Whooah, we're halfway there! Livin' on a prayer!

Well... at least halfway through the first QUARTER.  Does that count?

(I'm going to make this short, because it's just past 8 and I need to go to bed.  No seriously.)

I never thought it'd feel so rewarding to see a child doing work around school... That is, until what happened yesterday.

Seriously, what kind of child HANGS UP THE PHONE when his teacher is using it?!  I was trying to call the office about his behavior and he hung up the receiver...  Like that's going to make you in LESS trouble?!

I know this probably makes it sound like I'm a horrible teacher who has no control over her class, but trust me, it's not the first time something like this has happened with this kid.  But I still can't help but take it kind of personally - like I should be able to control it...

So I know I've been super behind on posting, but that shows you the kind of life I'm living - I'm dead tired all the time.  Maybe I'll write something real about my first (almost) half of my first quarter as a real-life teacher in the next couple of days.  That is, when I'm not preparing progress reports for my kids.

Sidenote: I knew progress reports were being sent out soon, because it's the 4th week of school.  What I WASN'T told (or reminded?  Except I don't remember ever hearing the exact date they were due...) was that they were apparently due TODAY.  At least, until... today.  (Although I'm told it's not a huge deal.)  Stuff like this is just one example of how I'm feeling every day of my life.  "Oh wait, I was supposed to do that?  Oh, I should have been doing that for the past 3 weeks?  In that case, I guess I'll try to catch up on all of it in the next day while ALSO preparing all my plans from scratch."  It's stressful, but I have to keep telling myself it's all worth it.  And I have to BELIEVE the people telling me I'm doing a good job, instead of assuming that everybody is secretly judging me (which I admit is quite hard for me).

And with that, I bid thee adieu and good night!

We're not in Kansas anymore...

So today started out like nothing I could have imagined... I was on my way to school, and had to stop by the grocery store to pick up treats for the kids.  And what do they tell me then?  There's a TORNADO that's touched down nearby, and it's headed in our direction!  I bought my snacks, and headed back to school.  Luckily, it was only another 5 minutes or so before I got there.  I entered the building, only to see a group of kids sitting against the wall, and all of the teachers in the hallway.  What's even crazier is that these kids didn't go to Greenwood - they weren't even in elementary school.  ALL of the buses had been informed of the tornado warning, and were required to pull over to the side of the road.  This particular bus was near my school, so they brought those kids into the building to keep them safe in case something did happen.

Once the tornado warning was over (which only took about 10 minutes or so), those kids left and our kids started coming in.  Mind you, I hadn't stepped foot into my room at that point.  My computer wasn't on, and of COURSE today was my day to take the 5th grade early arrivals.  Then, once my computer (finally) turned on, I couldn't open the folder for the video they were going to watch.

Once school actually started, most of the buses still hadn't shown up - I only had about 5 kids for the first 20 minutes or so.  Then things went relatively smoothly.  Until there was ANOTHER tornado warning.  We did the whole "line up against the wall covering your heads" thing, and the kids handled themselves quite well.  But of course the lunch schedule was messed up, which pushed back the specials schedule and the recess (indoor, of course) schedule.  By the time the kids cleaned up from recess, there was only about 20-30 minutes left before we had to pack up, so the entire last part of the day was a wash.

The crazy thing is, this hadn't EVER happened in almost 15 years (at least).  Having a tornado warning with the entirety of Lee County schools on buses???  Thank goodness there wasn't any real danger in the area, at least.

P.S.

It's a 3-day weekend!  I think 3-day weekends are a teacher's dream come true.  Unfortunately, it's my last day off for at least 2 months.

Miss Jones was tired. Miss Jones waaaassssss!

I will forever (or, at least for the next few days) have the Schoolhouse Rock song about subjects/predicates stuck in my head.  And it doesn't help that my grade level teachers keep bringing it up and changing the lyrics.  Hence, the title for this post.  But it's such a catchy tune!

So my first FULL week as an official teacher is officially... OVER!  At least in terms of the "teaching" part of it.  But I've had so much going on that I'm ALREADY behind on grading, not to mention I need to find a better way of organizing all my JUNK (I mean, my lovely paperwork and assignments)... PLUS, I'm seriously overdue for a severe overhaul of my apartment... Coming home and dropping stuff off by the door in the living room has not resulted in my putting it away - rather I now merely step over all the random crap to get to the door in the morning.

In terms of my confidence compared to the previous post... Let's say *slightly* improved?  Or was, before this afternoon.  There is this ONE boy, I swear it takes everything in my power not to yell at or just give up.  I think that, in addition to waking up super early and not being able to sleep as well last night, made me so exhausted.  I wasn't even thinking about how stressed out I should be (although that's a rare moment in time for me) and I started (you guessed it) breaking down.  I think it was just that "you have so many emotions and you have so many things to think about, but you're thinking about everything and nothing at the same time and you don't know what to do so your body freaks out" kind of things... But my grade level head happened to come into my classroom and noticed, and she walked me through some things.  So now I feel a little better.  Granted, I'm JUST as overwhelmed as I have been, but now it's more an "I have so much that I have to do before Tuesday" kind of feeling, as opposed to "I have no clue what's going on next week" kind of feeling.

So I'm doing it.  I'm a teacher - I have a CAREER.  Now let's just hope that I can make it through the other 40 or so weeks, and then some.

On a side note:  props to Schoolhouse Rock for their gender roles!  Mr. Morton was made way back in 1993, and there's a woman proposing. :)