Ch- ch- ch- ch- changes!

So, I'm finally starting this blog that I planned to start approximately 15 times already. Original plan: Write about my trials and tribulations with cooking, baking and such. Post pictures. Talk about restaurants I've visited. Etc. If you know me, you know I love to find and try new recipes and share the food with my friends and family. (Here comes the but) But, finding time to cook is hard enough, so reflecting (that's for you, teacher friends) on the food I just cooked/baked/burned became too laborious.

So, here I am, 4 days into student teaching and I've decided that the best way for me to use this blog is to document my experiences along the way. If graduate school has taught me one thing (and this may be the only, ahem, most important thing it has taught me) it is how to reflect. But this point, the word reflect has become sort of like nails on a chalkboard. So instead, at times I might refer to this blog as my opportunity to complain, cry, scream or something other than the "R" word.

Let's see...day 4. I totally should have started this Monday, or perhaps Sunday when I was in a complete and utter anxiety-induced panic. Have I told you I'm a planner? I like to know what's going to happen 3, 4, 5, days/months/years down the road. It's a sickness, I know. Nevertheless, starting student teaching without a clear picture of what lies ahead was more than scary to me. Today, I am much more at ease.

I say that phrase lightly. At ease. I am as much at ease as I can be at the moment, with a unit on the Diary of Anne Frank that has yet to be planned, a barely put together nouns unit that starts in a week and a Martin Luther King, Jr. lesson that needs to be taught tomorrow. Oh yeah and the lesson plans I have to write for every single lesson I teach in the next two weeks. (Come on, we all know how to write lesson plans already.)

Despite all that, I am somewhat at ease. I know what topics I will be teaching in the next few weeks and my cooperating teachers have given me a lot of material to get started planning. And, I have found two things to be thankful for. (Three, if you count wine.) My cooperating teachers, "F" & "C" are awesome. They are incredibly easy going and extremely helpful whenever I have a question. They have made me feel welcome in their classroom, are encouraging and supportive. I am lucky to have been paired with great teachers.

That is all for now. Tales from 8th grade, to be continued...