School Daze Revisited

I just made an entire post and blogger lost it. Arrgghhh...

Well, we made it through our first week of student teaching. It was one long week, but it was a lot of fun too. Yesterday was the only day all week that I made it home before 4 pm. I walked in the door at 3, had a snack and put on comfy clothes, and by 4 I was fast asleep. I didn't wake up until after 10! I was so tired. I knew going into this that it would be hard and that the days would be long, but I had no idea I would be that exhausted. This is going to take some getting used to.

I can already tell that I am going to crave my Saturdays. I have already gotten so much accomplished today. Looking ahead at the calendar I can already tell this is going to be one crazy busy semester. I know it will be good and that the benefits will far outweigh the stress and anxiety, so I will just have to keep reminding myself that this is going to be great. Who am I kidding, it is already great!

Yesterday, I shared my first read aloud with my students. Seeing as it is the beginning of a new school year and the beginning of a lot of changes for all of us, my mentor teacher included, I decided to read Oh the Places You'll Go by Dr. Suess. It is one of my all time favorite books. My friend, Sarah, and I shared it with our fellow classmates at graduation four years ago. I wanted to encourage the kids and let them know that there are great things in store for all of us this year. I told them that I have faith in them that we will make it through the hang-ups and bang-ups and that we will make it out of the land of the Slump together. I hope they enjoyed it and that they heard at least part of the message hidden between the silly words and crazy pictures.

Wednesday night we went to the Cubs game. It was a lot of fun to hang out with the other interns for a while. There were nine of us altogether, plus some of the liaisons from ISU and the Little Village community center. By no means at all am I a sports enthusiast, but I don't really like the Cubs. Not that my cheering counts for anything, but my loyalty lies with the Cardinals. A friend of mine was worried that I wouldn't fit in with my roommates if I showed up in a Cardinals shirt or in anything but some form of Cubs attire. So, he loaded me a t-shirt and I succumbed. I wore it just so I wouldn't get the snot beat out of me by some of those defensive Cubs fans, including one of my roommates. We spent over two hours commuting to and from the game, but it was well worth it. We all had a great time, but it sure made getting up on Thursday morning very difficult.

Here are a few pictures from the week. Hope you enjoy!