Classroom stuff!

Oy, where the hell did July go? Just a minute ago it was June, and now July is almost over. How did that happen? And if July is almost over, it means that it is almost August, which is when school starts! And thus the reason for my extremely anxious attitude as of late. I don't have a plan! I always have a plan. Now, I am effing planless and anxious as all hell. I don't know what is going to happen on the first day of school. I don't know what my first lesson will be, or how the pre-algebra class will work. Scary scary thoughts of being unprepared are piling up in my head increasing the likelihood that my first year of teaching will, in fact, be as terrible as all of my predecessors say it will be.

So, what do I do? How can I calm my self down so that I don't have a 'teaching breakdown' before I even become a teacher?! Well, I've found a few things to keep me busy.

• Read my " how to be a good teacher" books
• elliptical my ass off
• become fake smiley barista of the year.
  
• Watch tv
• not do laundry
• make lists of things I want to do.
• Start a blog
  
• Spend too much money on class room supplies.
  
• Create an awesome mountain like painting for my class.
  

Mounting like painting, you ask? I have an idea for motivating students to do their homework. I've created a large painting of a mountain and I made four little cut out hiker men.


I'm going to create 20 steps along the mountain trail and use magnet tape to be able to move the little hikers up the mountain. The plan is to assign each of the sections of my algebra class a little hiker man and if everyone in class does their homework from the night before than that classes hiker man moves up a step. The first class to reach the top of the mountain gets a reward! I'm thinking cookies, as i often do.

So, will it work? Or will it be an absolute failure? Will I not be able to keep up with it and it will be a mess after a month or so then I will just have a big painted (and not even that well) mountain on the wall of my classroom? I'll get pictures of it up eventually...

Here We Go.

Let's begin at the beginning of my 'grown up' life. I finished my bachelor's degree last may in Mathematics (moans and groans) and promptly moved to New York City. I left behind the quaint suburbs of cleveland, where I spent my younger days, and the corn fields of Gambier, where I attended college.

Kenyon College is my favorite place in the world. Nothing will ever compare to its beauty, the amazing people I spent my college years with, or the hilarious, embarrassing and perfect memories I have of Kenyon. Honestly, I miss it more than I miss anything else. More than my family, the little town I grew up in, lost loves, softball, anything. Kenyon is my happy place.

But after four years in my little paradise, they said I had to leave. So, I graduated and moved to New York as a teaching fellow for Math for America. Sounds big and impressive, sometimes I think it is, most of the time I don't. I've just finished my master's degree in math education and procured a teaching position at a (relatively) new high school in Soho. I'll be teaching 9th grade math in this small, independent learning based school. I'm very excited, yet nervous about the beginning of my teaching career especially as the fall grows closer. More of that to come.

For the summer, I've gotten myself a little job as a barista! It's been an interesting, frustrating exhausting adventure including too much free coffee, some annoying customers, some annoying coworkers and a significant lack of sleep. Thus I've been spending my days making coffee drinks for strangers and my evenings as a house-girlfriend (housewife in training) to my boyfriend, Zach. I've become quite the little homemaker since graduating from college and moving into an apartment with a decent kitchen. Apparently I had a chef hiding underneath four years of microwaved soup and late night pizza deliveries! Hence the emergence of my new favorite hobby- cooking!

Much to Zach's pleasure, I've not only taken up cooking, but am experimenting with fancy food as well. Some nights are more interesting and fancy than others, but the majority of them are delicious! For example, here is a little 3 course tapas 'dinner' I made when the lovely and beautiful Miss Rachel came to visit me a few weeks ago. The first course/plate is a watermelon and feta layered salad over arugula with pine nuts and a lemon vinaigrette . I have to admit, I stole this one from Zach's mom! The second dish is tuna tartare with lots of avocado and crispy shallots topped with a wasabi-soy dressing . And finally we had seared sirloin steak on a boursin covered pita bread topped with a mushroom and onion sherry reduction . Overall it was YUMMY! I was pretty pleased with myself, having prepared a relatively complicated menu with out any mishaps! It was quite the evening, involving these three delicious plates and three even more scrumptious bottles of wine! Moral of the story is that I like to cook and will be including it in my posts. Who knows, maybe I'll include some recipes from time to time if I get bored with my life and need to fill up the page...


I think my main motivations here are to document the happenings of my first year of teaching. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, says that your first year of teaching is terrible. And although I'm hoping for the best, I don't have unrealistic expectations. What ever happens I'm sure it will be interesting. I'll probably have great days where all I'll want to write about it how awesome my students are or how great my lesson went, but I'm sure there will be other days where I'll want to cry if I think about school and then I'll make a delicious meal and write about that! So we'll see how it goes, I'm sure it will be quite the adventure...