a blended life

My apologies to my faithful readers for the month lapse in posting. I have no solid excuse, except I've got my head in the teaching game. Plus some of you have asked about the mysterious relationship that I've been mysteriously avoiding talking about. Ahem.... There is a mysterious relationship. It's long distance. Don't ever do a long distance relationship. But he's fantastic so we'll let that one slide. Did that help?? Back to matters that are right in front of my face all the time. I've realized a few things during these few months of student teaching: 1. There are no jobs in the area. The schools districts around me AREN'T HIRING. #$%&^. 2. My daily adventures include issues with bullying, iPhones, healing tattoos, gauge earrings, ADD medication schedules, iPhones, useless faculty meetings, juvenile detention and major boyfriend/girlfriend drama from the students. And could you please put your phone away. Again. 3. I teach the ...

Is anyone else celebrating that February is over? I know I haven't posted much this month. I'm barely keeping my head above water with student teaching. Overwhelming doesn't really describe the stress I feel everyday. Luckily, I love what I do and still want to be a teacher. I had my final evaluation this week, will turn in a portfolio in a few weeks, and finish out this crazy adventure by April 26th. This month I've been teaching exponential growth and decay and will finish out my last weeks teaching  how to factor polynomials. Try to not fall over with shock--I still can't believe someone is letting me teach this stuff either. Here's a conversation I had with one of my students: Sophomore girl: What are we doing today? Me: Word problems with exponential growth. Girl: Yeah, well boys suck exponentially. High school issues are rough and the drama gets pretty thick sometimes. I've already dealt with kids being suspended, sent to juvenile detention, ...

She turned 6 last week.  Wanted overalls. I finally found some at H&M at the last minute. Likes Bruno Mars. Kissed a boy on the playground. Is the boss of everything. Is disappointed that she didn't lose a tooth when she was 5. Takes ballet and tap dancing lessons.  Always ready for adventure.

The second worst month of the year has been a mixed bag. I spent all of last week taking care of a sick Hannah with the flu, then all of this week taking care of myself (barely) with the same illness. I didn't have it nearly as bad as Hannah, but it was enough to put me in a seriously foul mood for several days.  But I can't be too grumpy about life. There really have been some sunny spots in our otherwise dark, cold days.  For example, the sun came out today for a few minutes. I think it warmed up to 40 degrees. I basked like a boss: School is both stressful and fabulous. I go to work happy, excited that I have found a profession that I love. It can be incredibly difficult--I feel like being a Resource teacher is akin to being a behavioral/emotional disorder counselor. I really love the students and honestly, truly enjoy working with them. One of them wrote a little note on my white board: Maybe I should have kept my shoes on for this one. Whatever...

You know, I can't stand January. I think it's the worst month of the year. Or at least I've felt that way as long as I've lived in Utah. There's a completely ridiculous weather pattern that we lovingly refer to as 'inversions', which is a kind word for all the cold air gets trapped in the valleys where everyone lives--and we get to breathe in toxic levels of air pollution and not see the sun for weeks on end. The amount of snowfall is astronomical and is proportionate to the amount of daydreaming I do about faraway beaches. Good news, February starts in two hours, and as the second worst month of the year, this is already looking promising. A few bits of uninteresting info: *Hannah has had the flu for 7 days. She now at the stage of coughing so hard that she throws up. *Teaching is still going well. It surprises me how much I like it. *Leah has a boyfriend named Stetson. She got in trouble for the first time in her entire school career the other d...

My life has been officially taken over by high school math. I really like the school I work at and my cooperating teacher is amazing. She is teaching me a new language, Teenagese. For example, she introduces me as, "Carrie, my student teacher, who is the bomb-diggity." I finally said to her, "You know, I don't even know what that means." I'm learning. However, I can't believe someone is letting me teach high school math. Not only that, but the working full time and being in over my head in lessons plans is running my life. Every question I get asked has only one answer: Because I'm a student teacher right now. In fact, here is a list of questions that can be answered with because I'm student teaching : Why do I come home and stare out the window in a trance for an hour after school? Why would anyone normal actually choose to leave the house at 7:15 am when the temperature is 3 degrees? Why have you lost 5 lbs this month? Why don't you...

There is no natural segue from the last post about my dating adventures to this awesome topic. Let's just say that the fun is over and I've had to seriously switch gears into school again. Plus it's snowed about 156" this week and my mood is looking like inversion gray right now. Estoy de mal humor! I've started about 3 different posts about student teaching and none of them were worth posting. I think part of it is that now I've crossed this boundary into being a teacher instead of being an outsider, so I have to really watch what I say. And we all know how good/bad I am at watching what I say and being tactful. So, I won't mention the student who looks and acts exactly like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And I won't mention the heated discussion I got into with someone about serving missions. ONLY IN UTAH DOES THIS HAPPEN, PEOPLE. And I won't tell you how many times a student asked me this week if I like Metallica. And how many times I c...