a new day (or) fall leaves

i indeed get over my difficulty with the classroom and the emotional trauma and challenge it took for me to wake up every morning and go to school. i spent that last weekend with my parents who took me away to bethesda, maryland to get out of the city and to just have a relaxing weekend. it was relaxing but my mind kept turning over the idea that as soon as they left, i'd have to get back to business and i'd have to face this terrible beast of a job called teaching.

i went back to school on tuesday (we had monday off) and it wasn't as bad as i remembered it but it wasn't the greatest week and i was just happy that i survived it. i'm coming to realize that it's not easy to have an attitude above and beyond surviving. i have a lot of good ideas but i won't do anything that will make it impossible for me to survive. sometimes, i find that my teaching techniques are not the greatest, but as long as i can get through it okay, it works. and this sounds lazy and definitely not the philosophy i was taught in undergrad but teaching is so difficult, time-consuming and unlike anything else that you can't help but try to just survive. especially in your first year.

anyway, the point is that i made it through that rough patch and i'm back to feeling somewhat like myself. another thing i am realizing is that there are two distinct differences between myself as a teacher and myself as an individual. the more intertwined the two became, the more i felt like i was drowning. that also means that there has to be two separate lives...one for the teacher me and one for the real life me. although teaching is in real life, but you know what i mean.

some positive points...the leaves are changing colors!!! i'm so excited! i'm going to put the these i've picked in between wax paper and iron over them so i can preserve them forever. it's amazing to have my first fall! :D at the age of 22 haha...

i've also been noticing that when i wake up in the morning, the first thought in my mind is to say a prayer so that i can make it through the day. it makes me so happy that finally, i've gotten to a point where the first thing i do is to say a prayer and that i has become a priority for me. i really like working at a catholic school because it forces me to be a role model for these students.

although my program is not as spiritual or community like as i had anticipated..i feel as though god has graced me through teaching in a catholic school, where i find the spiritual aspect and the community aspect as well as in the friends i have met here, especially lisa, who is my community and she herself is spiritual as well. god takes care of his own, i guess.

we've just submitted our campus action plan..we'll find out at the end of the october if we are 1. allowed to pursue our goal of raising money and becoming an independent catholic school to stay open or 2. if we are NOT allowed to become an independent school and we will turn charter or close.

i'll make sure to update more once we find out.

love and peace to you.

quick update (or) waiting for my roommate to get out of the bathroom

so, i think this past weekend was my breaking point. i didn't go into work on friday because i felt terrible both physically and mentally. i cried a majority of the weekend wondering why this job was so overwhelming and difficult. my parents are here for a little bit because they are vacationing in new jersey and flew into/are going to fly out of dc. it was nice to see them but i had major withdrawals when they left me here on sunday to plan and to get things together for tuesday (columbus day holiday). anyway, it was terrible and when i went back to school on tuesday, i dreaded having the kids there. i just wanted them to go away so badly....and well, they all came and were the same as they always are. i talked with a few roommates before going to bed on monday night and it was helpful to hear them say that the first year is always the most difficult and that they don't remember how they got through it because they wanted to forget it so badly.

it just sucks so badly because everyone says the first year of teaching is the most difficult but they don't give you advice on how to survive emotionally. for the mechanics in my classroom, i feel pretty confident that i can seek advice from certain teachers and be able to implement those ideas but it's the emotional ties that are drowning me. i think up until this past week, there was no separation of danie as a teacher and danie as a person. now i feel like i'm finally able to separate some of my life out. it's too bad i chose teaching because i think i would really like a 9-5 job where i can leave in the evening and not take anything home with me, both literally and figuratively.

this sounds bad, but i really hope that some of my students are not there tomorrow. it just makes things so much easier for me and it sounds bad right now but it's true. and i'll admit it, there are things that i do inside my classroom to allow myself to survive instead of what is always instructionally best for the students. for example, one day i just needed the students to feel what it was like to work in silence (also i needed a break) and so i had them draw. i just had them sit and draw or sit and read..whatever they wanted to do so it could be quiet. and boy, did i enjoy those 5 minutes! it was a god send.

i'm also learning to find small things that go well in my day. there are so many things that are not going well that if i focus on those things, i'll die of depression...seriously.

i'm hoping this past weekend was my rough patch and that everything from now on will pale slightly in comparison...


sigh...off to bed so i can wake up and do it again tomorrow.....