Day 2 of classes and travel day 1

Greetings to all from Chicago. I'm sitting at an inactive gate (C-22) in O'Hare International Airport. After some fussing, I managed to connect to the wireless network here, but unfortunately not for free. The network here is provided by Boingo, and I bought the all-day access pass for this location for $6.95. This isn't something I thought I would have done, pay for such a luxury for a short period of time. But it turns out that my flight, Flight 349 on United Airways to San Jose is quite delayed. I arrived here from my Buffalo flight at around 7:45 Central Time (EST - 1), having left at around 7:15 EST. The plane was packed, and I had a window seat (in one of the rows without windows of course), but it was a short flight and I toyed around a bit with Vista. So my flight to San Jose was supposed to leave at 9:50 Central Time, but is now not scheduled to leave (or get here -- it isn't clear) until 12:36 pm. So I figured it was worth the $7 to be able to update my blog, listen to Pandora, and read some news.

I'd like to talk for a minute about my second day of classes, then I want to relay the events of last night, and from there...we see. So I taught week 4 of my 3 Friday classes in Buffalo yesterday, and I think on the whole they went pretty well. I started with a Level 3, in which the students read in The Stories Julian Tells. I think they mostly liked it; I'm quite impressed with one of my students for whom that book is much too hard -- he gave it a stellar effort anyway. I handed out the BSAs in that class, which went well also. Then, in my Level 4, I had some trouble with a few of the students actually reading/getting distracted. Part of me is apathetic and wants to give up on them a bit once I try a couple times to get them focused. Then, another part of me knows that some of the kids just need more support and encouragement from me as theher. It's a tough balance, especially when I really do not see myself as a long-term teacher. Finally, my Level 6 class went really well. Almost all of the class is devoted to starting Dibs and reading 4 chapters in it. A couple of the students in that class who usually cause me anxiety actually weren't in attendance, so that made it better. I was also happy about the idea of getting out and getting to Rochester to get my new laptop.

So after classes, I headed home and called Matt Rodgers. He came over to pick up the materials I needed to give him (note to self - I need to email Lisa Barry to confirm that). I lost track of time a bit talking to him outside, but finally Jackie and I got in her car and headed to Mister Pizza for a slice, continuing on then to Rochester. We got in town around 8:45, making good time. Thankfully, Dad was able to pick up the laptop earlier that day from Circuit City, fresh off the delivery truck. He really came through for me as far as that went. We checked it out and talked, and Jackie and I went to Wegman's to cash some coins at the coinstar, and to get Dad some coffee. Jonathan showed up around 10:00, and Corey called Dad's phone, so I got to talk to him. Soon thereafter we left, stopping for a cup of coffee from Spin. We drove home, and I got down to business. I had to print out all my itinerary, as well as all my new class lists, make-up lists, BSAs, and OCIs. Then Jackie helped me pack up my things, and I installed iTunes and Firefox on the laptop and transfered over some files. I eventually got to bed around 2:30, and had to be up at 5. Needless to say I was extremely groggy but managed to make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I did use the outside curb check-in, costing me $2/bag, but I was happy to pay to avoid the growing lines at the inside check-in stations. Security was a breeze, though I got a little nervous when one of the attendants asked me about some items in my backpack. Fortunately, it was just my airborne vitamin.

So here I am, waiting... The battery life on the laptop has drained down to about 15%, so I'm thinking about finding an outlet in here I can maybe set up by to let it charge for the plane ride. But if I need to do other things on the plane, that's OK too. I am upset that I won't be arriving in San Jose as early as I expected, but I guess these big flight days can never go the way you want them to.

More updates later on, my faithful readers.

-Alex