once more, with feeling?

Doctor's office called today with results from my latest blood test.  My TSH is stubbornly clinging to 0.2 so my dose has been reduced again to 100 mcg/day, down from 137.  That's a big drop.

I'm still taking my 5 mcg/day of Cytomel, though, and I'm wondering if that's what's keeping my TSH so low.   I did some research on this today and found a stat somewhere saying the T4/T3 ratio should be 80:20 or optimally 90:10.  My ratio has increased from 137:5 to 112:5, which is quite low, and I honestly don't know if that's enough to keep the TSH suppressed.  I should probably write an email to the doctor and ask her if she wants me to go off the T3.  I wasn't happy before when I went off it, but who knows what will happen now?

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty thrown by all this.  I used to be on top of all the developments related to thyroid cancer and recovery treatments but obviously I'm not.  This past blood test, for the first time ever (in more than 15 years!) I was directed to stop taking any biotin-containing supplements for a week before the draw.  I still have no idea why -- I asked the nurse about it and all she could tell me was that she was relatively new to working in the Endocrine Clinic but that she had always written the orders that way.  I'm did a quick search and this article came up which explains the situation.  Now I'm wondering how screwed up my tests results may have been all these years, because I've been taking the same B vitamin complex supplement for ages.

I did take some time and read up on A-fib and low TSH, and apparently it's a big enough thing that even WebMD has an article about it.  OK, OK, if I really am cancer-free it's manifestly better that my TSH be closer to 1 than 0.  I get it.   Most of the articles I'm seeing were published in the last couple of years, when I really haven't been paying attention to this stuff very much.  Also, I have been convinced for years that I needed a higher dose of levothyroxine to suppress my TSH and keep any cancer cells dormant. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I've been eating a little wheat here and there -- crackers with some cheese at lunch, a few cookies.  Nothing like pizza for dinner or a plate of pasta, that just seems like it will be too much, but the amounts I have eaten have not bothered my digestion or made my joints swell.  Were all my wheat problems a side-effect of too much thyroid hormone? I have no idea, but it would be pretty awesome if I could eat more like a normal person again without being sick for days afterward.

Merry Christmas!

A very quiet day here in soggy Arizona, but nice.

I'm finally setting up the new laptop I bought for myself over a month ago!  Yesterday as I was trying to order photo cards my old laptop shut down on me three different times, signaling it had really, really had enough of this life. 

I'm looking forward to not having to worry about whether or not the plug is in just so to make the connection so it could actually charge the battery.  This kind of thing is to be expected when a laptop has been dropped repeatedly on that same corner -- I'd say it's bad luck, but it's physics: that's where the battery is, so it would always land there.  I hope to do much better with this machine, especially since I won't be travelling with young kids who need more supervision, thereby causing me to rush and forget, say, to zip up my laptop case completely. 

This year's duck confit cassoulet was a major success, so much so that there is none left!  But, I have more duck, saucissons de Toulouse, and roast pork to put together another one, probably for dinner tomorrow?  I don't see anyone complaining.  Confit-ing the duck took forever yesterday in a very slow oven, but it paid off in deliciousness and extra duck fat for next time.  We're going to have potatoes fried in duck fat with our rib roast Christmas dinner this evening.

Said roast is resting in its salt at the moment.  I'm not entirely sold on how I'm going to cook it, and since I only do it once a year, I always have to look it up!  Fortunately it's pretty hard to ruin as long as I don't overcook it!

New keyboard feels pretty good.  I just have to get everything ported over to this new machine and that's going to take a while.  Fortunately Carbonite will just keep chugging along in the background until it's done. 

I haven't done a bit of my school work, but I've got quite a lot of vacation still left.  One of these days I'll be disciplined and tackle it, but with all the shopping and wrapping and cooking, it didn't make sense to try to do it before today.   I'm debating how strict I need to be with myself, because I got books for Christmas and if I start reading...

wellll....

That's didn't take too long.

First, my team lead assures me  I will be offered a contract for next year, so that's helpful.  It still wouldn't surprise me if I didn't get one.  I seem to have a 3-and-out streak going on, and this is my third year at my current school.

Second, she wisely decided not to wait passively by for admin to get back to us, but she put together another proposal for them.  Specifically, three of us each teach one class for one trimester, and the math teacher (who literally can't do more than she is now) will just have to monitor study hall (like now).   Today we got a terse email saying "We will be moving forward with electives and your proposal," so I guess that's it.  We were all hoping they wouldn't say OK but of course they did because it's the cheapest option.

But now I'm on tap to teach Robotics to junior high kids for 2 45-minute sessions a week, supposedly in lieu of after-school Robotics. There are problems with this scenario.  First of all, I don't want to give up the after-school Robotics.  I love working with those kids.  But if I'm teaching this new class, I'm really not going to be able to give up 2 days a week after school.  It was hard enough this year, and I can't imagine doing it next year with having to teach another class.

Second, there is currently one will-be-junior-high student who may return to Robotics next year: our current "older kids" team is all 8th graders, except for one now-6th-grader. I'm not sure she'll want to take Robotics, though.  She's extremely over-scheduled as it is.   I'm not sure if there will be any interest, and if there's not, I don't want them loading up a class with students who don't want to be there.  That would be the absolute worst.

Third, a Robotics class and a Robotics competition team are not the same things.  I think I need to define that the class is the class and not expected or required to go to the tournament.  I doubt 2, 45-minute sessions, with the trimester ending at the beginning of November, would be enough time to get a robot and missions coded for competition.

Fourth, and this is bothering me... I haven't said a word about this to lead coach, mostly because I'm hoping that nothing comes of it.  We still don't really know how things are going to shake out next year, so I'm just going to bide my time and see what happens.

At least our math teacher is finishing out this year, which is a relief.  I hope she'll decide to stay in spite of how badly admin is treating us.

In completely unrelated but similarly sucky news, I have pink eye.  I also have a zillion papers to grade but my eyes hurt so that's my excuse for playing Words with Friends instead.

ack

You know that feeling, like you're coming down with something, but it's not a physical thing, it's just because you're miserable?

Yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now.

The meeting over electives with administration was today.  We all said our piece... it was basically one piece that needed to be said.  It was not well-received.  While we weren't outright told to "suck it up, buttercup," that's essentially what happened.

We left with, "No resolution today.  We'll meet again in January after the break."  So I have this horrid uncertainty hanging over my holidays now.  Thanks, admin!

Pretty sure we're losing our math teacher.  I don't know what I'm going to do, but after poking the bear today I'd be really surprised if I get offered a contract for next year.  I wanted to stay at my school until I retire, but now I don't know if I'll be given that opportunity.  It was nice while it lasted.

surprise!

Last Saturday was the FLL robotics tournament, and we went in with expectations.  The big-kid team would do great at the robot game, and therefore had a good chance of advancing to the state-level competition.  The little-kid team, who had never once practiced an actual competition round, had never practiced their presentation, and literally had never heard about FLL's Core Values?  They would learn a lot from the experience, hopefully having some fun along the way.  All in all, my co-coach and I went into the day thinking there was a decent chance we'd be done for the season.

That pleasant dream was not to be.  It was an excellent tournament: the big kids won the Robot Performance award for having the best scores at the robot games.  The little kids won the Core Values award for being the living embodiment of innovation, cooperation, and fun.  After their first competition round, they came off the stage so pumped up it was adorable; if you could bottle that feeling  and sell it, you'd be a zillionaire.  For the subsequent judge meetings, I just advised the team to remember the feeling they had coming off the stage, and take that into their meetings with the judges.  Apparently they listened to me, because the judges loved them so much that they are advancing to State!  

When they were announced as the 7th and final team to move on from the tournament, my co-coach and I turned to each other with identical expressions of What just happened?!?!?  We were sure the big kids' team would advance, especially after doing so well in the robot game.  But the big kids weren't having any fun and have a tendency to snipe at each other a bit, which is an affront to the Core Values.  But the biggest reason is probably that the judges knew the team didn't build the robot and write the code, or that they didn't do it alone:  too much parent work on display. There were a lot of other factors involved as well, but it still came as a surprise.  The big kids were definitely disappointed but they seemed to get over it pretty quickly.  The little kids, of course, are jumping out of their skins with excitement.  Fortunately, the state tournament isn't until the third weekend in January, so we have some time to prepare a little better.

I wish those were the only surprises from last Saturday, but they weren't.  I headed over to the tournament about 7:15am, and was surprised to have a text from one of my junior high team-mates by the time I arrived on campus just 15 minutes later: Read your email.  So I log into my work email and there's a message from our assistant principal, reviving the issue of junior high teachers teaching elective classes.  We went through this last spring and we all pitched a fit about it, and administration backed off.  But now it has reared its ugly head again, only this time admin is requiring all the junior high teachers to teach one elective class per trimester, in addition to study hall (or perhaps replacing it, that wasn't clear.)

Of course this has thrown three of the four of us into utter turmoil.  One of our team is a nun and she has taken a vow of obedience so she doesn't have a choice.  Our team lead, who has been at the school for 27 years now, is similarly "stuck," because a host of her grandchildren attend the school and she doesn't want to leave them, or the school.  Our math teacher is the hardest hit because while she has 3 of her 4 children on campus with her, her 2-year-old is still at home.  She has already sacrificed a lot to be with us, teaching three different math subjects plus religion.  She and I completely agree: we barely have enough time now to do our jobs properly, and you want to take some of our prep time away, while giving us more work to do?  

In what universe does that make sense?  Here is more work, and you'll have less time to do it in!  

We are all very upset by this in many different ways.  First, the way it was announced -- a 6:30am email on a Saturday morning! -- was simply horrible.  The level of disrespect is off the charts. Second, that it was conveyed as a requirement, no discussion allowed, is just unacceptable.  Third, of course, is that the demand itself is ridiculous, serving no legitimate purpose and having a very negative impact on the quality of the teaching we will be able to deliver.  

I've spent countless hours on this since first reading that email, and it has cast a pall over my days.  I responded Sunday afternoon, saying the current system respects our need for time to do our jobs properly and have work/life balance, and I requested a meeting to discuss the situation.  To date, I still haven't received a reply to the concerns I raised in the email, but admin did set a meeting for Monday after school.  Every time I think about it, my stomach drops. 

I don't want to leave my school (and my church, and my parish...)  This is not a bridge I can burn!  This is more than just a job to me.  It is my church, my community, my extended family, and that's what makes it hurt so much to be treated with such a lack of consideration and respect.  I know from recent, painful experience that I can teach more classes than I am now, but I also know that the quality of my teaching suffers tremendously, and I have no home life whatsoever.  

The last time I worked like a crazy person, DD was still living at home and helped nearly every night, putting dinner on the table.  She was just a high school student then, and wasn't working outside of school.  But all three of the men here now are working long hours and DS2 will be back in school soon, so they don't have the availability to cook that DD had.  Cooking for my family isn't just about nutrition: having dinner together is how we stay connected to one another. It's too important for me to sacrifice!  

I'm going to spend some time writing up my thoughts in preparation for Monday's meeting, but then I have to stop thinking about it.  Tomorrow's a grading day... once again, I'm completely swamped, mostly because so much energy has been burnt over this electives dictate.  (We're supposed to tell admin what class(es) we want to teach when we get back from Christmas break!  So I'm supposed to spend my break finding something else to teach next year?!)  But also... I lost my prep time on Thursday because of the special mass and procession for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  It was lovely, and I enjoyed it, but I really have a lot of grading to do! I graded my most recent Religion quiz through our brief staff meeting yesterday, even though we have been specifically told not to do that.  Since it was just a discussion of how our tuition is being restructured, I didn't think it would be too bad if I graded.  Also, if the principal saw me grading during the meeting, maybe she'd realize I already don't have enough time to do the work I have, so why is she 1) taking time away from me while 2) giving me work to do?!

I read back through the blog here to find what I wrote about the elective kerfuffle last spring, and the single common thread (during school time) was I am constantly overwhelmed with work.  I just am.  I can do a pretty good job of keeping up, but then extraordinary circumstances occur like losing all but one day of my prep hours for the week because of various special events, followed by losing the entire Saturday to the robotics tournament.  That meant Sunday I had to do both housework and grading and other prep for the week, so of course I was up ridiculously late finishing all the grading; I had to enter the grades themselves early in the week when I finally had a prep hour again. But then this week we burned so much time with many discussions going round and around about what we're going to do about this situation, because none of us is happy about it.   I'm estimating I have somewhere between 9 and 12 hours of grading (not joking).  It's probably closer to 12: revised analysis paragraphs, and new conclusion paragraphs, for both 7th and 8th (that's at least 4 hours by itself); an 8th grade engineering design challenge -- and I left the actual devices in the classroom, so I can't compare the sketches to what they actually built -- models for both 7th (rock cycle) and 8th (states of matter and changing states) grades; 8th's Dry Ice observations lab worksheets; and at least one set of notes (there may be more).  That's just what I have at home: back in the classroom, I need to grade my students' Religion notebooks for the chapter 8 work... I'm thinking I can do that while they're studying for the unit test (chapter 9 is a review chapter, thank God.) Fortunately I have graded all but 2 of the student's quizzes, but the grades aren't recorded yet!   Did I mention grades have to be in by Tuesday morning because progress reports are being printed Tuesday to go home Wednesday?! 

This is what I mean, and it's like this whenever something disrupts the schedule, which happens at least 2 or 3 times a month.  I'm praying a lot. We'll see what happens. 

a blur

The week after a holiday is always tough, and this one was exceptionally rough because we had so many odd things going on at school, namely our annual Christmas program, which involves rehearsals which eat up half a day, and then two performances (because the program is split for grades 1-4 and 5-8.)  We had exactly one day this week with a "normal" schedule, and that was Monday.  Every other day's schedule was hijacked by events we had no control over.

And we had Robotics every day after school because tomorrow is our FLL tournament!  I should be sleeping now, but I realize I haven't written in a while and that's no good.

Also adding to this week's feeling of barely-controlled-chaos: 7th grade was in the lab two days doing their mineral identification lab, and 8th grade was in the lab every day except Monday with their thermal energy transfer engineering design challenge.  Kids love building things!  I am so much more comfortable with letting them build than I used to be, but I'm still worn out by trucking back and forth to the science lab several times a day, not to mention prepping several dozen 15-ml ice cubes for the testing phase.

Last but not least? My grade's week to keep the teacher's lounge looking decent, and my co-teacher was out two days for family stuff and off-campus professional development.  (sigh) Fortunately my colleagues are not slobs but still.  The timing was impeccably bad.

All the weirdness this week ate into my prep hours at school, and, as I said, robotics every day after.  I'm behind on grading and have to revise my plans because of new events that popped up for next week, too.  By some blessed foresight I printed everything I needed for this week and will need for nex week before I took off for Thanksgiving, so at least I'm not behind on that front. 

I'll get caught up eventually. Just need to survive tomorrow and then: the 2-week slog to Christmas break!