That sucks, Emily. I hate writing things about myself, but writing something about yourself that is supposed to have been written by someone else has to be difficult. Good luck.

I soaked some horribly stained stuff in OxyClean the other day, and it was amazing. I was pretty sure I was going to have to throw the stuff out.

Yeah, remember the bloody pants? I soaked them in Oxyclean, and it came right out.

I cannot tell you how extremely uncomfortable that makes me. Any ideas about how to write my own recommendation letter?

Oh Em, I'm so sorry. I've known other people who have done that as well, and I think it sucks.

I don’t think so. In fact, when the person says yes, I say “I took the liberty of drafting something for you to work with” and they always seem grateful. It allows me to let the recommender know the things about me that are important to the person that I’m being recommended to. Also, makes it more likely that the recommender will get it taken care of. Plus, if you include minute details about how the recommender knows you, it allows the person who read the recommendation to assume that you made a huge impression on the recommender :) Of course, I have no issue with shameless self promotion, so perhaps that’s why I don’t mind.

Em, I’m happy to draft some bare bones for you if you tell me who’s recommending and what it’s for

I add Oxyclean to every load of laundry. I've had to switch to totally unscented everything recently when it comes to laundry, because the smell of the fabric softner, etc left on the clothes was starting to aggravate my asthma.

Gram's going back to the hospital. She's dehydrated and her fever's up. They're hopeful that hydrating her and getting her fever down will be relatively easy.

I wish her a quick recovery, K. I know it must be very hard for you to be so far away.

Is she a co-worker?

Not exactly. She's my math coach. She's got a million things to do, which I absolutely get (she works at several different schools in the area, and with all the math teachers at our school when she's there) -- I'm just very bad with the self-promotion, particularly offering up the self-promotion for editing. Or something.

Wow, Vortex, thanks! I've been thinking out the basics, based on things she's said to me. She does think I've grown a lot over the past year (my first teaching), my lesson design and management have improved, I've gotten a lot of practice working with English Language Learners and adapting my instruction to make it accessible for them, and I've been working with a particularly difficult population (her words, not mine) in terms of language and achievement. She did say she thinks it's unfair that they stuck the brand new (and non-Spanish-speaking) teacher with the low-performing, high-ELL-percentage classes.

Anyway, I'm looking for high school jobs for next year, still teaching math, ideally at a school without as many discipline problems.

Most of that is just thinking out loud. Across-the-hall!Teacher also said she'd help me with it, she's just out of town today. I'm going to need to pin down the principal and force SOME kind of letter of reference out of him -- he said he'd give me one at the end of the year (with the not-so-subtle "so long as you're good" implied, I think), but I need one now. God, I hate this whole thing.

Hey, what a great job I just did of wasting time, huh? Off to do my laundry, grade, and watch "The Scarlet Pimpernel" with Across-the-hall!Teacher's dog. She's worried he'll get lonely.

~ma for K's gram.

We use All Free and Clear, because we all have ridiculously sensitive skin.

I've heard on the diaper boards that they started putting optical brighteners in it, which retards absorbancy.

It used to be a diaper board favorite, too.

Much health ma for your Grams, Kristin.

Health~ma for Kristin's Gram.