Sunday, September 26, 2010

It Must Be a Sunday Thing

Clearly, I have issues updating this during the week.  Hmm, I wonder why.  I always hope to have Sunday be a day for me, but for the last two Sundays this has not been the case.  I have decided that it's much easier to resign myself to the fact that the next nine months or so will be sort of like being in college again.  Between lesson planning and BTSA and the extra meetings that are required of us, I will not have much time for anything else.  Fortunately, my online Masters is going to be finished in about a month.  This will be a weight off my shoulders as well as a raise in pay.  Of course, then I have the pleasure of continuing to pay off the loan, but at least the annoying work will be finished.  Knowing that this is the last month of it is truly what keeps me going.

I am being observed by our principal on Tuesday, and naturally I just now realized that I wanted to include a couple of other things in my lesson plan that I'm giving her tomorrow.  So much for being in bed at 9.

However, I'm almost there.  As soon as I finish here and I staple the stuff together, I can get in bed.

I would like this to be a week of not eating as much junk food.  Perhaps if I sleep more that will be easier to accomplish.  I've been going a little crazy with the sugar lately, and I do not want this to backfire on me.  Feeling icky is not a stress that I need to add to my life.  Anyone and everyone who knows me knows that I have enough stress and things to worry about.

I am looking forward to a normal week.  Normal, of course, does not mean super easy, but at least it is simply work and ballet (with no rehearsal!) and then home to do more work for BTSA or my online class or something.  The only thing added to this week is tutoring, but since this makes me some extra money I can't complain too much.

I would love to wake up tomorrow, and every morning this week, and not have a feeling of dread.  I think the solution, or at least one solution, to all of these problems is sleep.

And with that, I think I will head toward bed.  It is calling my name....

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Show

The show went quite well.  Thanks to a lot of hard work and the power of prayer, I think it was one of the best, possibly THE best, show I've done.  I hit all my hard steps dead on, felt calm throughout, and was at peace.  It was pretty incredible.

It was bittersweet in many ways.  I will not be doing the next two shows that finish off 2010, and neither is Mindy.  Sammy is gone in Santa Barbara.  I have no plans yet for the shows next year, but will take things as they come.

And now, after sleeping until noon today, it is already Sunday night and another work week looms ahead.  This one is filled with two different church meetings, two different school meetings (back to back on Monday) Back to School Night, my first BTSA meeting, and a doctor appointment.  Thankfully this next weekend is shaping up to be relaxing and not filled with too many events.  However, I must remember to not focus on the weekends so much but instead work on living in the moment and enjoying what life throws at me.

That's hard to do when you already know what life is going to throw at you and that you usually don't have time to deal with them.

Breathe.  It's all good.  :)

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Sun and Sand and...Pointe Shoes?

Yes.  Sun and sand and pointe shoes.  Mindy and I did a photoshoot for the 2011 Nouveau Chamber Ballet calendar today.  The theme for this calendar is sports, and we were beach volleyball players.  Actually, we were beach volleyball players wearing leotards and bike shorts and pointe shoes and we took the pictures at a park.  But there really wasn't any difference between us and real beach volleyball players.  :)

The shoot was fun.  I do believe we burst out laughing after every shot.  It was nice to do it together because we work so well together and play off each other.  I think we got some good ones.  Theresa and Christine both liked them. Hopefully I'm not too critical of myself once I see them.

I also got sunburned.  I suppose that's appropriate though given the sport we were portraying.

It was also very interesting to be balancing on pointe on a small piece of plywood buried in the sand.

In work-related news, I graded Algebra 2's first formal quiz this weekend.

Yes.  I was discouraged.  I reworked the calendar so that we can spend a couple of days reviewing.  It's very much needed.  It's needed in Geometry also, so I reworked that calendar too.  I thought I was getting through to the Alg 2 kids more than I obviously did.  It's frustrating, and discouraging.  I so badly want them to get it and to like it.  But, it's only been two weeks.  Actually, only 9 days.  I need to give it time and keep at it.

Show on Saturday!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Busy busy

You know your life has gotten rather chaotic when you discover it's been 9 days since you've written anything about that life.  Yes, 9 days.  What's especially amusing about this is that it doesn't feel like 9 days.  It feels like about 2.

Having a 4 day work week was quite nice.  The not so nice part is that now we have many, many normal 5 day weeks ahead of us.

I am still faced with the challenge to make my classes and lessons more interesting.  I wish I could have the kids work together more often, but it's not at all easy.  Kids are resistant to it, which means they should be doing it all the time.  But, the class periods go by so fast that it's hard to even consider doing this.  I feel like I would waste time while trying to wait for them to get used to working together.  Needless to say, I haven't figured this out yet at ALL.

In other news, last Saturday I finally told Lois that I couldn't do Nutcracker.  The auditions are tomorrow, and I won't be there.  Oddly enough, I'm totally fine with it. I'm actually quite glad because even though I still have rehearsal, it isn't until 2 which means I have time to do online homework as well as grade quizzes.  Rehearsal goes until 4 which isn't so nice, but I'll get over it.

One more week.  Then the show is over.  And I can cross that off my list and focus on other things.

Oh, how I love weekends.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Third Day

It is never a good sign when you feel yourself beginning to feel like you're losing it on only the third day of something.

Enter the third day of the school year as a new teacher.

Joseph put it well tonight when we were waiting for class to start.  "Stress is often caused by a lack of information."  You know, he's absolutely right.  The things I was worrying about during my prep period today were all based on not knowing the answer to something.  If anyone knows me, they know that I rather enjoy being in control.  I have very little time available at the moment and therefore I must make damn good use of it.  If I don't know something, I can't effectively use my time to cross things off my ENORMOUS to-do list.

On top of an already full day of teaching, we had a department meeting today after school.  Oddly enough, this department meeting which I was essentially dreading provided me with answers to my questions.  Because of this, it was rather nice in some ways.

My challenges right now are how to assess my students on a daily basis and how to keep them excited and engaged in the lessons.  I need to figure this out NOW so that I can effectively lesson plan for the rest of the year.  Fortunately the kids are all taking a diagnostic test tomorrow which provides me with a total of 6 GLORIOUS HOURS in which to work.  I truly thank God for this because I think if I had two more days like yesterday and today in which I'm on my feet both physically and mentally and have to think about rehearsal and online homework and how the math department at this school does things I would just fall over and cry.

Once again, here we are at 10:32 pm and I am not in bed.  September 18th cannot come soon enough.