Photography

I love photography. If I had to quit my job and take up a new career at this moment, that is what I would choose.

This time of year makes me want to take pictures... obviously because of the beautiful colors that God paints our world with, but also because of the nostalgic feeling I often get during the fall season. I have a tendency to think more about life, about the past and where God has brought me, as well as thinking about how soon this moment will become another memory to be collected and cherished. Pictures help capture those moments. Happiness, sadness, nostalgia. I thank God that we have the brains to have created such awesome technology where we can actually freeze a moment in time and look at it whenever we choose. It's pretty awesome, especially nowadays that technology is at the tips of our fingers.

I got a new digital SLR camera for Christmas and have played with it a bit, but have not had the time to sit down and really study and figure out what everything means. I also do not have the capability on my small-memory laptop to get a program that allows me to fully edit photos. When it comes down to it, I really have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm enjoying the process and want to learn more.

So in the hopes that maybe I'll want to start taking more pictures to post on here, enjoy some pictures I took last fall in Princeton:

Hobbies

A.J. is in full swing with his student teaching and he recently made the comment that teachers don't have time to enjoy any hobbies. After reading Becky's blog and learning about her very busy first year, after talking with my roomate who is also a first year teacher, and then thinking about my own day as a third year teacher teaching new content so it's basically like I'm still a first year teacher, I decided to write about hobbies.

If I wasn't a teacher (or had any sort of responsible job) and had all the time in the world to do the things I love, here are some of the things I would do:

• Spend real time learning about photography and seriously start considering pursuing that further


• Read a book for fun


• Play my guitar more often


• Finish knitting the scarf I started working on 3 years ago


• Update this blog


• Plan the best wedding anyone's ever attended


• Call all my friends and family who I haven't had time (or energy) to consistently keep in touch with


• Practice my tap dance routine (that's right.. I am having fun with one hobby at the moment... I'm taking an adult tap class)


• Organize my music (because I'm a dork and I like organizing)


• Learn how to crochet


• Spend time in fellowship and good conversation with others over cups of coffee


• Put together the puzzle I got for Christmas 2 years ago


• Clean our apartment (not quite a hobby but in desperate need of being done)


• Learn the dance moves to the final song in Burlesque


• Take up the violin


• Brush up on my Espanol


• Audition for a community theatre production


• Watch all the movies I've been meaning to see


• Plan out a meal, go shopping for that meal, and actually cook the meal


• Learn German


• Alphabetize every book and movie and thing that has a title in our apartment


• Solve world hunger

Oh how I wish I had time for my hobbies.

Bad Day

Today was a bad day. And it was my fault. Which made it an even bad-er day.

It started off just fine. I got a lot of planning done over the weekend and have my whole week ready to go. I was slatted to administer the HSPA re-take on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday so I had everything set and was ready to give directions to my students.

Period 2: Forgot half the things I needed to tell my students. Spent the first 20 minutes of class talking at them about logistics. Lame way to start a Monday. Then struggled with them through the material that they understood on Friday but I managed to make more confusing today.

Period 3: Was thrown off by the previous class not going according to plan. Rushed to get Do Now up on the board which some how the kids still don't understand that they're supposed to do it... now. Then realized that they didn't get the homework from the previous day and I wanted to review it. So the review took much longer than planned and I barely got through the intended lesson. No time to practice, so the kids have most likely already forgotten it.

Lunch Duty: Went in. Was told that I need to meet with the principal to go over details of the HSPA and so I needed to take my lunch now and meet in half an hour. I would miss my Period 6 class but my coordinator would cover it for me, I just need to write up the plans for her.

End of Lunch: Check my e-mail before heading downstairs to find that there was a new HSPA proctor and examiner list sent out and my name wasn't on it.

Meeting: Go downstairs. Get affirmation from the principal that they joined two of the testing rooms so they didn't need all the teachers. Since I'm so busy they decided to have me not do it and let me get back to class. Felt slightly weird about that because I'm no busier than the other math teacher who is still giving the test. Felt like I was being dismissed cause I complained too much or something, but I don't think I did. So that threw me off.

Period 6: Officially flustered as I'm still trying to get better at being flexible. Class goes ok. Several of the students were having bad days and were not participating.

Period 7: Special education coordinator comes to observe some of the classified students in my class, which is a disaster for even the students who are on-level academically since there are 29 kids packed into my room, the majority of them disrespectful and talkative most of the time and it's impossible to stay focused. I also had a gigantic stack of papers to pass back. The kids all decided to skip out on the first 10 minutes of class...awesome. We got started late, by the time I passed back their things I was ridiculously off schedule and flustered since there was someone else in my room watching. Period ended with too quick of a lesson, not enough practice, and me saying "oh well, it's your fault you still need to do the homework" and to top it all off I lost patience and yelled. Great.

Period 8: My face was red and flustered from Period 7. Didn't get anything prepped so the kids came in and I was just done mentally. Tried to act not too affected by my day. The kids were great and understanding. But due to my lack of caring and lack of management by the end of the class period there was a lot of unruly chatter and confusion as the kids were talking over me and I couldn't get anything done.

End of day: Student comes in for extra help (finally someone is using my offer to stay after school.. just happened to not be the day I felt like doing it). Ended up with him probably more confused than when he came in.

Post-end of the day: Find out a student has a problem with me. Don't know why, don't know why... cherry on top of the cake.

Finally leave school: Stop at the gym cause if I don't I'll be even more miserable since I was planning on going for the first time in 2 months. Ended up only staying for 20 minutes. Lame. Went grocery shopping. Not a good idea to do when you're upset and hungry and tired.

El fin.

Lessons learned:
1. I still have a lot to learn as a teacher.
1b. I'm really not that good at instruction. If another student raises their hand and says, "I don't understand," I might cry.
1c. I have no idea what to do when one student doesn't get it but I'll lose the rest of the class if I stop to help that one and I have no times in between classes to have them stay and no one comes to my room after school for assistance.
2. My bad mood definitely affects my students, which I see more now that I have 5 classes a day instead of being with the same students. Before it was easy to just blame the bad days on them. Now it is very clearly mostly because of me.
3. I need to find a better way to pass back homework. My procedures suck in my classroom and they are causing me to flounder.
4. I need to be better prepared with modifications and extra work so students of all levels can function and learn.
5. I still talk too much. I need to let the kids practice more. At least the first few weeks were jam-packed with hands on fun things. I guess I can take a hit this week.

Here's to tomorrow.

Pancho

2 weeks ago I got sick. The Friday that I returned to school I was not feeling the greatest, very weak and honestly not in the mood to deal with teenagers all day long. However, 3rd period came around and a class of 9th graders entered my room. They were a bit rowdy (it was Friday after all) and so I braced myself for a tiring lots-of-energy-required-to-keep-students-focused class.

Then the unexpected happened. Some of the girls chose to sit way in the back. When I asked them to move forward their response was they couldn't because their [imaginary] friend Pancho was sitting in their normal seat up front. I took a deep breath, ready to chastise them and tell them again to move forward, but then I rethought myself. Why not just go with it? So I did. And all class I acknowledged Pancho as a student. He even gave a 10 second presentation since he was "absent" when the rest of the class presented. And you know what? The class went from stressful to fun. The kids got a kick out of it and it made me smile to play make-believe with them while not hindering the lesson for the day.

Since then I've been reflecting on Pancho. I think he has taught me a valuable lesson that has been in the back of my mind, but my busy responsibilities have kept it from me: That it's ok to have fun with my students, that it's ok to enjoy life. Since I've started teaching I've been trying to figure out who I am as a teacher. So far I've been trying to assert my authority (and all that jazz) that I've forgotten my "camp counselor" side where I connect with teenagers through silliness and at times, deep thought.

I feel like this idea of having fun also is a bigger reminder for my life outside of my job as well. To this point, this year has been full of work and stress and more work and more stress. I haven't been doing a whole lot to enjoy myself or spend time in fellowship with others. A whole month has gone by and I don't think I've talked to anyone outside of A.J. and my roomates for more than 20 minutes. I'm just trying to survive day-to-day. I tried to shake it up and decided to take a tap class, but last week when I went I couldn't help but feel how tense my body was from all my anxiety and my workload.

Then if I zoom out even more, I am convicted of the fact that I have been treating my relationship with God as another thing on my to-do list. Another burden that I have to carry. I've been stressing about getting back to the constant fellowship I felt with Him when I was in college. But I've spent so much time analyzing what I'm doing wrong that I've forgotten that it's as simple as just loving Him and worshipping Him with all my heart, after that the rest will follow.

I want so much for my time in Newark to mean something, to be worth it. But I think I might be trying too hard. I stress about not connecting with my students or not being able to love them well cause I want to also teach them well. Pancho was a reminder that I can teach and love and have fun and connect just by being myself and enjoying where God has me, by enjoying Him and realizing His love for me.

This short life has so much more to offer than a paycheck and pat on the back for lessons well-planned. There's love and joy at every corner where He's waiting for us to join in.