Tomorrow I'm going to go into my classroom for the official first time. I think other teachers are going to be there working and stuff. I'll actually be a teacher at a school tomorrow. So nervous. I am going to try and take some pictures, but I don't know how to post them on this thing. I think I know what to do, but I've never tried before, so we'll see.
The room is so empty right now, and I'm not sure if I've got enough stuff to make it look interesting or not. I don't have tons of money and there's not really space for anything fancy, on account of there being the legal maximum amount of students in my classes. A lot of the room is filled up with desks. Hopefully when I start putting everything up it will look ok. Oh dear, I just realized that Staples didn't have any of that stick on the wall putty stuff I was going to use to put my posters up. Hmm. I think there is a little bit left over from last year, but I may have to jot out and buy some when that runs out. I should go check if there's a Staples near my school or not. Maybe that stuff would be at a drug store.
The weekend was good. I went out on Friday to buy things for my classroom with two other teaching fellows. We went to Barclay's in Brooklyn which was pretty good, small-ish section for Spanish stuff. After that we went to Carol's in Queens, and it was pretty lame. It had similar stuff as Barclay's, for the same price, but not organized by content area so you had to go all around trying to spot the Spanish. And it was also REALLY FAR into Queens. From now on I'm sticking with Barclay's and if you are looking for teacher supplies then that is the place for you. I think Carol's may have had more elementary stuff, so if you're elementary and can't find what you're looking for at Barclay's, then try Carol's. Otherwise, don't bother.
I have about a million forms to fill out. Everything seems like it's done retroactively, which is annoying. You get your health insurance and that stuff, but not for a few months. They say they'll reimburse you once you get the coverage, but dropping however much a teeth cleaning costs is really not an option right now. We had new teacher disOrientation, they should have signed us up then and there and given us our forms on the first day of work. Get it together DOE!!!
I'm going to go to sleep now so I can leave here around 8. I want to do as much as I can early tomorrow so that if I'm missing anything I don't only realize it on Friday afternoon when it's too late to come back the next day. I'd like to be done with everything I'm planning by Wednesday, that way Thursday and Friday I can mull over the room and decide to change or add anything.
This is so surreal. I can't believe it's actually happening, it seems like there's no way it's really going to be the first day of school soon. I hope everyone else is as excited as me!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
New Classroom
I went to see my new classroom today. I've been in there before, but not since the old teacher left. It was so weird to see it so empty. What the hell am I supposed to put in there? I don't know what to do! I am no good at decorating. I think I'm going shopping tomorrow and I'm going to try and find as many things as possible to stick up. It was pretty scary seeing it in that shape. I also started going through a big filing cabinet that is behind my desk. There are about 30 folders inside with various activities and I'm going to go through all of them and try to arrange things by subject matter so it will actually be of use to me. I did a little today, but there's so much more to do.
I got in around 2 o'clock and I sat down to work and all of a sudden one of the custodians was knocking on my door telling me it was time to leave. I had spent two hours in there and it felt like barely 20 minutes. It was kind of cool though. I felt like I was really becoming a teacher. Doing this program is like being in a dream for so long and then all of a sudden you wake up and you have responsibilities and everything is happening. It still seems a little unreal, so I get the feeling that on the fourth I'm going to wake up and be getting ready for college classes or something. It's almost thrilling to be getting started and to really be working. Maybe I can take some pictures next week of my room so I can document the before and after. I'll have to bust out my digital camera. I haven't really used it since I lived in Spain, but I think becoming a real life teacher merits similar accord.
For some reason, my principal told everyone we weren't allowed to come in to school until next Monday. I had already made plans with my Vice Principal to come in, so I still went today. When I got there though, there were a ton of teachers from the school we share our building with working in their rooms. I wonder why we aren't allowed to be in our rooms until Monday? I met two custodians and I'm going to try and remember their names so they will be my friends and not fuck with my room. Does that really happen? I hear a lot of custodian nightmares where you get on their bad sides and then you don't have desks or something. I had desks today, so it seems ok for now.
After that I had an EPIC doctor's appointment to get a TB test for the Department of Ed. I waited about an hour just to get in and get the test which takes like 2 minutes. It was frustrating. When the Doctor asked me where I worked, I just blurted out DOE. She thought I said DOH(Department of Health.) It's funny how different professions have their own cute little acronyms and such. It's also weird that I call it the DOE and I call my vice principal my vp. I don't know why I do that, but sometimes I feel kind of cool and hip. And then sometimes, like at the doctor's office, I feel like a douche. Oh well.
Everything is starting for real now, and it's so strang/terrifying/wonderfully exciting.
I got in around 2 o'clock and I sat down to work and all of a sudden one of the custodians was knocking on my door telling me it was time to leave. I had spent two hours in there and it felt like barely 20 minutes. It was kind of cool though. I felt like I was really becoming a teacher. Doing this program is like being in a dream for so long and then all of a sudden you wake up and you have responsibilities and everything is happening. It still seems a little unreal, so I get the feeling that on the fourth I'm going to wake up and be getting ready for college classes or something. It's almost thrilling to be getting started and to really be working. Maybe I can take some pictures next week of my room so I can document the before and after. I'll have to bust out my digital camera. I haven't really used it since I lived in Spain, but I think becoming a real life teacher merits similar accord.
For some reason, my principal told everyone we weren't allowed to come in to school until next Monday. I had already made plans with my Vice Principal to come in, so I still went today. When I got there though, there were a ton of teachers from the school we share our building with working in their rooms. I wonder why we aren't allowed to be in our rooms until Monday? I met two custodians and I'm going to try and remember their names so they will be my friends and not fuck with my room. Does that really happen? I hear a lot of custodian nightmares where you get on their bad sides and then you don't have desks or something. I had desks today, so it seems ok for now.
After that I had an EPIC doctor's appointment to get a TB test for the Department of Ed. I waited about an hour just to get in and get the test which takes like 2 minutes. It was frustrating. When the Doctor asked me where I worked, I just blurted out DOE. She thought I said DOH(Department of Health.) It's funny how different professions have their own cute little acronyms and such. It's also weird that I call it the DOE and I call my vice principal my vp. I don't know why I do that, but sometimes I feel kind of cool and hip. And then sometimes, like at the doctor's office, I feel like a douche. Oh well.
Everything is starting for real now, and it's so strang/terrifying/wonderfully exciting.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Teacher disOrientation
Today we had new teacher orientation delivered by the Department of Education. I will herein refer to this event as disOrientation.
I arrived at disOrientation about 5 minutes to 8 am, which was the scheduled arrival time. I was worried on the train that I had dressed too casual because most of my fancy clothes are skirts and it was really cold and rainy today so I wore black pants and my converse sneakers. I was dressed rather fancy, by disOrientation standards.
I waited in line to sign in, and then was directed by some shouting guy and a couple of signs up to the fourth floor cafeteria. There was a long line at the elevator, so I took the stairs. I've been sitting on my ass most of this week anyhow. Upstairs I wait around for approximately 25 minutes. I saw an old friend and we chatted and then I hung out with some other Spanish fellows and had some fruit. Finally another Spanish fellow texts me, come down to the auditorium. I was suspicious; no one had told us where to go now, but we had definitely been directed to this cafeteria. I went anyway because I was feeling faint-ish and there was no seating in the cafeteria.
About ten minutes after I arrive in the auditorium, a presentation starts. However, there are approximately 30 people in the auditorium, and if my memory serves me correctly, 90 people in the cafeteria. The presentation goes on about five minutes when someone calls out "hey the cafeteria upstairs is packed." The presenter woman says, go tell them to come down here, and PROCEEDS with her speech. I thought it was nice of her, after her organization failed to outline any sort of procedures and strand 90 plus people in the cafeteria, to just keep on going with her presentation. As it turns out, her presentation was a lame obviously scripted panel "discussion" where some teachers talked about how teaching is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD, NOTHING IS BETTER OR MORE AWESOME SO DON'T EVEN GO THERE. This was lame and unrealistic.
However, disOrientation was just getting the ball rolling on the lame and unrealistic front. Next we had some sort of workshop thing, except, well, we can't find your textbook so maybe we wont do anything actually. We'll just read what we would have done to you while you sit there mindlessly. Lots of people in this class asked weird questions and one guy sitting in front of me got violently hostile about the lameness of said "workshop." I hated it too, but he was getting all foamy at the mouth. Awkward.
Then was lunch. That was fun. Then was another workshop. Fine. The facilitator sounded like the Swedish chef, which is weird because I'm almost positive she was Hispanic. It was dull and too long. I spent at least an hour and a half to two hours today just sitting and talking to my friend. And not because I was slacking off, which I was, but because we were given about an hour to do a reading activity on FIVE pages.
I'm going back tomorrow, even though I found out it wasn't mandatory. We are supposedly being paid AND receiving a Staple's gift card. I hope the total value tops at least 60 dollars, but I'm not expecting anything. Ugh.
Ladies and Gentlemen, disOrientation 2007!
I arrived at disOrientation about 5 minutes to 8 am, which was the scheduled arrival time. I was worried on the train that I had dressed too casual because most of my fancy clothes are skirts and it was really cold and rainy today so I wore black pants and my converse sneakers. I was dressed rather fancy, by disOrientation standards.
I waited in line to sign in, and then was directed by some shouting guy and a couple of signs up to the fourth floor cafeteria. There was a long line at the elevator, so I took the stairs. I've been sitting on my ass most of this week anyhow. Upstairs I wait around for approximately 25 minutes. I saw an old friend and we chatted and then I hung out with some other Spanish fellows and had some fruit. Finally another Spanish fellow texts me, come down to the auditorium. I was suspicious; no one had told us where to go now, but we had definitely been directed to this cafeteria. I went anyway because I was feeling faint-ish and there was no seating in the cafeteria.
About ten minutes after I arrive in the auditorium, a presentation starts. However, there are approximately 30 people in the auditorium, and if my memory serves me correctly, 90 people in the cafeteria. The presentation goes on about five minutes when someone calls out "hey the cafeteria upstairs is packed." The presenter woman says, go tell them to come down here, and PROCEEDS with her speech. I thought it was nice of her, after her organization failed to outline any sort of procedures and strand 90 plus people in the cafeteria, to just keep on going with her presentation. As it turns out, her presentation was a lame obviously scripted panel "discussion" where some teachers talked about how teaching is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD, NOTHING IS BETTER OR MORE AWESOME SO DON'T EVEN GO THERE. This was lame and unrealistic.
However, disOrientation was just getting the ball rolling on the lame and unrealistic front. Next we had some sort of workshop thing, except, well, we can't find your textbook so maybe we wont do anything actually. We'll just read what we would have done to you while you sit there mindlessly. Lots of people in this class asked weird questions and one guy sitting in front of me got violently hostile about the lameness of said "workshop." I hated it too, but he was getting all foamy at the mouth. Awkward.
Then was lunch. That was fun. Then was another workshop. Fine. The facilitator sounded like the Swedish chef, which is weird because I'm almost positive she was Hispanic. It was dull and too long. I spent at least an hour and a half to two hours today just sitting and talking to my friend. And not because I was slacking off, which I was, but because we were given about an hour to do a reading activity on FIVE pages.
I'm going back tomorrow, even though I found out it wasn't mandatory. We are supposedly being paid AND receiving a Staple's gift card. I hope the total value tops at least 60 dollars, but I'm not expecting anything. Ugh.
Ladies and Gentlemen, disOrientation 2007!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Dinner time
I am having a predicament. I ate a very late lunch and I didn't really start getting hungry until right now, almost 9:30. However, I need to go to bed in a hour tops. Tomorrow is some sort of Department of Education new teacher orientation thing. It's going to to last two days and I have not a clue what's going to happen. It's going to be my first official "real teacher" thing, as opposed to specifically sanctioned Teaching Fellow things.
Then on Thursday I'm going into my classroom, although all the teachers got an e-mail from my principal the other day saying no one should come in until the 27th. I already arranged to come in on Thursday with my Vice Principal though, so I think it's still ok. I assume she would have e-mailed me to say that I should wait until next Monday. Well, hopefully it wont be an issue. And if Principal is there, then I will just say I only came to pick up my tax-exempt form so I could start my shopping. Which I desperately need to do. I am hoping to get some sort of Big calendar thing for birthdays and/or assignments. So many things on my teaching list...
I just invented a new game with my cat wherein I throw her bowl of food across the room, individually, piece by piece. She LOVES this game. I think it's good because mostly she sits around all day, which is what I mostly do. However, I think a sedentary lifestyle for a cat is a lot more dangerous than for me. Plus, my sedentaryism(sedentaria?) is only temporary until I get a.) all of my teaching computer related start of the year assignments done or b.) school actually begins, whichever comes first. I have a sinking feeling it's going to be the latter. If any actual teachers out there ever read my blog, I'd like to know if you ever get all your stuff done and get to just relax, or if you cross things off your list only to add ten more things later. That sounds like how my summer has been and I'm hoping it's only temporary. Also, for the love of god, please say that I can use lots of stuff from this year over again. A lot of the experienced fellows who came in to our class said that that isn't the case, but I want to pretend they were just joking so we wouldn't slack off. I'm going to go with that!
New Teacher Orientation! Hey-o
Then on Thursday I'm going into my classroom, although all the teachers got an e-mail from my principal the other day saying no one should come in until the 27th. I already arranged to come in on Thursday with my Vice Principal though, so I think it's still ok. I assume she would have e-mailed me to say that I should wait until next Monday. Well, hopefully it wont be an issue. And if Principal is there, then I will just say I only came to pick up my tax-exempt form so I could start my shopping. Which I desperately need to do. I am hoping to get some sort of Big calendar thing for birthdays and/or assignments. So many things on my teaching list...
I just invented a new game with my cat wherein I throw her bowl of food across the room, individually, piece by piece. She LOVES this game. I think it's good because mostly she sits around all day, which is what I mostly do. However, I think a sedentary lifestyle for a cat is a lot more dangerous than for me. Plus, my sedentaryism(sedentaria?) is only temporary until I get a.) all of my teaching computer related start of the year assignments done or b.) school actually begins, whichever comes first. I have a sinking feeling it's going to be the latter. If any actual teachers out there ever read my blog, I'd like to know if you ever get all your stuff done and get to just relax, or if you cross things off your list only to add ten more things later. That sounds like how my summer has been and I'm hoping it's only temporary. Also, for the love of god, please say that I can use lots of stuff from this year over again. A lot of the experienced fellows who came in to our class said that that isn't the case, but I want to pretend they were just joking so we wouldn't slack off. I'm going to go with that!
New Teacher Orientation! Hey-o
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Sweet television
I JUST watched the season premier of Weeds on my computer, as I am much too poor to afford television, let alone fancy cable channels like Showtime. Anyhow, I just wanted to say that Weeds is the most insanely dramatic awesome show around. The season finale was action frickin' packed and the season premier was almost as sweet. I'm quite impressed with this show and it might be awesome enough to order Showtime when my paychecks do start rolling in. I've got to think about it.
I think I might go to Iceland for Christmas break. When I was living in Spain, I had to spend the last two weeks of July in this apartment where you could pay by the week because my old roommate wanted to rent out my room for the whole month and I was leaving in the middle. So this apartment was filled with students doing study abroad programs in Spain and one Spanish guy who was from Southern Spain but was working or something like that in Madrid for a while. In Spain, people usually live at home until they can afford to buy an apartment or house or something, which is usually until at least thirty with the salaries and housing market being what they are in Madrid. So most of the apartment market is filled with students doing study abroad programs, which are huge in Europe. Because these people don't stay for a whole year, the places are rented out weekly or monthly and they are crammed with people. The apartment was very big, but we had like eight people in there. It was a totally sweet setup and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
It was actually kind of amazing living with eight other people from totally different places. There was me, the american, a german asshole, two lovely french girls, a japanese girl, a swedish girl, the spaniard, and this awesome guy from Iceland named Gauti. I liked him best and we hung out in the apartment the most, for some reason. We did a horrible job keeping in touch and actually didn't at all after I left Spain. Then, fall semester of 2006 I went with my friend to a bar to meet up with these couple of guys she knew. They were cool and whatnot and then one of their friends showed up. She seemed nice enough and we talked and she told me she was from Iceland, so I was like oh that's funny when I was in Spain I had an Icelandic roommate, yeah his name was Gauti. She goes, I know Gauti! It was too weird. Although, later I realized it wasn't that weird because Iceland's population is like 300,000 or something and almost half of those people live in the capital, Reykjavic, I think it's spelled. But anyway, then he e-mailed me and said what a coincidence it was and I e-mailed back and said yeah but then that was all.
For some reason, yesterday I decided I wanted to go to Iceland and since Iceland is very expensive and unknown to me I e-mailed him again and he e-mailed back this morning and said that I should totally come. I think it would be awesome to go there and he can be like my tour guide, plus he's a fun guy, even if I don't know him all that well. We did live together. So yeah, I hope that will work out because I think it would be neat to spend New Year's in Iceland. New Years is always boring, so being in a foreign country might be just the thing I need.
I am really overwhelmed with all this work to do. I started working on the 8th grade curriculum plan, but I just got overwhelmed and started feeling like I didn't know what I was doing so I stopped. Tomorrow I need to get at least two units done so I don't get too far behind. Next week is new teacher orientation, my first visit to my new classroom since it was vacated, and SHOPPING!!! I must buy lots of stuff. I am pretty excited about this. Soon there will be more to post about.
I think I might go to Iceland for Christmas break. When I was living in Spain, I had to spend the last two weeks of July in this apartment where you could pay by the week because my old roommate wanted to rent out my room for the whole month and I was leaving in the middle. So this apartment was filled with students doing study abroad programs in Spain and one Spanish guy who was from Southern Spain but was working or something like that in Madrid for a while. In Spain, people usually live at home until they can afford to buy an apartment or house or something, which is usually until at least thirty with the salaries and housing market being what they are in Madrid. So most of the apartment market is filled with students doing study abroad programs, which are huge in Europe. Because these people don't stay for a whole year, the places are rented out weekly or monthly and they are crammed with people. The apartment was very big, but we had like eight people in there. It was a totally sweet setup and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
It was actually kind of amazing living with eight other people from totally different places. There was me, the american, a german asshole, two lovely french girls, a japanese girl, a swedish girl, the spaniard, and this awesome guy from Iceland named Gauti. I liked him best and we hung out in the apartment the most, for some reason. We did a horrible job keeping in touch and actually didn't at all after I left Spain. Then, fall semester of 2006 I went with my friend to a bar to meet up with these couple of guys she knew. They were cool and whatnot and then one of their friends showed up. She seemed nice enough and we talked and she told me she was from Iceland, so I was like oh that's funny when I was in Spain I had an Icelandic roommate, yeah his name was Gauti. She goes, I know Gauti! It was too weird. Although, later I realized it wasn't that weird because Iceland's population is like 300,000 or something and almost half of those people live in the capital, Reykjavic, I think it's spelled. But anyway, then he e-mailed me and said what a coincidence it was and I e-mailed back and said yeah but then that was all.
For some reason, yesterday I decided I wanted to go to Iceland and since Iceland is very expensive and unknown to me I e-mailed him again and he e-mailed back this morning and said that I should totally come. I think it would be awesome to go there and he can be like my tour guide, plus he's a fun guy, even if I don't know him all that well. We did live together. So yeah, I hope that will work out because I think it would be neat to spend New Year's in Iceland. New Years is always boring, so being in a foreign country might be just the thing I need.
I am really overwhelmed with all this work to do. I started working on the 8th grade curriculum plan, but I just got overwhelmed and started feeling like I didn't know what I was doing so I stopped. Tomorrow I need to get at least two units done so I don't get too far behind. Next week is new teacher orientation, my first visit to my new classroom since it was vacated, and SHOPPING!!! I must buy lots of stuff. I am pretty excited about this. Soon there will be more to post about.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Too much
As of this moment, my "Big School-related Checklist" is at 29 things to do before school. I have three things crossed off. The list is ever expanding. I had no idea my job was going to be this complicated. I work every day on the things on the list, and yet I never seem to get more than one thing done. I have a very complicated and involved job that never ends. This is terrifying. It doesn't help yet that so many things on the list actually cannot be completed yet even if I wanted to. I need to get a tax-exemption form to take shopping with me so I can buy stuff for my classroom. I don't want to waste my teacher's choice money on taxes, that's lame. When am I going to be able to get this stuff done? I am very quickly running out of time. Let's see, counting today there are exactly three weeks left to finish everything. Oh god.
Another thing. I don't wear high heels. I'm not good at it and I don't really want to anyway. They are painful and dangerous. Why do all pants in the world have to be creepy-long? I am 5'7, which is not spectacularly tall, but it's not short by any means. Therefore, pants should not be so long on me as to pool at my ankles. I feel like a little kid playing dress-up when I go pants shopping, and that annoys me. If I want to wear flats, I should be able to wear flats without getting my pants altered. That is a fair statement.
I did go shopping on my vacation at the Banana Republic outlet store. I got a ton of awesome stuff, which is going to make me look uber-professional for the first week, after which I will have run out of clothes and will look a little crappy. I have to get some more stuff so I can pull off professional experienced teacher for at least a month. I need a pair of khaki pants and some sort of skirt, as well as a few more tops to rotate. Right now I have four-ish nice tops, but I think I could use at least 9 or 10 so I can move them around a bit. I have a nice advantage in that I only see each of my classes twice a week. That gives me a lot more leeway for wearing the same thing twice in one week. I just have to make sure that I remember what each class has already seen that week.
See how many things there are to think about? Too many!
Another thing. I don't wear high heels. I'm not good at it and I don't really want to anyway. They are painful and dangerous. Why do all pants in the world have to be creepy-long? I am 5'7, which is not spectacularly tall, but it's not short by any means. Therefore, pants should not be so long on me as to pool at my ankles. I feel like a little kid playing dress-up when I go pants shopping, and that annoys me. If I want to wear flats, I should be able to wear flats without getting my pants altered. That is a fair statement.
I did go shopping on my vacation at the Banana Republic outlet store. I got a ton of awesome stuff, which is going to make me look uber-professional for the first week, after which I will have run out of clothes and will look a little crappy. I have to get some more stuff so I can pull off professional experienced teacher for at least a month. I need a pair of khaki pants and some sort of skirt, as well as a few more tops to rotate. Right now I have four-ish nice tops, but I think I could use at least 9 or 10 so I can move them around a bit. I have a nice advantage in that I only see each of my classes twice a week. That gives me a lot more leeway for wearing the same thing twice in one week. I just have to make sure that I remember what each class has already seen that week.
See how many things there are to think about? Too many!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Nothing to say
This week has been kind of awful. I've been in a bad mood and have been really unhappy. I don't feel like blogging about any of the stuff that's been going on because I don't really care to remember it. Hopefully I will be less depressed soon enough. I should start working on teaching planning soon, and hopefully that will get me out of this awful rut. Until then, I don't have much to post. Sorry.
Friday, August 3, 2007
El fin
It is over. Hooray! I got my check today which I really needed to pay my rent, so I am pretty jazzed about that. Actually, the last day of training was the worst day. For some reason, after all of the different groups did the little skits we had prepared, the Teaching Fellows thought it would be a brilliant idea to do a little scavenger hunt around the city. Fantastic, because it's only about 90 degrees outside. What else do you want to do in the city when it's 90 degrees out besides walk around? I can think of nothing.
We also got oddly fitting t-shirts and some sandwiches. I won a little mug stuffed with highlighters, pencils, and other kinds of teaching goodies. It was ok I guess. I just wish we could have done that all after class yesterday instead of coming all the way back for three stupid hours.
Now I'm home and I'm at a loss somewhat. I don't really know what to do now that I'm all finished. I took a nap, which was glorious. I have a meeting on Sunday with the woman I met with last week who's planning my curriculum with me and she's going to help me do some more planning. I think I should do some stuff for that. She didn't like the way our units were planned last year and I don't either, but she wants them to be like even more random and I was hoping to make them more sequential. It is a little challenging for me to plan out lots of random things to teach. I like teaching things that go together. She also says that I should teach in chunks of phrases so the students can start saying things right away and then later in the year teach them more grammar and conjugations and stuff. And I think that's stupid and I hate that. I was thinking maybe the first month we could do chunks with like ¿cómo te llamas?/ me llama and ¿cómo estás? but then that's over. I think she wants a lot of units that way, and I am not into that idea at all.
Blahhh it's so hot. What is this about. Oh my momma is coming next week and I'm going to meet her at my aunt's shore house. I think I'll spend most of the week there, going to the beach and doing nothing much at all. My mom has promised to take me shopping for some nice work clothes, so hopefully upon my return, I'll will be a model of professionalism, as opposed to the jeans and sneakers model I've been sporting as of late. It's particularly hard in the summer. I love when my family comes to visit. My little sister is coming too and she is getting so old. Seventeen this year. That's just ridiculous.
I'm quite happy for a few weeks of rest before this whole thing really starts happening. Training was fun, but it was pretty hypothetical. The school year is going to be the most surreal experience of my life. I can't believe it's almost here.
We also got oddly fitting t-shirts and some sandwiches. I won a little mug stuffed with highlighters, pencils, and other kinds of teaching goodies. It was ok I guess. I just wish we could have done that all after class yesterday instead of coming all the way back for three stupid hours.
Now I'm home and I'm at a loss somewhat. I don't really know what to do now that I'm all finished. I took a nap, which was glorious. I have a meeting on Sunday with the woman I met with last week who's planning my curriculum with me and she's going to help me do some more planning. I think I should do some stuff for that. She didn't like the way our units were planned last year and I don't either, but she wants them to be like even more random and I was hoping to make them more sequential. It is a little challenging for me to plan out lots of random things to teach. I like teaching things that go together. She also says that I should teach in chunks of phrases so the students can start saying things right away and then later in the year teach them more grammar and conjugations and stuff. And I think that's stupid and I hate that. I was thinking maybe the first month we could do chunks with like ¿cómo te llamas?/ me llama and ¿cómo estás? but then that's over. I think she wants a lot of units that way, and I am not into that idea at all.
Blahhh it's so hot. What is this about. Oh my momma is coming next week and I'm going to meet her at my aunt's shore house. I think I'll spend most of the week there, going to the beach and doing nothing much at all. My mom has promised to take me shopping for some nice work clothes, so hopefully upon my return, I'll will be a model of professionalism, as opposed to the jeans and sneakers model I've been sporting as of late. It's particularly hard in the summer. I love when my family comes to visit. My little sister is coming too and she is getting so old. Seventeen this year. That's just ridiculous.
I'm quite happy for a few weeks of rest before this whole thing really starts happening. Training was fun, but it was pretty hypothetical. The school year is going to be the most surreal experience of my life. I can't believe it's almost here.
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