"Reward Day"

I'm beginning to understand a little more about why my high school teachers were always so upset when there were assemblies and things like that. It definitely takes away from teaching time, and makes it very frustrating because you can't get anything done. We had two early out schedules this week, which meant I lost 80 minutes of instruction time in each class this week. Wednesday was a scheduled early out for professional development stuff, but Friday was an early out schedule so that the kids could have a reward day for PBS. Now, if it was something constructive, or they actually received rewards of some sort, I might have been a little more ok with it, but yesterday was just watching the boys play football and playing in the gym. Just a bunch of free time. The kids that didn't have all of their work in had to sit in study hall for 2 hours... I don't know, I know the kids have to be rewarded for doing what they are supposed to do, but at the same time, it is the loss of my class time. On top of that, we are a SINA school in Reading, so every time we don't have class, is time lost trying to get those scores up. I kind of feel like it's a no-win situation. Oh well. I'm also a little upset about the fire drill that's going to take place next week, during my co-lab class. Yay. Heaven forbid we do it during advisory, when we really aren't learning anything per sey. No, we have to do it during class time and lose a whole class. Blah!

I'm being really negative again. I really do love my job and think that it's wonderful. There are just some things sometimes that don't make a whole lot of sense to me. I guess that's the world of a real job - the people higher up make the decisions, and we have to follow them, regardless of how we feel about it.

But, it's the weekend, time to relax and not stress about school. It will all work out in the end, I'm sure of it :)

Student Loans

I just got my official student loan repayment schedule today. Let me tell you, it is not exciting. They have me paying loans for 20 years! I'm sorry, but I just really don't see that working for me. I'm definitely going to try to pay over the minimum due each month so that I can get it paid off faster. Also, the first payment is due by October 15. That's a whole month before I thought I'd have to pay! That 6 month grace period suddenly turned to 5. How nice of them. The good thing is that I consolidated in June before rates went up, so my loan is locked in at a fairly low rate. That will help in the long run. I'm just really not that excited about starting to pay this back...

I miss dancing...

Wow, for someone who hasn't seriously danced in almost 5 years, it's amazing what a little show like "Dancing with the Stars" will do. I miss dancing. I miss performing. I still take ballet classes, but what I miss the most is feeling like I'm actually good at dancing, like I actually do have some technique. Even though I only take one class a week, I can tell that I have improved, and gotten better at certain techniques, though I certainly have lost my ability to turn for some reason. I'd love to take more class, but I can't because of their schedule and mine. It's frustrating when I see girls so much younger than me do so much better than me because they can take multiple times a week, and they've had awesome teachers since they were 5. C'est la vie. Such are the choices we make in life. I never wanted to be a dancer, never thought that life was for me - I wasn't "good" enough when I graduated high school, I wanted to be a teacher. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely happy with my life and the way things turned out. I love my job and where life has taken me. But, that doesn't stop me from wondering how things would have been different if I'd chosen to dance, or at least go to a school that offered dance as a major part of their curriculum. It's all fine. For some reason tonight I just got sentimental about it all. That, and yesterday Emery talked to me like I wasn't at class to work - I always go to dance class and work, I do want to be as good as those girls I see every week. It was just a bit frustrating. Dance is still fun, I just really miss the bigger parts of it.

Planning a Novel

Who knew that planning a novel would be so time consuming? I spent the better part of yesterday, probably close to 7 hours, planning Adam of the Road. I wrote questions, found vocabulary, and tried to think of exciting activities to do with the chapters. Part of it I think is that I spent a lot of time trying to come up with higher order questions so that I can pass the discussion part of my observation on Tuesday. The other reason I think it took so long is that I have a binder full of stuff for this novel that I have to sift through and find the things that are important and ignore the stuff that isn't, which isn't always easy. I think as soon as I'm done planning, I'm going to throw everything away that I'm not using. It's not helpful to me, and it does no good to just sit in the binder and look pretty. I only have three chapters left, I hope I can finish it today.

It was a pretty uneventful weekend. I went to lunch with Kelly yesterday and then I went to the Drake football game against UNI with Kelly and Liz. It was pretty fun, despite the fact that they lost pretty badly. Today I went to dance. Somedays dance is really frustrating for me because I only take one class a week, and I'm not always consistent in my technique. That's frustrating because at one point in my life, I was actually a decent dancer... Oh well, I can't be everything I suppose.

I should go grocery shopping so I have some food in my apartment. I might actually get to go to the 7th grade boys' football game tomorrow night since I don't have dance and I don't have any meetings!

Finally Friday!

I'm so glad it's Friday! Plus, it's midterm, so I don't have any essays or papers to grade over the weekend! I do have to sit down and plan Adam of the Road, but I'm really not too worried about it. What I am worried about now is the fact that the class I'm having observed is now my worst class at listening, paying attention, and working in groups. I'm going to have to move them yet again and hope that it works and that I don't have the problems I'm having now. The problem is that I have so many that need to be in front and that I need to have access to, and it's hard to get them all there. I already have all of them only a person away from me because of my small classes, and I walk up and down the room all the time, but apparently that's not enough. Perhaps we need to go to a circle. I don't know. All I know is that they are very frustrating and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them to get them to understand that what we're doing is important, and they need to not talk to their friends every second of the day. I may have to just stop doing group work in that class, which hurts those that do well at group work and actually gain something from it. We'll see.

I don't think I'm planning on anything exciting this weekend. The Waukee Homecoming game is tonight, but I'm not going. I don't know anyone playing, and I don't really care to go sit in crowded stands. Maybe I'll get some friends together and we'll go see a movie or something. I'll just have to play it by ear...

My godson's birthday is next Tuesday. I can't believe he's already 2!!!!

Paperwork!

I will admit, I have been feeling a little overwhelmed lately. I've been busy trying to keep my head above water trying to learn the curriculum and be able to teach it to 7th graders and teach it well so they understand what I'm trying to teach them as well as grading essays and other assignments. On top of that, I have paperwork to do for my observation that's next week. Writing the lesson plan for a lesson that I barely really know what I'm going to do is bad, but I also have five component questions that I have to answer, for which I write what looks like a book. The component questions are things that I feel can be answered by observation, and I also feel like I repeat myself multiple times. I understand that all of the paperwork and stuff is needed for me to get my actual teaching license in Iowa, but sometimes I just feel like it's a big waste of time. I have multiple essays sitting on my desk that need grading that I've had to put off so that I can get my own "assignments" done. I feel like my time could be put to better use, so that I can get assignments back to students in a timely manner, which I'm not doing a very good job of. I could spend my nights grading papers, but who really wants to do that? It will get done, I'm just struggling a bit with getting everything into perspective.

I feel like I've been complaining a lot about teaching. It's actually still very fun and the kids make me laugh everyday. It's all the paperwork and bureaucracy that I don't like and that I get really tired of. Midterm is next week, which is kind of scary! It's interesting to think that 1/8 of the school year is almost over. Tomorrow is "Wacky Wednesday" for Spirit Week since Homecoming is Friday. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to dress up for it, especially since I have a meeting with my principal tomorrow!

The Other Side of Teaching

This week has definitely been a lesson in the "other side" of teaching. I have definitely had to talk to classes about being responsible and bringing their books, listen to whining because I'm finally giving them homework, and then yesterday I literally yelled at a girl in the hallway because she wasn't participating in class and was talking back to me. I really felt like it was a breaking point for me because I was yelling at her while she sat there and rolled her eyes at me and acted like she could care less what I was saying to her. No one ever told me how awful I would feel after yelling at a student for their misbehavior. I wanted to cry when it was all said and done. I never wanted to be that teacher. I don't think I am, but she just hit a nerve with me. And the thing is, today she came in and told me, "Miss Blasi, today's going to be a good day," and it was. She did her work, participated in class, and did what she was supposed to do. Amazing how they can do a complete 180 on you.

I will admit, I'm beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed with everything right now. I have an observation in a week, and I need to know what I'm teaching. I don't yet. We finally had a productive English meeting yesterday. I have 36 more essays to grade. Tonight. If at all possible because I want to hand them back to them before they write their other essay that's due on Monday. I will admit. I'm tired of grading essays. They take too long for me to do. Plus, now I have grammar exercises and journals to grade. It's going to be a fun Friday.

I'm tired and I'm ready for it to be the weekend to just chill out, though I'm not really sure that's going to happen.