is especially difficult to find secondary math teachers who want to teach middle school. Our science department is similarly decimated, but 7th grade is mostly affected, as all the 7th grade teachers are moving on to other things. One of our 8th grade teachers, and a leader on our 8th grade team, is moving down to fill one of the positions. Our foreign language department has been wonky for a few years, and last year we lost our long-time French teacher who had been a real team player. The Spanish teacher, who has been around longer than I have and who keeps me informed and in check, is leaving this year to go to Florida where her husband, who has been unemployed for 2 years, has some connections to find work. I'm exhausted at the thought of bringing in new people to try work together to build our IB program--and how I do not envy our coordinator who will take the brunt of mentoring them--but to spin this awful mess into something positive, I am holding out for new blood to our school who bring fresh ideas and positive energy. Please!
• My son is entering 6th grade in the fall, and he coming to my school! I'm not sure how that will really affect me, but it will be weird dragging one of the kids to school with me. (I opted to give my daughter space, and I sent her to our zoned school, which I sometimes regret.) I do not have much association with the 6th grade teachers--although, they are all awesome--and so I will not see him much, but it still changes my everyday life. Our elementary schools start around 9:00 am, and at my middle school, our magnet students start at 7:00 am with a 0 hour class. I think the sleep schedule might kick his butt a little. I typically stay and work after school for at least an hour, and some days that might be more than he can handle. Or some days, I might want to bug out, but he might have activities. This kind of coordination will be weird. There are quite a few of us staff members who have entering 6th graders this year, so I hope they end up being a good class!

I haven't even finished the school year yet and I'm looking forward to next year. What can I say? It's what we teachers do!

Wits and Knowledge

I was so looking forward to these three weeks of solid instruction between Thanksgiving Break and Winter Break, as the month of November is always a gigantic, fragmented mess. You would think that I would have been more prepared, but no, I've been flying by the seat of my pants. Luckily, these pants were made for flying.

What? You say it's only Tuesday? No matter. I'm going day by day. Tomorrow I'll be super prepared because this afternoon, I pulled the PowerPoint and support materials onto my desktop for easy access, as opposed to searching for it in my 20-gig drive 10 minutes before class, like I've done the last two days.

Ah, hahaha, I'm not really that bad off. I did sit down with the other English teacher during one prep last week so we could write our lesson plans, but sometimes writing them is not enough. Sometimes other preparation is necessary--like reviewing the material to see I truly remember it myself.

And that's where the winged trousers come in. I have had no time to study what I'm going to teach. How pleased I was to realize that with a PowerPoint outline (created some time in the past) and a stout cup of coffee, I was more than capable of lecturing to my students yesterday and giving guided practice today. With all the breaks and madness of the last month, it felt good to just teach. In fact, the last two days, I'd say I was in the zone.

(I hope my supervisor felt that vibe when she came in for her first (surprise!) observation yesterday!)

Not Good Enough

This morning, as I began checking off which students turned in their first novel journals, an assignment due yesterday, I started to get increasingly agitated. This was just looking at the formatting, which is not even included in the assessment, but it was included in the instructions.

So what do I do? It is inappropriate to deduct points for papers submitted in pencil rather than in ink or typed, as I requested. I also do not like deducting points because the header is incorrect, although for this assignment, the header listed book, author, and number of pages read, all of which are important. However, the other irritant, papers that did not have paragraphing, is absolutely something that could be marked down, and was actually a part of the rubric.

Rather than get my blood pressure up, I opened up my drawer, took out my REDO* stamp (a first for this year), and started stamping away.

When the students came into class, I told them how irritated I was with the quality of work handed in and rather than complaining about how impossible they were with their other teachers during lunch or starting to hate them a little, I decided to just have them redo the assignments. No, I wasn't mad. They weren't quite in trouble yet, but they also had no choice but to resubmit the assignment because until they do, it is recorded in the gradebook as an incomplete, which I count as an F grade.

They took it maturely. I saw a few light bulbs go off when I articulated why I had been expecting multiple paragraphs. (I'm starting to have doubts about their organizational abilities!) Nobody argued that they had turned in their best work, and in fact, several looked rather sheepish when I approached them with their papers saying, "Formatting aside, is this really your best work? Do you think you might want to look at the overall quality before you turn it in again?" Thank goodness not one student groaned at the thought of having to redo an assignment--that would have ignited my ire for sure. Still it surprised me that there wasn't at least one.

I have a pretty good group of students this year, but I think they are starting to lose momentum. I don't blame them for testing the waters to see how little they can get away with. It's a good lesson for all of us today. I spent most of the day returning the assignments to be redone when I could have spent time scoring the assignments--an exasperating waste of time if you look at one way. I hope that this small act sets a new concept in class: do it well or do it over.

*I had this stamp made at VistaPrint. They often offer "free" supplies and you pay the postage. A lot of teachers have blogged about creative ways to use this company. Do a search--you'll see!

The Curtain is About to Rise

Twenty-four hours from this early morning 6:15 a.m., if I'm not at least in my car driving down the road, it will be a rough start to the school year.

Am I ready? Eh...I have today. I hope. My children came back last night after a three-week stay at their grandparent's house. It kind of depends on how needy they are, but before they left we did the mad dash to get ready for school. There might a few things on their lists that I didn't get, but at this point, it would be something for the classroom and not them personally, and it can wait. My main mommy priority is feeding them, as without them here, my husband and I scrimped along with whatever food was in the house, with mini grocery store trips to supplement. So, with the pressing need of lesson plans to finish, I've need to plan a grocery trip. Man, it's back to the same old life. Bleah. It's Sunday morning, I just want to sit with a cup of coffee and watch the news. I miss you, summer vacation!

At least my classroom is ready. I set up the boards before I left on Friday. I might need to adjust the desks a little bit because they are a bit too close to the front where I'll be standing for the first few days. I don't need any materials for the first few days, so no slaving over a hot copier for me today. In fact, unlike some of my colleagues, I won't even be setting foot inside the school today. It's open if we need it (we don't have access to the school on weekends), but, no thank you! Yeah for me.

Except...I still have lesson plans to write. I can tell you that they aren't so different from last year, but now we have this Curriculum Engine thing where I have to post my lesson plans. So, no just changing the date from last year's for me today. I'm sure there will be some cutting and pasting, though. And digging through the new Core Standards to find the ones that match.

The first order of the day in my English classes it address the question, "What is English?" (From Jeffrey Golub's book.) I have been asking this on the first day of class since the beginning of time. (Okay, maybe not that long. It's only my 15th year.) And look, we can get started right away on using some standards!

SL.8.1 - Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 8 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.

Is everybody happy now? Haha! Letting my slip show. Sorry. Perhaps later I'll blog later about how teaching with the new Core Standards has transformed my life after all.

Things are a little more dicey with my publications class. It's really big this year, with half of them--super dynamic and energetic kids--returning from last year. I spent the first week team-building with them, and toward the end of last year, I was seeing that we needed a refresher on working as a team. We did a lot of group projects and planning, so it wasn't like we didn't revisit the team concept after the first week, but... Maybe it was more like we were a family who needed a vacation from each other! I'm changing so many things about the coursework this year, but honestly, I haven't worked out the kinks on a few things. That's what I'm really nervous about.

And then with my high school students, I usually get them writing first thing, especially my proficiency students because we still start filling in their gaps on Tuesday. The nice thing about those prof kids, is that they are anxious to get help to pass their proficiencies, as many of them hope to graduate after the first semester. However, as writers, their confidence is low, so I have to build them up on what they can do, too. My creative writing students will be much the same. Unlike students in creative writing classes at other schools, my students don't necessarily like writing. They need a credit. However, I noticed that there is another section of English taught at the same time, so many I will have more students who enjoy writing. My classes are typically really small, and students have to share so much of themselves with each other, so community building is really important in these classes, too! Ugh. So much to think about!

I don't know why I worry and ponder about the first week. As mentioned, I have a pretty good system down that I use year after year, but I really hate the first few weeks. A good start is critical for a successful year. Any missteps, and it's miserable repairing the "damage." Again, I ready to get past these few weeks and get into the groove.

So the Insomnia Starts

I have to start getting up in the during the 5 o'clock hour now--depending on how tired I am and how quickly I can get ready--but for some crazy reason, this morning I was wide awake around 3:00 a.m. Maybe it's because I went to bed around 9:00 p.m., or maybe it's because even with the A/C blasting, it's still too hot (91° outside right now), or maybe it's because I have too many things on my mind that seeped through my sweet dreams.

Yesterday was our first day back as teachers. We had our state-of-the-school address by the principal, accompanied by other important information from other administrators. The principal's spiel inspired confidence in me while encouraging me to kick it in the rear to do better--especially after discussions of our tests scores. Things are changing now that we are going to the Growth Model. No more targeting Bubble Kids, although our numbers show that by targeting that population, even the hopeless cases were helped. I'm glad to be done with that craziness, but who knows what new madness awaits.

Oh, I know! Common Core Standards are here to save the day. I'm not sure how much that will change my life, although we've been told that these more rigorous standards are more aligned to the IB objectives, so I've been told my life will be a bit easier on that front. Trying to balance IB requirements with our district/state requirements nearly drives me mad some years.

In another, short meeting with my department and the administrators, emphasis on the core standards, which are all completely ready to roll for Language Arts, whereas other subject areas are transitioning more slowly, was made, but yet another change (read last year's drama here) to the 8th grade writing exam was not. Apparently it's all going online! And it isn't going to count for AYP this year. Uh...A test just for fun? This keep that rumor tapped down, aye? I suppose the lack of hype over this new change isn't because we are all exhausted from last year's change (that's just me?) but because there is virtually no information about this new test. Yet. It's okay, I can punt. So, ya'll just let me know what you want me to do, and I'll get that done! Oy!

Oh! But the good news on the testing front is that we are suppose to do our state testing in May! It's about damn time that we got on board with giving students a full school year to learn before we test them.

On the more immediate reason for insomnia...there's just so much to prepare in the next few days. Many colleagues have work time today and tomorrow, but I will be peddling my yearbooks in the cafeteria to students picking up their schedules for the next two days. It's an extremely important time for sales, as I aim to sell at least half of what I plan to order. The last two years I've only sold a quarter of my projected order at the beginning of the year, but miraculously, when the books came in, and I sold out. It's a nerve-wracking year hoping we'll sell them. Only a few students buy in the middle of the year. I'm handing out fliers for online ordering, a Josten's service I'm going to encourage this fall, but I'm at odds about whether more people will buy because they can use a credit card, or if more people will put off ordering this week and then simply forget to order at all.

It's funny how these yearbook worries crowd my mind when I have more important things to worry about--like getting lessons and documents ready for the students on Monday!

I miss my summer already. Only two days into the new year. How pathetic am I?

It's Rollin'

It started with an IB meeting last Wednesday. Informative. I tried not to be grumpy, but I am not so sure I succeeded.

Then I bought borders for my bulletin boards. You know summer is over when it's time to get the border. One of them has flames. Flames! That sets the tone.

My official teaching schedules have shown up in the mail. Teaching the same stuff. For the first time in years, I don't have 1st hour prep, but other than that, all the same.

I've spent the last two days buzzin' around the Internet looking for new ideas and resources. My head is spinning.

I'm going to some paid professional development this week. Tomorrow starts off with an hour of Web 2.0. I have no idea what we can talk about Web 2.0 in a mere hour, but I'm going in anyway. The session afterward is on Google Docs, which I have come to adore.

School starts in two weeks. I officially go back in 9 more days.

Where did the time go?

A Working Summer

This is one of the posts where I explain where I've been all summer. I would also like to reflect upon where my summer has gone! Wow! Time is just flying by!

For the first month of this summer, I was busy with the writing project. I had the privilege to be a facilitator at the invitational summer institute, but at the very last minute, we lost some participants, so I wasn't really needed that much. In fact, I didn't have my own writing response group to facilitate. Basically, I was there as there to do tech stuff, and at times that kept me pretty busy as I took pictures, and archived the summer on our website.

For part of time, I was also hanging out with the youth writing camps, which were housed in two different locations. We have this cool program where students come to writing camp (grades 1-12) that writing project teachers consultants conduct, but last year we added a component where teachers earn college credit by participating in team teaching in the writing camp. While I was in and out taking pictures, I was also taking some video from students and teachers and the experience. The work everyone was doing was so amazing! The teachers were having a blast. The students were having a blast. All this excitement over writing! Now, that I have film and photos, I'm charged with creating some promos about summer camp. I'm a little nervous to put it all together, as I'm not a whiz with making videos--especially using video clips as opposed to just photos--but there's always room to learn, right?

As exhausted as I am from not having truly had a month off from work, yet, I was refreshing to work with writing project stuff this summer. There are always positive people learning, sharing, and writing new things. I was so done with everyone and everything and the end of the year. Who could have known that spending another month of working and talking writing would be refreshing? I only hoped...and thankfully, it did the trick. I am almost ready (no work until August) to strike up some enthusiasm to plan for next year!

(I'm really bummed that I only completed one piece of writing during the institute, and it was at the beginning.)

Refreshed!

It's been 10 days since I've had my in-class teacher shoes on. Reluctantly, I have spent most of the day getting back in the mind frame so I can walk into the classroom ready to roll. I know it's pointless, as the students will not be ready to roll until at least 3rd period, but that's them. I'm going to be a professional about going back to work for another month after a blissful spring break.

(I am thinking of this spring break as practice for summer break, and I was getting pretty good at it.)

I had some essays I need to grade, as they were turned in earlier in April, and now it's the end of April. I'm pretty sure nobody cares about what has happened in the time since I collected and how I wasn't actually one the job to correct them. In the first part of the year, the students wrote a lot of essays, but since the big state tests, we have had other projects going on. The essay I assigned to them, the topic on what makes a good communicator, was not a big in-class production, but we did go through the whole writing process over the course of a few weeks.

And so far...the essays are pretty terrible. I started with ones that were turned in late, as they were on top, so I keep telling myself that they will get better once I make it through the students who didn't care enough to turn it in on time. (Years later, my theory that late work is rarely the highest quality work still stands.) Unfortunately, there were a lot of students who didn't turn it in on time, so I am not sure I'll ever make it to the good stuff before I totally lose any drive to get up and go to work in the morning.

(Thank you blog for the distraction.)

Because I'm feeling refreshed from spring break, I'm ready to squeeze more out of the students before they move on to high school, but this isn't my first gig, and I know that the next month will be nothing short of hell. Okay, so maybe it won't be totally roasting the whole time before June 9, but I'd say I really only have a good solid 2 weeks before everything really falls apart. Still...I'm ready to make rockin' writers out of every single one of them!

Oh! In my burst of energy (from getting to sleep in until 7:30 am each morning), I am even thinking, "We should have a longer school year because the last few weeks of the year, students shut down, so we should add a few more weeks." How crazy am I? Wow! It's like I'm back to the beginning-of-the-year optimism!

This might be a good time to start a pool on how long this good mood will last. The refreshed me is thinking by the end of the week I will have lost my spunk, but that other voice in my head is saying, "Yeah, right. You will be lucky to make it to 7:07 am with your first class. They screw your mood over all the time."

Oh! But maybe...maybe not this time!

Gettin' Schooled

I'm off to a 3-day IBO workshop for "MYP Assessment in the 21st Century." I'm always interested in learning more about assessment, but sometimes it seems the more I know, the less I really do know. I don't know why it's so complicated. I'm looking forward to learning some new things about the IBO Middle Years Programme because it is time to freshen up. Besides assessment, I think the whole IB realm is something that just when I think I'm getting it, I find I'm not doing as well as I could be. In the case of IB stuff, as I've come to realize, it's just a difficult program to do well in the structure of our test-frenzied school system.

I'm going with the coordinator of the program, so I anticipate some great planning and conversations that we can bring back to the school to enhance our program. Oh yes, it is sure nice to attend workshops with dynamic people. It's much easier to bring back valuable information and ideas.

Great content, great company, and we're going to Vancouver, British Columbia. (I do feel guilty knowing that times are tight, but the rub is also that part of having an IB program means that we are obligated to get training...) It's a short plane trip for us, and it's not Tennessee or Texas. No offense to either of those state, but I have attended a lot of conferences in those states. New places, new perspectives, new experiences. Those are ideas that fit with the IB program!

Test? What? Pshh. A Memory.

Wahoo! The testing madness is over for the year!

There have been so many times in the past six months when I felt I was just not doing enough as I felt that cloud of testing doom looming over my students and me. The year started off rough with a change in the writing exam. My students had been so well-trained on narrative writing, but then the test switched to expository. For years, I've been helping seniors who could hardly write paragraphs pass the high school writing proficiency exam. You'd think I'd have it dialed in, but the difference is that my middle schoolers can write paragraphs, and I expect then to do more than barely pass. They still have their high school careers ahead of them--most of them in magnet or accelerated programs.

So, you would think it would have been easy teaching my brainiacs how to write thesis statements. Or the importance of a creative lead, which they should have been able to do with their excellent narrative skills. You might expect that they could learn to organize a basic essay with actual transitions and everything. My principal is expecting that they'll all pass the exam, too, but on the day of the test, all I could do is shrug my shoulders and hope for the best---

And then I started doubting myself. Although my students wrote about 20 essays before they took the test in February, I starting doubting my other moves. Maybe I should not have taught that long novel. I wish I hadn't spent time collaborating with the science teachers on the science fair reports. Research isn't a benchmark for me until 4th quarter. I should not have done it in the 2nd quarter. Did I give them enough instruction to help them with their practice? Ack! I don't know.

About three weeks after my students took the writing exam, we had the state reading exam. I had some packets of practice tests for them, but then I started worrying that it wasn't enough. Why didn't I talk more about this literary term, or that literary term. Did we read too much literature and not enough expository writing? How would they do on the constructed response? I mean, I did have students doing more literary analysis than ever before, but what if they didn't make the connected to how they did that to what they needed to do on the test? I started stressing about how I might have given them too much writing and not enough reading.

You see the madness, right?

Is there enough time for me to have balance?

I can only hope.

The testing is over. The rest of the year will be just as rigorous, but perhaps I can beat myself up less. In between all the testing mania this week, my students started researching for their public service announcements, a cross curricular project related to their foreign language classes. You know, thinking, creating, the IB design cycle? Good stuff! Next month, we'll be celebrating National Poetry Month with a unit on spoken poetry, a unit that still needs to be created, but I'm über excited about it. We'll wrap up the year with an awesome Anne Frank unit that includes some creative writing.

Learning still going on the rest of the year? Oh yeah. Testing mania? Been there done that.

Is There an App for That?

I'm currently searching the Internets (hehehe) for new technology that allows me to simple think, "I should blog this," and it is done. Dear friends, does anyone know of this kind of technology? Let me know. Thanks!

Another Year

It just does not seem like another year has started. Perhaps it's because my clock is more run by the academic school calendar. That could be it.

The old year rolled out the door without much fanfare, and today I woke up the same old person. Sure, I have a few resolutions I'd rather not destroy in the first few days. After all, it is good to have a reason to start new habits and break the old ones. But seriously? I have to keep reminding myself that we are indeed in a new and exciting year.

Perhaps a good resolution for me this year would be to more enthusiastically embrace the celebrations of my our culture, no matter how large or small they might be.

Now, what the next big event? MLK Day or the Superbowl? Wahoo! Bring 'em on!

Time

Time flies.
When I'm having fun.
When I'm suffering.
It just flies.

I couldn't wait for December to show up because November was a crazy, nonproductive month in my classroom, and I was certainly ready to spend some time cramming learning so I felt like I deserved a break.

Of course, I was also looking forward to December for the break.

Now, here I am on the second week of my break. It's the week I told myself I'd do some grading--I tried not to bring any home, but I ran out of time to complete it.

It's also the week I said I'd clean out my closet. No problem. I'll have plenty of time. I won't mind.

And here I am, having had a lovely first week of my break, and I just want to continue my peaceful, no-stress, lazy buzz for another week.

Who could blame me?

Time

As I was driving home from work tonight, I felt the fatigue deep in my bones. How many days had it been since I woke up this morning?

It felt like months.

One might think it's the nature of Mondays, yet my day had not been terribly stressful. Just busy. And long.

Betcha anything that tomorrow morning when the alarm rings, it will feel like just a few minutes had passed.

Television Catch-Up

It seems like I'm always trying to catch up something. At home, it's usually cleaning or bill-paying. At work, it's usually grading or lesson planning. Wait! Haven't I blogged about being behind in life before? Ah, I have. Unfortunately, the honesty of that post a year ago reveals a much more realistic and tragic reality of just behind I always am.

A year ago? Hmm...I wonder if there is some sort of pattern where in November I get backlogged. Might merit some investigation.

This morning I drove the kids to Baker, California, the drop off point, so the grandparents could take them for the weekend. My sweetie was working all day, and I had nothing pressing to do--that I wanted to think about anyway.

So, I spent my day catching up on my favorite televisions shows that I've recorded. Pretty important stuff to catch up, right?

I don't think I've ever really talked about the television I watch. I'd like to be more intellectual than I actually am and not watch as much television as I do, but I am who I am. There are times I've been a major "reality show" junkie, but lately I've only been interested in cooking shows, like Top Chef, Chopped, Hell's Kitchen, etc., and if I don't see every episode, it doesn't really matter.

The power of the record button on the satellite remote became a part of my life only about 6 months ago. Because I work at night, I usually miss the television shows I'd like to watch, and the strange thing is that now that I record, it seems like I actually watch less television because I just watch the shows I want and spend less time mindlessly surfing for something worthwhile after prime time.

I'm not very behind on the shows I enjoy, but I had quite a stack today because some of my favorites come on earlier in the week.

Here is the line up of my afternoon marathon:

1. Glee--I usually watch this with my daughter, and we did start it yesterday, but I was multitasking and didn't catch everything. Sometimes I don't like some of the episodes because the story lines are mighty weak, but "Never Been Kissed" storyline was pretty powerful on different levels.
2. The Millionaire Matchmaker--I love Patti, but this season in New York is making me wonder about her "high success rate." I haven't seen any happy endings this season. This show makes me thankful that I found my wonderful husband. (No, he's not a millionaire, though.)
3. The Sons of Anarchy--I cannot explain why I love this show so much. It's a pretty complex story that just keeps me hooked. Plus, it's pretty bad-ass. It comes on the same night as Glee, and I used to try to watch both after work, but it's just too messed up! There's something about the volume of the show or the channel, so I sometimes feel like I'm missing part of what is being said--and now that they are in Ireland, it's worse! Today I watched it with the closed-captioning on. It helped a lot.
4. Criminal Minds--I just started watching this show in the last year. What can I say? I love crime dramas, and this one is particularly sick, twisted, and brilliant. I wish A&E would stop repeating the episodes over and over and show me some I haven't seen. I just can't get enough. Just when I think I have a favorite character, I learn more about a different character. Love them all!
   
5. Desperate Housewives--Has this show been on forever or what? I thought around the the 4th or 5th season, it was dying, and my interest waned, but we're in the 7th season, and I'm hanging in there. I am not particularly fond Vanessa L. Williams as part of the cast. She's too fresh from being mean to Betty.
6. Melissa and Joey--I don't think this show will be around long, but I've always enjoyed Melissa Joan Hart. It's a cute show with a storyline about an alternative family situation. It does amuse me to see actors who used to be teen stars cast in family shows as parents now.
7. No Ordinary Family--I'm crossing my fingers that this show stays on for a while because there aren't very many family shows like this on the regular network channels. Who doesn't love super heroes? As we all know, the best ones are flawed, and then you mixed in a regular messed up family whose struggling to keep their lives balanced, and it's just a great show!

In the queue I also have The Walking Dead, which I haven't started watching yet and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which is a show that has been around too long so sometimes it's good and other times it's not.

I doubt I have room for other shows (The Closer and Southland will come back in a few months to fill in my schedule even more), but what is everyone out there watching?

A Quick Trip to Cultural Las Vegas

So I was just sitting at home today eating my leftover, meatless tostado, wondering why three days ago I thought that installing my own cable box was such a good idea because now it's not working properly. (It's not hard. Cable in. Cable out. Plug in. Now someone has to come look at it, and I should have just not been such a cheap ass because it's somehow still going to cost me $40 anyway--you just watch.) I was considering starting John Irving's Until I Find You, but I'm still kind of savoring Coupland's Eleanor Rigby that I finished yesterday.

Then my dear friend and former co-worker, Jodi, calls. Yea! She wanted to go to lunch, but wouldn't you know it? I'm eating as she's asking. But I can still go for ice tea and dessert, right? So, a little while later she picks me up and we go to our favorite place for cheap eats--seriously two people can eat prime rib for less than $15.00--drinks and tip included! But this was only lunch, so that's less than $10.00.

After we finished, Jodi got a wild hair to go to the Conservatory & Botanical Gardens at the Bellagio. I've heard their seasonal displays are beautiful, but I generally avoid The Strip. In fact, when I do go there, I often feel like I'm on vacation visitings some strange, gawdy, touristy hell. Crazy, huh? Considering I live a straight shot 1o-15 minutes from The Strip, depending on traffic... So, uhm, yea. We go from a way-off strip cafe in low-budget casino to the Bellagio.

And it was beautiful! This season's theme is a sort of rail journey through America. It's very woodsy and folksy. It smelled nice. All green and blooming. Oh! And the building reproductions were just amazing! I could have just wandered around there all afternoon, but there are a lot of tourists with cameras, so that takes away from of the magic.

The Conservatory is right off the main hotel lobby which features Dave Chihuly's Fiori di Como. Now, flowers and plants are nice, but I could look at some pretty, shiny glass--especially Chihuly's work--all day. More like gawk is what I'd do, though. So, while people are busy relaxing and checking in at the lobby, I am just standing there trying not to look like such a dorky, gawking tourist. I don't know why, though. Probably because others weren't. I don't know why. It is just so...so...I can't even describe how wonderful his work is, and Fiori di Como is freakin' huge!

After I did some nonchalant gawking, we wandered on down to the art gallery to see what was going on there. Ansel Adams: America. Jodi wasn't too thrilled by Ansel Adams, but she decided it might be enjoyable after all. I was quite pleased because I love photography, and he's like a god! It was inspiring to see his wide range of work, and now I really want that new digital camera I've been hinting about for my birthday. It was kind of funny--I'd look at some of the pictures and think, "I've been there." One picture I thought, "That looks like Mono Lake." In fact it was Mono Lake. Oh how many rolls I've shot at Mono Lake, and none of them look half as beautiful. Man! He had the magic! In the end, Jodi did enjoy the exhibit. It's very meditative.

This lovely, relaxing, cultural afternoon might float me through some boring days this summer. And I am just pleased as punch that I learned something new in this crazy city that I usually hate to admit I live in.