Jordan School District

I probably don't have many friends who live in Jordan School District, but just in case someone pops by this blog on accident, this is for you!

I've only worked for the last school year in JSD at Fort Herriman Middle School. It's really been a great experience. But, unfortunately, since I'm one of the last ones hired, I'd likely be one of the first ones fired. The district is facing at least a $30 million deficit next year, and will likely be cutting many teaching positions. They will be increasing class sizes, there will be fewer elective and arts classes offered (because there will be fewer teachers), and it's likely that there will be fewer supplies for students at school. But one of the biggest concerns I have is for the "extra" staff members who help the teachers so much - it is these people who's jobs are really on the line. We have a woman who comes in to make our copies for a few hours a day. It's a part-time job for her, but it saves us hours of prep time. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to wait and wait for a copy machine to be open and then to stand there and make my 200 copies for each assignment, activity, and test. I hand out a new piece of paper almost everyday for some assignment. I would not survive without the copy lady. We also have a hired hall monitor. She gets kids to class before school, between classes, and gets them out of the building after school. She's also in charge of collecting tracker sheets for the kids who have behavior problems. She is also in charge of taking a teacher's class if a substitute is running late. Both the kids and the teachers love her. Then there are the computer tech guys who help keep all of the labs running as best they can (and they aren't fabulous labs to begin with). If they are gone - no one will be left to fix the computers, and in this generation, it is imperative that students learn how to use computers for both research and making some sort of product. And there's the aides, and the assistants, and everyone else who keeps a school running as smoothly as possible. I suppose I've been spoiled, but I honestly can't see how I'll be able to spend my time grading, planning labs and lessons, contacting parents, and helping kids one-on-one if I have to worry about keeping the halls clear during lunch, and if I have to stand at a copy machine for my entire prep period.

Unfortunately, there are some grossly overpaid positions at the administrative level of the JSD. From what I hear - this is the reason that the community does not want to increase taxes - they are afraid it will go to these administrators who are already overpaid. If the money goes to keeping classes small, and to the teachers, patrons of JSD will probably be more likely to pay the extra ~$11/month in taxes. $11/month. It could save 500 jobs, and be good for the kids at the same time.

Katie's new record...

Most of Brett's family will not find this too impressive, but I think it's a record for me.... I ran (well, jogged slowly) for almost 3 miles today. I was pretty diligent at running during the summer, but since school started, I've had a hard time fitting it in. I've started back up recently, and I do think it helps me sleep better at night - I'm constantly fighting the Boren Insomnia. After my run I went to the temple and did Initiatories - I haven't done that since I went through the temple for myself a little over a year and a half ago. It's always good to go to the temple - and I needed a reminder about those particular blessings at the moment.

And that is all I've done with my day, but it's only 6:00pm, so I guess there's still some time to get something done before I go to bed. Just what something should I do....

24 Carat Plastic

I just made my second most expensive (in dollars-per-volume or dollars per mass) purchase I've ever made.  It's this little piece of plastic you're looking at.  Next time you're on "The Price is Right" and you're looking at this thing, don't guess 25 cents.  You're not going to find it in a gum-ball machine.  Guess closer to $1000.

Very fortunately, the insurance company paid for most of it.

It's the main functional part of what is called a Continuous Glucose Monitoring System.  Not pictured is the sensor itself that actually goes under the skin to read glucose levels.  While the sensor still has an outrageous price, it's not nearly as bad as this 24 carat plastic.

For the curious, it works like this:  The sensor goes under the skin into subcutaneous tissue, and this plastic doohickey reads the glucose level and sends it via radio frequency to my insulin pump.  My insulin pump can then alarm at me if the levels go too high or too low so I can do something about it.

It costs $1000 for this 5.4 gram thing.  Taking that cost to weight ratio and applying it to a the lightest weight 2010 Honda Civic you can buy (3204 pounds, empty gas tank I'm sure), your price tag would be $269,131,472.22.  Yes, quarter of a billion dollars. 

Fortunately I don't need to buy a car's weight in these things.  Just one.

They're taking a test

So, I'm blogging while my classes are taking a test today. Ha ha ha! Most of them are being pretty good, only the sounds of pencil marks and the Spanish classes singing carols in the hall (yeah, that part is kind of driving me nuts, since they are trying to take a test....). Oh well, hopefully they just hurry and finish the test so that we can get out there and the kids can sing with them - they really could use the help, I have never heard so many kids who are tone deaf (probably on purpose).

I've decided I really like 8th grade - the kids are a little bit nuts, but the content is a lot funner than my Earth Systems stuff. I feel like I'm boring myself in my 9th grade classes - so I can't really blame them when they look all glassy-eyed and day-dreamy. I need to come up with a fun lab that involves candy or something. I was thinking that when we start talking about weathering I could have them time how long it takes for the candy to dissolve if they just let it sit, if they rub their tongues on it, and if they chew it... Maybe that's reaching too far. All I know is that talking about the direction of the winds and the way toilets flush clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere is making us all clock out (no pun intended).

Christmas break is coming up, and I can tell you - teachers are waaaayyyy more excited about breaks than the students. I have a lot to plan for 3rd quarter during the break though, so that's not cool, but the more I can plan now, the more I can relax for the rest of the school year.

Contents of the nutshell of our life

I recently came across the blog of a high-school friend who I hadn't seen in quite a while.  Curious as to what he was doing with his life these days, I read.  There was some day-to-day information of their lives, which is fine, but not what I was looking for.  I searched through their postings until I arrived at the beginning of their blog, and I still had no idea where they were living and what he had decided to do with his life, or what he was going to school for.  I was however, keenly aware that he (1) was married, (2) had a child, and (3) had a camera. 


This post, apart from the simple journaling intention of it, is for whichever old friend stumbles across this blog in the future and wonders what ever happened to Brett and Katie and their enterprise of life.

Katie and I got married last July (2008).  A year and a half later, we just ran out of our first roll of of saran-wrap as a married couple.  That's a milestone in a marriage relationship.  We're that much closer to being old-ly-weds.  Our married life is pretty dang awesome.  I like it a lot.  We're still looking for our first major disagreement (beyond if underwear should be folded or if the silverware drawer should be organized and divided).


Katie's a science teacher at Fort Herriman Middle School.  Last summer (August) she finished up with her Master's degree at BYU, for which I'm very proud of her.  I'm jealous that I don't have a Master's degree.  This intense jealousy is driving me to get mine some year too.  In the meantime, she teaches science to 8th and 9th graders.  It's her first year teaching in this type of setting, and she's doing amazingly at it.  The problem with being a teacher though is that her entire life is consumed by teaching.  She leaves for school at 6 am every day and of course is busy all day.  At the end of the day on a regular job, you get to come home and relax.  This isn't the case with teaching.  She gets to come home and get to work.  Instead of kicking back and watching the soaps (which I know she's dying to do) she has to bust out an enormous plastic homework repository that she keeps in tow in case she has a spare moment.  She grades stuff.  And then more stuff.  Then she enters it into the computer.  When she gets done with that she makes lesson plans for the upcoming classes.  Her job never actually stops.  If we figured out how much she got paid per hour worked, it wouldn't be much. Nonetheless, it keeps her very brilliant mind active and busy in a good cause and not bored.  That goal is well accomplished.  As I type this, she is grading papers.  She's doing great at her teaching job.  I'm super proud of all she's done and is doing with her brain. 



Me:  Well, I'm a nurse.  A man-nurse.  Yep.  That's right.  I'm a man nurse.  I do have women patients too however.  But I'm a man-nurse.  Women like Hillary Clinton are taking over the traditionally male jobs, so I had to leave my aspirations to become President and fill the vacancies in the stereotypically female jobs.  My job is pretty awesome.  I work at a hospital on a medical/oncology floor.  Most of the patients there are there for reasons other than oncology though, so we actually get a rather broad range of experience with a broad spectrum of ailments.  Nursing is fascinating to me as there's always something new, and always an exhaustively large amount of things I don't know that I can try to learn better.  I work the night shift currently.  Eventually I'd like to work days, but I'm happy to work nights right now.  The people I work with are great, and there's plenty of good experience to be had.   I'm dropping UVU's RN to BSN program and starting BYU-Idaho's online RN to BSN program next year in the spring.  I should finish after the winter semester 2011 (May-ish).  After that, who knows!  I'll be trying to go to grad school somewhere.  I'm still exploring options of exactly what I want that to be, but I've got some good ideas in mind.



I work in Provo.  Katie works in Herriman.  We live about half-way between those two places -- in the basement apartment of my parent's house.  It's not exactly overly spacious, but it actually does really great for our needs right now.  We have our own completely separate living quarters, but we live close to both of our parents, which is nice.  And very thankfully to my parents, the price tag to live here is pretty awesome too.


Um, yeah, that's the update.  Later.

Should Be Sleepin'

I really should be sleeping right now - it's only 9:40pm (2140 for you Brett), but I want to get 8 hours, I should be getting some shuteye. But I needed some wind down time when I got home.

Brett's working, so I went to my sister, Anne's house for dinner with our parents and our other sister, Sarah who's in town with her hubby, Brent. We had a good dinner, went to a piano recital for 2 of the kids, and played some fun card games. It's always a good time at Anne's house and with Sarah home.

I'm hoping to do a photosynthesis lab with 8th grade and a carbon cycle lab with 9th grade tomorrow. Wish me luck... I'm not exactly sure how it's going to work...

Ok, that was a boring post - hope you aren't asleep. Or maybe you should be.

Ice Cream with 8th Graders

So... today my 8th graders made ice cream (they've been studying "phase changes" - it fits into the curriculum, right?). They had a blast of course, but the room also became a huge mess. There's salt crystals from the salt water all over the tables and I'm sure on the floor (which I can't really see since the floor is white tile - nice). The room also smells like warm milk. But, should you have a desire to make homemade ice cream here's how we did it:

Serves 3 hungry 8th graders:
1. In a quart sized double-zip ziplock bag add 2 C of half & half.
2. Add 1 tsp. vanilla
3. Add 1/4 C sugar
4. Zip the bag and put it into 2 more ziplocks (just in case it decides to explode, you'll be safe)
5. In a gallon sized double-zip ziplock bag add 4 C of ice.
6. Add 1/4 C rock salt to the ice.
7. Put in your triple bagged ice cream ingredients.
8. Add 4 more cups of ice on top
9. Add another 1/4 C. rock salt.
10. Put this bag into another gallon sized bag.
11. Mash and shake the bags with your hands (using winter gloves is recommended).
12. The longer you shake, the more solid it gets (so long as there's still ice in the salt/ice mixture).
13. Pull out of the bags, scoop into a cup, and enjoy.
***** After trying it today, I'd definitely say it would be worth it to get some oreos to top it off*****

The kids will love it! All 500 8th graders in my school did.