Semester's End

Well, it's that time again: the semester is coming to a close. My last day of class was Monday. This week I've been finishing a term paper (which I turned in yesterday morning), studying for my two finals that I have to take, working on completing an electronic portfolio with all of my teaching documents from this semester, preparing materials for the class that I'm still teaching (the last day of class at UVU is next Thursday), and getting ready for the classes that I'll teach in the summer. So even though I'm not in class I'm still pretty busy. And then, when I finish a lot of this stuff, Dave will finish classes and be studying for his finals. So the rest of April is going to be pretty busy for us.

And here's a quick inventory of my school year goals, as I am finishing off the school year:

Work Goals:
1. I really enjoyed my work this semester. I was able to tutor quite a bit this semester, which was a good job to have around my busy school schedule. I felt like I worked hard at all 3 of my jobs (TAing, tutoring, and teaching). For the goal I set in January, I was able to stay on top of my work and not get overwhelmed by how busy I was. And now, for the summer, I have arranged to teach 4 different classes, 2 reading classes and 2 writing classes. I'm really looking forward to these classes, because they will be my first classes to teach all by myself. Woot! Now my goal is to be a good teacher for my students. This means scheduling preparation time for myself every day, and using it! I also got quite a bit of feedback from my teaching practicum this semester, and I'm going to set some sub-goals for myself from that feedback so that I can be a better teacher.

School Goals:
2. Of course I don't know what my grades are yet for this semester. But I still have my goal of getting all A's. I feel like my effort in my classes this semester has been A material, so I guess we'll just see if my teachers feel the same way. I still have my electronic portfolio and my two finals to work on, so I am going to put a lot of effort into those for the next 6 days until I am done. And then we'll see what happens!
3. This semester I applied and was accepted into BYU's MA TESOL program. This was one of my major goals for myself, and I'm so glad that I accomplished it. Now my goal for myself this summer is to follow the schedule that my adviser and I have set up for myself in getting parts of my project done.

Personal Goals:
4. Well, I can't say that I've done that well at writing in my journal this semester. But I have started writing in my journal this last week. And it feels so good! It relieves stress, and it reminds me of things that I want to do and accomplish, since I can easily go back and read what I wrote about wanting to do. I've written in it once a day since Sunday. I don't think that I will always journal once a day. But my goal is to write in it at least twice a week. And I think that I'm going to start a teaching journal that will help me reflect each time I teach a class.
5. Dave and I started running about 2-3 times a week this semester. We don't always make it running when we plan to, but it is becoming more of a habit. Dave is really good at remembering this goal, and he even goes running by himself when I don't want to go (I've been a real slacker this week!). We're hoping to keep this up throughout the summer.
6. My lessons in my Primary class have been going much better. I plan each lesson out with specific times that I'm going to move on to the next activity, so that I know if I'm on schedule. And then I've been much better at thinking of lots of activities so that we can move on to something new if the 3-year-olds' attention spans are shorter than I thought they would be. :D This calling is pretty fun, and I am happy!