the last of the essays are graded and recorded. for the most part, they generally moved the students' grades up a point or two. a few went in the other direction, but these were generally halfhearted attempts and obviously so. as for my problem period, well, only a few were helped by their essays, but no surprise there. we covered the material in review, but the class generally did worse on the final and the essays, a sure sign they didn't bother to study. a few grades got tanked by not even attempting an essay or doing something stupid with it. not quite sure what point they were trying to prove other than the fact that their grades aren't that important to them. and i do have about 10 who need to take the essay or the test or both. they're in for a not so pleasant surprise when we get back because they'll be taking it during class first day back if they didn't make it up during the make up dates before break. not messing around, not waiting on it. i'll already have to do change of grade for several of them since those 0's really hurt their overall grades.

but i'm done with that part of the mess i needed to take care of. now i need to record all the grades in a physical, hand written grade book with attendance. i kinda messed up the grade book she had, so i've purchased a new one on my own and am hoping it will be here soon. in the meantime, i'll use my own formatted pages i've created just to make it all easier to read than the mess i've created and the tiny copies of the progress reports. i'm considering starting that tonight, but we'll see. i actually want to play star ocean: till the end of time for a little bit.

besides, after the push through 3 classes today, i deserve the break, i think.

linnorm arrived safe and sound, and plans are being made to handle the belated christmas gift shopping. kitten and i will more likely accompany him to get jewel's cell phone (if she does, she'll harass him into something he can't afford and that she really doesn't need - she's a "status" kind of gal, but really doesn't need a fancy picture phone for a pay as you go kind of thing, so me and kitten will help him make a logical choice instead). then we'll return and he'll make off with kiddos and the wal-mart gift cards to get them some clothes. i'll make sure kitten, who will attend the shopping trip, knows that this should be a clothing only trip. if he wants to purchase other things at a later date, that's fine, but the kids really need clothes right now.

while they're off doing that, saxy will be checking on the paycheck he should have received friday but didn't and depositing the extra $100 linnorm gave us to help out since we didn't receive the promised paycheck. that missing paycheck and taz's ssi on the 1st are supposed to cover most of our rent (the rest will be paid on saxy's next check, unfortunately) and food for the first 2 weeks of january. thus that missing check is very important. we've got enough to keep caught up on without our food budget taking a nose dive because the money for it hasn't shown up when promised. when that happens, other bills get pushed aside and it puts us in a bigger bind.

all of which is another reason why i need full time, permanent as soon as possible. saxy needs to get out of this unstable job into something more reliable. mcat has done good for us, i won't deny it, but his issues sometimes interfere with our efforts to get on and stay on an even keel. this paycheck is an example. this next week, where it looks like saxy won't work because mcat is off on vacation, is another. we just can't do this on as a consistent bases as it's been. but we can't get out until i'm full time, permanent and able to sink a paycheck into a vehicle for saxy. once he has his own car/truck and i'm at the same place every day, we can make arrangements for the little ones to be bussed to me (well, froggy we'd just have to transfer to my school, taz we'd have bussed to the school instead of the house), and saxy can take a swing or late morning start job without being worried about getting over to pick us all up.

i keep telling myself that all this extra effort i'm making has got to pay off. i've already put this particular long term position on the resumé and am planning to take that with me to any job offers. heck, i may just drop it off at the local schools we looked at this past summer even without an interview. gotta show i'm eager to work and willing to put myself out there.

once i get something full time, permanent, getting caught up in other ways shouldn't be too hard. it won't be easy - 2 1/2 years of unemployment isn't easy to dig out of, especially when we only had a year of employment before that and it didn't cover the year or so of unemployment that preceded it. but, still, it'll be a lot easier than now. right now, the only catching up being done is in the grade book.