Thanks everyone for your birthday wishes. I had a good birthday yesterday - even with a bit of a getting lost episode.

I ate at a restaurant I'd eaten at before - mainly because I knew I could get cheesecake and a virgin daiquiri there - two things I like to have on my birthday. All in all, it was kind of disappointing. The cheesecake wasn't that great, the daiquiri wasn't iced (maybe I made a mistake and said margarita instead??) and the veggie burger ... wasn't anything to write home about. Overall a quite expensive meal for not much -- $20.38 plus tip. However, I did bring half of the meal home for tonight - so maybe it'll be better reheated.

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Today was interesting. I didn't have any students until about 10:50 because my one class I usually have at 9:45 was practicing for the Christmas program. I did have them come in for about ten minutes so they could check out books.

During this time I had no students, I worked on getting the newspaper ready to distribute. Early in the morning, three of my journalisim students came and folded the 210 copies I'd made on Wednesday. As I was counting copies to the different classes, I realized we needed another 15 just for the students. So I made 25 more copies and folded them. As I was just about to head over to the main office to put them in the teachers boxes, I noticed a typo. The lead story had been changed from present tense to past tense, and I had missed an "is." So ... I debated on fixing it and reprinting 235 copies and then folding them myself ... or just taking a pen and making an "ink splot" on 235 copies ... I chose to do the ink splot. With 5 minutes to go before my 6th grade AM group arrived, AL (the computer tech) agreed to finish the last few copies and take them to the office for me. Phew!

After school today I received several compliments on the paper - especially on how it was free of spelling errors and bad grammar, as well as how it definitely sounded like "kid writing." That was my goal - to be as hands off as possible - while still making sure it was good writing. (I had the Language arts teacher proofread it for me as a double check -- I have a tendency to use way to many commas, etc.)

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Now on to the fiasco ....

The 6th graders finishing their computer mid-term (on plagiarism.) Of 17 students, at least two (maybe three) tests had completely vanished. Two, possibly three tests corrupted and the students had to start from scratch. Although I assured each student that was having technical difficulties that it would not be held against them, I had one student who was *really* upset at having to start over. So much so that she ended up visiting the school counselor. I just felt sick at having upset a student so.

I do not plan on basing any more tests on the computer. What I had done was I made the test in Word, and then posted the original in each grades folder. Then the students opened the test, and saved it under their own name. For the majority of students this worked just fine .. however 6 6th graders and 1 7th grader (who's test also vanished) ... it didn't work out so well. The 8th graders finish on Monday ... I fervently hope that we won't experience the same problems!!!

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I am so glad for the Sabbath and the needed rest/break. I really hope our regular pastor is speaking tomorrow, and not one of the elders.

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One week from now I'll be in California!! It more than likely will be much warmer than here!! (Highs in the mid-30's versus highs in the mid to high 60's... )

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I cashed out for $8 on Beezag (I think on Tuesday??) and am already up to 1000 points. There were 7! videos tonight. I also have enough Mypoints for a $25 AGC, but will wait til I have enough for a $50 because that saves 400 points. I also cashed out for a $5 AGC from Swagbucks on either Tuesday or Wednesday (can't remember now.)

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We have snow predicted for Sunday night ... SrN is worried about our Christmas program Monday night. It'd have to be pretty bad to cancel ... considering how much snow we had for the Community Christmas Dinner!!