Illness plagues my school

Hey bloggers. Well like my title suggests, illness has taken over at my school. There were three confirmed cases of chicken pox and a number of faculty members who have colds (including me) :( I got a scratchy throat on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning I was hacking up all kinds of gross stuff. My chest hurts from coughing so much. Thursday was Thanksgiving dinner and there were so many problems. The students didn't bring enough of the ingredients, some of them couldn't find what they were looking for and didn't ask for help in looking for it (they just gave up), teachers didn't really want any of the food we were making... the list goes on and on. But despite all the stress it caused me, it was successful because the students had a great time. It was a super long day and I thought I was going to die at the end of it. I couldn't stop coughing and I was pretty done after dinner. Friday was a half day, thank God! And I slept most of Saturday and Sunday. I just wanted to get over my cold.... and I'm still not over it :( The SATs are this Saturday so about 90% of my students from the AP side are gone this week to prep for them. I have my observation on Tuesday so I'm pretty nervous about that since I probably won't have many students. Also on Tuesday I have my showing of the charity concert dance I'm working on. Adeline and I will be dancing while James plays the piano. James chose Magic Waltz as our music and my boss wanted me to work with Adeline who will be dancing a traditional Chinese dance called Peacock Dance. Basically, I will be doing ballet while she does Chinese dance and James plays a waltz. This should be interesting. We're meeting tonight to see what we can put together. I'm pretty stressed about having all these things coming up. On the plus side it sounds like I got my no Christmas celebration wish. The charity concert is on the 20th of December so planning Christmas parties for the week of the 22nd was just too much to do. Not to mention all students already got Halloween and the seniors got Thanksgiving. Christmas is just one too many celebrations for the first semester when we also have to deal with classes, midterms, and finals all at the same time. My students don't even want to celebrate Christmas with me or any of their other English teachers. They said last year it was boring. Oh well. I don't mind if they don't wanna celebrate :D This week is a long week so I'll definitely be keeping my head down and trudging along. And I do mean that literally because it's windy and 8 degrees Fahrenheit today so head down is what I need to do this week. I'll try to update you next week if I remember. Until then... Laters!

Week one of craziness!

Hey bloggers! Welcome to Chelsey will go crazy: week 1. Yesterday was the start of Midterms and today and tomorrow are midterm days. Then grades are due Saturday so I have three days to grade and submit my midterm scores. I also have to teach regular classes on Thursday and Friday so I'm doing a lot in a short amount of time. Then next week is Thanksgiving week so I'm gonna be taking inventory of everything students need to bring in for dinner Thursday night. I'm pretty stressed out because I know people are gonna get really mad if I ask them to buy stuff and donate it to the dinner. The center is already donating turkeys but other teachers are going to want the center to reimburse them for the other stuff they bring. Basically I'm preparing dinner for 130 people. It's gonna suck. After Thanksgiving is open house and conferences for year 10 and 11 but I'm not really affected by that since I teach year 12. Of course shortly after that is national exams so they're not gonna wanna learn anything from me, they'll just wanna prepare for national exams. December 20th is the Charity concert and I'm working on getting selections done for that. Sharon wants me to dance again but I said that I need students who know how to dance if I'm doing that again. It was FAR too hard to create a dance for a student who hadn't ever danced before. She also wanted me to give her movements that were not in her range of motion. If you're not flexible enough to do the splits, you can't ask me to choreograph a dance with you doing the splits. It just doesn't work that way.

Speaking of choreography, my club has officially been changed. I am no longer creating a live musical because students don't come to rehearsals every week. I'm luck if they come once a month. So we're gonna film it and put it together in a short film. I'm not really sure how that'll work but I know for sure we can't do a live performance. I'll be spending a lot of time working on the editing once that's all done. I can't wait for this club to be done.

On the plus side, I'm helping Michael in creating a real counseling program for our school! It's been really fun to help with this project. Basically what it consists of is getting students to fill out surveys on university and career interests and then putting them in groups for counseling sessions. I'm doing TRUE counseling work! This is so exciting! Thursday is our first small group session. We're meeting with students who are looking for schools that have the option of post graduate studies. There's 7 students and Michael and I will be co-facilitating it. I'm pretty excited. I'll let you know how it goes! Until then... Laters!

Sick again :(

Hey bloggers! Here's the update. China blocked Viber (but only 67% what ever that means) so I have a hard time keeping in touch with my family :( Last week was Halloween and the year 10 and 11 field trip. I was planning it all month and the Halloween party even longer than that. It was stressful but that's one less activity I have to plan. I asked some of the students who went on the field trip what their favorite activity was and they all said that the party was their favorite! It was an incredible ego boost and was nice to know that I'm doing my job well. At least one of my titles >.< But like last year I'm sick again thanks to the rain and camping in the cold. I spent the rest of the weekend recovering. My body aches and my head hurts on and off. But I'm one month closer to being done here! This new director of student affairs title is killing me.... My students stopped showing up to club because mid terms is in two weeks and they're all stressed out. I get it, I really do. But they have to understand that I'm creating a musical for them and they're gonna look bad if they don't perform it! It's gonna suck if some of them put all this work into preparing for it and then they don't do anything for it... Oh well. They're choice right? This week is a long week so I'm just going through the motions right now. Next week is a short week so I'll rest a lot right before mid terms. This month's project is Thanksgiving dinner. I'm supposed to plan the Thanksgiving dinner for the seniors and faculty. This is yet another stressful event for me to plan. Last year we all gave crap to Sarah because she made us do this dinner. Our director loved it so much last year that we're doing it again this year and this time I'll get all the crap for planning it all. It's gonna suck so much. I wonder if my boss chose me for this job because his wife got mad at me last year for not making sure she got to a wedding. But that's a whole different story. This blog has been all over the place because that's how my thought process is pretty much. It's time to go.... I'll update you again soon. Until then... Laters!