Back to the Grind

It's been almost a week since my last blog. Why? Because I went back to work. I forgot how much time work takes. After over two months off, it's terribly exhausting. I know, right now you are feeling really bad for me because I had to work one week after having nine off.

Honestly though, after yesterday I realized how excited I am to start another school year. My students' first day was on Thursday, and it went just fine. The first day of school is kind of chaotic with schedule changes, weird bell schedules, giving out and explaining a billion handouts, and trying to find your way around the new school (for the freshmen and me). Even though I felt pretty good after the first day, I was still not so excited to get up on Friday. I was tired, stressed about everything I needed to get done, and not really mentally prepared to teach my first lesson to each of my classes. All of that changed when I started teaching the lesson in first period. In both first and second periods (Geometry), my students were (seemingly) interested, answering my questions, asking their own, working together, and understood what we were talking about. It was exhilirating. My third period (Algebra 2) started much slower and took a little longer to get going, but once it did it was amazing. (Side note: our scheduled lunch is in the middle of that class period). I even had about three students stay during the first couple minutes of lunch to have me check and explain the examples they were working on. Seriously...what high schooler sacrifices lunch time for math? When they got back from lunch it went even better...they were working so well together, helping each other out, unexpected students were answering questions, and one student begged for an extra example to do on his own. I seriously could not stop smiling. It absolutely confirmed that I love what I do. Teaching is both my passion and calling. Come June I will want and appreciate another summer off, but I know all of the hours I will have spent working and stressing will have been worth it. I know I'm still young and only started teaching last year, but my advice to you: if you haven't found a job/career that you love doing and look forward to, keep looking.

Alright enough blogging for now...I have eight days worth of lesson planning/note making to get done by Monday.