A Light at the End of the Tunnel

Well, after three and a half horror-filled months, I think I'm finally getting the hang of this "teaching" thing. Sort of. Here are some highlights from the past couple of months:

• 2nd quarter, new 7th graders. So far so good--they actually shut up and listen (most of time) when I try to get their attention. No where NEAR as loud as the first batch. I hope that means I'm getting better at classroom management. :)



• JPAS. My principal showed up at a horrible time to observe me, but I still got a decent score overall. My classroom management rating is waaaay low, but I made up for it in student interaction.



• After a half a dozen one-on-one talks, 4 calls home, and much conferring with the administration, one of my worst kids transferred over to Study Skills. May I never have to deal with him again.



• I went to Bakersfield and met my nephew!! I was a baby-hog, too. My mom does not have many pictures of the kid without me in them too. HE'S SO CUTE!



• My 2nd worst kid's mommy came in and had it out with ALL THREE ADMINISTRATORS--she thinks everyone's picking on her pwecious widdle boy. The day before he'd yelled "Shut the hell up!" to one student and told another he felt like stabbing him. What was I thinking when I referred him to the office?! They ended up giving him a behavior contract; he lasted about a week. Now he spends my class everyday in the office doing bookwork. I work for a wonderful principal.
  



• My roommate / landlady got married. After much agonizing and searching on ksl.com and apartment shopping, I finally decided to keep renting a room in her house. She's moved in with her husband and the house is for sale, but I can stay until the house sells. Which will hopefully be sometime mid-June. That would be perfect for me. :)



• After deciding against a dog, my own apartment and an iMac, I bought a piano. HEY! I've been suffering this "real job" thing for four months! I deserved to spend some money!!
  



• I taught my first sunday school lesson on Sunday. I've never taught in church before, and I was paranoid I'd have waaay more time than I could use, so I wrote a 5-page lesson plan. I covered approximately 1/8 of that plan during my lesson. :) Oh well. I've been teaching for nearly a year now (including student teaching), so I guess I should have seen that one coming.
  



• I'm trying really hard to get involved with my ward. Really! I was going to go to this regional YSA activity a couple of weeks ago, but I forgot. Seriously. I usually come up with some excuse, but this time I really truly forgot. So this time, I signed up to bring dessert to the Christmas party on Friday. I have an obligation, so I can't possibly forget!
  



• I'm 100% finished with my Christmas shopping--nearly three weeks before Christmas!!! Don't think I've ever achieved THAT before. And I only got lost in Midvale and West Jordan 5 or 6 times!
  



• My keyboarding class--the one with 35 kids--actually shut up and WORKED today. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen! And all I had to do was change the talkers' citizenship grades from "H" (honors) to "N" (Needs Improvement)! Why didn't I think to do that before?!?



• I survived the CO2 car unit with my Tech kids. The control box for the race track fried about 10 minutes before class started, and I was pretty pissy to the kids that period because I was so stressed out...but it all worked out in the end. I launched the cars manually, and only got about 30 face-fulls of CO2, cold fingers, and one busted knuckle. No too bad, for me. XP

Guess that's all my news. Life is pretty good, right now. I've been entrenched in my private pit of despair for way too long--it feels good to be happy again. :D