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!

Keeping up and keeping track

I feel like first year (and probably 2nd and 3rd year) teachers cry more getting home from their job than virtually any other profession out there.  As such, I've decided I'm going to keep track of the number of days I cry while at my job.  Total tally so far: 1.  And that's only since the kids have been in the classroom!  Include all the days freaking out about how I don't feel ready for this, and I've got a good 3 or 4 in there.

Okay, so I'm kidding about keeping track.  Kind of.

But I'm NOT kidding about the whole crying thing.  And what makes it worse (or maybe better?  I'm not really sure) is that today wasn't even a BAD day!  Things went okay.  The kids were a little bit rowdy, and I definitely need to work on some ideas for how to keep them under control at crucial parts of the day (especially a select few) but nothing actually happened!  The kids all really like me and seem excited, for the most part.  But just the stress of having to plan things from scratch is tough on me.

And I love love LOVE my grade level team - they're funny, super nice, have tons of experience... but they literally know what they're doing all day every day.  And I don't want to just copy their ideas, by any means.  But I feel like I don't know if I'm doing things right or not!  I do the lessons they say I should do, but how LONG they last, or the WAY I teach it... I just feel like I'm floundering.  Even though I have a plan and ideas for how I want the lesson to go, I just feel incredibly unsure.  And self-conscious.  Which is NOT a good combination when teaching.  Don't get me wrong, I'm fine in front of the kids, and overall I feel good about how my lessons have been going... I just feel like I don't know what I'm doing.  But that's what sucks... That's normal - It's how I'm SUPPOSED to feel.