A Heart's a Heavy Burden

Oh no, I’ve been falling behind! This is legit like old habits - I cycle from posting every day to posting a couple times a month. I promise I’m going to write those entries about Ben and Sean’s and Bethany’s wedding!

I’ve been really busy with preparing for work and the Florida trip. I’m in the airport right now waiting to board. We got an email notification that MSP airport is experiencing longer than normal wait times so we were encouraged to get to the airport super early, which we did. The line was long but not too long and we got lucky because they were training a bunch of new people, thus holding up the line, so a woman opened up a secret check for us to go through and we didn’t have to deal with the practice searches of the new staff. Score!

Monday was the benefits training and initial overview for ISD 622. it was a super long day but also really necessary. I’ve never been at a benefits meeting where people asked so many questions about the different insurance plans before, and have had the person try really hard to answer the questione. Some people seemed like they were getting annoyed, but then would be like “wait what??” at some of the answers. What it really boils down to is, unless you are doing the high deductible, there are two competing plans and it all depends on your organization and willingness to risk not having enough money if something big were to happen. Personally I prefer to have the comfort of paying only $23 per paycheck and $25 copay no matter what (the insurance here is good, as promised). I am really looking forward to star looking for a therapist, and there doesn’t seem to be specific restrictions on it, so I’m gonna double check with member services and get right on that. The dental and vision are good too - dental is completely free and you can get your teeth cleaned 4 times a year if you want, lol. I have annoying eyes with vastly different prescriptions so good vision insurance definitely helps. For my last pair of glasses I paid over $500.

Yesterday was a short training at Maplewood Middle, and as usual I was totally into it and excited, but Molly, my EBD counterpart, had a lot of concerns and questions (classic me, assuming everything will work out and thinks of nothing), especially regarding the people in our group completely new to teaching. A lot of her concerns I had thought will be answered next week during all-staff training. We’ll see!

Admin of course projected a super positive image of the school and talked about how most of the staff have been there more than 5 years and made me really excited and looking forward to it (and I’m still high on the fact that I have my own classroom. Guys it’s a BIG DEAL). Afterward I asked Taylor, the autism teacher, about it. She was subbing all over the place in the school starting in the winter (she was in the peace corps and got kicked out because she started dating her neighbor and got pregnant. They gave her like 3 days notice... awk) and she said it’s the same as every other school - that gen ed is a shitshow but that SpEd is really strong. Goooood. It makes me nervous about co-teaching but at worst I’ll be annoyed for awhile that I’m a glorified para and eventually I’ll take advantage of the extra time to work on paperwork and stuff.

It looks like I have a small advisory class that will be combined with someone else’s, who just happens to be a gym teacher I worked with when I was a para in the district. Cool!

My pull-out math is 7th and 8th grade only, which is good and bad. I’m glad I don’t have all 3 grades because it becomes impossible to manage all of the standards and kids get disserviced, but again my experience with algebra is zero.

My classroom is looking really good, just a few things to finish taking care of next week!

I’m super motivated to get the “go to the gym [yoga] 12 times per month for a discount” because I’ll still get 12 times in even with this 5-day vacation and going to Ben and Sean’s once this month. It’ll be super doable if I go to Brandi’s classes twice a week and a random one whenever. I went to yoga in Stephanie’s class yesterday. It’s been awhile since I’ve gone to one of her classes and I really enjoyed it. We were working on loosening the hamstrings and doing splits practice. It was awesome. She also always does a guided meditation at the end of class, and today she had us focus on the feelings we feel when we think about “our heart’s desire”. I was overwhelmed with the big full happy emotions of being grateful for my life and having Steve there and being Ben and Sean’s moai* and just being so happy with my profession and plans for the future... maybe my eyes started leaking some. But even then I was grateful for the fact that I can feel emotions so intensely now, because it signals to me that I’m keeping my walls down and being open, when I spent so long closed and hard.

After yoga, I went home and said hi to Steve and Nick and Scott. Well, I’d already kind of said hi to Scott earlier when he showed up unannounced and I was in the bathroom and didn’t know he was in the living room, which looks down the hallway to our bathroom and bedroom, and I walked out pantless because I needed to put on yoga bottoms. I was so surprised to see him standing there that i just autistically said “HI SCOTT SORRY DIDNT KNOW YOU WERE THERE” and was annoyed at how embarrassed I was because like, it’s just my ass lol. I think it was the being caught off guard. AND I was indignant that Steve didn’t like text me or knock on the door because he knew I was getting ready and Scott was seriously lucky I didn’t walk out fully naked???

Soon after I got home I mustered up the energy to okay ITG, since it will be the last time to practice for Cupcake for the next five days! After warming up and adjusting to my newly loosened hamstrings, I had a pretty good day. Kept my heart rate up and played through a ton of the songs. Ultimately I played nonstop for an hour and a half, which is usually when my shoulders start to hurt really bad and my legs get tiredness. I had a lot of fun and got a couple new scores.

( Pics for posterity )

I still haven’t been able to pass any of the 12s and I’m nervous about my ability in tournament. I’m just hoping that everyone gets nervous and chokes, lol. At the very least I just don’t want to look like a fool who is out of her league.

Okay, gonna board soon!

During our cutie week, Steve and I have decided to sleep whenever we feel like, and be awake whenever we feel. This has led to long "naps" XD It's our last week to sleep at the same time, and we're taking advantage of it.

We went to Ikea yesterday (It was my first time!!) and wandered around the entire store. We have some very good items selected, which we will purchase on Thursday. The only things we actually bought from there yesterday were a small (cute!) lamp, an adorable wavy full-length mirror set for me, and some pan holders. After that, we went to Mall of America, because it's right next door.

There we ate (I had Pita Pit! Mmm) and wandered. We stopped in the two Love Sac stores (one is generic and actually feels better than original Love Sacs) to get an idea of the price. I think we'll ask for gift cards to help us get one at the end of the year or something. We stopped in The Tea Garden and sampled all the teas, and Steve admitted to loving that I love tea and wanting me to make some for us! Awww! By the time we left, we were both exhausted, but we had to stop in Shakopee and go through my old room and the bookshelf, so all my stuff will be ready by the weekend. We probably can't get the bookshelf til Saturday or Sunday, because Nick's dad is the only one with a truck, and Nick stupidly took Saturday and Sunday off instead of Friday and Saturday! We'll probably be done with moving most things by Sunday :/ It'll be a great help not having to take our two crappy entertainment centers, and instead have the easy-to-carry new ones we'll have bought.

I've been watching a lot of Jon and Kate Plus 8 and knitting Courtney a birthday card. Steve's about to beat Halo: Reach. Athena was correct; I found regular-sized almond milk in the milk aisle! ^_^ They were 2 for $3, so we got 2! Unsweetened.

Okay! Cutie vacay was a success! We did NOT leave the house after Saturday (and we only did that to mail cute gifts) until Wednesday when I had to work. Yay!

We had a list of things to do. These included:
-Get new music (Because Steve is notoriously bad at keeping up with his bjillion bands)
-Finish Kirby's Dream Land 3
-Start a new game/Finish a game
-Finish a manga
-Finish Cowboy Bebop
-Start a new anime
-LOTS of DDR
-Watch L: Change the World
-Finish the current Stephen King story
-Leah actually play some of her games

Ummm... I THINK that's all? We managed to do EVERYTHING on the list except get new music :D We beat the original Mario (Steve bought me the collector's edition for the Wii that includes 1, 2, 3, and Lost Levels, and now all we need to do is beat Lost Levels), got everything done in Kirby's Dream Land 3, I finished the Otomen I was reading and Steve read K-ON, we started an anime on Netflix called Noein (it's odd so far but intriguing, reminds me kinda like Shakugan no Shana), played soooo much DDR (even though I can't progress in DDR X because it keeps freezing at the start of my damn song, so I've just been playing a ton of In The Groove), L: Change the World was GREAT (It's following L around, and takes place BASICALLY after the live-action Death Note movie storyline, but not quite after), and I finally beat Golden Sun and started Witch's Wish.

It was so fun! I love Steve so much!

Now it's back to the old grind. I'm job hunting relentlessly, and we're getting prepared to apartment hunt for real next month. I want a job that applies my degree, by the way. I'm taking written exams next month and the month after for positions as either a Case Aide or a Social Worker. I'm looking very vigilantly for government jobs (Department of Human Services), because that would be great. I've also opened up for opportunities to move to more rural areas where they need workers. I just really don't think I could compete for a job in St. Paul/Minneapolis, because I'm not technically a Social Worker. I also actually applied for two positions involving sexuality education, and I hope soooo much to at least get consideration. I've been waiting YEARS for a position to open up. I'm really really good for the job. Steve's got a nibble right now for a modeling job (modeling as in creating, not showing his sexy bod), and it's also located rurally (for us). We actually may end up moving outside of the cities, who knows! I kinda hope not, and I'm sure he doesn't want to live in the boonies, either. I bet we'd just move to a suburb a little farther out of the cities, like Bloomington (by Mall of America for those of you who've been there), which is still very close to the cities. We'd just have to reconcile longer drives to work.

Note for the next few days!:

I'm taking a few days off with mah cutie, and we've decided to include avoiding technology (mostly) in our terms of the Vacay. So! I won't be on for like the next four days, but I'll be back soon! ^_^


P.S. Athena, be watchin' yo mail! ;)