We departed from Fort Laurderdale, it was very quick to get on board. We arrived at about noon.  When we got on the person greeting us suggested we not go to the windjammer for lunch because it would be too crowded so he suggested a different venue.  We ignored his suggestion and went to the windjammer and I am glad we did, we found a seat without any problem.  The food was the best food in the windjammer for the whole cruise! From that point on, I was not impressed with the windjammer food.  The selection was small and it didn’t taste that great.  There was some Asian cuisine that my husband liked but overall the windjammer was good.   Breakfast was good with a typical variety.  We never tried dinner there.  We rarely had trouble finding seats.  It might have been crowded and we would have search the whole place for a table and a couple of times, we grabbed a dirty table and waited for someone to clean it.  Overall, I give the windjammer a C.

By the time we finished our lunch that first day, we went to our cabin.  That was a nice surprise.  The cabins were bigger than we have had in the past. We also got an outside cabin and it had a HUGE window, my kids (even the 17 year old) could lie in the window.  We had one room with 2 beds pushed together and a sofa too!  Our cabin connected to our kids cabin which had 2 beds and a sleeper sofa.  It would have been better to have had 2 upper bunks rather than the sleeper sofa and I didn’t realize this wasn’t the case when I booked the cruise.  So, if you are used to quads = 2 upper bunks like us, play close attention because many are sleeper sofas which mean that everyone won’t get their own beds.  My kids weren’t happy about sleeping together.   We won’t do a sleeper sofa again.  The rooms also come with a large flat screen TV that you can check your sea pass account by yourself at any time, it also shows when your shows are, let’s you make reservations, sign waivers for all sport activities, and more.  You also get a ton of free movies and regular TV. Our cabin was on deck 3.  I really liked this deck, it was convenient to everything, very quiet, more affordable, and the rooms were the same size as the more expensive cabins, we just had the big window instead of the balcony and at $400 + savings, I would stick to deck 3.

On Deck 3, you are right at deck to get off the ship, you are right at the dining hall, and Opus Theater is right there too.  The Casino is only 1 deck up and the promenade is only 2 decks up.  The ships elevators are moved closer to the middle so it is not a long walk to get anywhere.  You don’t feel lost and even young kids, 9+ could find there way around on their own.  There are TV screens around the ship to direct you but after the first day, you learn the ship and don’t really need them.  It was one of the easiest ships to get around on.

The shows on board were great!  Hairspray, the broadway musical was phenomenal.  It was very funny and very well done.  I would recommend it for ages 6 and up.  We also saw Learn To Fly, this involved a lot of acrobatic moves, some singing (slow songs that were not that interesting), and people flying over your head.  It was a very good show.  We didn’t go to the ice skating show but my mother and step father took my daughter and they liked it.  We saw the Oasis of the Dreams, it is a mix of diving, gymnastics, and synchronized swimming.  I didn’t care much for the swimming.  They didn’t choreograph it very well.  The diving was nice, like the Olympics.  The  gymnastics was the best part of the show.  Overall, this was my least favorite show, but was still good.  The comedy show was an adults only show.  The first act was very clean and I wish my kids could have seen it.  The second act was 50/50.  Both were very good. Although, I think they switch out performers for both the comedy club and the Headliner show- so your mileage may vary.  Speaking, of the Headliner show, we got to see Beatle Mania.  Basically, it was like going to a Beatles concert, it was excellent.  Again, they switch these around, so the Beatle Mania group may or may not be there for future cruises.

Another show we saw was the comedy improv show on the last night, no tickets were needed.  This was very funny and I highly recommend it.  Sit up front if you want to participate and maybe get on stage to perform with the actors.  Make sure you are comfortable with doing improv in front of a large audience in you volunteer.  We also did a comedy improv workshop with some of the actors from Hairspray. This was a fun activity, especially to bring kids age 9+ to unless they are super shy.

There were lots of activities to do but be prepared to wait a long time.  I did the zip line on the day right after we got on board, this the best time to use the flow riders and zip line.  You will need to sign some waivers over by the zip line first.  You also need sneakers or socks and they will provide shoes.  It isn’t scary at all.  I get scared of lots of things but I wasn’t afraid of this.  As for the rest of the things, ice skating isn’t open on shore days and you have to get in line 30 minutes before they open (which we didn’t know so we never got to do this) if you want a spot.  The rink is small and they only let a small number of people on.  Other activities that I wanted to with my kids were all scheduled to conflict with early dinner, this was very frustrating as I would think most families would pick early dinner.  They did the parade at 5:30 on formal night when that is the time to get pictures taken!  There wasn’t too much to do if you chose not to go into port, which we didn’t do every day.  There were large periods of time when there was nothing fun to do.  They need more activities.  They also schedule fun things very late and although I stayed up to 2:00 am a couple times to do some stuff, I was tired toward the end of the week and an 11:30 activity was just too late, I wish they would make them earlier so all can enjoy them, not just the night owls.  Then, they would schedule dancing lessons at 10:00am, who is ready to dance at 10:00am, when they just stayed up until 2:00 am to do the other activities?  They need reexamine their whole schedule.  Overall, they get a C- for activities.

Now for the dining room.  We had a great wait staff.  Most RCCL cruises we have been on, we have had great waiters (waiters always tend to be better than the waitresses overall…).  A couple of cruises, we got stuck with just average ones and that has been disappointing but our waiters on this cruise were great.  We had high expectations for the food – after all, this was the Oasis of the Seas, the most expensive and biggest ship – we should get a pretty exciting menu!  NOT… the menu is the same menu as the cheapest and smallest (Monarch of the Seas) RCCL ship.  We were expecting some variety and something a little better.  Not that the food is bad, it is good – we just thought we would get something a little more than we get when we pay $200 to go on the Monarch.  The menu was the same – the food very good – not amazing, not bad – I would give it a B+ / A-.

The other food venues:  Johnny Rockets is free for breakfast.  We tried it once.  I thought since it was cooked to order, it would taste better.  It didn’t.  My pancakes still were hard around the edges… how do they make that happen??  They lack breakfast drinks – I hope you like OJ, it is all they got for you!  My son paid to have lunch at Johnny Rockets once, he said it wasn’t great.  I bought milkshakes there and they were below average.  So I give Johnny Rockets a thumbs down – C-.  The Park Cafe is in the beautiful Central Park, it is really nice.  It has great sandwiches and salads.  We ate there quite a bit.  It was always easy to get in and get food quick and had good hours.  Also, it was nice to eat in Central Park.  I give Park Cafe an A-.  The donut shop on the boardwalk serves free donuts.  All the donuts are plain donuts with frosted tops of various tops – passion fruit, strawberry, chocolate, lime, etc.  They were terrible in my opinion.  I LOVE donuts but I ate 1 donut and didn’t finish it.  The bottoms tasted stale.  The only thing good was to eat the chocolate off the top.  :-)  I was not alone in not liking the donuts.  They need to make other types of donuts, like cake donuts or something – and the toppings like passion fruit, ick!  They were pretty but that’s it.  Donut shop:  D.  The pizza place:  Sorrentos was very popular.  They served pizza.  The pizza was good, not great, but good.  I wished they served other things there like Carnival does but all you get is pizza.  My kids ate there a lot.  I would give it a B.  We never ate at the Solarium so I can’t rate that.  As for the pay for you dinner restaurants, we considered doing that one night and went to all the places and read the menus.  The only one that looked okay was the Italian place.  My mother did eat there and really liked it.  We found that the things that appealed to me on that menu were actually also being served in the dining room (for free) that night, so we just went there and that is what I ordered (which was the same thing my mother got at the Italian place, although she got a lot of other types of food with it, she said it was family style.)  In general, I don’t do pay for dinner as I like the food in the dining hall and don’t see the point in paying for dinner when I don’t have to.  The other restaurants did not have anything that appealed to me or had things that we could still get in the dining hall.  I also tried the cupcake shop.  The cupcakes look soooo good, but don’t be fooled – they are nasty!  The frosting is yummy but I don’t know what they make their cake from, I tried two different ones and my daughter tried one – and none of them were good.  They cost $2.75 per cupcake.  I give it a D.

The best part of the ship was how beautiful it was.  I loved the different areas:  Central Park, Boardwalk, Solarium, Promenade.  It is really beautiful ship.  The shops are lacking, which is a shame given they have the space.  However, I give the ship and it’s layout an A.

The bars – the nightclubs were TINY, for such a big ship, why they couldn’t devote more space to the nightclubs is beyond me!  The dance floors are really small and one bar has an upstairs and downstairs which is impossible if you want to dance and are forced to sit upstairs.  The music played was not our cup of tea, all rap stuff that constantly changed – never the same song through until the end.  We found it hard to dance to, we didn’t stay long.  The casino was also terrible.  They had 1 set of tables marked as $5 tables that were so packed you couldn’t play and the other table was so high that no one played there and it was empty, so instead of having 2 tables at $5 that were full, they lost customers and people didn’t get to play.  Sometimes we had to play craps on the smoking side because the craps table on the nonsmoking side was too packed and we wanted to play craps but often that was empty and who wants to play craps alone, so we just didn’t play.  Very frustrating.

The worst thing for me was the lack of drinkable beverages!  Carnival has lemonade and ice tea available to their guests 24 hours.  RCCL has nothing!  If you went to Sorrentos, you got water – with NO ICE (I hate not having ice with my water).  In the windjammer there was flavored water – no lemonade.  The only place I could get lemonade was in the dining room at dinner.  And if it wasn’t meal time, there just seemed to be no options for fluids except water.  Breakfast, all you could get was OJ or apple juice (and coffee of course, which I don’t drink).  It was terrible, I had to drink so much soda on the cruise because I had no other option and I don’t want to be drinking soda.  On Carnival, I always have ice tea or lemonade – even at 2 am!  From now on, I will bring lemonade powder with me to mix with water on RCCL cruises but so many things about RCCL makes me prefer Carnival now.  I used to like RCCL better but they have made some really poor decisions.

Cost for what you get:  Would I pay the premium to go on the Oasis of the Seas again?  No!  It was not worth it.  I would much prefer a Carnival cruise over an Oasis of the Seas cruise any day.  The only 2 things about the cruise that really stood out to me where Hairspray, the “neighborhood” concept (Central Park, Boardwalk), and the nice cabins (minus the sofa bed idea).   But none of that is worth the negatives and the cost.

Overall rating of the cruise as compared to other cruises:  C.

What could RCCL do to improve the Oasis of the Seas?

1.  Fix their scheduling:  don’t schedule family activities right before or during early seating dinner, don’t do your parade on formal night when people are getting pictures done, have more activities, don’t schedule everything so late and so early – more stuff during the middle of the day, we had nothing to do during the middle of day and couldn’t do stuff we wanted because it was too early, too late, or conflicted with dinner.

2.  Have lemonade and/or ice tea available 24 hours in multiple locations for people to access.  Also keep your ice cream open 24 hours (they closed their ice cream, I don’t know how many times on Carnival, I saw people getting ice cream at 2:00 am…. the best time to have a small snack!)

3.  Improve variety of food in Windjammer, variety of donuts, improve quality of food (donuts, cupcakes, even Windjammer food).

4.  Skip the sofa beds, put in upper bunks for quads, no one wants to share a bed – make sofa bed rooms – triples, not quads!

5.  Have comedy shows for the kids, have more comedy shows for adults to attend

Well, I hope this review helps some… maybe RCCL will read it… ha!

The middle school curriculum is made up of a “mish-mash” of random topics put together instead of a cohesive flow that would help best prepare a student for high school.  Middle school could be used to allow teachers the time to help students get prepared for the rigors of high school.  Students could be assessed and put on different tracks (which may differ from subject to subject) based on their ability.  If a student is still counting on their fingers, doesn’t know their multiplication and division facts, and can’t work with fractions, now is the time to fix these problems rather than follow through with the random mix of 6th-8th grade math.  If a student has mastery of these subjects, the student should be moving onto Algebra I – some should start Algebra 1 at a slower pace than one would in high school while others may be ready for the traditional pace.  But, the current curriculum of a little geometry, a little Algebra, a little arithmetic, a little probability, and a little statistics each year does not help our students become successful in math in high school.  They are only relearning things they learned but not in a better way that focuses on remediation or they are learning snippets of things to come that will be better learned in the context of Algebra or Geometry when the time comes.

In language arts, students should spend their time becoming good writers and really making sure they have a grasp of grammar and sentence structure.  The focus of middle school language arts should be on getting students ready to read, analyze, and write papers for high school English.  They need to actually be taught these things, however, so many teachers do not seem to understand that these skills don’t just happen for most students and actually hands-on lessons need to be provided where sentences and essays are broken down piece by piece until the student understands how to put them together in a cohesive format.

I look at my kids’ education and just wonder what teachers are thinking these days. One son is in 6th grade, he has never been taught any sentence grammar or sentence structure.  He has never been taught any punctuation except at the end of a sentence.  So, I gave him a lesson on when to use commas.  It will take a while for him to integrate this information as one lesson in one day isn’t going to make him start using commas in his writing but I hope it helps.  I asked my 17 year old, did he learn commas? – yes, he finally did in 9th grade English at his non-Public school.  I don’t think he would have learned it if he had been in public school and still he didn’t learn until 9th grade!

Ideally this is what I think the middle school math curriculum should look like:

Track 1:  Remediation Track – Goal – kids leave this track with the ability to add and subtract without using their fingers (teach strategies), kids have number sense (learn things like 54 / 10 = 5.4   -> concepts they should have and be able to do in their head), kids are solid on multiplication and division facts (teach strategies to those who can’t memorize), kids can work with fractions (multiply, divide, add, and subtract), kids can do long division by hand (only because they need to for Algebra long division), kids can problem solve (use calculator) – when kids master track 1, they move to track 2

Track 2:  Geometry Only Track – all students complete this one Geometry only track because these topics are not taught in regular High School Geometry – Finding area, perimeter, volume, and surface area, basic idea of what happens when you change a dimension on a side what happens to volume – applications to real world, (use calculator for all)

Track 3:  Algebra 1 (slow pace):  This is a regular Algebra 1 class but worked through at a very slow pace for kids who struggled with math – this again allows us to use the gift of middle school – we have this extra time to teach Algebra very slowly and make sure students understand it, so use the gift! – Algebra 1 for these kids may take the rest of middle school.

Track 4:  Algebra 1 (modified pace):  Algebra 1 for kids who come to middle school and understand all the concepts from elementary school – skip pre-algebra, move into Algebra at a modified pace, not as fast as high school but no pre-Algebra is needed.

Track 5:  Geometry:  once Algebra is finished, students do HS Geometry

Track 6:  For students who finish Geometry, Algebra 2 is an option, as with this streamlined approach, more students will be ready for Algebra 2 than before without all this random middle school math.

Language Arts Curriculum:  Goal – Make students effective writers for high school English, prepare students with the literary terms used in High School English, increase student vocabulary, teach needed grammar for students to be effective writers

Students will read, write, and study vocabulary during middle school language arts.  Their reading will be chosen so they can talk about rhetorical strategies used by authors as a preview to high school English.  They will leave middle school as effective writers and be able to write different types of essays.  They will understand the organizational process of writing an essay, use appropriate sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and their sentences will be complex with good strong vocabulary words.

Students will need to be broken into tracks again.  Some students will need to start at the very basic level based on where they are and grow from there, others will come in as very strong writers and should grow well beyond a sixth – eighth grade level but each track has the same goals just the starting and ending points will be different because of the level of the student.

Subjects such as science and social studies should be integrated into their English writing as it makes sense to teach this as an integrated topic with language arts teachers working closely with science and social studies teachers.  Students should have to write essays relating to their science and social studies lessons to show their knowledge in these subjects and they should be written with the same level of expectations as their English essays.

With this plan, students leave middle school with the skills needed to be successful in high school.  With our current curriculum, students leave with a bunch of fragmented knowledge pieces that are still all considerably weak and they have the same struggles in high school.  Middle school is a gift, we should use it!

I run a tutoring center and tutor students in Wake county, North Carolina.  I get students from many different schools, although they are all in the same county.  However, their courses, although identical in name and in “theory” content, vary greatly.  If the level of a course can range from easy to extremely difficult and yet we award a grade based on test scores to both classes, how is this fair to the student and how is this truly a measure of anything?  Here is an example.  I am currently working with a student taking Honors Geometry through Wake County Virtual Public Schools.  This is an online class given when the school is not able to provide instruction within the school.  In this case, the student is in a middle school that does not offer this course so he has to take this online version of the course.  There is only a virtual teacher who responds to questions that the students (currently 3) ask and it takes about 10-20 minutes before they get a response to each of their questions.  There are no in person lessons, just self teaching from online materials.  The students turn in assignments and their assessments are never looked at by a person, they are always multiple choice so that a computer can grade all their work.  In a typical “in house” Honors Geometry class, students are expected to do 2 column proofs on exams, however, since this is not possible in an online class (it can’t be graded by a computer) these types of problems aren’t given.  Proof type questions might be asked but in a multiple choice format, which is hardly the same as generating a proof from scratch.  The students still have to do some exercises with proofs but aren’t tested on these proofs and their exercises, I am told, count about 10%.  It seems the multiple choice questions are quite easy and a student who in a “in house” Honors Geometry class who might not be passing with the same level of knowledge, can score a B in this multiple choice testing format.

On the other hand, I also see a huge variation from one school to another.  For example, School A’s Honors Geometry program is so challenging that even I can get stumped on some of their questions from time to time and I have a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education, Masters in Mathematics, etc.  The level of proofs required in School A are truly much harder than I feel is appropriate, especially considering it isn’t in line with other schools and way off from the virtual school.  I tutored a student from School A who is extremely bright, knew so much about Geometry that most high school math teachers (outside of School A) who might sit down and work with this student would be very impressed with this student’s knowledge of Geometry but since he attended School A, his grade for the year was a C!  If he had been in School B, he would have gotten an A, if he had taken it online, he could have slept through the course!  School B is right now the road from School A but the same math classes – and I am not just talking about Honors Geometry but all other high school math classes  - are so much easier at School B than School A.  School B requires a much more reasonable amount of homework as well.  School A requires way too much from kids and somehow thinks that if they assign 60 problems of the same type that will make the kids smarter.  My son is 11 now and smart enough to take Honors Geometry but if he has to take it at School A, I won’t let him.  In fact, I am not sure I will sign him up for any honors math classes at School A because their math program is so out of line with what is reasonable – and if you happen to get a less than stellar teacher in the mix, then just forget it!

These grades students make determine many things for students in high school – they make up their GPA – this makes them competitive to get into colleges.  How does that C in Honors Geometry look to a school like Stanford?  They perceive the student as a poor student, when in fact, this student had he been down the road in School B, would have straight A’s in Honors and AP math classes!  What a difference in perception and yet it is the same student, the same knowledge.  All School A did was make the student get frustrated and feel like he can’t be successful in math and now this student will choose not to continue on with Honors and AP math classes that he is capable of.   I have to tell the student that it ISN’T him – I hate to put blame on outside forces with teens because it is important for teens to learn to take responsibility for their actions, however – when I work with a very bright student and watch him achieve a C (and it wasn’t for not doing assignments, etc.) – there is nothing else I can do but try and help salvage the student’s math self-esteem that School A has taken away from him.

Another example; a parent calls me – her son is failing – well almost, he barely has a D, in Algebra 2.  He is generally a B student in math.  She begins to relay the story.  The teacher, who gives math credit for whether a student uses the bathroom during class, is telling her that her son has only completed 47% of his homework.  Well, one would argue, if a student isn’t completing their homework, that is a reason for a poor grade.  However, despite the fact that she said those exact words, the truth is that he did 100% of his homework but she graded his homework and he only got 47% of his homework correct so he has a 47 homework GRADE, not that he only did 47% of his homework.  However, isn’t homework supposed to be for learning, not an assessment?  Why are we teaching a new topic, assigning homework, then grading it the NEXT day, and weighing it so heavily that it takes a student that has a B average on tests and lowers his grade to a D (almost an F) in the class?  Shouldn’t you be able to come to class the next day and say, “Ms. Teacher, I didn’t understand homework problems # and #, please go over these.”  This is how it always worked for me.  This is how I always taught.  This teacher scores the homework and weighs it so much it fails him even though his understanding on true assessments is a B.  Now when colleges see his transcript, yet again -they think this child is a D student when his knowledge of Algebra 2 clearly indicates a B level of understanding?

What are these GRADES supposed to measure?  Whether we use the bathroom?  If we could do homework the first night it was assigned?  If we can do super hard proofs when other students can get A’s in the same class for basic multiple choice questions?  How is this an accurate measure of anything?  And yet, it has an impact on what college a child gets into, if they get scholarships for college?  I remember one college professor I had, he got it right.  He gave us tests, we took them and got grades (this was in math).  Our final exam was cummulative – it tested everything for the whole class.  If we knew everything on the final, then we had proven we had mastered everything we were supposed to learn in class.  So, he said to us – IF you take the final and your final exam grade is higher than your grade would be if I factor it in at 20% (or whatever the assigned weight was), I will just give you the grade you scored on the final.  So, if our grade going into the final was a D but we got an A on the final, we got an A in the class.  Why?  It made sense … What is the purpose of a grade?  To measure your knowledge of the class content?  He didn’t care WHEN you managed to “get it” – if it took you longer but you got there by the end and could demonstrate it on the final – you proved you mastered the material in the class so your grade should REFLECT your ACTUAL knowledge at the end of the course.  It was BRILLIANT!  Dr. Kenton, you are a brilliant man and teacher!

Speaking of grades – tell me if this makes sense – Wake County schools offer higher quality points towards the weighted GPA based on Honors and AP classes.  If you take a regular class and get an A, you get 4 QP, if you take an Honors Class, you get 5 QP, but if you take an AP class, you get 6 QP.  So, why do you get 6 QP for an AP class?  Well, it makes sense because AP classes are supposed to be college level classes offered in the high school.  So, college level work should be awarded more QP than an Honors level high school class, right?  That makes sense.  However, if the student actually goes TO a college and takes a college course AT a college, the county’s policy is to award only 5 QP for an A.  So they equate an ACTUAL college class the same as an Honors level high school class – giving more weight to an AP class than an actual college class taken in college.  So I could take AP Calculus BC, get an A and get 6 QP but if I take Calculus III as a dual enrolled student the following semester while still in high school and get an A, the school will only give me 5 QP for it.  So it would LOWER my GPA and make me LESS competitive for colleges looking at my GPA and class rank.  Again, pointing out these grades are meaningless.

My final comparison is the grading scale used.  Most schools use a 10 point scale.  90-100 A, 80-89 B, and so on.  So if you are in states with this scale, and you get an 84, you would have a nice solid B.  However, Wake County decided that they wanted to make things more challenging for their students and now use a 7 point scale, so that same 84% would equate to C in Wake County schools.  Do colleges take this grading scale into consideration when looking at applicants?  These inconsistencies make the meaning behind grades useless.  When I taught college and graded, I preferred to think of grades this way – to me, an A meant Excellent Understanding, a B was Good Understanding, a C was Fair Understanding, a D was Poor Understanding, and an F was Little to No understanding.  After I computed a numerical grade for a student, I was looked at the student and said if I didn’t have any true grades and just looked at their “understanding” and had to attach a word to their understanding – how would I define it – excellent, good, fair, poor, or little to no – I wanted to make sure their numerical score matched their TRUE understanding – luckily, it did because I was very careful with each individual assessment but this was especially helpful when students were borderline and I had to choose between two letter grades.

I chose to homeschool my son for one year of high school.  It was so liberating to not worry about grades and just have him learn for the sake of learning!  Of course, we had to “make up grades” for his transcript to send off to college.  I tried to think about what he would have gotten if had taken the class in a public school.  He always got B’s in English in traditional classes, so I gave him a B in English.  Things he was passionate about and worked hard on because he just really wanted to learn and master (which he did) – those were clearly A’s.  None of that really mattered to me though, he learned what he needed to and worked really hard at what was important to him.

In closing, I think back to my undergraduate years when I was minoring in Philosophy and one thing that interested me was the concept of a grade-less school.  In the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the author wrote about a professor he had who chose not to grade his college class and instead let the students choose their grades.  It was a great read and I would encourage everyone to check it out.    I would welcome any comments on this topics.

So – my start was 20 mg of Lex

Then I went to 15 mg of Lex and 150 of Wellbutrin – this caused an increase in weight gain, increase in acne, less sleepy (good), can enjoy sex a little more (still not normal though)

My next move was to go to 10 mg of Lex and 150 Wellbutrin – I seemed to tolerate this move okay so far.  I have had 1 really bad migraine and a few extra headaches.  No changes in side effects noticed though with this decrease.

This week I am playing around with 5 mg – 7.5 mg of the Lex and 150 Wellbutrin.  I took 5 mg. the other day but felt it – I was dizzy and had really bad insomnia but the dizziness could also be because I was trying to eat less because of all the weight gain.  I have been feeling a little less hungry but still craving sweets.  I think I need to mostly stick with 7.5 mg and just do an occasional 5 mg as I am impatient and want to drop to 5 mg but I know it is really too soon and a 7.5 mg drop is better.  It is a pain though since I have 10 mg pills so I have to take 3/4 of a pill and that is a lot of cutting!  I also know that I should stay at these dosages for a couple weeks but again I am impatient and wonder how far I can push it to get down to a solid, comfortable 5 mg.  Once I feel stable at 5 mg for a while I will call and ask my doc for some 5 mg pills to work with.

I did wean off Celexa before – I have read other people who get to 2.5 and just “stop” – I have learned you don’t want to do that.  You want to cut down that pill smaller and smaller and take tiny pieces of it for a week and then even tiny pieces every other day for another week, in the end that is the time to go as slow as possible because stopping all together is the hardest part and going 2.5 mg to 0 mg is too hard on the body.

My biggest fear is that my depression will return but since the thing that caused the depression isn’t in crisis raw pain anymore (just sadness but you are moving on) I pray that is okay!

Well – onward I go, I will try to keep this up to date!

I will say that it is more about EATING than exercising. I never did get around to any cardio. I did some weight training but not too much. It is more about the food if you want to get there than the exercise. AND…. if you are going to exercise, it is better to do weight training and build muscle than cardio although both is best but if you are going to pick time for one over the other, weight training is better.

So remember in order of importance:

1. Limit calories (must calorie count)
2. Weight lift
3. Cardio

You can do it with #1 alone though if you aren’t a fan of exercise or if you are really overweight, wait until you weigh less to do the exercise part and just start with the food.

Good luck!

Mission Statement: To create a school that offers students opportunities that are unique and allow students to take advantage of their own individual gifts and maximize their educational potential. We are a school that is “out of the box” and does not believe “one size fits all.” There are two main components that drive the concept to the school.
First: Core courses will be taught in a manner that is much different than traditional school. Our curriculum will be more child-focused, it will pull out the information that a child is most likely to retain after learning and focus on teaching those concepts (especially in areas like social studies and history), this frees up time to paint a broader picture of the world they live in, students will be allowed to progress at their individual rate and teaching methods will be used that better link concepts and provide optimal instruction that are often ignored in regular education.
Second: Elective courses will include areas not traditional offered in other schools. Students will also be able to apply to take advantage of outside school activities and count these as their school electives. (Elective Choice)
Highlights of School Offerings:
Core Classes

• Mathematics
o    Taught with curriculum that focuses on patterns and links concepts that allow students to move more quickly through mathematics with greater understanding than traditional mathematics curricula
o    Individualized based on individual student achievement – one size does not fit all

• Language Arts
o    Topics such as spelling and writing strong sentences will not be skipped over.
o    Phonetic patterns will be taught; reading, spelling, and vocabulary will be integrated.
o    Language arts will be integrated into other subjects as well.
o    Strong writing will be a priority.

• History/Social Studies
o    Age appropriate history and social studies will be taught. Students will paint big pictures of history to get a strong sense of the history and current events. Details will be left for future studies when the     child is older and shows an interest in learning to this degree.
• Science
o    Science will be hands on and fun. Students will study scientific concepts and learn about science by doing, seeing, and interacting.

• Research
o    All students will take a course in learning how to do research. They will choose topics of interest to them, they will utilize the computer and be taught (what so many of our students are never taught how to do) how to research and then report their findings. The course will change and grow as the student matures.

Electives: One the unique aspects of the school is the opportunity to take innovative elective courses. Additional electives will be added based on the school talent but important electives relating to the school model include: language, computers / technology, alternative sports, entrepreneurship, and elective choice.
Our courses include:
Introduction to Entrepreneurship
Spanish
Chinese
Introduction to Computers
Algebra for kids
Basic keyboarding / Computer Academic Enrichment
Computer Programming
Gymnastics 1
Gymnastics 2
Tae Kwon Do 1
Tae Kwon Do 2
Elective Choice – this course allows the student to explore his or her own passion outside the classroom and research, report, and document outside activities to count for this elective

Student Day:
9:00 – 9:15 Morning Welcome
9:15 – 10:00 Core 1
10:00 – 10:45 Elective 1
10:45 – 11:30 Core 2
11:30 – 12:15 Lunch
12:15 – 12:45 Core 3
12:45 – 1:30 Core 4
1:30 – 2:00 Break
2:00 – 2:45 Core 5
2:45 – 3:30 Elective 2 / Elective Choice Runs: 2:45 – 3:00 (Student dismissed early for elective on days they have an afterschool elective that meets the criteria for this course after written recordings are completed)
3:30 Dismissal

Classroom Plans & Expenses
We will start with Grade 2 – Grade 5 (initially and hope to expand to grade 8).
Testing will be given initially to determine placement of student. Multi-age classes will be utilized to some extent – advanced students may be placed in higher math/language art classes to meet their ability with approval of parents, although regardless of placement, we will work to meet the individual needs of the student. Some mixing of 2 grades may be used to allow children the opportunity to mentor and have mentors.
Teachers: Number of teachers will be dependent on enrollment. We anticipate having teachers who are stronger in math teaching math and those stronger in other areas focus on those core courses. Students will have multiple teachers.
Curriculum: Content of overall curriculum will be designed with the mission of the school in mind. Teachers will be provided inservice training on how to provide lessons in a way that meet this mission. Dr. Gregorio will regularly sit in on classes and work with teachers to make sure they are providing optimal instruction to the students and meeting the mission of the school.

Equipment:
Computers / Printers – to create at least 2 computer labs enough for each student in a class to have a computer to themselves when in the lab.
Equipment for electives: Mats and minimal inexpensive gymnastics equipment (those designed for in home use (beam: $99, etc.) to provide for Gymnastics class and Tae Kwon Do class (plus targets for Tae Kwon Do)
Books: Most books will be for teachers to reference. Students will purchase any books needed themselves.
Space: One of the two biggest expenses is rental of a building to house the school.
Salaries: The second big expense is for salaries for teachers until we can reach a balance where tuition covers our expenses, however, we would like to continue to receive funding upon proving the excellence of this school – to keep tuition reasonable for parents. I also want to be able to pay our teachers well to attract quality teachers to the school.
Office Supplies/ Cleaning / Utilities / Phone / Internet: All these items will need to be covered.
Location: Cary / Apex / Morrisville / Raleigh, NC
Tuition: $12,000 per student per year; second + student: $10,500 per year
Estimated Class size: 20 students per class

1.  First, examine your current medications.  Bet you didn’t expect this?  No one puts this on the list but this was HUGE for me!  I didn’t know I was on meds that cause weight gain!!  If you do NOTHING, you gain weight just from taking these meds!  So look at all your medications and their side effects – is weight gain a side effect?  If it is, is there an alternative medication you can take?  Sometimes YOU have to do the research here – doctors don’t always know all the options.  I took it upon myself to look at my meds and find replacements and then went to my doctor.

2.  Can you TAKE a medication that encourages weight loss?  Some meds such as Topamax and Wellbutrin can help people lose weight – will your doctor let you try one or both of these (or something else) in the short term while you try to lose weight?

3.  Step on the scale – first thing in the morning without any clothes on – you will only weigh yourself this way each time you weigh yourself, you can’t compare your weight at different times of day, with and without clothes, and on different scales – ONE scale, ONE time of day, NO clothes.  Write down your weight.

4.  Now, the hard part – go into your pantry and throw away any snacks you love to eat.  Find out what the rest of your family likes that you don’t really like that much and start only buying those snacks – if you need to buy something to lock up snacks and only let others in the family have the combination – now for YOU – you will not be going without… you may have some goodies – you need to write down what you like and the serving size and the number of calories of what you like.  Select 4 snacks that have the largest serving size with the smallest calories – or something that you can eat in small bites – like hersey kisses – but you have to be able to stop yourself at just 1 or 2 – it is just going to be a taste.  Low carb ice cream is great!  Buy some with some frozen fruit for on top.  You can have a half cup of that with fruit or Sunmaid Chocolate Covered Raisins – a quarter cup is a lot and only 120 calories!  Great treat and tastes like pure chocolate!

5.  Next, figure out breakfast.  You need to eat breakfast (it is a MUST) and it must be 110-150 calories.  Something like a bowl of cereal is good or maybe some yummy flavored oatmeal.  Once in a while you can have an Egg Mcmuffin from McDonalds and even once every other week, you can have a couple pancakes.  If you eat more calories for breakfast, though, you need to eat less later or no treats that day.  Figure it out, make a plan – KNOW the calories, you have to COUNT your calories every day in the beginning or this WILL NOT WORK.  After a while, you can guess and you will just know how to stay under but not a first.  Plan on 110-150 calories for breakfast, everyday.

6.  You are free to have healthy (read veggies or fruit here) snacks when you need them, you should not really need a snack between breakfast and lunch but if you do, go for some fruit or something.  Now lunch – here you can plan on having a normal lunch – just watch the portion control and check the calories.  You can NO LONGER EAT ANY FAST FOOD!  No french fries (EVER), no McDonalds, or Arby’s but feel free to get a small Subway or half a sandwhich at Boston Market, even a small portion (read SMALL here) of Nachos with Chicken (heavy on the chicken, light on the chips).  At home, you can make yourself a sandwhich or even a small bowl of pasta (yes, you can eat pasta, just keep it small – it is better to put a hearty meat sauce on it so you can go light on the noodles and get filled up).  You need to count your lunch calories.  Use the computer (Loseit.com or other sites) to estimate the calories.  Check before you put it in your mouth.

7.  Before dinner, if you are hungry get a small snack of no more than 100 calories – eat whatever you want – just keep it to 100 calories – they have bags of 100 calorie cookies, so eat away if you like cookies.

8.  Dinner -Now add up what you have eaten for the day so you know what you have left to “spend” on dinner.  Use a site that can estimate how many calories you need for your height and weight and then you will subtract about 500 to lose weight from that.  Choose sedentary exercise because face it, most of us are not exercising much.  Different sites will say different things, so take an average or better yet, go with the lowest to be safe.  I had to stay with 1500 but I tried to go under when I could.  As you lose weight, you will need to decrease that number so it won’t stay at the value you started at.  Dinner should be a meat, veggie, and if you like a SMALL starch.  Although it doesn’t have to be if you prefer more veggies and such but try to eat more meat and veggies and not a lot of starches at dinner.  If you want carbs, have them at your lunch.  Once a week (or less), you can have a special all carb dinner (like pasta) but not on regular basis, it will be too many calories.  Find out your number and determine your calorie count.  You will estimate servings, it doesn’t have to be an exact science.  I don’t worry about counting too many calories for meat and veggies – just the other stuff.  Don’t make this into “counting” is too hard so I don’t want to do it – use a website and just estimate.  It is easier than you think.  You get 1 helping, not 2 helpings.  You take small portions of the “bad” stuff like mashed potatoes.

9.  Now it is the end of the day, you know what your ballpark number is, if you were careful, you saved some room for an after dinner treat or a bonus to your weight.  You choose – you can either have that after dinner treat (which we talked about – it must keep you under your max number of calories and you CANNOT go back for more) or you can choose to lose weight faster by foregoing the treat that night, knowing it will be there as an option the next night.

DRINKS:  No calories allowed in drinks AT ALL!  EVER!

Here is a typical day for me:

Breakfast:  Bowl of Special K with Berries  110 calories (I don’t like milk, eat it dry)

Lunch:  Half Boston Market Sandwich:  480 calories

Snack:  Chocolate Sunmaid Raisins (1/4 cup):  120 calories

Dinner:  Chicken, Green Beans, Mashed Potatoes:  600 calories

Total :  1310 calories  >>  Choose either 1/2 cup Low Carb Ice Cream with raspberries to finish off my calories or skip and get the Bonus

Weight Loss:  Expect about 1 pound per week

However:  There is a good chance you will lose more than that in the beginning.  I lost 6 pounds a month in the beginning and now am averaging 4-5 per month

You may hit a plateau… there is a way to deal with that… but that is for another day…

Once you get the ball rolling and start seeing the weight go down, you will be more motivated to continue – plus you get used to it.  Also, this assumes NO EXERCISE.  If you add exercise, it will increase the weight loss.  Try it for 2 weeks.  In 2 weeks, if you can stick to it and go down (hopefully) 2 pounds per week – you always lose more when you first start – and can drop 4 pounds, you should know that you CAN do it.  You WILL get used to it.  You can “take time off” and put yourself in a “holding pattern” when needed.  I did this at Christmas – for 2 weeks I ate “poorly” – put on some pounds but then jumped back on and short term weight comes RIGHT OFF like magic!  It is wonderful.  As long as you don’t leave it on there… then it is harder…

Royal Caribbean Vs. Carnival Cruise Line

I am comparing 2 comparable ships:  RCCL’s Monarch of the Seas and CCL’s Fascination

Nights:  5 nights CCL Fascination (went in August 2010) vs. 4 nights RCCL Monarch of the Seas (went in October 2010)

Price:  Base price for both ships is about the same for the same time of year.  If you travel in October (the least expensive time to travel) you are looking at a base rate (before taxes) of about $45 per night per person for the first two people in the room for an inside cabin.  Obviously we paid more for our August cruise because of the time of the year but to make the comparison fair, you have to look at the cost per night at the same time of year and if you do, the cost is about the same.

Port:  CCL’s Fascination left out of Jacksonville, FL.  The port is yuk! It was slow, old, and very outdated although was a shorter drive from NC.  We didn’t get on ship after 1:00 pm and had to wait in very long lines for a long time.  However, we were told there was a security issue and that wasn’t the norm.  RCCL’s Monarch left out of Port Canaveral, FL.  The port is much nicer, new, and comfortable.  It is a  longer drive and parking is cheaper.  We got on ship at 11:15 am.

Frequent cruiser program: – Carnival’s loyalty program is not good at all. It takes 10 cruises to get worthwhile benefits.  After 1 cruise, you only get “past cruise discounts” that show up sometime when booking.   RCCL does a much better job of this.  After 1 cruise, you are gold.  This gives you a booklet with lots of good coupons for the ship plus “past cruise discounts” that show up for some ships (about as often as CCL).  However, after only 5 cruises, you become Platinum.  This gives you priority boarding, better coupons, and priority for tenders.  It is much easier to get to the 5 cruise mark than the 10 cruise mark for the average person.  RCCL also organizes your information about how many cruises you have been on and all the benefits of their past cruiser program (called Crown and Anchor) online much better than CCL does.  I had to really search to find CCL’s information and I can’t find a list of how many Carnival cruises I have been on through their website like I can with RCCL.

Buffet when get on board: Both are good although CCL has more choices available than RCCL.

Rooms:  Carnival has bigger rooms than RCCL.  Carnival had 3 room services – one in the morning, one during your dinner and one last one where they “turned down your bed” for the night and put a mint on your pillow.  RCCL used to do that and took away the third service and mints.  It is those little things that make the cruise special, especially to kids!  My kids were so disappointed not to have mints on their pillows anymore.  I even complained while onboard.

Activities: Variety: Carnival had a lot more variety and just more things to do than RCCL. RCCL overlapped things we wanted to do so we couldn’t do half the things we wanted.  There were dance classes everday on Carnival and only once on RC.  Also, the dance classes we took on the Fascination were far superior to any dance classes we have taken on any of the 5 cruises we have done on RCCL in the past.  RCCL had a lot of down time with no interesting activities and there were hours were we had nothing to choose from.  RCCL did have some activities, however, that I would have liked to have seen on CCL such as an Improv class, Towel folding, and Napkin folding.  On a previous cruise on RCCL, we took a really good watercolor class but there were no art type classes on the Monarch of the Seas.

Photography: Carnival had about 12+ stations set up each night with very talented photographers and were open more hours with 1 hour before dinner for photos.  RCCL had only 5 stations, the photographer wasn’t very good, and it was only open 15 minutes before dinner.  Carnival’s pictures were alittle more expensive $22.95 but had buy 4 get 1 free.  RCCL was $19.95 each although you got a buy 1 get 1 half off coupon if you were a Gold member.  Carnival’s quality of pictures was much better due to better photography and more background options.

Dinner: Carnival’s dinner started at 6:00 which I preferred while RC started at 5:45.  RC always screws up table assignments.  The maitre’d at Carnival was far superior than RC.  The dining room interaction was far superior on Carnival.  The wait staff was equally attentive and good on both ships.  I didn’t really care for the “begging” for good comments and tips that was mentioned too much by our RC server.  One subtle comment would have been more appropriate and made the point.

Dining Room Food:  Better choices and variety on Carnival although both tasted good.  Joe liked the Indian food option each night on RC but I felt they should rotate the ethnic fares and not just do Indian only for those of us who don’t care for Indian food but might like some other ethnic choices.  (I believe an Indian choice was offered each night on the Monarch because the chef was Indian).

Lido deck buffet food:   Much greater variety on Carnival including a mad- to-order stir-fry station.  There were 4 different food areas with different buffets plus 24-hour pizza and deli sandwiches.  RC had significantly less choices with the same cuisine offered in multiple places and only pizza 24-hours.  However, RC has an awesome cesear salad while Carnival decided it’s cesear dressing should be 100% anchovies – yuk!!!
Shows- RC had 2 nights that they only did 1 seating of their shows and it was so close to first dinner seating that after dinner all the seats were taken so we didn’t get to see the show.  I heard it wasn’t that good anyway.  We also missed another RC show because of an overlap with something else we were doing but again, didn’t hear great things about it anyway.  We did go to the Love and Marriage Show.  This is so something RC does WAY better than Carnival.  They have the wives leave while they ask the husbands the questions and vice versa.  Definitely one of the best shows on the ship.  Carnival used to do it right (maybe they still do on other ships?) and then they got lazy or maybe no one told the cruise director how to do the show but they didn’t have the spouses leave the stage, they just wrote down the answers so the cruise director didn’t get to question each person about the circumstances of their answers and so the show lost so much of the humor it normally would have.  We were so disappointed.

We did like Carnival’s Game Show and RC had nothing like that.  Carnival’s Production shows were  excellent but their 80′s show was off the charts amazing!!  The best cruise show we have seen of 8 cruises we have been on, a standing ovation for that one.  I don’t usually like to see things twice but I would see that one again!  As for comedy, neither ship had an amazing comedy act.  I would like to see them find better talent but they were good.  RC has a comedy magic show, I liked that because it was early and I could bring my kids to it.  I think all ships should have one magic or magic/comedy act.  Carnival could have used a magic act.  Carnival’s choice of comedians was lousy.  She had some funny things the first time she came out but a lot of her singing didn’t fit with her comedy and was annoying.  Her improv comedy was the best.  However, her Adult Comedy show that night was terrible and borderline offensive.  Carnival should not bring her back.  I do applaud them for having a late night adult comedy show though, something that RC did not.  RC had the magic comedy which was good except when the comedian didn’t use original material, even my kids knew the “$100 in the orange ” skit.  The next RC comedian was not listed as adult comedy and I saw kids in audience – I didn’t bring my kids because we were not sure.  It wasn’t hardcore X rated as you can see with the late  night comedy shows but be did use words like the F word, talked about sex, and “demonstrated” the motions one would use when having “relations.”  RC needs to clearly state the intended audience for the comedy shows.

Theater for shows: In Carnival’s theater, there were small tables for you to put your drinks on while watching a show.  RC, however, did not have a table, they had a small shelf behind the back cushion of the seat in front of you that was not wide enough to hold a drink and it could easily be knocked over and fall.  It had holes in it, like you were supposed to put your drink in the holes but I think it would only work for a wine glass and it did not work for our drink cups so we had no place to put our drinks during the show.

Room Announcements:  Another thing that Carnival did right and RCCL did wrong.  Carnival made in cabin announcements only when absolutely necessary – like for the muster station drills, they certainly didn’t wake us up on port day to say we docked – maybe we don’t want to go into port and want to sleep in – please don’t wake us up!  RCCL did just that – actually they had it all backwards, they made announcements in our cabins when they shouldn’t have and when we needed to hear them (on disembarkation day) they did NOT put the announcements into the cabin.  So, we were woken up early on port day when we wanted to sleep in and go into port late after we felt like getting up.  Yet, we never heard the announcement of when our tags were called to get off the ship.

Muster Drills:  RCCL gets the points here.  The drill for this required you line up at your station, get counted, and then leave – short and sweet.  For Carnival, you had to go to a station, wait, then everyone had to march upstairs to the lido deck and all musters had to listen to talking at the top deck and then everyone could go.  Our muster happened to be the lido deck so we just sat there the whole time but everyone else was trucking all over the ship which would have been annoying.

So let’s add up the points and see who wins – although I am pretty sure Carnival is going to come out on top:

Carnival earns 11 points

Royal Caribbean earns 3.5 points (only giving the port a 1/2 point because it really has nothing to do with RCCL)

Either way, the clear winner overall is Carnival!  Royal Caribbean could learn a few things from Carnival.  We will be going on the Oasis of the Seas next year and I expect it will be different since it is a totally different class of ships but I will still take note of all of the above and see how they stack up.  But, when it comes to the affordable close to home cruise, the Carnival Fascination wins over RCCL Monarch of the Seas!