Just before spring break, things got really crazy.
On Thursday, April 2, Ali called me at 6:05am from the scene of an accident she was in on Route 78 on her way to work. I met her at Somerset Medical Center where she was on a back board and pretty banged up. It took a few hours, but a CT Scan cleared her for internal injuries despite severe pain in her ribs, an injured shoulder, new back pain, dizziness, an injury to her finger, and contusions. Once she was discharged from the hospital, we picked up her pain medications and headed home.
Ali's friend Juli came over to help out and I left to go to baseball practice. Towards the end of practice, Ali called to let me know they were heading back to the hospital because her head pain had gotten worse and her dizziness wasn't going away. A rude doctor who didn't seem to take us very seriously said she probably had a concussion and reluctantly agreed to do a CT Scan on her head to ensure there wasn't anything more serious. He laughed away my question about whether it was safe for Ali to sleep that night calling that advice a myth. It turns out the discharge papers specifically said to wake her up every hour throughout the night.
Although everyone was very nice during the morning visit and Ali was extremely lucky as evidenced by our later visit to her totaled car, it is astonishing that no one ever checked her for a head injury even though she complained of nausea, dizziness, memory loss and pain to everyone from the EMTs on scene to the nurse/doctor in the emergency room during the initial visit to the nurse/doctor in the emergency room during the second visit.
Ali's parents came down to be there early Friday morning so I could go to work, which helped a lot. Ali actually felt better on Friday than expected although she was in a lot of pain that continued to get worse over the next few days following the accident. By Saturday afternoon, she had purchased a new car and we spent lots of time on Monday and Tuesday driving around to get everything figured out - insurance paperwork, bank check for the new car, get Ali's belongings out of the totaled car, etc. It was a crazy few days for sure.
To add on to the fun, on Sunday our toilet started acting up. I called a plumber and he told me that there would be a $119 charge just to come out on a Sunday on top of the charge for the service. Instead, we checked into the Days Inn in Hillsborough for the night for $60 and had the plumber come on Monday morning. A different toilet issue later in the week led to us getting a brand new toilet for a grand total of $900 of unexpected expenses.
Throughout the week of spring break, I had baseball most days. We are actually doing pretty well with a 3-0 record including two mercy rule wins in a row now, one of them over Ridge in my head coaching debut. Although there are a few kids on the team that drive me crazy, I am enjoying the experience so far.
On Friday, I saw a posting on Freecycle for two tickets to the Colin Mochrie/Brad Sherwood show in Morristown on Saturday night. Ali and I were able to make a nice night of it with dinner at a cool restaurant in the Hyatt Morristown, a drink at the Dublin Pub and then the really funny show.
Now Ali is in Cancun for a few days while I am back to school. I left out many details and thoughts, especially regarding the emotional side of Ali's accident, but that's a little bit about what's been happening the last 10 days or so. Hopefully things will calm down a little so we can focus on other things - like our wedding being less than four months away!
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Entitlement
I have had a couple cases of Montgomery entitlement over the past few weeks. Prior to these, I had a pretty good run of not dealing with this type of thing, which was prevalant at Ridge as well. Although I'd heard colleagues' stories of students and/or parents thinking they were above the system or deserved more than the average person, I hadn't really encountered it.
Now I have.
First, I have a 9th grade student who complained about my evaluation of an essay she wrote a few weeks ago. We met and I agreed to adjust her grade slightly. Her father sent an e-mail indicating his displeasure with my assessment of her work and the test question on its own. He implicated that my teaching methods were to blame for her shortcomings. I responded to his e-mail carefully and he replied to let me know that he was still dissatisfied and would not let the issue die.
I talked it over with my supervisor and the next day she received an e-mail from the "student." It was actually the same e-mail the father sent me with some words changed around for it to be from the student rather than a parent. When my supervisor met with the student to reiterate my position, the student flipped out. Other colleagues in the office actually remarked to my supervisor about the student.
Next, the parent e-mailed my supervisor to explain that he was not satisfied with the supervisor's meeting with the student. My supervisor offered him a meeting time for the three of us (excluding the student), but that has not been scheduled yet.
Since this started, I have been keeping notes of every questionable conversation with the student and copies of all her written work that has had the same problems as the question that she originally complained about. I think there is more to this issue than one test question because I never heard from the parent before and it seems like going way too far for just a couple points. We'll see what happens.
The other entitlement front came with baseball. The head coach and I decided not to cut anyone from the freshmen team for a few reasons - two coaches can handle the 22 guys we have, 3 guys can't play right now due to injuries, no one is that much worse/better than anyone else. The Monday after that decision was announced, the head varsity coach received two anonymous letters containing BS about how this was a terrible idea and unfair to the better players who would lose playing time. Nothing big came of these letters, but it was a nuisance to deal with in the midst of the other situation.
Otherwise, baseball has been going really well. I'm enjoying it, learning a lot, and doing an okay job so far.
Now I have.
First, I have a 9th grade student who complained about my evaluation of an essay she wrote a few weeks ago. We met and I agreed to adjust her grade slightly. Her father sent an e-mail indicating his displeasure with my assessment of her work and the test question on its own. He implicated that my teaching methods were to blame for her shortcomings. I responded to his e-mail carefully and he replied to let me know that he was still dissatisfied and would not let the issue die.
I talked it over with my supervisor and the next day she received an e-mail from the "student." It was actually the same e-mail the father sent me with some words changed around for it to be from the student rather than a parent. When my supervisor met with the student to reiterate my position, the student flipped out. Other colleagues in the office actually remarked to my supervisor about the student.
Next, the parent e-mailed my supervisor to explain that he was not satisfied with the supervisor's meeting with the student. My supervisor offered him a meeting time for the three of us (excluding the student), but that has not been scheduled yet.
Since this started, I have been keeping notes of every questionable conversation with the student and copies of all her written work that has had the same problems as the question that she originally complained about. I think there is more to this issue than one test question because I never heard from the parent before and it seems like going way too far for just a couple points. We'll see what happens.
The other entitlement front came with baseball. The head coach and I decided not to cut anyone from the freshmen team for a few reasons - two coaches can handle the 22 guys we have, 3 guys can't play right now due to injuries, no one is that much worse/better than anyone else. The Monday after that decision was announced, the head varsity coach received two anonymous letters containing BS about how this was a terrible idea and unfair to the better players who would lose playing time. Nothing big came of these letters, but it was a nuisance to deal with in the midst of the other situation.
Otherwise, baseball has been going really well. I'm enjoying it, learning a lot, and doing an okay job so far.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
This Weekend
Ugh - another long time between meaningful posts. I even promised myself a few days ago that I would try to write for at least 10 minutes a night to keep this thing more up to date.
Saturday morning, we had our first scrimmage of the season. I still don't feel much like a baseball coach, but I think I am picking things up pretty quickly from my (much) senior head coach. The students are pretty good although they can be typically immature freshmen boys at times, too. We lost to Piscataway 9-5. My overzealousness with statistics and record keeping allows me to know that confidently even though we did not officially keep score or share that information with the players.
When I got into my car to leave for the game, my passenger side window was down. At first, I thought I just left it down by accident the day before, but then I remembered that it was below 40 degrees the past few days. I pulled over since the motor was dead for that window, but could not get it closed even manually. When I got to school, I found some duct tape and a garbage bag to "secure" it as much as possible and then took it to my mechanic on the way home later that afternoon. Since they would not be able to get to it until Monday, I left it in a bay and went ahead making sub plans for Monday. It's not a great day for me to miss school and I need to be able to get there in time for baseball either way, but there wasn't much of an option available. I couldn't even rent a car due to the time that everything happened.
Saturday night, Ali and I went out to dinner with Dave and Steph at McCormick and Schmick's at Bridgewater Commons. We had a good time catching up.
This morning, we drove out to meet with our florist/wedding planner Loretta who took us out to a place to look at invitations. We finally placed an order for something and should be able to send out the first batch of invitations early in April. Loretta also bought us coffee and then lunch while talking about all her grand plans for the wedding. We are lucky to have her working so far above and beyond what a florist normally does though so we don't have to worry about the overall vision of the wedding all that much.
Tonight I met up with some of my former Ridge colleagues for our annual NCAA pool picks. It was fun to catch up; we'll do some more of that at Dave's wedding in a few weeks. Those were good days when we were all new, young teachers at Ridge, hanging out on the weekends, playing poker, going to Morristown and happy hours...I'm glad to have had those experiences.
Saturday morning, we had our first scrimmage of the season. I still don't feel much like a baseball coach, but I think I am picking things up pretty quickly from my (much) senior head coach. The students are pretty good although they can be typically immature freshmen boys at times, too. We lost to Piscataway 9-5. My overzealousness with statistics and record keeping allows me to know that confidently even though we did not officially keep score or share that information with the players.
When I got into my car to leave for the game, my passenger side window was down. At first, I thought I just left it down by accident the day before, but then I remembered that it was below 40 degrees the past few days. I pulled over since the motor was dead for that window, but could not get it closed even manually. When I got to school, I found some duct tape and a garbage bag to "secure" it as much as possible and then took it to my mechanic on the way home later that afternoon. Since they would not be able to get to it until Monday, I left it in a bay and went ahead making sub plans for Monday. It's not a great day for me to miss school and I need to be able to get there in time for baseball either way, but there wasn't much of an option available. I couldn't even rent a car due to the time that everything happened.
Saturday night, Ali and I went out to dinner with Dave and Steph at McCormick and Schmick's at Bridgewater Commons. We had a good time catching up.
This morning, we drove out to meet with our florist/wedding planner Loretta who took us out to a place to look at invitations. We finally placed an order for something and should be able to send out the first batch of invitations early in April. Loretta also bought us coffee and then lunch while talking about all her grand plans for the wedding. We are lucky to have her working so far above and beyond what a florist normally does though so we don't have to worry about the overall vision of the wedding all that much.
Tonight I met up with some of my former Ridge colleagues for our annual NCAA pool picks. It was fun to catch up; we'll do some more of that at Dave's wedding in a few weeks. Those were good days when we were all new, young teachers at Ridge, hanging out on the weekends, playing poker, going to Morristown and happy hours...I'm glad to have had those experiences.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Quick Updates
Too many things to write about at once so some quick updates:
- I officially did not get the job in Hillsborough
- Ali and I are going to Ireland with the University of Delaware and University of Massachusetts marching bands from December 26, 2009-January 4, 2010
- We have chosen a photographer, videographer and florist
- We met with a travel agent and narrowed things down to Venice (possible a Mediterranean cruise) or Hawaii (possibly including an inter-island cruise)
- We have meetings scheduled with two officiants and will finalize that within the next 10 days
- I may be taking the position of freshman baseball coach at Montgomery. They still need someone and the varsity coach and I had a good chat about my lack of qualifications yet my interest in this sort of thing. He seems to think we can make it work.
- Taxes are just about done - my refund will pay most of the Ireland trip cost
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