Life in general...

It's a lazy weekend Sunday and I'm listening to the rain come down and it's so relaxing. It's the perfect way to start Spring Break.

Mom got here today and we'll be running around this week to do some fun stuff!

I think I'll make a list:

1. I cleaned house and flung stuff around like a mad person b/c Mom was on her way. It's always much funner to get it all together at the last minute. I feel very Trading Spaces when I do that. I only just finished painting the extra bed white yesterday, went and bought a mattress in the rain (strapped it to the top of the FJ...it was plastic wrapped), and zipped over to target today and bought this...cuz I felt like I needed something pretty in here!! I LOVE it and may just come live in this room myself! haha!

2. We have weird things growing in the aquarium!! Look at Warren's blog at some point I'll put pictures there, but OMG there is a worm/centipede looking thing that we finally saw out all the way today for the first time...and yesterday we saw finally the whole of another little organism which we believe to be TWO sea star things (the link is what they look like in our tank, we think that is what maybe we have) that all just spontaneously grew out of the LIVE ROCK! O.O

3. Warren started a new section of his Internal Med. rotation this week in infectious disease. He doesn't really care for the subject and is just going to hang in there for the next three weeks. He had his first med school patient that he's really followed die this weekend so he's a little sad too, but the guy had a "constellation" of problems (to use W's new word, lol) so I'm not really that surprised at the outcome.

4. It will be interesting to see how work pans out now that 2 ppl retired and 2 were RIFed (b/c we had two ppl not yet certified in library science, they are still in college taking their classes to be LMS's) so that leaves two positions for me to choose from but I'm trying to get them to create a 3rd spot to catalog all the "new" book donations that are in, AND my name is attached to a grant that if they win I could be the "director" and oversee that...so somewhere I will work for GISD next year just not sure where exactly.

K, I think that's all for now folks! Laters!

Jail-time!

Warren began his internal medicine rotation down here at UTMB, which will last till April. We do know that he will be here until then, after that his next two rotations depend upon if there is enough patient base for them to have opened down here in the next 3 months. The next one is psych...and while there are some crazy people down here...I don't think it will be enough to reopen the program. So probably he will go back to Dallas for roughly six weeks. Then after that is OBGYN!!! ha He is dreading it. But by that time people will be having "Ike" babies so maybe it will open or maybe he can be at a clinic...


His current rotation is broken into three parts, one month on clinic, one month on ambulatory, and one month in the jail. UTMB has a prison floor, for those of you who don't know, and they bring the prisoners from the county and farther who need healthcare here.


His first day going in he had to take off everything metal, take off his shoes, and get patted and wanded down before entering the floor. He also said he cannot take his cell phone with him into the area because they are afraid prisoners would try to take it and make a phone call. (!??!?!!! like they could call someone to come and get them?! I think it's a dumb rule and I don't like him being in there without his phone!!!).


Now (since I am writing this a bit after the fact..I post-date it back tho to closer when he began) he said he isn't always wanded everyday now, just alot at the beginning and I think it depends on who is on guard duty.

Also, he finally spilled on the security...and...I don't want to say to much about it! I'm afraid some internet policemen might track me down for spilling the beans on how it is all laid out! So if you see Warren, ask him how it all works...it's really interesting. :)

Happy Holidays!

I know, I know it's been a while! It always gets so busy in Nov...Dec. that I don't take the time to sit down and really write anything.

Last week we had "Resiliency Training"...which was a code phrase for let's get some random people on our staff some therapy!! NOT kidding. Some of us were 'chosen' to attend the 'training' but all it was was a therapy session with a woman who was trying to play at being a psychic!! All I can say is, it was weird and she picked on people. I stopped making eye contact and quit participating. It was uncomfortable and sad to listen to another teacher who has been at Burnet for like 20 years talk about how it would hurt her if they close that school and she sat there and made this person say back to her, "It will not hurt me." Over and over!

Her psychic vision for me was that I'm supposed to get my Doctorate. After I had introduced myself and basically only said that I wasn't from here, was from north TX, we were affected by the hurricane because Warren and I were split up and not living in the same place, had to move, yadda yadda...she says so when are you going back to school? I said I already have my Masters. So then she says, no you are supposed to get your Doctorate, it's supposed to be Dr. and Dr. I'm like, I don't think so! I'm not going back to school for that...then it was why not...and she kept coming back to it...

Anyway, she picked on me about it, I didn't like it or her and it made me mad and I have to stop typing about it now because it's making me mad again! Who does she think she is? She doesn't know me!! I've already been through my own "resiliency training" it's called LIFE!!! GRRRR!!

List-o-rama:

1. Warren gets to do Internal Med. in Galveston starting in January!! His two classes after that are schedule for Dallas for now, but his director says it's a possibility that they could open up down here in the area.

2. Grace and Pete have settled into the apt. Grace has the routine down now and Pete is working on it. He had a hard time with it being new territory but he likes the windows and he likes trying to open ANY door or cabinet! I may have to get childproof locks for the cat! ha

3. Keep Aunt Lisa in your thoughts please, her surgery is scheduled for this Thursday. She is having her heart valve replaced.

4. I'm sooo glad I have only 2 days of school left! (I took off to come up for the surgery so I could be there).

5. I dislike unpacking. Who knew I had so much kitchen stuff! I am repacking some things to just store away in the extra closet. Tonight I'm going to try to tackle our closet and get everything hung up.

And...I think that's it for now. School is out :)

I am so tired of Galveston. Driving to work in the morning is the most depressing thing, it sets the tone for the day & kills any kind of positive attitude I have going. We drive by (I'm commuting with the Art teacher) piles of trash & debris, houses that are leaning sideways, boats still sitting on the highway, flashing red stop lights, traffic that is made worse because of all the workers coming to work on the island...

Last week when the list I posted yesterday was told to us, it instantly killed any kind of work ethic I had going. If my school isn't opened up then why should I try to solicit donations of books and materials? If there is going to be a RIF, then why should I spend any time or effort on my job to filling out disaster relief forms for the library? Besides all that, what about UTMB? Will we even be living here come January?

I searched the 7 school districts north of Galveston that wouldn't be too far of a drive for job postings...but everyone has a full staff at this point.

Austin has one elementary librarian position open and 3 children's librarian openings in the public library system. Maybe moving wouldn't be so bad.

My body is so stressed from all of this that I missed my monthly last month, which I NEVER have ever had happen...but no worries I started yesterday. lol

I'm just tired. Tired of it all. Tired of seeing it; tired of smelling it (no kidding, it stinks still); tired of being here; tired of being in someone else's space both as a job and living arrangement. (For those of you who don't know, Warren is in our FEMA hotel and wrapping up surgery this week, and I am living in Mark's dining room on his air matress in his apartment). At this point, all I do is show up and get paid and at least there is some security in that. But I really just want to walk away, walk away and not come back. Thank God I don't have to deal with insurance people, although we still haven't gotten any money that I know of from FEMA so we are probably going to have to re-file or do another claim or something.

K, I'm going to go drive by my school that I'm contemplating breaking & entering to steal MY OWN THINGS back from. Then will drop some cat food off at the humane society and go drink half a bottle of wine & go to sleep.

Oh, & p.s. I have no internet at the apartment now, the network we were using secured themselves.

Later,

Living in Limbo...

Well school started back this week and I am shocked...absolutely shocked at how many students returned. We had alot of Burnet kiddos...they are being bused from all over some as far as Texas City and La Marque (which is across the causeway on the mainland). Our host school(s) Parker and Oppe are seeing less students return because their children feed out of the west end which received much more damage than the middle of the island which is where Burnet students are. Yesterday was tearful...but anytime one of their little faces saw me, or Mrs. Bacon, or another Burnet teacher that they knew, they just lit up and smiled and waved and hugged. It made us all feel better to see one another. Today I saw a rough count of our attendance (Burnet only, we are doing separate attendance for now so we will know how many from each campus are here) and it was hovering around 300 for us. When we left for Hurricane Ike our ADA was about 530. So, roughly 60% of our kiddos are back! Yay!

In other news...read the article entitled, "UTMB avoids massive round of layoffs" here: http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=4c2d61ba4eec5c48 . This worries me. It sounds very ambiguous about if the med school will return?! We could end up in Austin. Time will tell I guess...it sounds like the director is supportive of keeping the school here, but unless they find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and some patients to start rounding on...who knows? Warren is still hearing that they will more than likely start back in January after December break, which is what we had been thinking all along.

There is a rumor that can neither be confirmed nor denied by Warren's UTMB director-man of a 30 ft. alligator running around in UTMB. Eek!

Our landlords are making progress on housing renovations, they got out the flooring and are getting new sub-flooring in already as well as making other little changes too. We'll see. Apparently plumbing is too much to add the W/D inside the house, but building a walkway and carport to have a covered walking area isn't. She is also looking at enclosing the deck, putting in darker wood (or some type of wood-like, pet friendly flooring), putting french doors in the dining room and closing off the kitchen door and putting the fridge there w/ more cabinetry, and an island. Cool! I hope all that pans out :-) Maybe we can move back in over Thanksgiving. Anyone wanna bring down their turkey fryer and some blow-up matresses?! We can have a moving in party for Thanksgiving! lol

News, finally...

Finally we have news on something! There are NO surgery slots available in Dallas...we think because their surgery courses run differently than UTMB's...they look like they are year long instead of blocked. Warren would have wrapped up trauma surgery this past week and moved onto plastics for the next 4 weeks but now we think he will just be placed into some kind of surgical rotation.

So, we may be relocating to Temple, TX where he can finish up his surgery rotation. He did have the option to take an Incomplete but he doesn't want to lose time on graduation. I am torn between going with him (GISD said that payroll will still be posting to our bank accounts) and staying and subbing in school districts that I am familiar with (Sam Rayburn, Bonham, Whitewright) not to mention connections at each one.

We will look into FEMA housing/hotel in Temple tomorrow.

Nothing new to report as of yet, there is supposed to be an announcement of some sort around noonish, although we are both feeling rather disheartend with the whole project. We are past the point of really caring what they have to say and if and when they decide to keep it open and keep it open for more than a day then we will begin plans to go back down. We both are kind of feeling like we just want to be done with it so we can move on and re-locate.

Please keep Vickie and her family in your prayers, her dad passed away this past weekend and we are going to the funeral later today.

Warren has no word yet from UTMB on placement. We are hoping to hear something soon.