Grosgrain Giveaway

So, I thought that this dress was so cute! I'm entering the giveaway to win it. Check it out! The Oh Dear Frock

No Cool News, but in Other News...

1. Our Christmas Cactus is blooming again, twice in seven months. Why, you might ask? Well it's been super cold here until today and we think that might have something to do with it. Also, the pot it's in is now too small, so it can't get any bigger and now it's putting energy into reproductive efforts, I tried to think of some life lesson there but Merry didn't think there were any good ones.

2. For the first time since 2008 I'm working full time, and actually a little more than full time since I'm clerking for the A.G. and interning for a judge, busy busy.

3. Merry has started living in Provo, while I live in Salt Lake, too much drama in South Jordan.

4. Just kidding about #3, we all know she can't live without me...but seriously it's a rough commute.

5. Join the Red Robin Birthday Club and they give you a free gourmet burger with bottomless fries on your birthday, not to shabby.

Rough Mondays

Okay, this blog is sort of turning into my journal about teaching. I'm sure that that will slow down as the semester progresses and teaching stops taking over my life. But right now I'm doing a lot of preparation for my classes, a lot of grading homework for my classes, and a lot of teaching IN my classes!

Mondays are kind of rough for me. I have usually prepared well for my classes. This weekend I took a chunk of Saturday to prepare. And yet, when I sit down for all of the last minute details, I always find so many things that I missed in my preparation! Today was particularly difficult because I found out that I was going to have two new students in my class at the ELC. They were in a lower level, but they were moved up after the first week because their skills were good enough. So I had to talk to them about a bunch of stuff that they've missed. And I had several students in my writing class at UVU that showed up for the first time today. They've been registered for the class and just haven't shown up. There's one more that still hasn't shown up, because she thought that she was in another section and just realized today that she had been in the wrong class. She's going to come tomorrow. [Sigh] I will be glad when this week is done, I have all of my class rolls finalized, I've caught everyone up on what they need to be doing, and I can stop having these last minute emergencies to take care of.

Mondays are also hard because it's kind of hard to just jump into teaching when you haven't done it during the weekend. I do teach a primary class on Sundays, but it's to 3-year-olds, and I only teach every other week. So I really didn't have to think about classroom management much this weekend. So it's always kind of a jolt to get back into it on Mondays.

Fortunately, I have 3 classes on Mondays, so by the end of Monday, I'm back into the swing of things! You've got to love Mondays!

I really do love teaching.

So, I may have had some teaching anxiety earlier this week. I think it's understandable, what with starting two new classes this week and all. But tonight I got to teach my community ed. class, which I started to teach 2 weeks ago. It was great! I love that these people want to learn so much, and they are really fun to work with. Tonight I taught them all a bit about how to use Word to write, and how to attach a Word document to an email (since they email their drafts to me). There were some funny moments. Especially since I couldn't figure out how to turn on the projector at first, and I looked a bit technologically backwards myself! But I really love seeing my students smile during class. I enjoy making a fool of myself sometimes if it lightens the mood and helps my students enjoy learning more. This class really is great! So even though I do sometimes get anxious about teaching, nights like this one will always make me feel glad that I'm a teacher!

Teaching Anxiety?

Last night was not a good night for me. I didn't sleep well. And it was all because I was nervous about starting my class at the ELC (English Language Center) today! I didn't really feel that nervous about starting teaching today. I have felt really excited and happy to teach at the ELC. But I must have had some inner anxiety about it, because it was definitely manifested in my lack of good sleep last night.

First of all, I teach at 8:15am. So I have to get up at 6:00am in order to get to class on time. I've done a couple of practice runs catching the bus, and I was satisfied that I can do this all summer long. However, last night I frequently woke up and looked at the clock. Every single time I looked at the clock, I was worried that I had missed my alarm and that I was going to be late for work.

Secondly, when I was asleep, I was dreaming about my class syllabus and calendar. What!? I mean, doesn't a dream usually have at the very least a plot, even if it is incoherent? My dreams last night did not. I dreamt only in images of my syllabus and calendar. It was kind of like those slideshow presentations, where the images just transition from one to the next. Crazy? I think so!

But my first day of teaching wasn't bad at all! I really think that when this subconscious anxiety works itself out, it will be really easy to get up at 6:00am for work. And I am really going to enjoy this class. It's a reading class, which I've always wanted to teach! And it makes me feel really productive to get going on my day right away. I just hope I don't have any more syllabus dreams! They're really boring!