This is going to sound sucky

I figured out today that I am currently only earning $2 more per hour than I did 10 years ago as a senior in high school (accounting for inflation with an inflation calculator). And that is only assuming that my salary only covers 40 hrs a week. (I was pulling 35 per week as a senior, the amount of money I am making now should be at least somewhat comparable to then.)

If I take into account that I actually spend closer to 65 hrs a week then I made $3.25 more as a senior in high school per hour, than I am right now.

That.

is.

NOT.

Right.

As an 18 yr old I was living at home, did not have a car payment, no utilities whatsoever, no student loans, no ANYTHING (ok so maybe I paid for my own gas, but I never spent more than about $10-15 per fill up).

Now I am nearly 28, paying rent, car notes, utilities, LOTS OF STUDENT LOANS, and in generally trying to pay for everything else.....with only $2 more to my name per hour of (official) work.

And they wonder why more people don't get into teaching.


HUMPH!

Day 06 – Your day, in great detail

My day was fairly boring.

0730 - wake up the family (this means dogs) go pee
0830 - wake up the husband [...]
0900 - begin work on chemical defense paper for chemical ecology course
1030 - eat breakfast (eggs and english muffins)
lots of work on paper, lots of peeing, lots of getting husband caught up on House: Season 6
1330 - eat lunch (grilled cheese with ramen)
lots of work on paper, lots of peeing, lots of getting husband caught up on House: Season 6
1730 - finish work on paper (If you're interested in Monarchs, Giant Swallowtails or Spanish flies)
1830 - eat dinner (pizza from the frozen food isle)

obviously the day is not quite done. but it won't be any more interesting. I need to get caught up on grading before going to bed tonight and prep for a lab with my Advanced Integrated Science kiddos tomorrow.

sorry for being so boring!

on an awesome note, one more week with kids/students and then i get an entire week off from them!!! i have NEVER been more excited to get a break from the kids before in my entire life. 5 days and counting!

Day 05 - Your Definition of Love

This is "borrowed," it's obviously not something I put together. BUT! It completely sums up everything I could ever hope to write about L-O-V-E.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Day 04 - What you ate today

So I had a little bit of Coke Zero (24 oz total for the day, maybe). But that didn't sit well. So I ate a stack of Saltines. Which was ok. Then around dinner time (8-ish?) I used a coupon for a free Snack Wrap with a Med. Wild Berry Smoothie at McDonald's. I threw in some Med. Fries too.

The End.

Day 03 - Parents in Great Detail

So, my parents in great detail...

Well, there's my mom Trudy. She's an elementary math teacher, she's a diabetic with Charcot's syndrome in her feet. She has a history of not taking care of herself physically. She recently had a gastric bypass done in a last ditch effort to lose weight. It seems to be going well, but I do worry that after losing the weight, once she's able to eat normally again that she'll gain it all back in effect nullifying the surgery. We are not close. She is pushy and overbearing and as she's fond of saying, "If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody gonna be happy." While she never outwardly said she'd have been upset if I had brought home low grades, it was mostly implied that that would be a no-no. She had a hard time (still does actually) letting me make and be responsible for my own mistakes. She hasn't always done right by me, but I know she means well. It was in a word difficult growing up with her as my mom, but she's still my mom and I love her. And for all that I don't like to admit it we have similar personality traits.

My dad is Frank. Actually, that's his middle name and despite his mother hating that he did so, he's gone by his middle name since elementary school. My dad is 9 years older than my mom and they met in a band. He is very much the nerdy technology guy, sort of comes with the territory because he's a recording arts engineer for a university local to their house. Much as I love my dad, he can be a bit of a pushover. There were many times growing up that I'd go to him complaining that Mom was treating me unjustly and he would agree with me that she could have handled it better, but when push came to shove it was never enough for him to actually stand up for me against her even when he probably should have. It takes a lot to make my dad blow over in anger and he tends to take the path of least resistance whenever possible. His short comings aside, he's a genuine, loving and insightful man and I felt closer to him growing up than he probably realized (certainly felt closer to him than to my own mother most times).

My parents have been married to each other for 30 years now so they must be doing something right. Between my mom's losing weight and my dad's natural inclination to be healthy as a horse hopefully they've got another 30 years coming. All in all I'm glad they're my parents as they have most certainly shaped who I am as a person, and I'm very glad that they're not any more quirky or weird than they already are or else who knows how I would have turned out!

First Love in Great Detail

Honestly, I'm not sure who I would consider my first love actually.

My first real boyfriend was a guy in middle school named Chris. Would I call him my first love? Hard to say we were in love at any point, mostly because it was an age thing. It was also pretty short lived.

The next big thing that came along was a kid named Kyle. That lasted on and off from middle school through about my sophomore year of H.S. We've always been pretty good friends, fair amount in common. We were both in band, we had birthdays near each other, he was just shy of a year ahead of me. We had this thing for Kermit and Piggy. He's in large part the reason why I had an obsession with frogs throughout H.S. Oddly enough, our relationship ended because we argued about whether or not he would play his instrument for an Easter celebration at my church. (I'm also fairly sure that his mother was not a fan of me. She was nice enough, even to my face and all. I think she didn't like how "serious" Kyle and I were -- though our relationship never ever went past kissing and hand-holding. Considering who he dated next and what all they ended up doing, he was "safer" with me!) In retrospect, our relationship was immature and might have had a better chance to workout if we had been older. By the time we got near the end of H.S. we were back to being fairly good friends however each of us were in relationships that were as serious as you could get being high schoolers. An interesting fact about "us" is that we had made a pact my freshman year of college that if neither of us were married by 27 and not in serious relationships that'd we'd get married. He's happily married with 2 kids now. And of course I'm married too.

We tend to talk every once in a while but not too often. Truth be told it's probably better off that we both were married before 27, he's got some pretty crack pot ideas about life which I can tolerate in a friend but couldn't in a marital companion.

Five for Friday

Yesterday my school held an assembly in which a man named Larry Scott, the uncle of the first Columbine shooting victim - Rachel Scott, talked to our students about living kinder and better. It was a very touching assembly and it seemed that what he had to say resonated with many of the kiddos. The basic tenants of what is now called Rachel's Challenge are my inspiration for today's Five for Friday:

#1 Look for the best in others

#2 Choose positive influences

#3 Write goals/diary/journal

#4 Little acts of kindness go a long way

#5 Start a chain reaction

What's most amazing to me about Rachel's role in the Columbine tragedy is the back story. You can do loads of web searching and find out about the entire incident including timelines and history about the shooters and those who were killed and injured. Rachel's Challenge on its own is nothing new. We're all told as children growing up to look for the best in others. Our teachers and families warn us against the dangers of choosing bad influences. I, for one, remember being raised on the belief that small acts of kindness have lasting effects. Writing your goals and dreams out, the concept of starting chain reactions, while not specifically taught to me as a way to improve life are not so far fetched as to seem unobtainable or impossible. Sitting there listening to a stranger pretty much preaching about these 5 actions and how people ought to be doing them, one questions: "What makes it different listening to this man as opposed to some other?"

And of course the answer to that is Rachel herself.

Unless you've been to a Rachel's Challenge assembly or are obsessed with all things related to the Columbine tragedy you've probably not heard much more about her other than that she was the first of 13 to die that day. However her history, her back story, is nothing short of awe inspiring. She was an ordinary teenager with an overflowing love of God. But most teenagers don't make statements that they're going to die young with complete peacefulness and without any shade of depression or suicidal emphasis. Nearly 11 months to the day before her death her journal entry for the day read simply: "This will be my last year, Lord. I have gotten what I can. Thank you." She was constantly writing to her friends, her family members and in her assignments about an idealized world in which everyone spread kindness by way of a chain reaction. As a 13 year old girl, she drew outlines of her hands on the back of her dresser and wrote within them: "These hands belong to Rachael Joy Scott and someday will touch millions of people's hearts." It wasn't discovered that she had done this until 2.5 years after the shootings; after her friends and family had started the Rachel's Challenge outreach.

Several of her last poems written were of an odd nature because they mentioned the halls of Columbine HS as "halls of tragedy." One poem she wrote near the time of the incident ended with the lines:

"I'm dying, quickly my soul leaves,

slowly my body withers.

It isn't suicide,

I consider it homicide.

The world you have created

has lead to my death."

Frank Amedia, of Ohio, after seeing Rachel's funeral on CNN started having visions of eyes connected to Rachel crying onto something below, watering a plant of some kind. For several days he had this vision and finally decided to contact Rachel's dad, Darrell. Frank expressed his sympathy at Darrell's loss, told Darrell about his vision and then asked if it had any meaning to their family. At the time it meant nothing to Darrell, but Frank was not put off. He asked for Darrell to take his name and number and to call him if later on the vision had any uncovered meaning. Darrell put the number in his desk thinking he'd never have reason to call Frank back. Seven days later when the police released Rachel's book bag back to her family her last journal entry was simply this drawing:

It's a little unnerving if you think about it. A complete stranger knew of this drawing before anyone could speak of its significance. Not 45 minutes prior to the shooting taking place, Rachel was in her English class with her teacher, Mrs. Carruthers. The teacher saw Rachel drawing the image near the end of class and after inquiring about it Rachel proclaimed: "Mrs. Carruthers, I'm going to have an impact on the world!"What's perhaps the most unnerving thing about the image: If you count carefully there are 13 tears falling from the eyes, exactly the same number of victims that were shot and killed.

All I know is that it is very clear that God intended to use Rachel as a vessel. He gave her the premonitions of a short life; He gave her the strength to be at peace with her knowledge of living a short life; He gave her the opportunity to live her life in love and be secure in the knowledge that she could touch millions to their core.

It is a very amazing story and I'm thankful I got a chance to be reminded of what is needed to lead a useful life.

So I've decided

to follow a few others of my friends by following Jenny on the 30 Great Details. Day 1 being to introduce yourself.

So here goes. =)

My name is Meg and I'm 27. I'm a high school science teacher currently teaching chemistry and something called advanced integrated science (basically chemistry, physics, earth and space science all rolled into one). My husband is in the military and has been for the last 14 years. I actually never intended to marry the military. Every generation of my family has had military members and I've seen what constant upheaval does to a family and didn't really want that for my life. Also said I'd never become a teacher after growing up a teacher's daughter. God's seen fit to make me eat my words, I'm just happy enough that we've got 6 yrs left before my husband can retire with benefits. I'm also truly blessed to be in a profession that I'm talented at and enjoy (though I could do without all the b.s. that inevitably comes with the territory).

As I've said before our current assignment makes for a pretty miserable life, but part of what keeps me going is our two beautiful dogs. We've got a Catahoula Leopard dog named Stella Artois and a Plott Hound named Guinness. They're both girls, about a year and a half apart in age. Guinea turns 2 in November and Stel will be 4 in April. They're usually pretty good girls. Stel was a terror until she hit 2. (One time she ran off while we were off roading in the Jeep and brought us back 8 head of longhorns....) She mellowed a lot when we got Guinea. Now Guinea is the wild one. 

Right now they're our surrogate children and have their Daddy wrapped around their little paws. It makes me crazy sometimes how the hubs gives into them. He's the reason why they're up on the furniture and in the bed with us (makes for close to 500 lbs of flesh in the bed at night). He gives them table scraps and extra helpings of kibble. When he's gone for long periods of time they shape up because Mama sticks rules to them. It makes me worried about when we possibly have girl children. A blonde haired, blue-eyed little girl with curly hair will have Daddy wrapped round her fingers faster than chain lightning and I'll be the "bad guy" the rest of my life. Suffice to say children are on the horizon in the near future and I'd be lying if I didn't say I'll be hoping for boys. We haven't officially decided when to try for kids, but it'll be soon as neither of us wants me to be too much older and we don't want to stack kids too close together.

Other than that I'm also a graduate student right now. Makes work and home life interesting; I'm stretched pretty thin. But a masters degree falls nicely into my plans for the future and it's in a subject area that I'm vastly interested in. My research from the summer gave me awesome insight for what I'd like to do in the future when I one day go for my PhD.

That oughta be enough for Day 1 of introduction. =)

I'm not so good at this...

blogging that is!

So it's been a few days and not a whole lot to note. Well there is plenty to note, but not stuff that I'm comfortable sharing with the web at large. Suffice to say I have a few students this year that are EXTREMELY anxiety prone with helicopter parents. I like for parents to be involved. I like for students to care about and take pride in their work. However, I'm fairly sure this is excessive involvement on both sides and it's going to end up with me being stressed to the hilt; defending my teaching practices and spending time that I literally don't have making extra extra contact with the parents. I mean it's only the end of the 3rd week of school and I've got a whole littering of parent conferences scheduled over grades that aren't anywhere near failing. (And all of my parent conferences are about grades, none about behavior issues....I'm starting to miss those a bit.)

I've done the whole, going over how to answer questions on a test. I give them exam reviews to help them focus their studying efforts. We do on average 3-4 graded exercises on *each* tested concept and a handful of exercises where there is no grade. I make every use of technology possible, but throw back regularly to "old school" techniques. I seriously try to hit it all. I spend the vast majority of my time up at work, getting there an hour before I have to and regularly staying as much as 2+ hrs after when I technically can leave. There genuinely is not much more that I could possibly do.

What my students tend to fail to recognize is that chemistry is unlike anything they've ever seen before. Science in general is its own language. Then there's the focus on vocabulary terms. And in Chemistry there's LOADS of math, but not any math; math where your focus is not on just the numbers themselves, but the units and labels that go along with said numbers. And as if that weren't enough, the kiddos still need to grasps the chemistry concepts themselves. The way I liken it to my students is that a chemistry course is like 4 courses at once. It's a LOT of work! If you're used to not having to do much work to get your A in another class, expect to get a C or a B in Chemistry if you're not willing to up the time you personally spend on grasping the concepts in the course. 

Of course they belly-ache about this, a lot. But that's how it is and I can't change that. Chemistry doesn't care if you're a regular ed student or an honors student -- the concepts don't change. And while my expectations of mastery are different between my regular ed kids and the honors kids this class still tends to demand more effort on the part of the student to keep their grade at a level they deem appropriate.

Pretty much just a pain in the butt.

In light of me trying to end things on positive notes: (1) I'm pretty sure I figured out how to get my ActivBoard and ActiVotes configured for use on my work computer. This was a HUGE accomplishment as the other day everything went to hell in a handbasket *while* I was teaching. (2) I had major break throughs with my Advance Integrated Science class today as we went over the test they just took. They're finally starting to learn logical processes of elimination and how they should approach any sort of summative assessment. (3) In my last class of the day I had a couple of kids -a- express that they were *finally* interested in science -b- voice that they were understanding how to take tests and -c- a (science) teacher's greatest dream: that a few of them are now wanting to consider a future in science. I've had kids say this last one before in years past, but today's comments to that effect seemed extremely genuine. Yay for bringing kids to science! [That last line sounds a little evangelistic, and the really cool thing was that I was able to garner this unsolicited interest from the students without contradicting religion. "We've" learned that religion and science don't have to be mutually exclusive!]

If you see a new face...

Some of you WOLlies may have noticed that you have a new follower as of today! I found Jenny yesterday (?) and now I've found a few more of you.

Feel free to pop in and say high, ask me questions. I haven't been on WOL much lately and probably won't be on here much more than to check other blogs and maybe a short post here and there. (I know it seems like in the last few days I've been on here constantly, but it does take work to set one of these things up, heh.)

No Need for Negativity Today!

I received an email while at work today from my university's financial aid office saying that my financial aid package had been updated to reflect recent changes. I was unaware of any impending changes and so immediately my head and heart jumped to the worst conclusion, that I had lost some sort of eligibility.

After getting home I logged in to see what my new package looked like only to find out that a "Private Scholarship" had been applied to my account! Between sucking the DoD dry of my last MyCAA payment before the new fiscal year and this new Private Scholarship I only have to worry about paying for my course NEXT summer! 

I have NO idea where this Private Scholarship has come from, but it seems I've got a mystery benefactor of some sort out there! Normally I'd be wary, but it's already been applied to my account so I can't see any reason for the school to "take it away" from me later. I am beyond jazzed!!!

God is Good!

The Downward Spiral

People who already know who I am are aware that I am a military spouse. In fact, the folks that know about and read this site are probably military spouses themselves. As most people can imagine there are things both good and bad about being affiliated with the military.

The past 14 months for me has been overwhelmingly in the "bad" camp. My husband's current post has proved to be nothing short of miserable. Sure the place is pretty to look at and the weather is better than what I'm used to. But, I have no friends and not for lack of trying. I have no church home, again, not for lack of trying. The people I work with are nice enough, but my job largely consists of excessive amounts of paperwork and to-do lists. This year it is never ending stress as they have me teaching a new course that has no textbook and next to no real resources. It's like flying by the seat of your pants every day and I'm uncomfortable. The nature of my husband's job is such that I hardly see him even though he's not deployed. The damage our respective jobs have on our personal psyches and on our relationship is unreal.

To say that these last 14 months have left me depressed is an understatement. 10 months to go and we're home-free; off to wherever the military deems comes next.

I don't want to dwell on wholly negative things so here's my positive: I am secure in the knowledge that this assignment is only temporary. I can last the 6 months until we get to find out where we go next and in 10 months I'll be there, with God's good grace.

The Name

I'm not sure how having a Blogger will work out for me. But I figured I'd at least explain why my journal is titled as it is.

πλάνητες αστέρι (pronounced planetes asteri) is Greek for wandering star.

Those who already know me know that I am not Greek. But Greek (and Latin) are the languages of science (and religion!). Those who already know me additionally know that I am a scientist and educator. My students are always rolling their eyes when I tell them to learn the language of science by gaining a better understanding of Greek and Latin word parts. They're also genuinely surprised when I tell them that "We are all made of star stuff," to quote Stephen Hawking. 

I also have a fairly strong sense of pull towards the heavens/universe/cosmos or whatever adjective you choose to call it by. My heart and mind is ever watchful of the sky. Reflecting on the majesty of such a "place" invokes the very nature of God to take residence in one's being and can produce an incredible sense of longing, awe and even a deep sense of peace.

Perhaps the "wandering" term is the most vague. I have an inborn nature to move around. I can't sit/stand still in my classroom. I'm constantly looking for my next vacation idea. When given the chance I love a change in scenery and will jump on it. 

Often this wandering is imposed upon me. The nature of my husband's profession is such that we move frequently and not always to a destination of our choosing. It is these "forced" wanderings that lead me into an even greater sense of the term, as I search to find new friends, new homes (both spiritual and physical), new jobs, and more importantly new self. 

So there you have it.