Well, after some silly moments I made it home yesterday about 4:00 p.m. or so. Let’s see, when I was checking out of the hotel, this man who was standing by the counter went, “Whoa! You smell gooooood!” He kept going on and on about it. Then he said, “I can see why you’re married.” The man behind the counter said, “What?” And the other man said, “She’s married, and I can see why. She’s smelling fine!” It was a little weird and creepy that he noticed I had a wedding ring on and thought I smelled so good. Clinique Happy Heart. Get some and attract weirdos just like I do. :sweatdrop:

I made it to the conference with no problem. I just wanted to add that the reason I went to McDonald’s so many times while I was gone is because it was the closest thing to my hotel, and I didn’t feel brave enough to venture out and find food elsewhere. My workshop on copyright was pretty good. A lot of my teachers are doing things they shouldn’t be. Hopefully they won’t be sued. Lots of people apparently left the conference on Thursday night to try and beat the snow. Lots of people left yesterday morning too, so all of my workshops were pretty empty. I ate lunch by myself at T.G.I. Fridays. I’ve never eaten in a restaurant like that by myself. It was definitely weird. I had to walk around in the snow and stuff. It was really cold. It started snowing in Louisville about 8:30 or 9:00 probably.

As I was eating lunch, a brilliant thought came to me. I hadn’t gotten all of my first choices of workshops since I registered kind of late. I thought that maybe since lots of people were leaving though, I could get into a workshop that I had really wanted. (The reason I wanted it so bad was because you get free software valued at $200.) I decided that I couldn’t possibly adequately learn all about 5 different types of animation software in an hour, so I decided to try and find out of I could switch from the animation workshop to the other one which was about creating newsletters and school newspapers. I asked someone at the registration booth, and she told me to go ahead and show up to the workshop I wanted and it would probably be okay. And it was. Only me and one other girl showed up. I got my free software though, so all was well.

I made it home mostly with no problems. It was hard to see driving out of Louisville. A lot of the road signs were covered in snow which made it hard to tell where I needed to go exactly. There was pretty heavy snow all the way past Elizabethtown. Once I got into Muhlenberg County, the snow decreased dramatically. By the time I was back in Hopkins County, the snow was like non-existent. It was really lame. They had cancelled school yesterday due to “the threat of snow” and it didn’t even snow all day really! Luckily, I got home just in time. The place to turn onto my road was starting to get slick. After I got home, it started snowing harder and snowed pretty much all night I think. We have probably at least 8 inches of snow. It’s crazy! It hasn’t snowed like this in forever. You could actually build a snowman out of this!

Pouncy has had a cold for the past few days: runny nose, runny eye, and sneezing. She was also having some trouble breathing it seemed like. I decided when I got home yesterday afternoon that she needed to go to the vet. They were closed. I took a hot shower though and had her stay in the bathroom with me. We also turned on the humidifier for her. The vet was supposed to open at 7:30 this morning, so I called and the vet said the roads were really bad and he wasn’t going to be there long. Luckily, the vet is like 5 minutes away. We bundled up Pouncy and took off through the snow. She usually freaks out about the car, but she did okay today. She also did okay once we got in the vet’s office. She didn’t freak out about the dog or cat that were also there. The doctor was the only one there, so he was also having to answer phones and everything. Once we got in a room, we had to wait quite awhile. Pouncy got anxious and antsy and started freaking out. She was panting and sounded like she might hyperventilate and stuff. She was growling and hissing, biting and scratching and trying to get away. She hates the doctor. Always has.

The doctor finally took a look at her and couldn’t believe that she’s almost 18, has FIV, and has been doing absolutely fine for the past 3 and a half years. He said she’s outlived any FIV statistics that there are. He did say she definitely had a bad cold though. He gave her an antibiotic and some medicine for her eye too. He said to keep taking hot showers with her too. It’s important that she doesn’t lose her ability to smell, because if she can’t smell her food she won’t eat. Luckily, she is still eating and everything. She just looks so pathetic and sounds so sicky. ( I hope the medicine starts helping her and she feels better soon.

Luckily Pouncy is an inside cat and doesn’t have to deal with this —-> (And the pile is getting bigger.)

My head is throbbing.

Today was just another long, busy day in my long, busy week. I’m so sick of testing. We’re still doing PLATO testing of course, and for the grade not PLATOing I’m giving them the STAR Reading/STAR Early Literacy tests. I cannot stand STAR. It is such an invalid test. It’s pretty useless actually. It gives teachers a reading level, but big deal. There are lots of ways to get a kid’s reading level. Most of them take more work on the teacher’s part mind you, but the teacher’s the one who should be dealing with reading levels, not me in the computer lab. I could rant and rave about STAR all day, but I won’t. I’m too tired to do that. :sleepy:

Funny how kids get dumped on me sometimes. There are three Jehovah’s Witness kids in our school. They don’t participate in any holiday activities, so they usually come hang out in the lab with me. Today, no one could deal with this autistic kid, so he ended up in the lab with me. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against kids with different religious beliefs or kids with disabilities, I just find it humorous that I end up with those kids when no one else can deal with them.

And it’s now official- it’s so hot, kids are not allowed to go outside for recess. This means they have to stay cooped up inside watching movies or something. Poor teachers.

I have said news. Chunk is sick. He was sick about a month ago. He got this big swollen lump on him. I came to the conclusion that he had eaten too much. I have him a pea (this acts as a laxative for fish), and his lump shrunk in size. Well, now the dude is pretty darn huge and looks like a pinecone. He has dropsy. If you click on the link, you’ll find out that Dropsy is most often fatal for fish. I’m treating him with antibiotics, but I’m not holding my breath. He looks really bad. He’s still swimming around like crazy though. He doesn’t seem to be in any pain. He’s not gasping for air or anything like that. It’s sad though because I’ve had Chunk for over 2 years. I’ve had him since my first year of teaching which was in Lexington. He’s been through a lot with me! I hope he’ll get better, but I don’t know what the chances of that are.