teacher nerd

I am offically a teacher nerd. I get excited about composition notebooks, reading days, stickers for my students, Chaucer, colored pens to grade specific things with, easy graders, notebooks to organize novel studies... It fascinates me and gets me going. Now, what I am not so adept at is timely, organized grading and record-keeping. I know that I need to improve in those areas, but I seem to stay a couple of steps behind... I love Fridays when my students come in ready to read and respond. I HAVE to believe that their reading levels are improving and that they are learning to enjoy reading.

Last night, Patrick and I made our weekly trip to Auburn for premarital counseling with Jim. Our experiences with this counseling have really opened our eyes to ways that we will constantly need to be working on in our marriage. I am overwhelmed at how easy it is to shift into auto-pilot and coast through life, and I enter into this marriage with high hopes that Patrick and I will do what it takes to have a healthy marriage. We talked about power styles, and not surprisingly, we learned that we are both on the assertive ends. We balance between assertive-controlling and assertive-adaptive. We both, however, recognize situations in which we have portrayed passive-aggressive and passive-sufferer tendencies. Just rating ourselves and rating each other revealed to us how to serve each other more fully. I am continuing to learn and realize that marriage is about being selfless. I am definitely not there yet.

At school, through church, with my family, we are trying to find ways to serve the hurricane victims. I feel helpless to do anything that would be of any significance or real help, and I feel sick at my stomach when I start thinking about things. I keep "hoping" that it's just all almost resolved... hoping against hope.

After my "functified" post the other day, I ordered 3 books of Amazon: The Great Gatsby (which I plan to teach my 11th-grade classes beginning next week), Blue Like Jazz (recommended to me by Jesse), and The Jane Austen Book Club. I am ready to read something good! I am struggling through A Prayer for Owen Meany right now. I have heard wonderful things about it, but I can't seem to get through the first 50 pages. I am going to keep pushing through though.

I am so thankful for this weekend. I need a break so badly to get well, to rest, to address wedding invitations. Nothing is on my schedule, and that makes me so relieved.

I am offically a teacher nerd. I get excited about composition notebooks, reading days, stickers for my students, Chaucer, colored pens to grade specific things with, easy graders, notebooks to organize novel studies... It fascinates me and gets me going. Now, what I am not so adept at is timely, organized grading and record-keeping. I know that I need to improve in those areas, but I seem to stay a couple of steps behind... I love Fridays when my students come in ready to read and respond. I HAVE to believe that their reading levels are improving and that they are learning to enjoy reading.

Last night, Patrick and I made our weekly trip to Auburn for premarital counseling with Jim. Our experiences with this counseling have really opened our eyes to ways that we will constantly need to be working on in our marriage. I am overwhelmed at how easy it is to shift into auto-pilot and coast through life, and I enter into this marriage with high hopes that Patrick and I will do what it takes to have a healthy marriage. We talked about power styles, and not surprisingly, we learned that we are both on the assertive ends. We balance between assertive-controlling and assertive-adaptive. We both, however, recognize situations in which we have portrayed passive-aggressive and passive-sufferer tendencies. Just rating ourselves and rating each other revealed to us how to serve each other more fully. I am continuing to learn and realize that marriage is about being selfless. I am definitely not there yet.

At school, through church, with my family, we are trying to find ways to serve the hurricane victims. I feel helpless to do anything that would be of any significance or real help, and I feel sick at my stomach when I start thinking about things. I keep "hoping" that it's just all almost resolved... hoping against hope.

After my "functified" post the other day, I ordered 3 books of Amazon: The Great Gatsby (which I plan to teach my 11th-grade classes beginning next week), Blue Like Jazz (recommended to me by Jesse), and The Jane Austen Book Club. I am ready to read something good! I am struggling through A Prayer for Owen Meany right now. I have heard wonderful things about it, but I can't seem to get through the first 50 pages. I am going to keep pushing through though.

I am so thankful for this weekend. I need a break so badly to get well, to rest, to address wedding invitations. Nothing is on my schedule, and that makes me so relieved.