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This and That

 Just some catching up....

On Tuesday May 25, we got to leave with our students at noon so I determined to do some car shopping. My 2017 Chevy Sonic was not a great car. I used to say I didn't care what kind of car I drove as long as it started and ran.  And that is exactly what I got in my Sonic...the air was not working, the driver's side window would not go down, and the radio did not work. I was torn between just getting the air fixed or trading it in for something else. After months of internal debating, I decided to look around and see what was out there. 

I first stopped at a Kia dealership and they had a brand new Rio, but I have not had luck with economy cars so decided to move on. After stopping at a couple other places, I found myself at a Nissan dealership where I was shown a car that checked all my boxes. 

A certified pre-owned 2017 Nissan Sentra with 37,000 miles. It still has 2.5 years left on the factory warranty. 

So I did it! 

The other highlight of the summer so far was my friend's wedding on June 5. I was the only attendant in the wedding. It was a small outside wedding, but very nice and the weather cooperated nicely. She hired some ladies to come and do our hair and make-up. 

Finally, CJ and I were at Amalie Arena for game one yesterday. We were there to be the thunder, but the Lightning never showed up. Luckily, I went into the game with very little expectations as they always lose their first home game in a playoff series. 

Four Days of Disney - Day Three

 Day two and three were actually back to back, but we had such a great time both days and excellent weather! Day three was EPCOT which used to be my favorite park. Back when the kids were young and we had annual passes, we were at this park at least 2-3 Saturdays a month.  So many memories are associated with EPCOT, but unfortunately, so much has changed since then.  Spaceship Earth has changed the soundtrack and the end of the ride, Canada has changed its movie, Norway isn't even there anymore, Mexico has changed, Test Track has changed, and Universe of Energy has closed. Also, France was not playing it movie, which was disappointing. 

We started the day with Spaceship Earth and had about a 15 minute wait. 

Then we had a very small wait (maybe 10 minutes) for the Nemo ride. 

We had our longest wait of the day at Soarin which was about 50 minutes. This is another ride that has changed and, while it was ok, I was not a fan of the obvious computer graphics that were used. 

. After Soarin we had about a five minute wait for Living with the Land 

And a ten minute wait for Journey Into Imagination.

Then we headed to World Showcase and saw one of my favorites- the American Adventure. 

After finding my favorite candy in Japan, we walked to China and saw the movie there. 

The wait for Mexico was ridiculous and we don't enjoy it all that much, so we skipped it and headed over to our second longest wait of the day...Test Track. 

Another ride on Spaceship Earth before we left and another fantastic day at Disney! 

Four Days of Disney - Day Two

 Day Two (Sunday June 6) was a wonderful day at the Magic Kingdom. 

Before I begin the long recap, just some observations:

- The weather was hot - but at least it didn't rain

- without fast passes, the wait times were great

-  a lot of places (restaurants) were still closed, which was a little disappointing

- face masks were required only inside, which was nice. However, there was some confusion about what "inside" actually meant (see Splash Mountain)

- about 80% of the hand sanitizer stations we tried worked, compared to only about 30% at Animal Kingdom

- some safety measures are still in place such as distance separating on rides, but some are not such as following the 6 ft. distance markers in line. 

We arrived at the Magic Kingdom about12:30 and walked right on a monorail with no wait. We had the entire pod to ourselves, but they are able to accommodate 8 people.

Our first attempt at a ride was Buzz Lightyear which we quickly realized was not working at the time as the line was not moving and the wait time had been taken down. So we moved on to Space Mountain where we had about a 30-minute wait. 

As we were walking to Fantasyland, we noticed there was no wait for Winnie the Pooh so we walked right on...

 The wait for Peter Pan was about 30 minutes - was one of the longer waits of the day, but considering it is usually well over an hour, it was still considered good.

We then headed over to Frontierland where we could not believe that we basically walked right on Thunder Mountain 

Then we moved to Splash Mountain which was, by far, the most difficult wait of the day!  It was about a 45-minute wait which wasn't bad. But it was so hot at this time and, most frustrating, the workers were instructing people to put masks on as soon as they entered the line even though the outside wait was at least a half hour!  Once we got on the ride we all agreed that while we normally don't enjoy getting wet on water rides, we would absolutely NOT mind it that day. 

At this point we desperately needed to hydrate so we returned to Tomorrowland and had a soda at the Lunching Pad. They changed the entrance...I wasn't impressed.

After the sodas, we waited just a few minutes for Buzz Lightyear, Carousel of Progress, and for the People Mover.

We were not even close to being done yet - I can't believe how much we were able to do this day. We walked over to Adventureland and waited about 20 minutes for Pirates of the Caribbean and then returned to Thunder Mountain for another ride.

Finally, we ended the day with a 15-minute wait for It's A Small World and only about a 5-minute wait for Haunted Mansion.  

And that was a wrap on day two.  Up next...day three at EPCOT.

Four Days of Disney - Day One

 Despite living about ten minutes away, we had not been to Disney in about five years. Zack has wanted to go back so bad, especially to get on Splash Mountain one more time. I was contemplating getting annual passes, but don't want to do anything until this pandemic is behind us.  So, when CJ suggested getting the 4 day resident pass, I decided that would be a great compromise. 

Friday, we decided to take the day and headed to Animal Kingdom for our day one.  I was especially excited to go to the Pandora section since that is new and wasn't finished yet when we had our passes a few years ago. 

Overall, the day was great. The number of people at the park was very manageable and, without fast passes, the lines moved pretty quickly (except Dinosaur).Our longest wait was for one of the Pandora rides (45 minutes).  C.J. and Zack were able to ride Expedition Everest three times! 

However, it was hot (90*) and wearing a mask all day was difficult. Hopefully, the mask mandate won't be in place for much longer. 

 

I will add that, overall, I felt Universal did a much better job of providing preventions from the virus. At Universal, there were cast members present to give out hand sanitizer before and after every ride.  Disney had sanitizer stations available, but 3/4 of the ones I tried were empty. So...not impressed there. 

How Things Are Going

 How I wish I could back into blogging like in the past. I would even be happy blogging one or two times a month.  I know many people are getting away from blogging, choosing instead to document life on Twitter, Instagram, or other easy social media sites. But, I do not  do that either. My only excuse is...my life seems very boring. 

I had a whirlwind change of jobs in early February. I had not exactly been happy with my school since November when I had an issue with administration removing curriculum from my room. But the biggest thing that helped me decide to leave was only receiving a 3% pay raise this year. The board received funds from the state to allocate teacher raises in line with the bill the governor signed over the summer to increase teacher's pay. However, instead of giving everyone a percentage pay raise, they decided to distribute the money in a socialistic manner so that everyone, no matter how much experience you have, would be making about the same amount of money. This meant that some teachers received a 30% pay raise while mine was 3%.  The final straw came after Christmas when they when, desperate to find a new kindergarten teacher, hired a fresh from college candidate and her salary was higher than mine!  

I have two friends who were teaching at Hope Charter in Ocoee and contacted me when they had an opening for a 3rd grade teacher and I jumped on it. I fell in love with this school. It has been in operation for over 20 years and has a waiting list. They spare no expense to make sure the student's have the necessary materials to be successful. And one of the best parts is that every single classroom has two teachers (a lead teacher and an assistant). Your assistant is responsible to correcting all papers and recording all grades, supervising the students at recess and lunch, and handling discipline issues that arise in the course of the day. This way, the teacher can focus 100% on planning and providing appropriate instruction! 

One of the best aspects...this school provides a base salary and then pays additional money for every years of experience you have ($500/yr adds up when you have 25 years of experience) and also $1,500 for every certification you have. I am currently working on two certifications will be complete in June, so next year my salary should increase by 3,500 next year! 

So, I have 19 third graders...17 face to face and 2 online (my TA also handles my online students as well - she is such a blessing to me). In stark contrast to my other jobs lately, I have the classroom of high level learners, which includes 3 gifted students. It is a nice change and I am enjoying it.