I'm trying to get car insurance because now that I moved to Texas I cannot be on my family's policy in Ohio. Yesterday I began looking online and getting quotes from places like Geico and Progressive. Based on what I knew about the different types of coverage you can get I chose what I thought would be appropriate for me to have on my policy, which ended up being less comprehensive than what I had on my family's policy. The quotes came out to be about the same as what I am paying now which is around $1200 per year. Well my grandpa told me it would be good to go to an independent agency and get quotes from them because they usually have more than one place they get insurance through. I randomly looked up one on the internet and went there today. Apparently this place doesn't usually get walk-ins and they do mostly commercial insurance not personal but they said they would get a quote for me. Part of the reason I went to the place and didn't call was because I wanted to meet with someone face to face. Well the lady that does the personal auto policies works from home so I had to talk to her on the receptionist's phone. There was a delay on the phone which made it really really annoying to talk to her. Well I told this lady the coverage I wanted, which matched my other quotes, and she gave me a quote. Let me tell you now that this independent insurance agency only uses ONE company to get policies unlike what I was hoping for to get multiple quotes. Well her quote was about $1200 as well. FOR 6 MONTHS!! So this place quoted me for double what the well known companies like Geico and Progressive quoted me. After talking with my aunt for 45 min about car insurance I find out that many companies do not give good rates to people my age even if they have a clean record. Another thing I tried to figure out from talking to my aunt was what the purpose of all the different coverages are. A few of them seemed repetitive and also seemed to overlap medical insurance. There is one coverage that will cover your bodily injury liability if an uninsured motorists causes an accident with you. I tried to argue that my medical insurance would cover that and that my passengers should all have medical insurance too. Well my aunt gave me a good scenario that made me realize that it would be good to have. She knew someone that had her car completely totaled by a drunk driver without insurance and she had the uninsured motorist insurance that covered up to $300,000 and she ended up having all her medical bills and such paid by this insurance. I argued that medical insurance should cover that. But what made her point so good was that the $300,000 goes towards compensation for time off work from the injuries. But then there is coverage called Medical Payments, one called Personal Injury Protection, and then the regular bodily liability coverage which to me seem like they all cover the same thing. Seems to me you would only need the regular liability insurance especially since the other two only go up to $10,000 each and that seems weak compared to what medical costs really are. To sum everything up, I don't have my own car insurance yet, I still don't know what all the different coverages do, and because of this issue it was hard to do really productive work today. I'm going to a Nationwide insurance agent tomorrow and will hopefully get everything figured out and then get some insurance for myself.
One more thing that makes this an irritating process is that in order for me to get insurance in Texas my car must be registered in Texas (it's registered in Ohio). AND in order for me to register in Texas I must have insurance in Texas. Figure out that one. Well after tomorrow I may or may not have my own car insurance in Texas and I may or may not have my car registered in Texas.
Peace,
MO
Monday, August 6, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
713-705-3617
THATS MY NEW CELL #. USE IT!
I just want to put out there that I know I suck at updating my blog and I apologize. As many bloggers know it is hard to keep a blog updated regularly for some reason. So without further ado let me update you on what has been going on in my life. Warning: This may not be logically ordered and random.
Here is a short update on what I am teaching. I am still teaching two different subjects, Algebra 1 and Geometry, but I will only have 4 sets of students instead of 6 as I originally thought. Let me explain our daily school schedule to give you a better idea of what I am talking about. We have periods and blocks. On Mondays we have all 8 periods of class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have double periods, also called blocks, with 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th period classes. On Wednesdays and Fridays we have double periods with 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th period classes.
I will be teaching 2 Algebra classes and 2 Geometry classes. My 2 Algebra classes are double period classes everyday so I have those students everyday for 90 mins, even on Monday. My Geometry classes are single period classes so I have them on Monday for 45 min and every other day for 90 min. So I see my Geometry students 3 days a week and my Algebra students 5 days week. I know its complicated isnt it. This leaves me 90 min a day for personal planning or group planning with my learning community. This explanation turned out to be longer than I originally planned. BUT the one nice thing about having my Algebra classes double blocked is that I have less students, which will be helpful for grading, contacting parents, and getting to know my students more deeply. Instead of having 150 or so I will hopefully only have ~100.
My school is broken into 7 learning communities each having their own Assistant principal (AP). I have been told by many people that know my AP that he is a great AP and person. One thing that really excites me is that I found out that he is a Christian and started up a Bible study/Prayer group that meets on Wednesdays at 7:30 before school. I feel so blessed to have been placed in a community that has Christian leadership and so many people praising the work of my AP. God is definitely looking out for me. My learning community is called Health and Human Services (H&H) and has approximately 300 students enrolled. Im very excited to be a part of the H&H community.
General information about my school Lee High School. The school dropped the Robert E. in front of the school name about 5 years ago despite the outrage from certain alumni. The teacher dress code is very lax and requires that you wear at least jeans and a collared shirt or an LHS or any university T-shirt. This is a step up from last year when they didn't really have a dress code and you could come into work in sweats if you wanted to. I am guessing that was strongly discouraged though. We are the Lee High School Generals and our colors are Black and Gold. We do not have a football team but we have a killer soccer team. Our homecoming is in the Winter during the soccer season. Our other relatively big sports are wrestling (men's & women's) and basketball. There are not many extracurriculars, especially academic, and I hope to be a part of starting up a Math team sometime this year. There are roughly 40 different languages spoken at my school and apparently we are dubbed the UN school because we get most of the students that move to Houston from other countries. I would say this is also the biggest reason soccer is the biggest sport at our school. 95% of the students that go to Lee are eligible for Free or Reduced lunch and a majority of the students speak English as a second language.
The week of July 23rd - 27th I had TFA orientation everyday from 8 - 5:30. At this orientation we sat through sessions that taught us how to unpack our standards, set a Big Goal for our class, develop Long-Term plans, Unit Plans, Assessment Plans, and methods for tracking my students progress. So the past couple weeks I have been looking at the State standards for Algebra and Geometry and trying to figure out EXACTLY what they mean and what my students need to know to master them. I have also been thinking about what the Big Goals of my classes will be and how to word them just right so that I can motivate my students with them. This is really really hard to do as a first year teacher because you have no idea what to expect from your students and you have a hard time figuring out how all the standards fit together so you can plan your year so that it flows coherently from one topic to another.
I had my new employee orientation yesterday, August 3rd, with my new employer the Houston Independent School District (HISD). A lot of the stuff was pretty informative but there were some boring parts. The most pertinent information was the Benefits information. I now think I have most of my benefits figured out and they seem to be pretty good. It's good to understand that stuff now that I am finally moving into the real world. My mom also informed me that I must find car insurance down here so that I can get off of theirs. Im almost fully independent now. Actually I have just gotten a new phone with VERIZON and now have a HOUSTON number. This was the last thing that my mom was paying for me. So I think I am now officially an INDEPENDENT adult.
As you may or may not know, my girlfriend Danielle Hickle has been doing some amazing work in Mexico the past 2 months and we have not seen each other since I left exactly 2 months ago. We have only been able to talk about once a week as well for the past 2 months. Well she is coming back to the U.S. today and has a 4 hour layover in Houston. So I am about to get ready to go see her and it's exciting. What is crazy is that she planned this long layover in Houston before we even met. Tell me God doesn't work in mysterious ways!!
Take care!
Peace,
MO
I just want to put out there that I know I suck at updating my blog and I apologize. As many bloggers know it is hard to keep a blog updated regularly for some reason. So without further ado let me update you on what has been going on in my life. Warning: This may not be logically ordered and random.
Here is a short update on what I am teaching. I am still teaching two different subjects, Algebra 1 and Geometry, but I will only have 4 sets of students instead of 6 as I originally thought. Let me explain our daily school schedule to give you a better idea of what I am talking about. We have periods and blocks. On Mondays we have all 8 periods of class. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have double periods, also called blocks, with 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th period classes. On Wednesdays and Fridays we have double periods with 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th period classes.
I will be teaching 2 Algebra classes and 2 Geometry classes. My 2 Algebra classes are double period classes everyday so I have those students everyday for 90 mins, even on Monday. My Geometry classes are single period classes so I have them on Monday for 45 min and every other day for 90 min. So I see my Geometry students 3 days a week and my Algebra students 5 days week. I know its complicated isnt it. This leaves me 90 min a day for personal planning or group planning with my learning community. This explanation turned out to be longer than I originally planned. BUT the one nice thing about having my Algebra classes double blocked is that I have less students, which will be helpful for grading, contacting parents, and getting to know my students more deeply. Instead of having 150 or so I will hopefully only have ~100.
My school is broken into 7 learning communities each having their own Assistant principal (AP). I have been told by many people that know my AP that he is a great AP and person. One thing that really excites me is that I found out that he is a Christian and started up a Bible study/Prayer group that meets on Wednesdays at 7:30 before school. I feel so blessed to have been placed in a community that has Christian leadership and so many people praising the work of my AP. God is definitely looking out for me. My learning community is called Health and Human Services (H&H) and has approximately 300 students enrolled. Im very excited to be a part of the H&H community.
General information about my school Lee High School. The school dropped the Robert E. in front of the school name about 5 years ago despite the outrage from certain alumni. The teacher dress code is very lax and requires that you wear at least jeans and a collared shirt or an LHS or any university T-shirt. This is a step up from last year when they didn't really have a dress code and you could come into work in sweats if you wanted to. I am guessing that was strongly discouraged though. We are the Lee High School Generals and our colors are Black and Gold. We do not have a football team but we have a killer soccer team. Our homecoming is in the Winter during the soccer season. Our other relatively big sports are wrestling (men's & women's) and basketball. There are not many extracurriculars, especially academic, and I hope to be a part of starting up a Math team sometime this year. There are roughly 40 different languages spoken at my school and apparently we are dubbed the UN school because we get most of the students that move to Houston from other countries. I would say this is also the biggest reason soccer is the biggest sport at our school. 95% of the students that go to Lee are eligible for Free or Reduced lunch and a majority of the students speak English as a second language.
The week of July 23rd - 27th I had TFA orientation everyday from 8 - 5:30. At this orientation we sat through sessions that taught us how to unpack our standards, set a Big Goal for our class, develop Long-Term plans, Unit Plans, Assessment Plans, and methods for tracking my students progress. So the past couple weeks I have been looking at the State standards for Algebra and Geometry and trying to figure out EXACTLY what they mean and what my students need to know to master them. I have also been thinking about what the Big Goals of my classes will be and how to word them just right so that I can motivate my students with them. This is really really hard to do as a first year teacher because you have no idea what to expect from your students and you have a hard time figuring out how all the standards fit together so you can plan your year so that it flows coherently from one topic to another.
I had my new employee orientation yesterday, August 3rd, with my new employer the Houston Independent School District (HISD). A lot of the stuff was pretty informative but there were some boring parts. The most pertinent information was the Benefits information. I now think I have most of my benefits figured out and they seem to be pretty good. It's good to understand that stuff now that I am finally moving into the real world. My mom also informed me that I must find car insurance down here so that I can get off of theirs. Im almost fully independent now. Actually I have just gotten a new phone with VERIZON and now have a HOUSTON number. This was the last thing that my mom was paying for me. So I think I am now officially an INDEPENDENT adult.
As you may or may not know, my girlfriend Danielle Hickle has been doing some amazing work in Mexico the past 2 months and we have not seen each other since I left exactly 2 months ago. We have only been able to talk about once a week as well for the past 2 months. Well she is coming back to the U.S. today and has a 4 hour layover in Houston. So I am about to get ready to go see her and it's exciting. What is crazy is that she planned this long layover in Houston before we even met. Tell me God doesn't work in mysterious ways!!
Take care!
Peace,
MO
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