It's been a really long time since I've ventured over to this space and gave y'all an update, and I apologize for that. To say that the last month has been crazy would be an understatement. Since May 7, I have:
- Finished up my job at General Mills (and trained my backfill)
- Moved out of my house in Minneapolis
- Moved onto my friends' couch for 2 weeks in Minneapolis
- Shipped all my earthly belongings to a Charlotte storage unit
- Made the 18+ hour drive from Minneapolis to Charlotte with my mom
- Said goodbye to the Twin Cities
- Spent a week in Charleston, SC, with my family & Alex
- Said good-bye to Alex for 6 weeks (He's in Spain!)
- Freaked out
- Moved out of my storage unit and into a great house in Charlotte with 2 amazing girls
- Had TFA induction at JCSU in Charlotte (made some great new friends!)
- Packed up enough clothes, toiletries, teacher supplies, bedding, a printer, etc, for 5 weeks in Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Driven to Tulsa, Oklahoma (with a pit stop in Nashville, TN, to see Sarah!)
- Moved into a dorm for the first time since freshman year at IU in 2006
- Found out I'll be teaching 8th grade math at Hale High School this summer
- Survived my first week of institute (think LONG 16-18 hour days, lots of classroom management, lesson planning, etc, being thrown at you, and spending all your time with people you've know for 2 weeks or less)
- Found out I'll be teaching THIRTY-SEVEN kids this summer
- Freaked out
- Decorated my classroom with my co-lab (team of 4 that rotates through teaching our class - 2 ELA teachers and 2 Math)
- Freaked out again
- Wrote lesson plans on decimals, rational numbers, linear equations, positive and negative slope, and solving one-step equations
- Discovered I'm more type A than I thought ... kind of love writing lesson plans
- Met the kiddos I'll be teaching for the summer (only 25 actually!) They're awesome.
- Discovered that educational inequity - the reason TFA exists - it's a real thing. And my kids have been the victims of it.
- Fell in love with the classroom already
- Taught my first lesson plan on Comparing and Ordering Decimals
- Had a kid tell me I made the material make sense to him for the first time (yay!)
- Completely didn't see a kid on his phone for 40 minutes yesterday morning
- Realized I've got a lot to learn
- Confirmed that this is exactly what I want to do with my life
Well, it's 5:54 am (I've been up since 5) and I have to wrap up a few things before I head to breakfast and then to Hale for school! I'm teaching on Comparing and Ordering Rational Numbers today - get excited!
I'll try to give a more detailed update on what this whole teaching thing is like. In short, though, I'm falling in love with it and have developed the utmost respect for the people who taught me and invested in me throughout my life.
Happy Wednesday!
