Notes of a TFA-er: Halfway.

Here am I. On the fourth of July. Am I on the beach in Sheboygan all day laying out and then watching fireworks late at night, you ask? No, no I'm not. I'm actually lesson planning all night. But that's okay, because I figure as long as I got to spend our freedom holiday up until now (finally) outside in my swimsuit with Liz and Karley, then I can spend the night doing things that contribute to the educational freedom of my awesome kids. See what I did there? Just being optimistic. I think the founding fathers would have liked that.

I AM HALFWAY DONE WITH INSTITUTE. Whaa? How? Can it be? In just a few short weeks this whirlwind will be over, I'll be moving into an apartment, and my real life teaching gig will begin. I'm amazed at how quickly this is all happening. How quickly life is all happening! Here's a list of some shtuff that is going on as I'm looking back on my first 7 days of teaching summer school and forward to the next 7.

1. Friends make things better. While it's hard to make real friends in the midst of 800 sleep-deprived crazed new teachers, I am managing to meet some fun people! My co-teacher Zach spends about 15 hours of his day listening to my weird comments and somehow chooses to not kill me. That makes us friends, right? I've met tons of other inspirational, hilarious, fun, and energetic personalities while I'm here too. I'm realizing that lots of people actually use sarcasm in their daily life, just like me! (See text convo below for some proof.) Not only am I making a  few new friends, but my girl Mel came up to visit yesterday for my first ever White Sox game!! We had great seats (lie) and got to see an amazing 19-2 win. So fun. 

2. I'm running a lot these days. I mean I'm not super hardcore yet or anything, but ever since graduation I've been going as much as possible. During institute it's kind of nuts to wake up at 4:45 am to fit in 3 miles before class, but I'm managing to do so about 3 times a week. I don't even use an iPod anymore. While I used to be so annoyed with the sound of my own breathing, I feel that the electronic-free method helps me keep a steady pace as well as sort through all my thoughts and re-center my life. These days are kind of hectic days, so a stress-reliever like running seems to be doing the trick. We're about a mile from the lake here at TFA Institute, and running up the beach in the morning looking at the skyline is pretty amazing. Also, I go with people who are super chill and don't mind going at my really slow pace. And sometimes they threaten to race me, like my friend Colin, as you can see below. 

3. Sweat. The sweat. Nobody told me that to be a teacher you have to deal with living in your own filth all day long. It is the MOST I'VE SWEAT IN MY WHOLE LIFE. My classroom has its own AC unit, but honestly it barely helps. The second I walk up the 3 flights of stairs to my classroom in 93 degree heat, it starts. The first day of class I had on a light blue dress shirt. Big mistake. My sweat stains were making me not want to lift up my arms, which made for very awkward hand gestures and writing on the board. Like I was some sort of weird self-conscious waddling penguin with my arms at my side. I think I need a prescription. As a TFA-er, I think I need to start SOLUTION BASED THINKING and deal with this sweating problem ASAP.

4. Rollercoaster Time. I've only been teaching for seven days and I'm realizing what an up-and-down job this is going to be. Monday was terrible. The mood of the room was so negative and I'm fairly sure the only thing anyone learned is how to make me feel like a major amateur. Tuesday was fabulous, nobody misbehaved to the point that I had to keep them in for their lunch period, and my lesson went well. I'm seeing that it's going to be majorly important to seek emotional stability...no stress-out-freak-outs are going to be solving anything. I'm learning to take deep breaths instead of hyperventilate when stuff goes awry.

5. Which leads me to THE 'TUDES! Oh the attitudes of some of my students! I love it. When I call them out for the sass, it just builds up even more, slinging back at me ten times faster. I'm fairly certain this is God's method of justice for all the crap I dished out to my elementary school teachers in my day. When I was in school, even in college, I just couldn't keep my mouth shut. I always had (and still have) comments and sarcastic crap to say to show that I was on top of everything. While I see how this is insanely annoying in my own students, it's also really fun. They've got spunk. It makes me excited for their future years, because if they can figure out how to channel those 'tudes into powering their own cool adventures with their own cool voice, they will have an amazing ride ahead of them.

6. Teaching involves dealing with bodily functions. If you want details on one particularly egregious example of this, ask me about it. I love telling the story, but I feel wrong embarrassing one particular 12-year-old on my own blog.

7. The lookalikes are continuing. Two fellow teachers told me I looked like Zooey Deschanel last week and I died right on the spot of fangirl geekdom. Then I realized that some people equate being female, brunette, and possessing bangs to being twins. But I'm going to go ahead and take it wherever I can get it. Also, one of my students told me on Monday that I look like an American Girl Doll. Molly in particular. Velma first, now Molly? Although these are not necessarily my fashion icons, I can't disagree with them all that much. Shoot. Check her out below, and if you're not completely creeped out (dolls really scare me), you be the judge of the resemblance.

8. The little things make my day. Whether that's a text from a good friend asking if my day of teaching went well, or the fact that One Direction is playing on the radio on ride home, I get through the stress of starting this whole teaching thing by the little stuff. One of these little things was found on a survey that we gave our students about how they felt about our classroom culture a week into teaching. While most of them gave generic answers, and my co-teachers got MUCH better reviews than I did, one of the kids who was evaluating me wrote that they feel they want to push themselves and reach for college because of summer school. Believe me, I've been told I'm a BORING teacher and that summer school is DUMB and they HATE the book we're reading and WHY do I need to do this because this is so STUPID and why can't anything we do be FUN. But read that one review and try to wipe the smile off my face. You can't. 

Institute, Part Deux, is upon me. It's goin' down.