The Joys of Testing 8:43 a.m. 2005-01-05

Yep - the school year resumes, and what does that mean? Massive testing! Yahoo!!! This week, we were informed that we needed to have our students take the Standards Master Test, which is an online assessment that I think we must do every Semester? Or is it Quarter? We also have to have the kids take the STAR Reading Test - also online.

So here I am in one of our computer labs, and I am going to kill two birds with one stone - i.e.: Take both tests today. There's not much I can do here but to surf the internet, maintain my E-Bay auctions, and pick my nose while our internet connection - the slowest in town - brings pages up at a leisurely pace.

After yesterday - this is great. I spent the day frantically finishing up my grading in order to enter grades in time for the deadline that afternoon. Made it! I still have lesson plans to submit, and it looks like I will be authoring the School Diversity Plan solo - despite my efforts to make it a team activity ("Team" doesn't meet until NEXT Wednesday, and I was told to have the Plan ready by this Friday...).

What else? Oh! I have to teach my students - most of whom can barely produce a readable paragraph - to write a five-paragraph theme in time for the Georgia Middle Grades Writing Assessment, which will be administered promptly after the Martin Luther King Holiday. Can do!!!!

Yesterday, I made it a point to leave the school as soon as I could make it to my car. Still, it took quite a while to get home. Then, I was overcome with drowsiness. So I walked and fed the dog, and retired upstairs to bed, and stayed there until about 6:30 PM. I was just so tired. So much for Oprah (rerun) and Dr. Phil.

When I got up, we made sandwiches for dinner, and I went down to my new office. I was determined to make a shopping list and to go get food for the rest of the week. After much thought, and numerous repeats of Dr. Phil's haranguing weight-loss book on CD, I have made the decision to give Slim-Fast a try again.

So, I diligently went to the SlimFast Website and took a look at the updated program. Now, they want you to eat a little something more with your Slim-Fast products, and they have latched onto Dr. Phil's plate division idea (which he got from someone else, as it happens...) for the "sensible meal." I printed out relevant information and made plans for meals from today until Sunday.

I went into MicroSoft Word and made a table - I love to make tables! It had space for 3 meals and 3 snacks and was five days long. With my meal plan, I set out to buy groceries. I must have left at about 9PM, because I watched the Gilmore Girls while list making.

I decided to go to WalMart Superstore, since they had the best price on SlimFast products. While I was there, I thought I would give their grocery section a try. It was more limited than Publix, but I managed to find almost everything on my list.

The problem arose at checkout. There were only what looked like two cashiers open, and it seemed to be taking forever for my line to proceed. I nicked a bottle of water and drained it, then read a Woman's Day while waiting in line. When I finally arrived at the checkout, I realized that this was trainee night, and my checkout clerk was a newbie being coached.

I didn't get home until 10:45 PM, and my dog went with me - to give her the impression that she got to do something exciting (go in the CAR!) that day. After putting up groceries, wrapping up E-Bay sales for the night, packing food to take to school, and putting more auctions up, I got to bed at about midnight, and I don't know when I finally got to sleep.

I hope that I don't go to sleep again this afternoon - but I can't promise anything.

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