bountiful blessings

so over the last two weeks, i've been moving towards a greater degree of flipping out. nothing i had imagined had prepared me for these first two weeks of teaching in my own classroom. i had refused to cry, but on monday, i finally had my own little meltdown. and truth be told, i felt better after i just let it all out. i don't know that i've ever felt this humbled on a daily basis. it sucks feeling like you have no idea what you're doing day-to-day while 31 kids are looking to you for direction and driving you a little crazy in the process.

inspite of all the classroom craziness, i have seriously been blessed by the encouragement, care, thoughtfulness, and love of friends who have seriously come to my aid whether they are aware of it or not. through their words, gestures, assistance, and concern i have felt the blessing, presence, and strength of God. thank you all for helping me in the classroom with setting up, for correcting homework and papers, for helping me plan, for giving me ideas, for sharing your teaching experiences (or that of other teachers you know), for making me dinner, giving me a hug on an especially bad day, for calling to check on how i'm doing, and telling me that i'm not incompetent even though i feel like i am. y'all are keeping me sane!

head above water

day 5 of teaching. i haven't cried yet...but i want to. today was not the best day. one boy called some girls a "bad word" - you can guess which it was. another boy was closed-fist pounding on a boy who said something to him that he didn't like. after school, he had to tell his mom and dad what he did and why it was that they were called in. he started crying, which made me want to cry - my eyes did get red. my literacy coach, who facilitated the conversation told me afterwards that i need to hold my response in better. i agree...but it was just so sad watching this little boy cry and confess.

oh goodness...it's only the fifth day of school!!! it's days like today that really make me question my ability to teach. one of the worst things is when i see their little faces and how bored they are. so sad. i'm barely keeping it together. i just want to make it to friday. every week just cannot be like this one. i think i might lose it.

one day at a time

today wasn't as bad as friday. i didn't want to quit at the end of the day today, which i will take as a good sign. this morning, on my way to school, i was praying in the car "Lord, i don't know if i'm cut out for this teaching thing. please help me to work through my confusion and..." when suddenly the car to my right tries to change lanes into the space that i was occupying! i swerve left to avoid being completely hit - thank goodness the lane to the left was empty. then my car swerves severely back to the right - felt like fish-tailing. and all the driver of the car can do is wave an arm out the window. seriously. after my heart started beating again, i was like "Lord, is this a sign? are you trying to tell me something?" i'm still pondering that one. all insights into this one are welcome.

exhausted

i was at school for training all week. the last 3 days, i haven't left school earlier than 6pm. today was my first day of school with the students. there are 31 of them. seriously...it's so many people. trying to manage that many is so tiring. but, no one cried today. no one was out of control. no one exhibited any violent or seriously negative behavioral tendencies...yet. all in all, i survived. after school, i was talking with some of the other first year teachers and many of us had been thinking the same thing, that we might need to look into a new profession. we're only kidding...sort of, but seriously, we are so out of our element. nothing in student teaching really prepares you for having your own classroom. NOTHING. i'm glad it's the weekend. i hope it's long enough of a time for me to recover. but next week - i already have anxiety over all the different subjects i have to teach and prep.

but the scariest thing of all, i'm now the one responsible for teaching them to the best of my ability, which really isn't much right now. and if i don't do my job well, they could end up with crazy tendencies...you know...calling "goblets" gauntlets or saying "jarbled" instead of garbled and then blaming me, their 4th grade teacher (JC and DVJ - you have given me nightmares - kidding).

i think i realized today that what social life i did have, will no longer exist. so sad. i grieve for it.

infestation repeat?

i came home only to discover that ants have once again invaded my bathroom. i just spent 30 minutes spraying every single ant in sight with ammonium windex. i hate ants. i really, really, really hate them. i'm hoping that when i wake up they will be gone because they will surely drive me crazy.

musical madness

over the weekend, i got the chance to see a couple of shows. on friday night, my friend alexandra and i went to see adam pascal (originated the role of roger from RENT in both the movie and on broadway) perform in brentwood. he sang both his own original songs and songs from various stage shows, including "one song glory" from RENT and "what i did for love" from a chorus line. i really liked his rendition of "what i did for love."

he was pretty funny and had really good stage presence. alexandra and i have decided that it really does matter. apparently just being able to sing isn't enough these days. after the show, we heard whispering that he was planning on coming out and signing autographs. neither of us wanted his autograph, but we did want to get a better picture of him. so while we hung around outside waiting, we noticed that the crowd waiting around with us was comprised of a particular demographic - while the audience during the performance was pretty mixed in terms of gender, age, and ethnicity - the waiting for the meet/greet was mostly a drama club crowd. we heard some pretty funny and catty commentary from the girls on the fringes towards the girls who were closer to the fence/gate separating them from adam.

during the concert, adam pascal played guitar with this dude in the picture. piano guy larry is currently helping adam write his next album. we saw him just standing around in the hall by himself while all the small, but rabid, crowd was surrounding adam. so, we went to take a photo with him.


on saturday, i went to the hollywood bowl to see a stage production of the sound of music. i had originally thought it was a sing-a-long, but it turned out to be a musical instead.
we were sitting in the super-far nosebleed benches, but it was a lot of fun. we got to bring our own food/desserts and wine, which we drank out of blue plastic cups - so classy. it was so cool to see the surround hills and hear the coyotes while we were sitting there. i can't wait to see something else at the bowl. for the stage show, some actors played the popular roles. clark's dad from smallville played captain von trapp (also of dukes of hazzard fame), teri hatcher's "daughter" from desparate housewives played liesl, and jeffrey tambor (arrested development) played uncle max. and while i couldn't see their faces at all, even on the big jumbo screens, i'm still counting them in my short-list of celeb "sightings."