End of the Week

Once again, I am thankful for a Friday.

Yesterday was really tough with the kids (they always are rowdier at the end of the week) and my Master's research class was horrid. The prof refuses to fully explain the assignments, telling us that he just wants us to do them and then wait for individual feedback to tell how we need to revise. For a bumch of teachers who don't want to be researchers, telling us to "trust the process" is a bunch of crap. No one in there has the time or energy to do the same assignment several times to tweak it to his expectations (because you have to be editing and revising as the course continues and he assigns more work). We'd all rather just be given the expectations and do it right the first time! Anyway...

After my bad, tiring day, I went home and took a hot shower. Then, I got a call from the realtor. The people orignally offering on the property withdrew, but we got another from someone else. It's a lot less than we were asking, but we just found out that there's a big possibility that the city is going to try and run a 4 lane highway down the center of the land, so that changes things quite a bit. I went ahead and accepted the lower offer, because I know that we wouldn't get that much from the city, and really, who else would want a road going through their front yard?

So, I finished talking to him and then gave Michael a quick call. He was on his way home. The next thing I knew, he was telling me to wake up. Turns out I had fallen asleep with my phone in my hand, wearing only my towel. He wonderfully set out some clothes for me, then took me to dinner (I had only eaten a Luna bar all day...things were crazy!!) at a place nearby, which was really nice.

So, the week is finally over and it's time to celebrate...the NYC teacher's union agreed to ratify our new contract, so basically, I'm going to be spending an extra hour at school Monday thru Friday, but I'm also going to get paid retroactively for 2 or 3 raises that didn't come because of the contract stuff and get a general increase in salary. (Hey, I was already staying after school almost every day anyway, now, at least, I'll feel like I'll be getting paid to do it!) I don't know exactly when all of the changes are going to be put into effect, but I hope we'll get at least some additional money before Christmas.