I didn't realize February 5th was my last post! It's been a while!
Oh life has been a whirlwind. It's taking everything out of me.
Physically - my feet hurt sometimes more than others. My blisters I think have finally healed enough so that I don't have to wear bandaids, but there are marks that look like scars now that may forever be there! Sometimes I don't feel like standing but have to. Sometimes I'm so tired and want to go to bed at night, but still have to do lesson plans. Thankfully I haven't gotten sick. I should be losing weight from walking so much, but nope! I haven't! I've tried not to drink too much coffee and eat too much chocolate when I'm emotional, but it still happens. At the end of the day I'm like, "Ok, I want chocolate now!!"
Emotionally - oh the ups and downs! There are moments when I'm talking to a student and have so much love and care for them. I want to help them grow and succeed. I want to listen as they tell me menial things like what they did for the weekend or about their pets, and the important things like what hard things they're going through in life. Sometimes I rejoice over the small things like a single file, quiet line down the hall without me having to call out names and tell them to stop talking or running. Sometimes kids push the last button and I explode on them! There are times when I hate grading papers, but other times I don't mind. I often get frustrating in planning the lessons for the next week because it seems like so much. I cry more often than I'd like to, but thankfully not in front of anybody. Except once. I miss having a social life. I miss my friends. I hate missing bible study because of being so tired and so behind on my work.
Spiritually - I hate to say it, but it's putting a strain on my relationship with God. Partly because I am so busy that at the end of the day I'm laying in bed thinking, "I am not even getting enough time to sleep at night. And so another day goes by that I don't pray or read the bible." I often pray short prayers throughout the day, but they are simply one or two sentences. They range from, "Thank you Lord for this because...." or "PLEASE give me patience!" There's also the frustration that I know my prayers can move mountains, but they can't move kids!! Haha. In that I mean there are some kid that won't change because of my prayers. They will still get out of their seats 90 times a day, yell out random noises and things in the middle of a silent room, or sit there and do nothing when directions are given. God's not going to swoop in and fix the whole class for me. And I guess in the long run that is not the important stuff. The important stuff is that they get good grades and retain a lot of information, that I grow as a teacher, and more importantly that they come to know God some day. However, when all you see every day is the same stuff going wrong, it's disheartening.
There are for sure days....and sometimes weeks.....that I've decided I don't want to be a teacher. I get so ANGRY about things. And there are people who say it gets easier and better over time, that all new jobs / situations are difficult, that they've taught for x amount of years and still love it, etc. The job economy for teachers is HORRIBLE right now, so my chances of teaching in August are slim to none. So I'm looking for another possibility at least for a while, but I have NO idea what that will be. It's weird to come to a point in life where you've had a plan all the way up until now.
Weekends are tricky. Sometimes I have SO many papers to grade and lesson plans to write and prepare that I see it as a good time to catch up. But then don't want to. I also want to take that time to rejuvinate - do something with friends, write in my journal, watch my TV shows online that I don't get to watch during the week, etc. But it's hard for me to do both. I've heard both sides - "Don't let teaching be your entire life. It is only your job. You have to stop at some point or you never would, because you will never be 'finished.'" "That's what teachers DO. It's what you'll do your entire career."
Last night I had a dream that tons of kids were saying my name over and over again and wouldn't stop. The night before I dreamed that I was doing fractions and when my real alarm was going off part of me thought, "No, I can't get up, I'm supposed to be teaching" before I realized I was dreaming. Another time I dreamed about one of the tall tale stories we were reading, and one time I dreamed that one of the girls in my class was a kidnapper so I sent one of my friends to go with her and pretend to be her friend so I could call the cops and know where they were by calling my friend. I wish my brain would give me a break while I sleep!!
Since student teaching is taking up all of me, there are other areas of my life that I just can't deal with right now. There are conflicts that I don't feel like fighting with, people I don't want to deal with, feelings I'm shoving aside, a list of things I need to do but don't, and dreams that I'm trying to squish because they aren't going to happen.
And you know, I strive to be someone who is positive, happy, doesn't complain, and doesn't whine. But I do sometimes. And perhaps that is more real than pretending everything is super amazing. I've seen people who are in a relationship with problems but on facebook pretend like everything is perfect. I've seen people who are struggling with serious issues or are really stressed but never show it or talk about it. They just brush over it and shove it under a rock. I'm not one of those people. It's a difficult balance to be real and honest without being annoying and negative all the time. But I'm trying.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Week.....weak
What strange weather that Georgia has!! Last Saturday and Sunday I wore short sleeves because it was 70 degrees out!! And on Thursday it sleeted / snowed!! Although it did not stick, it was so weird. It may snow on Mon and Thur too, but I'm hoping school will not be out because my county (and surrounding counties) have used up all our snow days. We've had to cancel a Feb break in order to make those days up since the snow days were not put into the calendar (due to furlough days I think). Never thought I'd say that I didn't want a snow day to stay home from school! :-)
This week I taught more and next week I will be almost full time teaching. We had testing for an hour to 2 hours 3 days this week, so that was boring. One difficult thing this week has been that some of the kids want to come up and talk to me about things - whether it be something related to school / what they're learning, or something totally different - and I want to listen to them but I have to keep teaching, keeping the students on task, and discpline those who need it.
I think one of the favorite parts of the day for me is reading out loud to the class. It doesn't happen every day because of the busy schedule though. We are currently reading through a chapter book and they take a quiz on it every few chapters to be sure they're listening, but they like to listen. I used to think that was just a time filler and fun activity, but in college they told us it is much more than that. They are able to hear us read fluently, with fluxuation in our voice, and how we read more than just monotone. If they don't hear their peers or parents read with that, they don't know what it sounds like to read out loud properly. It is also a chance for me to stop and say, "Do you guys know what that word means?" and if they don't we use context clues to figure it out. We cover things like foreshadowng when I ask, "What do you think is going to happen next since it just said....." and I tell them it is foreshadowing. So any story elements we're teaching can be brought into the story.
I went to Target last night to buy a composition book to model a social studies notebook we'll be doing with the 13 colonies, and one thing I always want to buy are notebooks. Journals too. I admit, it's a weakness. :-) On my bookshelf I have an enitre shelf of just notebooks, not including my journals. I have notebooks for: poems I've written, quotes I like (although I haven't kept up with it in the past few years), quite time journals, notes I took when I was in high school conferences and youth group, those books that have "who am I" questions from different years, fictional stories I've written, things I've learned through helping out in classrooms for teaching, and more. I've kept a journal since i was 7, so those are somewhere else, but they are growing in number. I went through my middle school journals about 2 years ago and typed up just the stuff I wanted to keep and trashed the rest because there were so many negative things about middle school that I didn't want to remember or keep. So that made a little more space.
Another thing I have a hard time not buying - books! I read a good number over the break from the end of my fall semester until I started student teaching in January, but still have many unread books on my shelves. But I can't even begin to read them. Yet I feel the urge to go to the bookstore and buy some more. Rediculous!
And lastly, candy. Every holiday is heavy with candy! Isles upon isles of candy! Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas.... Besides that, have you noticed the isles in the gorcery stores or places like Target now have almost an entire row dedicate to candy? So much to choose from! So much temptation! And there's always some at the checkout isles. So, those three things are difficult for me not to buy. Target is a killer since it has all of those things! I did buy a giant chocolate and peanutbutter heart last night (Resee's) and can't wait to eat it. But I don't need to eat so many sweets!
Tomorrow night is the Superbowl. I won't be watching it. We're still having our young adult's worship service tomorrow night, but at halftime. Since we'll have Tivo on the big screens in the worship center, they'll be able to pause it until the service is over. Thursday night at bible study we meet at someone's house, and they have a newborn baby. Well, she's 8 weeks old now I think. I get to hold her almost every week and she's so cute! I have to leave bible study around 9 - 9:15 PM now since I have to go home and go to bed, so that kind of stinks, but I'm still glad to be there each week.
This week I taught more and next week I will be almost full time teaching. We had testing for an hour to 2 hours 3 days this week, so that was boring. One difficult thing this week has been that some of the kids want to come up and talk to me about things - whether it be something related to school / what they're learning, or something totally different - and I want to listen to them but I have to keep teaching, keeping the students on task, and discpline those who need it.
I think one of the favorite parts of the day for me is reading out loud to the class. It doesn't happen every day because of the busy schedule though. We are currently reading through a chapter book and they take a quiz on it every few chapters to be sure they're listening, but they like to listen. I used to think that was just a time filler and fun activity, but in college they told us it is much more than that. They are able to hear us read fluently, with fluxuation in our voice, and how we read more than just monotone. If they don't hear their peers or parents read with that, they don't know what it sounds like to read out loud properly. It is also a chance for me to stop and say, "Do you guys know what that word means?" and if they don't we use context clues to figure it out. We cover things like foreshadowng when I ask, "What do you think is going to happen next since it just said....." and I tell them it is foreshadowing. So any story elements we're teaching can be brought into the story.
I went to Target last night to buy a composition book to model a social studies notebook we'll be doing with the 13 colonies, and one thing I always want to buy are notebooks. Journals too. I admit, it's a weakness. :-) On my bookshelf I have an enitre shelf of just notebooks, not including my journals. I have notebooks for: poems I've written, quotes I like (although I haven't kept up with it in the past few years), quite time journals, notes I took when I was in high school conferences and youth group, those books that have "who am I" questions from different years, fictional stories I've written, things I've learned through helping out in classrooms for teaching, and more. I've kept a journal since i was 7, so those are somewhere else, but they are growing in number. I went through my middle school journals about 2 years ago and typed up just the stuff I wanted to keep and trashed the rest because there were so many negative things about middle school that I didn't want to remember or keep. So that made a little more space.
Another thing I have a hard time not buying - books! I read a good number over the break from the end of my fall semester until I started student teaching in January, but still have many unread books on my shelves. But I can't even begin to read them. Yet I feel the urge to go to the bookstore and buy some more. Rediculous!
And lastly, candy. Every holiday is heavy with candy! Isles upon isles of candy! Valentines Day, Easter, Halloween, Christmas.... Besides that, have you noticed the isles in the gorcery stores or places like Target now have almost an entire row dedicate to candy? So much to choose from! So much temptation! And there's always some at the checkout isles. So, those three things are difficult for me not to buy. Target is a killer since it has all of those things! I did buy a giant chocolate and peanutbutter heart last night (Resee's) and can't wait to eat it. But I don't need to eat so many sweets!
Tomorrow night is the Superbowl. I won't be watching it. We're still having our young adult's worship service tomorrow night, but at halftime. Since we'll have Tivo on the big screens in the worship center, they'll be able to pause it until the service is over. Thursday night at bible study we meet at someone's house, and they have a newborn baby. Well, she's 8 weeks old now I think. I get to hold her almost every week and she's so cute! I have to leave bible study around 9 - 9:15 PM now since I have to go home and go to bed, so that kind of stinks, but I'm still glad to be there each week.
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