Anticipating the Snow day...

It's the day of the year that every student dreams of. On the eve of a prospective snow day, the students take time to perform various rituals to ensure that a frosty holiday is enveitable. These rituals include, but not limited to... Turning your shirt around backwards (did this become the fad after Kriss Kross or before)...flushing ice down the toilet, not sure what this will accomplish, but I have noticed that several teachers also participate in the ice flushing tribute to the Snow King.

It has been my experience that TEACHERS are the true Snow Day hopefuls. We check the weather every hour, talk about the possible logistics of a snow day, plan lessons incase school is canceled early, speak in hushed tones so as not to alert the students, and pray silent prayers after each class period.

On the day that massive blizzard should occur, teachers wake up twenty minutes before the alarm goes off. We sit in bed, with on the TV on, eyes focused on the School Closing list. As each name flies alphabetically across the screen, we inhale and hold it until our name appears. It is most dissappointing when our school name never shows. BUT, we do not lose hope. We continue to listen to the radio, in hopes that our school with be a last minute closing, but still no cancelations. We arrive at school, hoping, praying, and crossing our fingers that the snow will increase and the school will shut down early....

What will it be? Entire day off, a half day off, or the most painful....Nothing!

I am a list maker...

I make lists....lots of lists. To do lists, grocery lists, book lists, craft lists....the "list" goes on and on. My problem is that I can hardly ever cross anything off of these lists. The grocery lists, well, I take it with me to the store and invariably I forget half of what was on there, and buy more than what I needed. My To Do lists for school are there to remind me of upcoming assignments that are due, or tasks I need to complete before the next class period. I wait and refer to these in the final hour before the tasks are supposed to be finished.
Each Monday I go to classes for my Master's degree... and each Monday my lists grow larger, and more detailed.....and YET.... the following Monday I show up without papers I was supposed to complete.

I need a list to help remind me of my list.

New kids scare me...

In December I finished my first rotation as an intern (student teacher) at a local middle school. Needless to say, I was petrified at first. I had never taught in front of a class before, but the experience was AAAAmazing!! Towards the end of October I began teaching for 6 weeks on my OWN! Each day I walked into the classroom and thought I was going to throw up...but once I had the awkward stares from my first period class under my belt, I was good to go!

Now I am in a new school, with new faces and names to learn, and new butterflies and stares to deal with! Its been three weeks, and so far so good. I am not quite as nervous as I was, but there is still the feeling that I should be a PRO by now! But this is a learning experience, each day holds something new that I have yet to deal with up until now, so I take one day at a time, and learn as much as I can from my new students, and (fingers crossed) hope that they might learn a little something from me.