It has been a while.

>>Things are peaceful. (wait.. should I repeat that?) Things are SO peaceful. My students are good. Witch-aide is good. My students are a little nutty but when I try and look at the funny side of things they make my smile more than frown. Sometimes I need to just take a deep breath, go a little slower and I realize how VERY lucky I am. My little neck of the woods are happy. I am making more friends at work, becoming part of a team. Its glorious! I feel like I belong (now if I only I could get my teaching credential scores, so I ACTUALLY HAVE A CREDENTIAL - that would be awesome)
>>My home-hospital is going well. I am teaching her things she has never learned and I have no experience in these areas, so I am proud of myself. I am proud to see that I am GOOD at teaching and it's not just a fluke that I am good at SDC, I am good with other types of students.
>>Today when I got to school, my classroom was smelly. I assumed that it was old food left in someones desk. Or just smelly P.E. clothes. I plugged in a new air freshener and went about my day. The other SDC class is down the hallway 2 doors down. During 5th the janitor was checking the crawl space to see if something was dead under there because it smelled in all the classrooms. The found an ancient dead turtle and some dead rats/mice (super gross) come 6th period when my principals come up and say that they think it may be a gas leak and my class needs to evacuate to another room for 7th period. The 2 SDC classes (all 13 of the kiddos, 3 aides and 2 teachers) went into another room for 7th period. it was pretty nutty. I kept looking at all those kids, all those things going on and thinking i taught this many kids, plus 5 more last year. I was in control of this many aides, and this many wild ones. I couldn't believe it. How did I survive? no wonder I went nutty most of last year. No wonder I was stressed and going crazy. I AM NOT SURPRISED. I am proud of myself for surviving it all, but I am so thankful for Mr. N (that is what I am going to call the other SDC teacher) I want him to stay forever and forever, because he's a great teacher, he works wel with the kids, but also because he saves my butt all the time by teaching the rambunctious kiddos. He needs to stick around. Anyways, the gas leak caused me to run away from school right when the bell rang because I just did not want to risk it. We will find out tomorrow what is going on.

>>In other news, everyone remember Jamie from last year? My student who was taken away from his mother, stayed in the children's shelter over christmas. Lived with his uncle? and then ended up moving in with his half sister and OTHER uncle a few hours away? Well, I heard from his advocate and apparently he is having a really rough time at his new school and at his new house. He's becoming violent, and agressive and keeps complaining about coming back to my class. His aunt emailed me and has been saying she is going to call to talk about what we did with Jamie and why he was so successful in my class. Why was he so successful? Because we were a family. We cared about those kids like they were OUR kids. especially Jamie. I loved him so much, and I wanted to be able to take care of him. I am concerned and worried and I hope I can still see him being successful and I hope I can be there to help him through it.

>> I know I had more to post, but this is what I can think of for now. I will try and keep up.