overheard today, in the middle of a discussion about scatter plots:

“Do moles have cancer?  Do they affect your life?”

I don’t know why I found that funny, but suddenly everything my students said was hilarious.  Sometimes when I’m tired, I get really cranky or really loopy — either one, not both.  Today I was just really loopy.  We’re short on subs, so I had 2 classes in my room, which was interesting.  I don’t know how teachers in one-room schoolhouses did it.

Anyway, I think the dust is settling with teaching/school.  Things are calming down, and I am finally getting into a groove with school (6 weeks after break).  I’m realizing that as a beginning teacher your effectiveness goes like this:

Rather than this:

There are some days (and class periods) that I’m a rockstar, and some days that my students wouldn’t really notice if I weren’t there. 

At Pro-Sat on Saturday (ugh), I realized that school is actually going okay.  Usually Pro-Sat makes me feel like I’m a horrible person and that I need to overhaul everything on Monday, but I don’t really need to change anything right now.  I just need to be patient with the changes I’ve already made.

I used to believe that one’s development as a teacher was a destination you could reach.  One day you just “got there”.  But I’ve realized that it really is a process.  As cliche as it sounds, it really is all about the journey.  You have no choice but to keep moving forward. 

I’m still having BIG money problems.  As in, spending more than I make.  Given my salary and living situation, if I didn’t have any debt, I would be doing fine.  Money would be tight, but I would be okay. 

As it stands, I owe TFA $1500 and my credit cards $6000, all from the transition of moving here and getting settled.  With my minimum credit card payments and paying back my TFA loan, I’m spending more than I take in.  Cool.  I feel like TFA really let us have a misconception about how expensive this experience would be.  Right now I’m going to tighten up my budget even more, but I still have to look at summer jobs and other ways to make money.  I’m going to probably start baby-sitting on the weekends.  Just to warn all of you 2o12 CMs: make sure you have savings!!

The countdown has begun:  5 weeks till Spring Break, and after Spring Break only 8 more weeks of school!