Thursday, July 28, 2016

A New Chapter...

It's been a couple months now and once school starts I know I won't have much time to blog (although I still want to try to do so regularly).  I want to record my journey into my new career so that I can look back on it and see how hard I worked :)

Since May, I have accepted a position (8th grade language arts) and completed a couple different programs to ready myself for this new job: a summer seminar (two days of back to back to back methods and strategy sessions) and a fieldwork experience in summer school -- an interesting setting.  Teaching summer school will be an option to me... certainly not this summer (I'll be going to school myself), but maybe down the road.



I'm now in the process of accumulating classroom decorations, organizational supplies, and practicing deep breathing exercises everytime I realize that I'm turning my life upside down and starting a job I have no idea how to do.  That's not entirely true -- I have an idea... but not much of one.

Dory knows the struggle is real.

For the last several months, Jerry has been working out of state, only coming home every third weekend (except for our trip to Iowa in May and a week at the beginning of this month for jury duty) -- which, I'm not going to lie, has MAJORLY SUCKED!  He's still got a few more weeks, but then he should be at least within the state for, hopefully at least the next six to nine months.  It has not been easy to be essentially single parenting, but I tell myself I've done the best I could.  The girls are alive, somewhat happy, and I usually remember to feed them dinner.

A few major changes to the routine coming up:

I will need to get used to waking up early (and not snoozing the alarm -- my current job has me so spoiled).  I actually like it when I get up early, I feel accomplished the rest of the day.  But I tend to forget that feeling when the alarm goes off and I just want to hit snooze.  I think for the first couple months at least I will be so excited and nervous that I'll get up super early just to check over my lesson plans and triple check to make sure everything's ready.

For real


I will need to get REALLY SERIOUS about meal planning and meal prepping.  I did pretty well with this when Emily was in school -- washing/cutting fruit and veggies, making 5 PBJs and freezing them like Uncrustables, packing the entire lunch and putting it in the fridge the night before.
It ran pretty smoothly -- as long as I took the time to do all the prepwork on Sunday.  Mostly I just can't let myself get lazy.  I'm not only going to have to prep and pack all of Emily's lunches, but my own as well (no more lunch runs to Chipotle -- sad face).

After school and weekend activities... I will be teaching STEM magnet students, which means I will have the opportunity (not necessarily obligation but there is something to be said about being a team player) to participate in Saturday events (I get paid!!) and after school meetings.  I believe I will be asked to join a committee, so there will be meetings for that as well.  Luckily, the girls' daycare mom is now a great friend of mine (We Heart You Patti!!) and she is super flexible and always helps out.

Right now I'm just trying to take in all of the advice and information I can get.  I've been meeting with fellow teachers, getting all of my HR paperwork in order and starting to write my first few days of lesson plans (so scary).  I'm excited to jump in and get started.  The anticipation is what makes me nervous, so in that way I'm really glad that this happened so quickly.  I thought it might take me a couple years to realize this dream of becoming a teacher and it happened in about 6 months.

I still have a long road of classes, tests, and evaluations to go, but in a few short weeks I will be standing in front of a classroom of fresh-faced (maybe) 8th graders who are wondering why I'm sweating and my face is red.  Wish me luck!!

me after the first day of school

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