Another one of those catch up things…

I’m sure there are all kinds of things I meant to put here, but can’t for the life of me remember what they were now.

This is the last week-end for Sociolinguistics, thankfully…But I’m not holding out hope about passing. If I don’t…I don’t know what I’m going to do. We have set classes we have to take, that is the only time they are offered…The whole system through Grand Valley at the University Center is falling apart from what I can tell. They are supposed to be changing to some kind of consortium…So all the students coming in under the same program take the classes at the same time, blah, blah, blah. I managed to get the last part of the old program. So they are trying to just push us all through. On top of that…They have decided they are no longer going to send professors up here from down state to teach classes if they can’t find a professor to teach them up here. Which means, any class that doesn’t have a professor up here, you’ll have to drive down state to take. O.o Driving 3 hours to go to a class does not sound reasonable at all. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, it won’t happen, and I don’t know what the bloody hell I’ll do. [It’s bad enough I know that next year the one class I have requires the students to drive down to main campus to make a presentation. At least that is only a one time thing, not a weekly drive.]

Speaking of driving…Appa’s master cylinder is dying. One of the guy’s Mum works with found one online for $25.00, so we are waiting for it to come in. Also another of the guys she works with is a mechanic, and when it gets here, will have hopefully found a place to do the work, and is going to fix it for us. [As apparently my Uncle is too busy with his own stuff…Though Mum wonders if he just doesn’t want to do it anymore. *shrugs* Who knows. I’m inclined to agree with Mum, and say it is in part to his wife. But that is just my thoughts.] On top of that, there is a list of other things that are ailing Appa…Things we can’t afford to fix…Things that will eventually claim him. *sigh* *frowns* [It’s not like he’s not already falling apart, but still…Blah.]

Apparently my insanity has decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. Amazingly I’ve got a quasi-plot. Not sure how I’m going to start and launch into it…But at least there is some kind of idea to work with. Unfortunately, trying to gather information for it, not working on some levels. *pokes at the internet* I thought you were suppose to have everything!
I’m taking setting inspiration from the book series Sonja had me read (Chronicles of Ancient Darkness), which is stone age era. [Not cave men, just stone tool users.] Thing is, I wanted to set it in the North America area (CoAD is set in Eurasia)…And it’s so hard to find relevant information about the area. I get there was an Ice Age…Okay, and after that? What animals where here? What plant life was here? Hello? Eurasia didn’t have the market on life!
What I do know…Bison, elk, caribou, deer…Useful/helpful, yes. No horses…Good to know…But I’m lacking predators! I’m lacking birds of predator & prey…I suppose I can just figure what we have now we had then…Aside from the fact that I know some animals where in other places and moved here later…And we had some animals that we don’t have any more…So yeah…Aggravating that I can’t just find even simple information.

And back to the subject of school, as my entry has A.D.D.
I still have to finish my last paper for Sociolinguistics, and hope it does better than the last one. *shakes head & rolls eyes* This teacher…I think he’s a bit on the cluessless side. He said he wanted a reflection/reaction paper, not a research paper…Yet we were suppose to have sources…He never really said what we were suppose to be reflecting/reacting to…Silly me, figured it was the stuff we were learning/reading for class. Apparently there was suppose to be some kind of research somewhere along the lines. *rolls eyes* So yeah…This next paper is less reflection/reaction, and more research…So it’s probably not going to be right either…But it’ll have sources, so WTF ever.

Teaching Reading is going okay…I think. After nearly 2 months the superintendent/principal of the school FINALLY remembered to talk to the teachers so I can get in to do my 5 hours of observation and 15 hours of tutoring. [Which yeah, was initially suppose to be done by the 20th of November, but she’s given us some lead-way since we have to set up things ourselves, instead of the college doing it, like they do downstate.] I start Monday, with Mrs. Gooding for my observations. The language arts class is an hour and a half every day, so I should be able to get in my observation in no time. That is with 4th graders. I may be tutoring a range of age groups (since my scheduled is pretty much flexible). Apparently K-3rd have art the second half of the day throughout the week, and the classes could use a bit of shrinkage…So I might be handed some of them to work with during art classes, that way it benefits everyone. We need some kind of ‘lesson plan’, but it can be teacher provided, so I’m hoping that they will have something for me, that way I can do what I need to do to offer the best help that whatever child I’m tutoring needs…& I won’t have to write lesson plans up for 15 tutoring sessions. We have to present our best/favorite one as our final in class.
I’m half way done with my book talks and read alouds (have to do 2 of each.) We also have to present a learning strategy. I’m doing character maps. I’m not sure how exactly yet…But I’ll figure out something.

Harley started going to a one on one counselor Tuesday. Hopefully it will actually be of help, unlike what we were doing at the end of last school year, where the woman totally ignored the fact that he is why we were there, and not Sonja. And the other day Sonja even said she didn’t think the woman was very helpful to her even. So, yeah…
But the woman we talked to Tuesday seemed very nice. Harley seemed to like her. Of course, he got to play with Halo Legos the whole time…So yeah, he was content. But he did talk, and answer questions…And she recognized that he still has things that related to ASD, despite ‘testing out of it’ by the schools criteria. [& I think, with the change in his behavior again, he’d probably test back in at this point…But either way doesn’t really matter at this point, as he still has a behavior plan in place, a label isn’t really going to change anything.]

I’ve been quite disappointed with my recent bunch of books I got. The group before them were quite loverly…But yeah…The second to last were mostly on Shamanism. [& inadvertently became helpful with my story idea.] The last bunch was trying to focus on stone age information…But what little information t

hey did have, I already had due to other books I already owned (the curse of buying books without being able to flip through them first)…& I’m disappointed in my Rasputin book as well. It’s suppose to have information that was hidden before, and blah, blah, blah…But considering they can’t even get the family tree straight…*headdesk* It’s a bit disheartening.

Let’s see…What else.
Kittens are kittens…All cute & fuzzy…& outside. They are allowed to come in to visit. They even volunteer to come in on occasion. So it’s all good.
Junior has more water again…& he’s apparently a interior designer. I thought I had his rocks in a good position so he could get up out of the water. He decided to rearrange them, as well as the sand that was left in the corners of the tank, to make a line down the center of the tank. *shrugs* Whatever makes him happy. & he can get out of the water and bask now…So yeah, yoga turtle is happy.
Nikolai is Nikolai…Ivan is Ivan…Poochie is Poochie…
&…Then there is Sebastian…Who seems to be settling in just fine.

Wasil goes in for back surgery Monday…At some point he’s suppose to come to Michigan for recovery at his parent’s house. I’m not sure if it’s a full week after surgery or what. I’m not sure he knows. He wants me to come down and see him. I want to…But the scheduling up here I don’t know about…& there is that whole I don’t drive that far South. [Last time I did was 3 years ago, and it ended with us having one less car.] I don’t know…I guess we will just have to see how things work. & I will just have to hope he understands…I can’t change needed schedule things.

I think that is about it…I should probably think about doing something about getting dressed & maybe a little more work on my paper…I do have a scribbled paragraph to add…Just need a few more of those.