Monday. Bah Humbug.

It's 10:06 PM and I am in lying in bed thinking, "how is today over?"  Seriously, where did Monday go?  We didn't start off on the right foot today.  When the 4:30 AM alarm went off I managed to convince myself that the battle with my running shoes and the pavement was not worth it.  That was a bad idea because I then continued to convince myself waking up wasn't necessary until it was after 6:00 and very necessary.  Next I realized I hadn't bought groceries and had no food for breakfast or lunch.  Breakfast turned into the only thing I could find in the fridge - a tuna fish quesadilla.  Then that quesadilla ended up on the floor.  It's ok, blow on it twice, brush it off, and it's good as new.  Then that same quesadilla ended up on my car/garage floor.  Once again, blow on it twice, brush it off, good as new.  The copy machine ran out of paper, I realized 6 exams were MIA, I lost the 45-day surveys, and realized I never made a powerpoint for the lesson 5 minutes after class started.  The nice thing is I've become extremely flexible as a teacher and somehow made it through the day.

I'm not supposed to pick favorites, but if I could, these would be their self-portraits

Now I'm going to brag.  My students scored a 75% average on a really hard test last week.  Their first test was a 65% average.  Booyah!  I literally skipped out of my classroom after I graded their exam on Thursday.  My other class scored an 87% average on a quiz today that I did not think they were ready for.  In the middle of everything going wrong this morning, I found four, sweet letters from past students in my box.  Today we started systems of equations which I love and in 4 days I'm going to Austin for Fall Break.

Systems of Equations are my favorite because we bring out the Chickens and Pigs

I'm a Survivor

I made it through the 5 week Teach for America Institute!  It was madness.  I was cramming with one of my students until one minute before grades were due, but the final result was wonderful.  100% of my students passed the class.  After a mid-semester assessment that every student failed I was seriously concerned, but we did it!  And I think they actually kind of liked me.  Bonus!  It just about brought tears to my eyes when one of the really quiet students came up to me on the last day and gave me the tightest hug and said, "thank you so much for helping me."  The first time he took algebra II he didn't pass.  This time he got an A.  The week after institute I had orientation where we learned about unit plans and had more specific training that focused on our content area, like mathematics.  Next Thursday I start my district training and I can't wait for that.  Each step I am getting more focused on my content area, my school, and my students and it is all so exciting.  I also can't wait for some free time to explore the new place I live!

Love my collab - Katie, Javier, and Allie (and me)

Institution

I can think of 1,000,000 other things I could be doing right now.  Institute is crazy.  I'm finally beginning to understand why my teachers said there was not enough time in a day.  Even though institute is absolutely insane and I'm always grading papers, writing lesson plans, printing copies, attending classes myself, and lucky if I get 5 hours of sleep at night, I am loving this.  The average day at institue looks something like this:

4:45 wake up
5:45 - 6:30 ride the bus to go to Westview High School
6:30 - 7:00 handing back papers and student trackers and getting ready for class
7:00 - 7:15 monitoring the hall
7:15 - 8:00 working on lesson plans
8:00 - 11:00 attending curriculum and literacy sessions/lesson planning
11:00 - 12:30 teach math
12:30 - 1:30 lunch
1:30 - 3:30 more curriculum and literacy sessions
4:00 - 4:45 ride the bus back to ASU

Then my night continues with planning lessons, printing homework, grading quizzes, writing/grading quizzes, attending evening sessions, and hopefully going to sleep by midnight.  There was an hour and a half of sleep in there one night last week.  It is hard, but I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  I'm learning so much about being a teacher.  The best part of my day is definitely when I'm teaching class.  My students are great.  They have a hard time with simple mathematic operations, like adding and subtracting, which can be extremely frustrating, but I'm really enjoying getting to know them and watching them learn the material.

I've heard life after institute is easier, but I'm wondering how that can possibly be true.  How can it get easier when I have 6 classes of 30 + students rather than 1 class of 20?  And taking masters classes at ASU on Thursday nights.  I can't even think about that right now.

I've finished my first week of teaching and two more weeks to go, then final assessments.  As much as I love this, I am really looking forward to July 6 when institute ends!

We're attempting to stay sane in our classroom....it's not working very well