November 5, 2007

Proctoring the SATs

Highlight: Being stopped on the way to the staging portable by the security guard. *pointing to the left* “The line to take the SATs starts over there.” I couldn’t even stop laughing long enough to answer him, I could only shake my head.

Student highlight: “Are you the teacher for this classroom? Cause it says ‘Mrs. C’ on the door. [So you’re trying to say I LOOK like a Mrs. C? I know that’s not true.] Are you a teacher at this school? No? Are you a college student? No? A high school student? No?” At this point, she paused very seriously as though considering how much lower she should go.

It wasn’t fun, did you know that the SAT now has TEN sections?, but it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as I feared. I managed to keep them under relative control, and had a script to read from so I didn’t freak out when I had to talk to them. I mostly talked at them. But I made it through ok, and this might actually be a worthwhile way of getting over my speaking jitters.

It did help that I only had one cheater-wannabe. My friend had one kid who was trying to use his cell phone during the test, and another who actually brought the SAT practice book for use during the test.

All in all, if we’re being paid approx. $98, we made about $10/hour after taxes since we left at 6:30 am and didn’t get out until 1 pm.

October 15, 2007

Frugal Eats: An argument for bringing/making lunch.

I love it when a lunch plan comes together. I confess that I’m terrible at bringing lunch because it involves, oh, thinking ahead, being creative so I don’t have the same things over and over, you know, that kind of thing. Invariably, lunch is just dinner leftovers, which gets really old and boring.

But last week I did really well. Over the weekend, Vons had their salads BOGO ($3.79). That might not be the best price because I couldn’t find a coupon. Regardless, I needed to bring a salad for our grilled steak dinner on Saturday so I went ahead and grabbed two Fresh Express Pacifica Vegetable salads. They’re great! They have the 5 types of salad greens, sugar snap peas, roasted soy nuts, and sunflower seeds. So let’s say that was $2 for the salad. I also bought two mild cheddar blocks on sale for $1.50 each, and picked up another onion. Turns out I already had onions, but that’s ok, I’ll end up using it eventually.

I brought the salad, sliced and diced onion and a tomato, a few eggs, and cheese to work. The eggs, onions, cheese and tomato slices were breakfast for a couple days. This afternoon I put together the salad with the onion and cheese (I’d eaten up all the tomato this morning) and made my own thousand island dressing with the condiments we already had, and voila! Three delicious salads: one for me, the secretary, and Little Boss. And then the secretary toasted up a little chicken pizza and split that with me.

We girls are all feeling under the weather so we did spend $4 each on a big bowl of soup, but we’re going to buy a bunch of canned soups for the winter and leave them here in the office.

Next time, I’ll remember to add my canned corn, bring more tomatoes, and maybe even a cucumber. Buying prepackaged salads has always seemed a bit on the pricey side, especially if I was the only one eating them, but split it two or three ways and it’s still 66% less than buying at $7 salad here!

Salad: $1.75
Cheese: (will last for weeks, I’ll add it to almost everything) $1.50
Onion: (dozens of servings) $1
Corn: (4-6 servings) $0.50/can
Tomato: (if the birds stop eating them, homegrown) $0
Cucumber: $0.80

About $5 for three salads? Mmm…. yummy crunchy salad.

February 1, 2007

Dish Network Research: What am I missing?

So I’m back on that cable thing because Time Warner cable drives me batty (their lack of customer service, hour+ hold times, the whole bit.)

My goal is to find a suitable replacement (again, this is mainly for PaDucky’s benefit because Lord knows I haven’t watched tv in months) with a much longer term, preferably a year. I’ve used the DishBuilder feature to pick the programming package that suits my needs.

Option 1:
~ $19.99 Dish Family: I get a very basic package. 8 children’s channels, a few basic news channels, etc.
$$: This is the most basic package they have and does not qualify for any discounts or their “$100 rebate.”

Total: $240/year, as long as they don’t change the price on this package.

Option 2:
~ $29.99 America’s Top 100: I get most of the channels that I’m looking for, though I still don’t understand why I can’t find Bravo ANYwhere.
$$: With the $10 discount for ten months, this package will cost $19.99 for ten months, and then default to the $29.99/month. That’s about the same price as the current cable deal, and an ok top price that I’m willing to pay per month.

Total: $260/year.

The thing I really don’t get? The option to choose your local channels for an additional $5. Um, don’t I already get those? I don’t mean with my current cable company. I mean for FREE. Don’t I? Don’t we all? Does any Dish Network customer know what I’m missing here?