AmandaOT

California is burning

Pretty much all of SoCal is on fire. I have to drive toward the Stevenson Ranch, Saugus, Santa Clarita, Valencia, and Porter Ranch fires to get to student teaching. Seems really stupid to drive toward fires, but seems that we are surrounded by them anyway. Luckily, we aren't burning. My friend Pat in San Diego area was forced to evacuate and as of last night my classmate Katie's family might be soon. My master teacher's friends had to evacuate from their home near Malibu. Luckily the Porter Ranch fire is out because that was just across the freeway from where I do student teaching. I'm hoping that the Santa Clarita, Saugus, and Stevenson Ranch fires stay north and don't head south. If they head south then they invade where I'm student teaching. If I get displaced again I'm not going to be happy. My classmates joke that they'll make me do this quarter again. I told them I'd quit before that happened. I better get an A for effort and flexibility. Today I wrote 4 lesson plans for 4 kids I've never taught. I don't think I made one of the lessons difficult enough and I also feel like they have not one bit of creativity to them. Oh well. I'm tired, my throat hurts, and my nose is bloody. I have no idea how people that are actually in the middle of the fires or have asthma are surviving. This morning I left the house at 9:30 and the sky was blue overhead and you could see the smoke from the Malibu and/or Topanga fires in the West and I think I may have been seeing the Lake Arrowhead smoke to the East. Either way...by 11:30 the smoke had rolled in over West LA and the sky was no longer blue but a orangish grayish color as the winds must have picked up and blew the smoke our way. I know it's no comparison to what everyone else is enduring, but the closest fire to us is 20 miles away. That's my perspective on how bad these fires are.

posted by amanda @ 11:00 PM