March oh my!

How did it become March? I have been living in a blur of busy days, sick days, happy days, fun days, meaningless days, meaningful days, and the list goes on and on, for the last 6 months. How did I let this happen?

I guess I went into this year thinking it would be easier than the last two years. I was shocked to realize that it is already March. I think because I continually feel like it is September or October in my classroom it is hard for me to believe that so much time has passed.

Highlights of the last 6 months.

• Having the lovely Ashley Kessler in the same city for many more days that ever before ( she kind of fake lives in Baltimore) with the promise of seeing her everyday next year as my roommate!
• Turning 25... however paraphrasing the words of a friend of mine I feel like my life has stopped giving me lemons. I think I need to make some changes because what I'm doing now doesn't seem to be working.
• I am finally friends with JP after years of waiting patiently, and thank goodness for this because I would say he is one of my favorite people in Baltimore and Nora was an unexpected joy to have as a friend I am very blessed in this regard to have BOTH of them in my life.

I feel like there should be more on that highlights list but honestly its been a funny year.

I also feel that I need to start making a bucket list of just journaling more because I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Maybe if I journal something will click and I will be able to figure out where I am going wrong or where i am in need of more. I think I need more to feed my soul. Maybe I should start book club or something. I've never been great at analyzing literature but I do like stories. Stories are what makes the world go round. Everyone has a story.

When I was younger I always liked reading the books fiction, non fiction, historical fiction, realistic fiction, etc. that were set up like a person's journal. I felt like I was given insight into their day to day life and their thoughts and I think it might be why I like to get a lot of information about people so that I can get a good read on them. The way someone likes to interact with others, a person's relationship to their friends and family. These are things that always intrigue me. I also like to people watch. Thus far I think I just like the blur of people watching but I long to be the person that has more attention to detail so that i am the one that notices the funny imperfections that others overlook, like a small scar on some one's cheek or the bird standing in the tree in the background.

We shall see. Any other times I've tried to be more reflective I have not followed through. So i make no promises i will simply say we'll see.

Only a few more days of summer....

So there are only a few more days until I start venturing back into the school building everyday. I start teacher meetings on Monday and then the kiddies start coming the following Monday ( Aug 31st)!!

I'm looking forward to it. I am very excited to be able to teach the new 5th graders as well as I think, fingers crossed, having the opportunity to teach both sections of 5th grade math instead of one section of 5th grade math and one section of 8th grade math. I know I'm silly for getting excited about that but it is exciting for me. I still have 5th and 6th grade SS too but those have gotten better each year so I'm looking forward to this year being awesome.

I have so much to do in my last few days of summer though. I need to organize my bedroom in our new house, I need to do a little bit of cleaning around the house, I need to stay on track for my training for my half marathon that is in less than two and a half weeks! Not to mention start thinking about setting up my classroom and what we're going to teach!

I always seem to have TONS of ideas and revelations during the course of the school year or right before the coming school year and when the year actually begins I am not sure how I'm doing. I tend to lose the ferocity and passion for my rules and consequences and end up doing a brush over on them instead of instilling them into my student's memories. That needs to change this year.

Also, I need to figure out how to actually organize my student's notebooks and notes so that they actually USE their notes and keep their notebooks in order. Math is tough for me because I always want to be so thorough that I run out of in class practice time. I need to be better about that. And in social studies i really want to have BCR's at the end of the classes to help concrete some of the learning. I never actually get around to making those though.

This year I hope i can figure out a good reward system too. I am kind of a stickler for almost never giving prizes or bonuses or rewards beyond stickers. I could definitely improve in that area. We'll see how that goes..... I just get overwhelmed with keeping track of each student, even though I generally only have a few!

So in long.... apparently I can say in short because I wrote too much already, I am both excited and anxious for the coming year. Very VERY excited that I don't have grad classes and hopeful that I will be able to use my time effectively so as to make the most of the free time I have because of my lack of grad classes.

That's it....


G