Almost one week down...

I've been with my class now for 3 days. And I'm realizing that my writing style at school has now evolved into my blog writing style. I guess it's not all bad since my class tells me that my writing is really funny. That's a good thing right? Twenty-nine 10-year olds in a classroom leads to an interesting dynamic. With that many students, you don't have just one leader. Several students try to jump in and be the leader. And while it can lead to conflict, it gives me a chance to teach compromise and to show them that you don't always have to have a leader. Or that everyone can be a leader at certain times.

We're also discussing unity. As a teacher or a person, I can't have twenty-nine students who can't or don't know how to get along. The more unified they are, the easier my job becomes. Unless of course they all decided to mutiny or something along those lines! Children need to learn how to get along with everyone they're going to meet. It's a lesson I had to learn on my mission. We may not like everyone in this life, but we don't always get to choose who we work with or who's in our class. And to me, merely tolerating a person isn't enough. To tolerate them means you're saying "well, I just have to deal with this person for a short amount of time and then I'll never see them again." While that works well sometimes, it doesn't work in my classroom. It leads to resentment and hurt feelings. It's all about looking for the positive in other people. Is that an easy thing? No it's really not. Sometimes it's hard for us as people to look for the good in others. Especially when we don't want to like them. But having charity means loving people the way Christ loved people. And seeing others the way He did. I can't teach that in my classroom (although at times I wish I could) but I can help them to learn why it's important to look for the good in others. When we look for the good, a funny thing happens. Most of the time, all those bad things that bothered us start to disappear. They might still be there but we don't notice them as much. It really does work.

That's my challenge to you this week. If you're struggling with someone right now, look for the good in them. Don't dwell on the annoying things they do or the bad things. Only look at the good things. Write them down if you have to. And say something to them about it. Well, compliment them rather. And see what happens. I've seen students change because of that one little thing.

While you're at it, pray for my husband's hometown and the people who died today. We're having a sad evening in our house tonight.

That Time Again

I've been asking my husband all day if I have to go back to school tomorrow. He keeps looking at me like I'm crazy. So I had to explain. I love teaching but having the summer off is just so relaxing, and I get in the habit of reading and taking naps. Not to mention I now have to break my tv addiction that I get every summer! All the more reason to get pregnant soon :) But really and truly, when school starts, it's just another sign that summer is ending. Which means cold weather is coming and the year is winding down. Talk about depressing thoughts! Now that I've cheered everyone up....

Everything just gets crazy at this time of year. And it really doesn't slow down until January. So I appreciate the summer and enjoy the hot weather. Mainly because I can't stand the cold or the snow! I like snow days but I don't like snow, go figure. My husband is the complete opposite. He loves the cold weather, loves snow, loves rain. Me, I like "perfect" days. Good thing we live in a state where we can get a little bit of both.

I was just outside enjoying the weather and imagining we have another week of summer left. Which we don't. But it doesn't hurt to imagine. I have to say that having a Sunday before Monday is wonderful idea! Church was amazing today. One thing that stood out was the theme of obedience. So many people in this world complain about rules but at the same time they want to be happy. Well, we can't be happy without rules. That's the way it works. Obeying rules because we choose to, is what brings us true happiness. I wish my students would obey the classroom rules simply because they had respect and they wanted to. Not because they're afraid of punishment. Heavenly Father wants us to obey His rules because He knows we can find happiness there. We can't say we want happiness and then do the opposite of what God asks. Life doesn't work that way. We might have temporary happiness but it will never bring us the true happiness we desire. I know that for a fact.

So, follow the rules and be happy. And someone please tell me I don't have to go to school tomorrow! I'm thinking I shouldn't wish that however. Every time I wish for something along those lines, something goes wrong. We've already had an earthquake and a hurricane in the last week. I think I'm done with natural disasters for awhile. Let's hold off for a month at least.

Enjoy your last bit of summer. Spend time with your children and help them get excited about school tomorrow! I want happy kids in my class!

Fitting In

The joyful Open House was tonight. I never would have considered myself popular by any means in high school however I did have plenty of friends. After tonight's Open House, I'm learning more about me. I talked to people  in every group almost in school. Tonight, I made a connection with every parent in my classroom. And these parents are all quite different. I guess I'm more of a drifter than a person who stays with one group. You know what though, that's a really good thing. It lets me talk to lots of different people and get along with all of them. Not a bad skill to have.

However, it does wear me out quite a bit. I think I'm socially drained after tonight. I need to be isolated with just my husband for a day or two. Not that I try to please every parent or say what they want but I noticed that I did what I used to do in high school. Instead of changing myself for other people, I share with each person or group the part of me they need to see. Sad thing, not all people get to see all sides of me. Good thing, I can have things in common with tons of people. Thankfully, my husband gets to see all sides of me. Not very many people do I'm noticing. I guess I'm pretty picky about who I share all of me with. But it's a good thing I share all of me with my amazing husband. It is draining only sharing part of you with certain people. Sometimes I feel like I have to be on guard all the time to make sure I won't act in a way to upset someone.

But the parents were wonderful and I'm looking forward to another great year!

Shaking up the school year

Well, this is me. I can never ever have a normal school year or a normal anything for that matter! I think odd and strange events seem to follow me. Losing the flight crew right before the flight, brakes going out on the plane, llamas escaping the BYU-Ag center, car wreck and subsequent fire on TRAX, crazy snow storms, fires in L.A., unexpected earthquake the week I'm preparing my classroom. Maybe I'm some kind of magnet for bad events or something like that. Or it could be I happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But someone should seriously warn people when they're with me that these kinds of things happen.

It was supposed to be a nice normal day full of me getting my classroom ready for the Open House on Thursday. Instead it was me running around like crazy making sure I had everything I needed. One small blessing, got the notebooks I needed for free! Then came the meeting about math (I don't teach math by the way, but I still had to be there) and the meeting about science (I also don't teach science). Thankfully they were short and painless.

Finally have my Welcome board designed. Since I'm on a tight tight budget this school year, I had to be creative and not buy any of it. So everything is done by hand. We all know I'm not an artist by any means, I just pretend to be! I'm good at faking although it was a lot easier when I taught second grade because the kids told me I was an amazing artist. Now the kids laugh along with me and making guesses as to what I'm drawing. Usually wrong guesses of course. Anyways, we will be "Catch a Wave into 5th Grade!" The two things I was worried about making, palm trees and surfboards managed to be fairly easy. Art teacher had two palm trees and I found a surfboard template online that I spent time tracing today. Now I have to get names on the surfboards and staple them to the board.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be busy planning for next week. I also realized today that I don't have space for 29 students in my room. Well, I have space for the students but I had to rearrange quite bit. This is going to be an interesting year. Very interesting year.

Got wonderful news about my class from last year as far as state testing goes. So I'm feeling pretty good. And in the middle of being told this wonderful news, the fake walls of my classroom started shaking slightly and everything felt like a huge gust of wind blew through the school. Of course it couldn't be something normal like a gust of wind. Earthquake. That's always loads of fun let me tell you. It's funny though cause I do get excited about earthquakes for some reason. Probably because I've never had anything bad happen. I'd better go knock on wood right about now because next time I'm in an earthquake, something worse will happen. I apologize to everyone around me in advance.

And now it's time to review the Language Arts curriculum and get my Social Studies ready to go for the school year. Be safe out there. Getting ready for school is dangerous business. Tomorrow I shall have a picture of the amazing bulletin board. You can decide for yourselves if I'm an artist!

Maestra!

School

Today was the first day back without the kids. Let me tell you how my day went: I'm eating Chocolate Seduction ice cream. Does that tell you anything? I can also barely keep my eyes open.

I sat in meetings all day long which is typical the first day back but I forgot how long and tiring it is. I have laundry I have to get done today as well but I don't know if I'll stay awake to finish it.

On the plus side, I walked into my room today expecting to move around filing cabinets, desks, chairs etc. But nope. The custodians did all of that! I just need to rearrange the desks! It's wonderful actually. Downside: every year I promise myself I'm going to get organized. And every year, I end up throwing everything in cupboards at the end of the year. So I was running around like crazy today searching for everything I needed. I need to write myself notes or something at the end of the year so I remember where everything is when school starts again! That would be a good idea. Still trying to figure out what I want to put on my bulletin board to welcome back students. If you have any thoughts, feel free to let me know.

We got curriculum updates today which means planning is a little different than normal. Not to mention the fact that I still don't have my class list. Very sad actually about that one. It's a little hard to plan when I don't know how many students will be in my class. Apparently we're looking at around 30 in our homerooms. Which means I'll have 26 in my Language Arts class. It's a lot but somehow I'll make it work out. I just want names so I can make name tags and set up my grade book.

So much to do and so little time before next week. I pray I can get everything finished in time. I'm thinking about reworking some things this year for my classroom. Hopefully it'll make everything run smoother in class. I hope anyway.

Time for some sleep so I can get ready to do it all again tomorrow. Hopefully the county decides to give me an id badge. Life is very difficult without it.

Let the lower lights be burning

I know school is going to start when the nightmares and dreams start up again and yesterday was quite the dream. Well, thinking about it, I'm not sure if it's a dream or a nightmare. I'll let you decide! So, I dream that it's the first day of school, and all is going quite nicely. Until the end of the day. I'm reading a book to my class and realize that the clock is broken. Look at my watch. it's 3:40 and they haven't started dismissal! We get a phone call to our classrooms telling us the buses have all broken down and there's a problem outside the school. I'm stuck at the school until everyone is home. The buses don't even come until after 7pm. Yeah, now that I think about it, I had a nightmare. Not a good way to start the day before I go back to school.

But the rest of the day was exceptional. Church truly was amazing today. And hubby and I had a nice drive around town before coming home for a snuggle. Well, for me it's a snuggle. He calls it snoogies and doesn't understand why I like it so much! One day he'll catch on. It's almost time for his soccer game to start so that's how I'll be wrapping up the day. Watching America play and hopefully win!

To all my teacher friends out there, if you've already started teaching, I hope it's going well. If you're just getting ready, good luck tomorrow! Or whenever you happen to start. Enjoy the time you have left.

Interesting hymn in church today. One of my favorites but we don't sing it very often. "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy." Hubby leaned over to me and says, what's this song called in Spanish? So I tell him the name and he wants to know why we don't sing it very often. I agree with him. The third verse really struck me today:
 "Trim your feeble lamp my brother;
 Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.
 Let the lower lights be burning; Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling sea man, you may rescue, you may save."

How true is that? Christ and Heavenly Father leave it to us to help those in need. It's through us prayers are answered many times. If we aren't prepared and listening to the promptings of the Spirit, someone may lose out. I know Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us. No doubt about that. And we need to be ready at all times. We never know how He may use us any given day. We may rescue someone and not even realize it. I've experienced the joy of bringing others to Christ. But it wasn't me that did it. Christ was the one who did it all. I was the instrument in His hands. And we can all be instruments if we're willing.

Enjoy the rest of this glorious Sunday! I know I certainly will. This week I'm sure my posts will be about school. And how to balance that with being a wife! I'm supposed to make pescados dorados tomorrow.

Pensando

Yep the title is in Spanish this time. It's kind of like a guessing game for all of you. And it amuses me! Cause my brain works in both languages, at the same time. It means sometimes really strange words come out of my mouth. And people in my dreams who only speak English in real life (like my parents), speak Spanish. I'll admit it sometimes makes my head hurt and I forgot what language I'm speaking but it's worth it because of the people I've gotten to know.

It's been a crazy few days. Crazy more in the mind sense rather than in actually doing things. School starts soon and that means all those things that I put in the back of my mind to ponder during the summer have to come to the front. Like what my classroom is going to look like this year. I've gone through 5 or 6 plans this summer and think I've finally found one I like. I need to figure out the projects for the beginning of the year. I need some new things but I'm keeping some of the old ones as well. And which novel to start with at the end of September. I may have to run to the supply closet and grab Esperanza Rising simply because it's a wonderful book. And even though the main character is a girl, the boys seem to enjoy the story just as much! Plus I can bring Spanish into the classroom which is even better. There are so many other things I've done this summer to get ready for the year that I wonder if it can even count as a summer! I read all the Black Eyed Susan nominee books for elementary school thanks to the librarian at school. And I wrote a summary for each one. That's gotta count for something right? It's like I even did homework over the summer!

So I'm wrapping up the summer tomorrow and I'm sad. Really and truly sad. But I'm also excited for a new school year and a new class of students. Hopefully my students haven't heard any bad rumors about me. And if they have, like I give too much homework, that's fine. They'll be pleasantly surprised when they see what it's all about in my classroom. I tried explaining to my husband how exhausting the first two weeks of school are. That's when I realized I'm dealing with a painter. He looked at me as though I was speaking Greek. Then says "Well, I work outside and inside and deal with crazy people all day long. Plus I never know what my schedule is going to be each day. How is being a teacher harder than that?" Clearly I will be getting no sympathy from him this school year. Maybe when he sees the mountain of work I bring home to grade and the projects I plan (those were kept from his eyes when we were dating because they were at my house, not anywhere near him) then he might come to understand. I'm hoping to talk him into grading papers on his days off! Still not sure how that will work however. It can be good spelling practice for him to grade the spelling tests. He can learn new vocabulary too!

Well, tomorrow is going to be a great Sunday! I'm coming back home as a wonderful friend put it the other day. It's going to be exciting to be in the Monocacy Ward again. I don't know how long we'll be there, but I'm excited for the new adventure. And so is my husband even if he is a bit nervous and worried about the whole English thing. Tomorrow is also the Great Food Truck Race!

Adios!