Moving

Our Christmas present to each other was a week full of emotions and soar muscles. Grant and I have spent the last few days moving out of our apartment in Berkeley and into an apartment in Oakland. Now we’re going to spend the next few days unpacking boxes and getting settled. Here’s a quick summary of how I’m feeling right now… I know there are lots of things that I’m forgetting in this list… Positives of moving: away from PSR community, my commute to school is cut in half, closer to our church community, friends down the hall, Grant will hopefully be happier and more apt to get work done, modern building that is more earthquake safe, nicer bathroom, way better flooring, no ants, dishwasher, free internet (from other people’s unsecure wireless networks), closer to a teacher at my school = possible carpooling, beautiful Adam’s Pointe neighborhood in Oakland that is near Lake Merrit, huge deck and sliding glass door, locked garage parking space, elevator, unlimited access to our mailbox, rent will be cheaper next fall once PSR raises their rent again, good landlord (so far), apartment is actually a condo so there is one owner that we deal with instead of an apartment manager and a corporation Negatives of moving: loss of great view of the Oakland Bay Bridge, the bay, the hills, and Cal. time and energy spent moving on my vacation, loss of closet space, loss of windows on three sides (therefore alot less natural light), loss of sunsets, slightly smaller apartment, loss of friends across the hall, noisy refrigerator, farther walk to the BART, loss of great Gourmet Ghetto neighborhood in Berkeley, no fire escape to the roof, our old apartment was so unique and had a great layout If I knew where the camera was, I’d take picture to show the mess. Sometime soon I’ll put pictures up on Grant’s yahoo site. If you are reading this and you don’t know where that it, just email me.

My First Earthquake

It's official, I have finally felt my first earthquake since moving to Berkeley. It was a 2.4 and happened at 9:37pm (PST). It felt and sounded like someone very big either fell on the floor or jumped really hard downstairs. It was quick. Right away, I walked across the hall to our neighbors and asked, "did you feel that too?" and Steven already had the website up that shows where the earthquake's epicenter was and its magnitude. It happened 1 mile NNE of Piedmont. Check these out... http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40181464.htm http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/STORE/X40181464/40181464_ciim.pdf Ok, time for bed so I can be rested to go back to school tomorrow! Yuck! I hope those kids had a good week off so they can be good with me for the next 3 weeks!

Turkey Day... with complete strangers

About 2 weeks ago, two friends from church and PSR invited us to have Thanksgiving dinner with them at one of their friend's house. Our friend had known the couple from years ago living in Seattle. Coincidentally, both couples moved to the east bay so that their spouses could attend seminary. One is at PSR with Grant, the other is at the Episcopailian school down the street. So, it's 3pm, the time that our friends said they were going to meet us at the other couples apartment. We knock on the door and a woman answers. "hello! we're Robin and Grant" pause, woman is thinking, pause, "friends of -- and --?" Woman says, "oh yes, welcome in!" This was only slightly akward. Our friends had not arrived yet. We were expected, but it was still humorous that we showed up at complete strangers house, carrying yummy sweet potatoes, and expecting to be let in to share a Thanksgiving feast. The afternoon / early evening went really well. We talked to a bunch of seminarians and their partners (at least we had something in common!). We ate lots of yummy food and we even got an invitation to come back for dinner sometime. Back to the apartment search... we've visited 7 apartments so far in or near the desired neighborhood. We're quickly figuring out that we either need to lower our standards or be ok with paying more for rent, because we haven't been satisfied with any of the apartments so far. PSR and the other seminaries in the GTU subsidize the student housing. If our apartment building wasn't owned by PSR, it would taken care of and be in much better shape and it would cost $200-$300 more a month. It's a good thing that moving is not an emergency, just something we'd like to do soon.

On The Search

For the last few days I've been tuned into the apartment situation on Craigslist. Every new apartment that comes up in our price range is considered. We have a neighborhood picked out in Oakland. It is right by our church and we know almost a dozen people that currently live in the neighborhood. I called about 15 places this morning, of the few that answered, I made 4 viewing appointments. A few were out of the price range and the others I left messages with (still waiting!). Today we visited three apartments that were decent but not spectacular. I canceled the fourth appointment as soon as I actually saw the building in person. Yuck! So, one who has talked to me before about our apartment might wonder why I would want to move. Our current apartment has wonderful views, a fun rooftop, great neighbors, a unique charm and layout, a great size. But, it is too close to PSR, a community that is constantly disappointing us. So we need space from it so Grant's school will become more like a day job instead of a lifestyle choice. Also, if we move farther south into Oakland, my commute time to school will be shorter. Apartments are so expensive here. I'm easily paying twice what my apartment was in Davison, MI. My old apartment was wonderful. It had a deck that faced a huge green backyard of the house next door. I had my own parking spot. The kitchen was a separate room. The living room area was big. It was wonderful. Now we're trying to figure out what are the most important features. Does what we see outside our windows matter? Does the layout matter? Does ceiling height and the detail of cabinets and counters matter? Can I handle leaving behind the awesome sprayer faucet that we installed in this apartment? I'm glad that I have all of this week off from school to be handling this situation. Hopefully we'll find a place that we can both enjoy and be comfortable in. Send prayers and good thoughts our way!

Training complete! Results are in the mail...

Yesterday Grant and I finished our wilderness first aid training. At the end of the day we did a couple scenarios where the patients had make-up on to make the trauma and drama more real. I volunteered to be one of the 5 patients for the very last scenario, wondering if I would be able to keep in my role. So, imagine that you and 4 friends are on a climbing trip. You’re hiking down a trail and you’re looking for a good place to stop for lunch. Your leader says, “hey, look up there, I bet there’s a good view!” and so the group starts to climb up a steep hill to the view when all of a sudden you lose your grip, you’re falling in a rock slide, maybe 20 feet down. So there were 5 of us who got hurt. I had life threatening bleeding and a broken left arm plus a bump on my head. Another person had life threatening bleeding on his shoulder. The third person was unconscious with blood dripping out his ears. The fourth person had minor cuts but was freaking out and tried to get all the rescuers’ attention on her. The fifth person, the leader, was refusing treatment because he was feeling guilty about what happened to his friends. There were about 15 rescuers practicing on the 5 different people. I was found on my side, blood going down my shirt into the grass. My rescuers, noticing that I had bleeding, gently rolled me to my back so they could inspect it. Once they got to skin, they saw the red tape and knew it was life threatening bleeding. Elevation and compression followed. In real life I was laying under a road/bridge/overpass that was leading up to the golden gate bridge. It was about 4:30pm and the ground was damp. In real life I was getting cold and starting to shiver. This was beautiful because for the scenario, they thought I was going into shock. In real life, I always have problems with my hands getting too cold, turning white, getting tingly, then numb. We think I have Raynaud’s Syndrom. This worked well for the scenario again, because my hands were actually losing color, so they thought I was having a circulatory problem. Then when my fingers actually went numb (on both sides, not just the broken arm side), they thought I had a spinal injury. I really had my rescuers working on me! Add in some tears because it was easy to cry with so many emotions in the area anyways, and we had a pretty intense scenario. The training was a lot of fun. There was so much information thrown at us that I know I won’t remember everything, but with my patient assessment check-off list and my little blue book of wilderness first aid, I feel much more confident taking teens out into the woods who have never been. Not that I ever want to use any of my training on them! Now I have to wait for my test results to know if I'm actually certified for wilderness first aid. The test had some tricks to it.

Hello, my name is Robin. I’ve been through 8 hours of wilderness first aid training.

It looks like you may be injured, would you like me to help you? And then it goes into the ABCDE’s, the vital signs, the SAMPLE questions, and so on… Tomorrow we attend the next 8 hours of this course and then I will be Wilderness First Aid certified for the next 3 years. Hopefully I’ll remember all of this stuff when I need it! My hope is to be comfortable taking my high school students on camping and backpacking trips in the future. Like probably this spring after the rain is done. Today was a long day with much information thrown at us. Tomorrow when I take the written test, we’ll see how much of it stuck to me. There were many times that we got to pretend and practice on other people in the class. That was a lot of fun and definitely helped with the learning. All of the talk about injuries was going good until the instructor pulled out the pictures of an angulated fracture of a forearm. Then she had this prop where a blue glove was taped to a duck tape coil about 20” long in such a way that she could bend it and talk about how you would bend it back into place to splint it and evacuate the patient. All of this was after we talked about the damage a broken femur can do to your leg and how to traction it. So my calm went away and that acute stress reaction kicked in, which for me in nausea and the beginnings of a faint. Luckily we were going into a scenario, so when the instructor said, “the patient needs to lie on their side,” I was more than happy to. In other news… CAC sold almost 200 candygrams this past week with a profit of about $160. We deliver the candygrams on Monday at the end of the day. We stayed at school pretty late on Friday to put them all together and organize them by teacher. We’ll probably do another fundraiser at Christmas, Valentine’s Day and then before either Prom or Graduation. Grant is under the weather. I hope he feels better soon!

Getting a Good Deal

Contract Issues The teachers in Oakland have been without a contract for more than the time I’ve been teaching here (so more than 14 months). It has to do with the school district being bankrupt and taken over by a state administrator and the tension that that has caused everyone. Today, is good Berkeley/SF/Oakland style, there was a protest after school during the time that staff usually have meetings. I actually first heard about the protest from a woman at my church wanting everyone to go to the rally and sign a paper in support of the teachers. (I love my progressive politically active church!) Keep in mind that our district is HUGE with like 6 high school campuses, each with 1500+ students. It is easy to feel a big disconnect between the district administration and your own school site. So when OEA (union) notes come along, I usually don’t pay too much attention, I just try to focus on my students in the here and now. Alright, so here is how it affected me today… I’m part of a 5 member advisory committee that creates the lesson plans for the school’s advisory class. Today was to be our presentation of the lessons for the next 8 weeks. We had our presentation broken up among the committee members. Then the announcement of the protest came. Then the announcement that 2 of our members would be going along with ¾ of the teaching staff. I didn’t go because I was working in my room with my girls and the candygrams for CAC. The principal walks by to go to the meeting, “it’s time for the meeting Ms. Kinney.” I walk in and it turns out that we’re going to present anyways, even with the members and the staff missing. I’m unprepared to do the parts that are not mine. Just about all of the questions get focused on me because I talked more than my other committee partner. I’m on the hot seat. I’m embarrassed by our poor performance and a little ticked that the committee members bailed on me. Grrr. The worst part is the fact that we’ll have to do the presentation again because the entire staff needs to see it so they can actually do it in their advisory class next week!! Highlights **The CAC candygrams has surpassed the $100 gross mark… about $70 net, so far. Two days left to sell these things! **Today we experienced weather!! Our first day of RAIN!! Thank you God! Not as many kids skipped school today as I thought would. **Homecoming on Friday—should be fun if there is no rain (or not too heavy). **Wilderness First Aid Class this weekend, then I can officially go backpacking with the BAWT gear.

New Blog

Hey all, I just started a blog on Xanga. I like it because of the subscription thing that lets you "subscribe" to others' blogs and get email updates. I also like that you can read friends of friends blogs instead of randomly getting a blog or relying on people to put links on their page. So, here it is if you want to check it out... www.xanga.com/rkinney

Updates

End of Weekend Anxiety It's that time of the weekend again, sitting on Sunday night in front of my computer, gradebook is updated, lesson plans are almost done, and I have not gotten nearly as much done for this week as I wanted to. And I am worried about it. This happens every week. Do I have enough to make it through Monday? Pretty sure. Tuesday? Yes for Algebra 1 only. The other two, Intermediate Algebra and Geometry, will have to wait until my prep period tomorrow and Monday night after Wesely. On a more positive note, the weekend was a good one. Here's the run down... Friday: "Date Night" Not really. We didn't do anything that special. We went out to this hole in the wall turned jewel of a restuarant that specializes in vegetarian and seafood chinese food. Yummy. We got the "dinner for 2" and had a ton of food to take home. Afterwards we walked to a coffee shop that I drive by everyday on the way home from school to check it out. I had fun finding the hidden plugs in the plants and hanging down the walls. We were the only table that forgot to bring a laptop with them for the free wi-fi. Saturday We parted ways for a few hours. Grant joined the Cal Sailing Club and had his first lesson. I went to church to sing. The choir directors are really music professionals with lots of cool connections and they put together a music workshop day. The morning was spent singing together and the afternoon had workshops on circle singing, African dancing, percussion, voice technique, and music theory. I only stayed until lunch and then I met up with Grant at a park near the Berkeley Marina to help clean BAWT gear. (BAWT = Bay Area Wilderness Training- an organization that trains adults to take kids on backpacking trips and then allows them to rent the gear for free). We saw two people from our WLT trip in June. It was fun to be outside putting up tents, looking for damage, making sure everything was numbered then take them down. Later, was a movie. Yeah for Elephant Pharmacy $1 DVD rentals. Sunday Jenn and Craig take II Friends of ours at church got married in CT in August (that’s where they are from) but today they reaffirmed their vows during the worship service and had a special lunch party afterwards. It was great. They both wore their wedding outfits and we had a bunch of visitors to service. Afterwards Grant and I took a short drive to part of Oakland we’d never been to before to see if we would like to move there. PSR housing is really not up to code. And if there were ever an earthquake strong enough, this building would fall off its foundation. More about that another time. That brings us to Sunday Lesson Planning... yuck.

Updates

Fine Line Today a student's parents sent a cousin (adult) to check up on the student's report card with the teachers. I tired to be as accurate as possible with what was going on with that student in my classroom. But no matter what I said, the cousin seemed to twist it and blow it way out of proportion, making the student sound horrible, when really this student is among my brightest and favorites. After the mini-conference, the student was obviously very upset and so was I at the response of the cousin. I was worried about what the cousin would say to the parents and the effect that would have on the student so I told the student that I would call home after school to talk directly to the parents to try to clear things up. I started the conversation with "I talked to the cousin and I think she got the wrong impression, she seemed to blow things way out of proportion" but no luck. All I got in return is some, "I don't know what you do but you teachers should..." crap. The mom was just about the same as the cousin. Hard tones. Almost shouting at me that I should have called earlier if there were any problems. But I did call! She says, "You didn't talk to no one in this house about [student]!" Oh, I keep records! And I could hear in the background the dad sheepishly said, "I did talk to her." I get so frustrated with parents. There is just no telling what they will do or how they will react. There are some parents that you have to complain and complain for them to even lift a brow towards the child and their behavior and then there are parents like today who will make their children suffer. I guess this is why I have great thoughts of calling parents during the school day but when I get home to actually call, I sit around doing other things, not wanting to ruin my mood with parents' issues. Other School News I found out at the staff meeting today that I am not going to teach tomorrow. I'm glad someone told me the news! I'm going to spend the day with 3 other staff members planing the advisory curriculum for the next several months. It is a mixed blessing. On one hand, a neighbor teacher said I should take a sick day since I've been feeling tired and run down lately (not entirely caused by school). On the other hand, 4 of my classes were supposed to have a test on Friday, 2 of the classes still will, the other 2 (the geo's) will be postponed. Old Testament Grant's bible class is having a huge history test tomorrow so he is busy with our neighbor, Judith, studying away. It is rare that I see him study so much at night. If fact it is often very hard for me to see the work that he does. This makes both of us frustrated. To the Alma Alumni You would all be so proud of me. Just last week a fellow teacher and I started the Castle Adventure Club. (castle is for castlemont, the high school I work at). Our first project is a fundraiser: Halloween CandyGrams. I'm not sure what the first trip will be. A walk in the park? Indoor climbing? Golden Gate Bridge? Mt. Tam? We'll see.