Is it Sunday already??

Weekends have always been too short, but now they are even shorter. They basically consist of Friday night and Saturday, since Sundays so far have been completely consumed by planning for the coming week. It's insane how long it will take me to do a week's worth of lesson planning. I'm waiting for it to come more naturally and get easier, because everyone assures me it will. I just wish that would happen sooner rather than later, so that I don't have to spend ten hours on Sundays.

Mary and her big trophy!

 Yesterday was Saturday though, and it was a good one. Mary and I ran a 5k race in the little town where I teach (she won overall female, of course). It was my first 5k race since March, when I ran in my last track meet at Emory. I realized this during the race, because it was ROUGH. Haha. To put it in perspective, I would have been happy to come in under 23 minutes yesterday...at Emory I was trying to break 19 and I did it. I ended up running a 23:15 yesterday, which I was fine with since the most I have been running is three times a week. And usually more like one or two. I miss running every day, but most days I get home at dinnertime, cook and/or eat, have a little schoolwork to do, and then decide that sleep is more important. I'm also waiting for the day that this part of my life gets easier, so that I can get back into a routine that will keep me in shape enough to run a 5k under 23 minutes if I want to. But I did win my age group...maybe I haven't lost it all :)

The race was really small, and the lady working the registration table had never done something like this before. Here's how I knew that: the man registering in front of me asked (granted, a dumb question), "So when do we find out if we won our age group?" and she answered, "Um, well, not until it's over." Yeah. Duh.


After the race, while we were waiting for the awards ceremony, Mary and I were exploring the little farmer's market in the square, and one lady's table had some really beautiful zinnia bouquets for sale. There was a lady buying one, and we started talking about how pretty they were.
She said, "You should get some! Do your mothers live close by?"
"No, :( they live in Pennsylvania and New Mexico..."
"Are your grandmothers close by?"
"No :("
"Are you students?"
"Actually, we're teachers."
"You're both teachers? Well here, (holds out money) count out $6 out of there, I'm buying! If you're both teachers, you deserve it."
So now we have two bouquets of homegrown zinnias brightening up our little apartment.

So bright and fall-y!

All this for $2. Pesto heaven...

It was so kind, and reminded me how grateful I am to be in this community where we are so appreciated. That has been one of the best things about being placed here in South Carolina. TFA is so new here, and everyone in education that I've met is so positive and optimistic about what we can bring to the state. They're excited to have us here. I also was thrilled that the zinnia lady was sellling huge sprigs of basil, 4 for a dollar!


Mary and I met our roommate Holly at Waffle House on the way home where I almost ate my entire All-Star Special. I love Waffle House so much. Then I took a shower and a fabulous nap, went to the pool to grade papers, got an email saying I had won a Pampered Chef drawing that I entered at the farmer's market (Pampered Chef cookbook and an orange peeler, ohh yeahhh!), and met the dog and cat that we are babysitting for a TFA staff member for the week.

Bossman...one of the cutest puppies I have ever met.

Biscuit is the dog, and Socrates is the cat who alternates between hiding under my bed and coming out to brush up against everything and walk around purring. I had to kick him out of my room last night because he was walking all over me and meowing when I was trying to sleep. We are soooo happy to have pets in the apartment even just for a week. Our heads know that we can't handle our own pets right now...but our hearts melt every time we see a puppy and it's so hard to resist! Mary and I met one of the cutest puppies I've ever seen at the farmer's market, named Bossman. Really, Bossman. Or that's what the guy told us.

Then I cooked dinner, Holly went to Charlotte to visit a friend, Mary and I hung out with some other teachers for a while, and I got to Skype my best friend Kristen in China. I wish it was Saturday again instead of Sunday, but I am thankful for friends, weekends, great weather, and everything else I'm blessed with.

The. Hardest. Thing.

So, first I'll explain the pictures I posted last time. Students nominate a monthly "teacher feature" which I guess is like a student-choice teacher-of-the-month. Those three nominations came from my homeroom, so it's very possible that when I told my homeroom to make their nomination, they didn't feel like thinking and just wrote down the teacher who was standing in front of them. This was the first week of school, when they had known me for four days and I had taught them literally nothing yet. They had no idea whether I was a good teacher or not. But I hope and like to think it's because they could already see how badly I want to teach them.

Here's what will happen almost every day: they drive me insane at school. Half of them don't want to do anything in class, and they disrupt the other half from learning. More often than I'm thinking about what or how I'm teaching, I'm thinking about classroom management. Sometimes I can't wait for them to leave my class, and often I can't wait for the end of the day. Then, when I go home, I kind of miss them. And I dream about teaching almost every night.  I spend most of that time at home planning for how best to teach them the next day. So I hope that they could see, even in the first week, how hard I am working and willing to work so that they will succeed. I want them to do well more than they do...I get nervous before quizzes and tests. Will they study? Did I give them the tools to do well? Did they even learn anything??  Even if I fail miserably, at least I know I can make a difference to someone just by waiting for him when he writes slow. But soon, even that becomes harder to do. You have an objective to teach, you have to stay on pace, you only have 55 minutes and you lose a lot of class time just trying to get them to do what you want--increasingly I start to feel like we don't have time to wait for slow writers! Timing is the hardest thing about teaching.

And teaching is the hardest thing I can think of to do. Literally. I'm sure that's a first-year thing, but I honestly can't think of anything more difficult than this. You can put everything you have into it, and still suck. Or you can even be kind of good, but your kids still might not learn. They might not be prepared, or they might not want to that day. And your success is measured by how you affect them. It's nothing like college, where you can put your all into studying for a test and know you'll be rewarded with a good grade and personal success. If they don't learn it, you've still failed...no matter how hard you worked or creative your lessons were or what kind of good feedback you've gotten from your principal. In addition, you have pressure from the students, from the parents, the school administration, the district, the state, the federal government and in my case TFA, telling you how and what to teach, and what you can and can't do. You have students who are already ready for the next level of learning, and some who are terribly behind; somehow you need to teach them both in the same class. Finally, you have to not only teach the standards but also teach your kids how to be responsible, respectful, organized, self-motivated people so that they can be successful. And you have to love them. Dedicated teachers deserve to get paid about twice, or more than twice, what they are actually paid. As one of the TFA staff members said at a meeting yesterday, "A teacher could work for 24 hours a day and still have something to do." The overwhelming nature of it all is about to put me in the "survival" stage of first-year teaching. Here's to a full Sunday of schoolwork!

P.S. Usually I am literally just teaching in my dream, but last night I had a dream that one of my male students smacked me on the behind when he came into class and said "What's up Miss K?" Thank the Lord that nothing like this has ever happened...