The first 4 weeks of school

Well, pretty much as expected, school started like the equivalent of a hurricane hitting directly on our house. I do have to say that after all the stressing I did about the new job, I have been doing it 4 weeks now and I enjoy it more each day. Everyday I get a little more comfortable in what I'm doing and that makes it that much better each day. I knew I just needed school to start and I'd be ok. Sometimes the dread and worry is so much worse than the actual event. I actually started writing this blog after the 2nd week of school and have come back to it in the 3rd week, 4th week, and now we're into the 5th week of school. So there are probably areas where my reference to time will be off. And there are NUMEROUS things I've left out due to complete brain overload these days. But here we are!


Even though I realized that this new job would require a lot more time being put into it..........I still underestimated just HOW MUCH. The more time I spend and the more work I do, the more I realize how much MORE I need to put into it. It's going to be a busy year. It's just so much stuff. So much planning and researching and gathering of materials and talking to this person, that person, all the PR and begging various people for money and time and ................ whew. You really have to be constantly thinking about it and staying on top of things, and that is not something I'm an expert at doing so it takes a LOT of effort for me! lol. Let me get to the home stuff.



Mom and Tyler did the sleep study thing in early August and I think they had a good time lol. I know Tyler did and probably mom as well. I envied the "away" time they were having, as I was getting ready and experiencing my first day of high school at that time. We won't hear anything I guess until the first few days of September when we go back to see the doctor for results. But Tyler was able to get back on his medicines after that day and he has been super ever since. Still having the spells. But not sleepy ALL the time or depressed and irritable. Tyler has come down with some strange allergy of some sort that we can not find the source of. It mostly flares up at night. His computer died so he has been using mine in the new music room. I think it's possible there is something from that new carpet that is making him allergic. If it were cats, surely he would have been doing this months ago. But as of yet we have not figured it completely out.
>>>update - we went today for the sleep study results. The doctor said that they are as conclusive as they can possibly be that Tyler does indeed, for sure, have narcolepsy. He says that the best we will be able to do is to control the narcolepsy and to make the cataplexy less severe. Basically, there is no medicine that will stop cataplexy completely, only things that will make them happen less often. So we're toying with adding a medicine to what he is already on for awhile and see what happens. He will get his license one day, but will likely have driving restrictions. And he'll probably never be able to be a truck driver or a pilot for a living. BUt otherwise, he's normal! lol. He also gave us some allergy prescriptions so hopefully we can get all that under control too.

Tanner and Brooke got started to school. They are in the same classroom! They were thrilled. I hope they are behaving. So far I have not heard anything bad from the teacher. But he tells me that sometimes they get in a little trouble for talking and stuff. If you can imagine that.





Last week, or week before, or some time............we had a small storm and another tree fell in the back yard. Story of our lives. But this one was OH SO lucky. The new storage building we have is real close to a magnolia tree that we have in the back yard. Somehow this really tall tree broke and fell EXACTLY between the storage building and the magnolia tree. We had our new riding lawn mower parked between the storage building and the magnolia tree also. AMAZINGLY the tree fell exactly between the building and magnolia tree, with the branches falling all along the sides of the lawn mower but none of them touching it. We've GOT to be living right. I first thought the tree must have hit the roof of the storage building and then slid off to the side. But there is not a single mark on the storage building, not even a scratch on a shingle. The lawn mower has a slight scratch on it but not even a dent. If that tree had landed even an inch in either directions it would have destroyed something or other. Unbelievable. Somebody was watching out for us. But we had to go buy a chainsaw and Rusty and the kids spent all last Saturday sawing on the tree and throwing the pieces over the fence.




Last SAturday I had to go to a meeting in Jackson and the kids SERIOUSLY needed a visit to the eye doctor so they can see at school. So I had to get Rusty to take them. He needed an eye doctor visit himself anyway. So, surprisingly, he was agreeable to taking them and didn't even fuss. Actually, he's been quite helpful and understanding lately since I've been so busy and preoccupied with work - have to brag on him. So he took them to the eye doctor. Tanner has been begging for contacts so I told him to see if the doctor thought he was old enough. When I finished with my meeting I met them at the doctor's office right as they were finishing. Apparently the doctor said Tanner could try contacts. So Rusty and Tyler went home and I went to get all the contacts. They gave Tanner contacts but they wouldn't let us leave with them until Tanner had put them in his eyes himself and then taken one out and put it back in. And there I was, a total dunce on contacts, being the one having to help him. Brooke was with us too since she was spending the night and all. Getting Tanner's first contact in was a TOTAL ORDEAL. We tried and tried. I held open his top eye lid and held his bangs back, that was all I could do. He would pull down his bottom eyelid and try to get the contact in. We had watched a video on how to get them in so that was the only help we had. After about 20 minutes he finally got the first contact in - purely by accident. The second contact didn't take quite as long, but it wasn't easy either. I thought we were good to go but that's when they told us he had to take one out and put it back in. Geeeeeeezzzzzzzz. But he went in there and got one out and back in just within a couple of minutes. I think by the time we got finished with the whole ordeal, Brooke and I were totally glad that we don't have to do the contact thing. We then went shopping in Wal Mart and TAnner read every single sign he could see during the whole shopping trip. He was amazed at being able to see. He lost one by the next day and we had to wait on the boxes that we ordered to come in. We got them Wednesday and he started trying to wear them to school. We started early the first day trying to get them in and spent about 20 minutes on it. But we seriously needed to leave for school by that time so I told him he was just going to have to take them and see if Papaw could help him get them in. Somehow Papaw did help him get them in and he wore them to school. I think he had to remove one at some point that day for some reason or other, then got it back in. He wore them on Friday as well and kept them in all day. So I think little by little he's going to make it to where he can wear them with no problems getting them in. I hope so.

Back to the work thing.....my piano accompanist has been the biggest help to me. I think maybe I mentioned her last time? She is 71 years old and more energetic than I am for sure. She has helped me out so much, and supported me and encouraged me. I don't think I'd be making it without her. She has told me how glad she is to have me and how she is going to tell the principal, the superintendant, and everybody else how terrific I'm doing. That in itself has been inspiring. Then yesterday (Friday) my boss finally came down the hill to observe what was going on in my classroom and he seemed pleased. My accompanist got up and went over to talk to him. When she came back she told me that he said it was just AMAZING the difference in what I was doing and what he had seen done previously. I totally needed to hear something like that lol. So I guess things are going well so far. I still have a lot of work to do. But so far, so good. WC has a choral department of 160 kids. I have 54 kids. So I guess you can say I'm starting from the bottom in building a program. But that's ok by me I guess. 54 kids this year in a 4A school of 1150 students, I can only go up from here! I had a meeting of parents last week about various things and they were supportive also. They were just thankful to have someone that was putting time and effort into the program and couldn't wait to see what I have in store. It was uplifting for me also. I just have to keep pushing forward and studying and planning and obsessing and whatever else I gotta do to make it a successful year.

In fact, Mrs. Leese brought me a copy of an email that she sent to our superintendent. She said it was the first good email she's EVER sent him. And this is what she said:

"I just want to tell you that the last two weeks that I've spent in the choir room with Tracy Gardner have been the most pleasant that I've had in the last 6 years. She's one of the most organized teachers I've ever known. The dates for every concert or any other function of the choir have been on the calendar since the first day of school. She's choosing music that the students are excited about and teaching it in a way that is fun and in a totally professional manner. Her voice is never above a conversational tone and, because of that, the students are giving her the same respect. I'm just amazed at the change in the complexion of the choir room. Thank you that you "cared enough to send the very best"!

Sincerely, Mrs. Leese"


Organized. Me. I had to chuckle when I read that. But I guess in comparison to my home and personal life, I am probably organized at work lol. I'm too afraid of what might happen if I don't plan well or if I don't stay organized lol.

But, ike my boss last year told me.............when you're coming in behind someone who did not do a very good job, then ANYTHING you do is going to be AWESOME!!!!! I'm thankful for that much.

Band is still going well. We've had a hard time getting together lately, seems somebody always ends up having to do something else and so on. But when we manage to get together we're doing well. I have not had any time to put into it whatsoever. Luckily I learned most everything this summer while I was off.











Payday came and went the other day. I had signed a new contract with an additional 1200.00 on it for being "head choir director". I guess head of that dept. Some schools may have more than one director or other workers in the choral dept I guess. But I wasn't going to complain for sure. By the time I got some money, I had crashed my computer as well so I had taken Tyler's wireless card out of his to make mine work again. So when it all came down to it, Tyler's computer had a damaged hard drived, a destroyed cd rom drive, and NO wireless internet card to connect it to the net. Getting his going was not going to be cheap. I paid nearly as much as we paid for the whole computer. I don't know how that happened that I did it that way. But we bought a new hard drive, a new wireless card, and pulled a cd-rom drive out of an old computer and pieced it all back together. Had to load windows the least easy way, had to get the drivers for video and audio cards and all kinds of other stuff off the internet for his computer. And finally after a few hours, it would play the darn video game that is the source of all this aggravation in the first place! Today is day 3, and so far no complaints or crashes and I'm crossing my fingers. We paid $300 for the computer. And I just put $170 into it. I should have just got it fixed under warranty but I can't leave things alone! And I get started checking them out and cross that line where warranty won't cover it anymore and then there I am. But now I have my own computer back to myself. And the first thing I did was try to find a way to get my yahtzee game back on there without paying for it again by looking for a cheat code to put in and so on and so forth and to make a long story short I got a virus on my computer. The kids thought it was funny that there was a virus on MOM's computer and that MOM is the one who did it. I didn't even waste time with trying to fix it. I just said to HELL with it and wiped the whole hard drive!!!!!!!!! And started from scratch. Took an hour or two and I was done. Beat the heck out of 4 or 5 days of trial and error troubleshooting.

GUSTAV - Didn't do a darn thing. Thank goodness. I really didn't feel that I had the time in my life for another Katrina right now - yeesh! Today is the day that Gustav is hitting us, hit LA yesterday. And really, we're in a good spot I guess because we have a lot of rain and some wind gusts. But I'm sitting here with power, cable, internet, and all the comforts of home. We didn't have to go to school today just as a precautionary measure. So I even got a nice little day off that I needed to spend some time with myself! And to post my blog! ANd I better click on "post" right now or I'll have to change the title again to the first FIVE weeks of school......

Ah well. For a bit of humor.

Top 10 things I've learned in my first 4 weeks of high school:

10. 95% of teenagers, regardless of how good they seem, will LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE. I used to get so irritated in the last couple of years when teachers and counselors and principals wouldn't take my kid's word for anything, or even MY word for it. It didn't take long for me to see why. 2 days, max. Teenagers will lie. They will tell good lies that you can hardly recognize are lies. They will tell really bad lies that are OBVIOUSLY lies, and will continue to insist they are the truth. They will lie for no reason. They will lie for each other. They will tell the same lie repeatedly even after you've proven it's a lie. They will tell lies to make themselves look good. They will tell lies to make themselves look bad. They will lies to make the story sound better, or they will lie to make the story sound less than what it was. They will lie about the color of their shoes without any reason, or any prompting to do so. They will lie about what grade they are in, how old they are, what their name is, you name it. Lying is one of the main tools they use to achieve their number one goal above all things which is..........DRAMA.

9. The law of the state of MS requires that a person be 18 years of age or older before they can get a tattoo. Apparently the laws are different for gang members and street thugs.

8. In a class of 27 students with 2 of them being white, black students are considered a minority.

7. From what I was told in 3rd period: "black folks hair and rain do NOT mix, aight?" I did not realize that it was such an issue. But any day it rains, my black students totally DESPISE me and the fact that my room is down the hill. They act as if I have somehow designed the building and chosen my room just so that they will have to get their hair wet. Any other day they're pretty cool with me.

6. Students who are serious behavior problems in 3rd grade.........simply don't improve. There's just not a lot of hope I guess.

5. The cops in the school ARE indeed neccessary. As a parent in the last couple of years I thought that was maybe a bit much, or just a big "show". But.....yeah......they are needed. I"m thankful to have them personally.

4. If I call the principal on the phone, he will come down and escort each student up the hill with an umbrella when it is raining. That's what they try to convince me of anyway. I can SO see myself calling and bothering Mr. Reed to come and escort students one by one up the hill. They SO think I was born yesterday lol. God help me if there are many rainy days this year. Those days are ROUGH.

3. Teenagers make excellent actors because they practice drama EVERY day. EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY FRIGGIN DAY.

2. Gum chewing is suddenly the most aggravating, irritating, most serious offense in the world to me. I can not STAND to look out and see somebody singing and chewing gum at the same time. If I'm ever in the insane asylum I'll be in a corner mumbling about gum chewing. It's making me MENTAL.

1. No matter what the problem, what the situation, no matter WHAT!!!!!!........teenagers are much more fun to teach than Kindergartners........hands down. Overall, I'm having a blast so far. Everything, so far, beats having someone wet their pants or being flipped off by a 5 year old. It's new territory and I love it.