Hurray! I survived my first full year of teaching. I feel like I can do anything now, like I'm invincible, or something like that. Although, in the back of my mind I worry about what surprises my second year of teaching will bring, I am content at the moment to be extremely proud of myself and just enjoy my time this summer.
Everyone always says that the top three reasons to be a teacher are June, July, and August. And while there is some truth to that (as I am beginning to discover), it's not like on the last day of school you don't lift a single finger again until school begins in the fall. In fact, I think that this is probably one of my busiest summers EVER. Where to begin...
... We can start with the fact that my last day of school was on a Thursday (you know how we have to clean up the room, pack up our stuff, make sure all the grading is done, etc). The following Monday (four days later) I began my summer job back home in PA (super upsetting that I had to leave Eric in DE). After being home for 6 days I have already worked my first 40 hours and felt like pulling my hair out a few times as well and gone to two of my sister's summer league games, oh and picked up my wedding dress (those last three things involve 45 minute drives in both directions). For the summer, to get a little extra money for loans and other things (like my wedding!) I have gone back to the job that I had while I was a student at Penn State. It's not exactly the same job, but there are really only a few minute differences between what I do now, and what I did then. It's been nice to be back on campus, I can't even begin to tell you how much I have missed it. And I fell back into the swing of things quite easily, which was surprising.
Ok, so I'm working, big deal, I've worked every summer since 10th grade, it really isn't all that bad, and since I start work early in the morning I'm always done with plenty of daylight left to do fun things! Well, add to that the fact that my first graduate class starts on Monday. I really have no idea what possessed me to start a graduate program now. But I started it, and there's no turning back. A year off is long enough, and if I don't start now, I might never start. So in the long run it's probably a good thing. The past two days I have been figuring out how the class works, where everything is online and I have been trying to get a sense of what the work load is going to be like. To try and stay ahead of the game I have already done all of the reading for the first week and I started the assignments, but of course got distracted by writing this. Although, come to think of it, my class is the reason I was on this blog in the first place. My graduate program is about integrating technology into the classroom and the first week is all about blogs, and wiki's and those sorts of resources. Anyway, I want to stay ahead of the game and try and get everything done as close to the beginning of the week as I can since the last week of class is the week before my wedding.
Which brings me to my third point of insanity, the wedding. Now that my first year of teaching is done and I made it through it is time to really crack down and focus on getting this wedding planned. I think starting next week the planning is really going to begin picking up. I'm starting to get nervous that I won't have enough time to get everything done, even though in my heart I know that I have more than enough time. I just hope my schedule cooperates.
Another reason I'm stressed is because I have so much going on. There is my work schedule, the schedule of things that need to get done for the wedding, Katie's summer league basketball schedule (which I'm trying to see as many games as possible because of her screwed up NCAA schedule this year) and above all else, scheduling time to go and see Eric because I miss him and he misses me and we do not really do very well when we're apart.
It's going to be a hectic summer, but I'm excited and looking forward to everything that is going to be happening. And maybe one day soon I'll find time to write about pickled eggs.
Until next time,
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the
trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar
conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
―
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Another thing to add to the list
Greetings,
So apparently I've decided that I don't already have enough going on in my life, so I would start a blog. I've always wanted to keep a journal, but writing by hand was never very appealing to me, so I figured, with how much time I spend on a computer, maybe this will work better. I just have to find the time between being a first year teacher at a challenging school, planning a wedding, catering to my fiance's needs and my top priority right now, attending as many of my sister's basketball games as is humanly possible.
I'll start with a short blurb about each of these time sinks in my life.
Katie's amazing basketball season: This year Katie (or Kate as she is now called) is a sophomore at Juniata College in Huntington, PA. (Bonus points if you know where that is) Now being the proud older sister that I am I have always known that Katie is pretty darn amazing at basketball. Now imagine 10-13 pretty amazing basketball players all being on the same team, at the same time, and all doing amazingly. That's where we are at right now. Juniata is a Division III power house. They are currently ranked #10 in the nation by D3 Hoops, and in the USA Today/ESPN polls. Their record (after a 71-60 win over Moravian last night) stands at 25-1, the only loss coming early in the season to the then ranked #6 William Patterson. Saturday is the Landmark Conference Championship game and I am stoked because I will be able to go! (I had to watch last nights game on the computer). After that who knows where this wild ride is going, but I'm definitely going to be there every step of the way.
After Katie's basketball, an time I have left over is mostly focused on Eric, my fiance, and as a related fact, our wedding. We are getting married August 18th of this summer and I am very excited! Plans are really starting to pick up again after about a 6 month lull after summer ended. Eric of course doesn't have time to be quite as excited as I am since he spends all of his time going to class, studying, working for his graduate assistant-ship or completing hours in his internship. He is studying Physical Therapy at the University of Delaware and I am so proud of everything that he has accomplished thus far and I know that he will always make me proud. I try to remove as many of the other stressors in his life that I can, but unfortunately I can't fix everything.
When I'm not driving to or watching one of Katie's basketball games, and Eric is in class, or has all of his basic needs met (you know our dear friend Maslow), I'm either asleep, or doing something for school. I am a self proclaimed nerd and as if to just drive the final nail in the coffin, I decided to become a high school math teacher. I graduated from Penn State (YEAH!) this past May (2011) and spent the summer looking for a job (hoping I would find one). Luck was in my favor as I landed not one, but two jobs and had to pick (perhaps I will save the details of the story for another time, but trust me, it's a good one). I currently teach 11th and 12th graders, or at least I try. Between lesson plans, photocopies, paperwork and grading most days are a blur and it's difficult to remember how many days there are until Friday, let alone what month it is.
I do try to have some fun on occasion and usually Arianna or Karen are good for that. Arianna also teaches high school math (that's how we know each other) and I love trading student stories with her, because of all my friends I feel that she is the only one who can truly understand. Karen can always make me laugh because she has the worst luck. Of course, everything always works out in the end, or it wouldn't be funny. But life has certainly handed her it's fair share of peculiar situations.
Until next time,
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
So apparently I've decided that I don't already have enough going on in my life, so I would start a blog. I've always wanted to keep a journal, but writing by hand was never very appealing to me, so I figured, with how much time I spend on a computer, maybe this will work better. I just have to find the time between being a first year teacher at a challenging school, planning a wedding, catering to my fiance's needs and my top priority right now, attending as many of my sister's basketball games as is humanly possible.
I'll start with a short blurb about each of these time sinks in my life.
Katie's amazing basketball season: This year Katie (or Kate as she is now called) is a sophomore at Juniata College in Huntington, PA. (Bonus points if you know where that is) Now being the proud older sister that I am I have always known that Katie is pretty darn amazing at basketball. Now imagine 10-13 pretty amazing basketball players all being on the same team, at the same time, and all doing amazingly. That's where we are at right now. Juniata is a Division III power house. They are currently ranked #10 in the nation by D3 Hoops, and in the USA Today/ESPN polls. Their record (after a 71-60 win over Moravian last night) stands at 25-1, the only loss coming early in the season to the then ranked #6 William Patterson. Saturday is the Landmark Conference Championship game and I am stoked because I will be able to go! (I had to watch last nights game on the computer). After that who knows where this wild ride is going, but I'm definitely going to be there every step of the way.
After Katie's basketball, an time I have left over is mostly focused on Eric, my fiance, and as a related fact, our wedding. We are getting married August 18th of this summer and I am very excited! Plans are really starting to pick up again after about a 6 month lull after summer ended. Eric of course doesn't have time to be quite as excited as I am since he spends all of his time going to class, studying, working for his graduate assistant-ship or completing hours in his internship. He is studying Physical Therapy at the University of Delaware and I am so proud of everything that he has accomplished thus far and I know that he will always make me proud. I try to remove as many of the other stressors in his life that I can, but unfortunately I can't fix everything.
When I'm not driving to or watching one of Katie's basketball games, and Eric is in class, or has all of his basic needs met (you know our dear friend Maslow), I'm either asleep, or doing something for school. I am a self proclaimed nerd and as if to just drive the final nail in the coffin, I decided to become a high school math teacher. I graduated from Penn State (YEAH!) this past May (2011) and spent the summer looking for a job (hoping I would find one). Luck was in my favor as I landed not one, but two jobs and had to pick (perhaps I will save the details of the story for another time, but trust me, it's a good one). I currently teach 11th and 12th graders, or at least I try. Between lesson plans, photocopies, paperwork and grading most days are a blur and it's difficult to remember how many days there are until Friday, let alone what month it is.
I do try to have some fun on occasion and usually Arianna or Karen are good for that. Arianna also teaches high school math (that's how we know each other) and I love trading student stories with her, because of all my friends I feel that she is the only one who can truly understand. Karen can always make me laugh because she has the worst luck. Of course, everything always works out in the end, or it wouldn't be funny. But life has certainly handed her it's fair share of peculiar situations.
Until next time,
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)