Momo-Zaza

Made it through my first two official teaching observations, and two BTSA observations.  Definitely improving with each observation (at least, according to the feedback? i think? hopefully? =P).  We’ll see how the third official one goes.  It’s definitely crunch time with only 3 weeks left before break.

I finally signed up for a 403b plan.  For those not into non-profits,  it’s the same as you’re 401k plans.  Unfortunately, no matching from the district, because it is a non-profit organization. Boo.  I decided to go for a fixed annuity with about 3% rate of return - yeah super low, I know.  But I haven’t had time to look over the more aggressive variable funds yet, and I don’t think I will have the time till summer anyways.  $500/month into the 403b pre-tax from January till June will give me $3000 in 403b contributions.  Then next year, I’ll see about changing to variable rate (assuming I’m still teaching….?).  The key was not so much getting a high rate of return, but to lower my taxable income.

My other financial goal is to save up at least $10,000 in liquid cash to live off of from July through September.  If I can find some sort of part-time job or earn some cash on the side during the summer, that will be more I can save up. =)  That 10k is supposed to exclude any Japan/Taiwan trip expenditures for the summer, meaning I will actually have to save up more than 10k to pay for the Asia trip for Jonathan’s wedding.  Sigh.  Tough, but very doable I think.

Last goal (one of the ones I’m looking forward to the most) is to finish paying off my student loans by the end of June.  If I keep paying it back at my current rate of $1000/month, then I should be done by then, which would be a huge load off my mind.

Maybe by 2009 I can afford a new car. ^_^  Maybe.  My old ‘98 Accord is still holding up really well and I haven’t even hit 90k miles yet.

Physical goal: I need to lose weight and get more healthy.   But I am also very unmotivated when it comes to actually doing it.  And it’s getting cold out, so it’s harder to convince my self to even step outside to go to a gym, much less actually run or play tennis outside.  Would losing 5 pounds a month be reasonable?  With a total of 35 pounds lost by the end of June (in time to feast in Asia! :D)?  I will try it.  Please remind me not to eat so much.  I say this as I’m starving because I forgot to bring my lunch to work….and will most likely go home and eat before dinner…but yeah, oh well.

You really don’t need to know Japanese for this.

In fact, some kids are really quite sweet. Personality wise at least. At my school, we do rotations for 5th and 6th grade. That means that like the middle schools, I only teach certain subjects. I teach my own homeroom class math, writing, and literature. Still a lot, but at least I don’t have to do science, history, music, or PE. In addition to my homeroom class, I teach all 3 fifth grade classes reading (grammar and reading strategies). After wrapping up my second reading class and sending my own class out to lunch, I sat down at my desk to find a sealed note titled:

A Private Letter
To: Miss Chen
From: A thankful student

My first reaction was “Huh?” and “Shoot, what’s wrong now?” (before I saw the “thankful student” part). Upon opening it, I found a neatly typed letter with a colorful computer generated background, entitled “A Spectacular Teacher”. THAT got my attention - “Who’s this person talking about?” In it, it said the following:

In the fifth grade, I met a great teacher who showed me the way to listen and understand. She loved her students and cared about their education. She never gave up, and taught them to stand, as strong as they could, as brave as they were, she kept teaching and teaching and teaching. And today although only almost 2 months have past, we now are silent in class. Thanks to the brave teacher, who knew we could reach her, she now is a legend to me and you. Thank you Miss Chen, i love you too!

- A private letter from,
<insert student name>
Granted, I’m still kind of wondering “Is she talking about me??” All I did was show them a simple game to keep them quiet, but apparently according to her homeroom teacher Susie, she wrote a lovely paragraph about me in her journal too, saying reading class was her favorite part of the day. (^_^) Yay, that’s my teaching moment of the week - and I think it tops the farting.

So I was writing stuff up on the board today in math class, and all of a sudden I smell something bad. REAL BAD. Unfortunately, there was only so much room on the white board - I had already written on the right side of the board far away from the stinky smell and I couldn’t erase that side since the kids needed that info. Which leaves the left side of the board. The stinky side. IT SMELLED SO FRICKIN’ RIDICULOUSLY BAD. FART OF THE CENTURY. SILENT AND SUPER DEADLY. Strangely enough none of the other kids seemed to notice - or maybe they were just being polite. Or maybe the kid in the front row aimed his or her arse towards me only. Let’s just say I tried stalling and rehashing info on the right side of the board to let the left side’s odors dissipate for a bit. Unfortunately it was super long lasting. So I had to go back to the left side while it was still stinky. To save myself, I sniffed my white board marker. A lot. Better to be high on white board marker fumes than gagging on smelly farts I always say. Yeah, that was pretty much the most exciting thing that happened in school today.

Farts aside, kids smell in general. My room seriously needs Febreeze or some sort of air freshener. Glade oil plugins are a bit too strong though. Suggestions? HALP! =P

Oh yeah, in other news - we moved to an awesome big new house (still in Cupertino) with 6 other people. Pain to keep clean, but it’s nice. Come visit! And I switched school districts - to an even richer and better performing one. Yeah, scary - hopefully I don’t get killed by the workload or chewed out by over involved parents this year. But hey, at least they have the small classroom size going for them, woo hoo only 26 kids! (And did I mention brand new MacBooks for the fifth grade and wireless in the classroom? )