Cat's Litterbox

Music: "Cry Me A River"- Justin Timberlake
Mood: Glad it's the weekend...

Well... I had my orientation this morning. It wasn't as long as I expected it to be. I thought someone told me it was from 8:30-4:30 so at 11:30 when it was over, I was very surprised!!

I ran into a few problems... I didn't have my physical done on the pink Wake County form, it was faxed on a white piece of paper. The lady at the registration table gave me a little bit of a hard time about it but eventually backed down and accepted it. Then I didn't have a voided check from our checking account (we just opened the account last week) so I couldn't turn that form in and was told to go to a Wachovia (our bank) branch and have someone sign the form and then bring it back to the orientation building.

That would be no problem if I was familiar with the area, but I wasn't. I ended up driving all over looking for a Wachovia bank. Unlike Michigan where there's a bank every 100 feet, I actually had to search and then Google a location.

I did find a Sweet Tomatoes restaurant and I was very excited! There's a place like this (could be Sweet Basil's or maybe even the same place) out in Arizona that I went to with Dave and Heather. It's basically a giant all-you-can-eat salad, soup and pasta bar. I liked it when I went there and thought it'd be great to have one back home. Well... I found one!!

Back to my story-- I found the bank and got my stupid form signed and then went back to the building and dropped it off. Then on my way home, I missed my turn and thought I could just go to the next road and it'd connect. I was wrong. I ended up driving for about two hours (my normal trip would have taken 20-25 minutes to get home) and I ended up south of Fuquay-Varina!!!

Needless to say, I was very upset and glad to be home. I watched the movie Invincible (the guy that walked on to the Eagles back in '76) with Mark Walburg. It was okay... not spectacular or anything, but good. I'm glad we rented it from Netflix instead of paying to go see it at the theater. We also have Music and Lyrics (Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant) and we're going to watch that tomorrow.

I went to school yesterday and had a great experience. I met a TON of people and they were all super nice. I got a lot of hugs from people and I felt very welcomed!

I met my teaming partner... his name is Michael and he's from Minnesota. He's a teaching-as-a-second-career person and flat out said that he got into teaching for the vacation from all the stress of the real world. GREAT! He also told me that he hates the year round calendar, his class is awful and if he had a decent group of students maybe he'd be able to actually teach them something. Mr. Negativity... should be interesting to work with him. He kept saying how unorganized he was and how he doesn't know if he'll be back next year (2008-2009). We'll see...

I've been emailed by several of my students (in my upcoming class). One girl's name is Avery and she was very sweet and the other's name is Madeline and she's asked that I call her "Maddie." She absolutely cracks me up. She apparently saw me at school yesterday (didn't say anything to me there) and then sent me an email last night about how she thinks she saw me... I looked just like the pictures of myself on my website and I was wearing a nametag that said "Cathy Walker" so she was certain that it was me!

I am getting excited to go back and get things started. I finally know what I am teaching and what programs are used. I am going to a new-to-Wake-County training on Tuesday (8:30-4:30) and then Wednesday and Thursday I am going to a Math Trailblazers training. I will be meeting another Oak Grove teacher (she's new too) there.

It'll be nice to meet some new people and maybe make some new friends. It's weird to be starting in a place where no one knows me! It's a little scary, but hopefully I'll adjust soon. I'm so used to knowing people! I will miss not having my Jenny to go grab drinks with on Fridays and I'll miss not seeing Kristen for lunch and catch-up gossip sessions! Though, I'm already getting emails about things happening at Lincoln. Sounds like I got out at the best time.

Ahhh... just the idea of never having to go back there again makes me smile! I told Steve that I owe him BIG TIME for taking me far far away from Lincoln and Childs and all the drama.

I'm getting tired so I am going to go for now. More later I suppose!

>^..^<