First Quarter - Check

I absolutely cannot believe that the first marking period is over, and we are already 3 weeks into the second one... On the verge of Thanksgiving Break! Our county is awesome (rare, I'll get into that later) because we are the only county to have the entire week off for break. Of course, "off" means Monday and Tuesday no kids, just parent-teacher conferences. But I get an incredible amount of work done during this time, that it's refreshing to get caught back up and ahead of lesson planning. My co-teacher is bringing some old traditions from our middle school and some new ones to this week too: the Chili Cook-Off and a flag football game during our "half-work-day" Tuesday. I am SO looking forward to it. One more week to go.

So what on earth has been going on?

Coaching volleyball...

I love our spirit shirts. They are super comfy to wear, even if a medium was ridiculously large on me.

Our volleyball season ended on such a sad note. I have grown to bond with these girls every single day after school (for hours upon hours) and now, when the school day ends, my classroom is empty of volleyball gear/bags, girls studying/eating bagels/chatting about their day... And many of the girls were "recruited" for the varsity team when they went to playoffs. We are planning a student-teacher volleyball game to fundraise for our player's brother who passed away at the end of the season.

We have an incredibly dangerous road in the community's neighborhood: students swerved and ran off-road at the start of this past summer and then there was an accident on Halloween night. It was so very heartbreaking and the school is still reeling from the losses and injuries of that evening. We have a "Dena Promise" where students make the pledge to never drive drunk or distracted - and never get in a car with a drunk/distracted driver. Our county executive has issued a study to be done on that road, so hopefully something good can come out of such a dark time.

But, I love these girls and can't wait till next season - or when we can start conditioning for next year.

Being a student...

Grad school is kicking my booty, but that's nothing new. I'm in my research class (next semester, actually completing the ACTION research) and studying the effect of participating in school-sponsored sports on academic achievement. It was fitting, and should be relatively easy to do with my volleyball team and other student athletes. Hoping to pull off this A. I've certainly put in a lot of time!

Love life...

Eric moved into the place in September, so we've been living together for a couple months now. He keeps me a little more organized! It gets hard during the school year, I still feel like I don't have time to do things around the house and actually GET FURNITURE... Why does that always seem like an issue? I think I'm nervous about spending money. I stopped working at the restaurant, but it seems like grad school has filled in that time.

Friends...

Also spent some time with my godson and best friends. I love them! I cannot believe that Chase is going to be two next year and Ash is going to have little Cassie in February. 

We had such a great time at Gaver Farm! The best part of the day was watching little man interact with the animals. He loved to see them and stick his fingers in the cages (although that resulted in a goat nipping at him... he cried for a second and still didn't learn that it was probably a bad idea to keep putting his fingers directly in the line of an animal's teeth). AND WE SAW COWS! I love cows. I don't think anyone knows how much I love cows unless you've actually seen me cry about people eating cows.

I have to say, the more that I think about everyone moving on to different parts of their lives - getting married, having babies - I become a little bit more nervous about leaving this part of my life behind. I'm actually perfectly content with where I'm at, but the pressure to get married/have kids/etc. is out there. People like to say it isn't out there and that it's easy to ignore, and I have to say that THAT IS A LIE. For some of us, it's easy to get away from social media and the latest engagement announcement... But for others, it's hard not to feel a tinge of feeling left out. Feeling like the rest of your friends are kind of "moving on" without you. I could go on about this, but I'm in a relatively good mood right now, so I'll stop while I'm ahead.

Teaching in the county...

There have been so many issues going on with our county lately, and I won't delve into a lot of them because of sensitivity issues. Bottom line is: our step increases have been frozen for 7 years, teachers are angry...

High school...

I love this high school teaching world more than anything. And I knew I would. I miss my coworkers from middle school, but I wouldn't go back to that level. It takes a special kind of a person to teach middle school, and that person is not me, unless I wanted to have grey hairs before 30 and stress issues for the rest of my life. Granted, there are stressors at this level, but I enjoy it so much more. That's not to discourage anyone from trying out the middle school field... Please do. It taught me so much and I would not be the teacher that I am today if I did not begin at that level.

I'll be posting some of my lessons and strategies soon!