School, School, School

I'm not sure this blog entry will make a lot of sense because my mind is really jumbled and it has been a LOT lately.

School starts ONE WEEK from TODAY!!! It has come so fast and I really feel like I have not had a summer at all. I feel like I have spent my whole summer getting ready, and yet I also feel like I am nowhere near ready. I must say that I am a lot farther along than other people in my situation but somehow I feel like there is never a possibility to feel ready to be a teacher. You just have to jump in and do it, and that's pretty scary!

I am getting excited though. I am ready to stop anticipating what it will be like and actually feel what it really is like. I want to get started and figure out things on my own. It feels like there is so much I could be doing right now, but I'm not sure how to do it until I have the kids there and I figure out how I want to do things.

Some good news: my classroom is ALL the way done. I've been working on it for awhile now but there was always something else to do. Plus, everyday I brought more and more stuff to put in the room that it was never quite finished. Well, I can proudly say that it is DONE! My desk area is still a bit messy because I'm still trying to figure out how to organize files and stuff, but everything else is done! It is such a good feeling. Other good news (and I know that by saying this, people will think that I'm overreacting when I say I don't feel ready because this is really awesome, but just remember that I also said that I never think I could feel ready for this job; it's pretty much impossible!) : yesterday and today, I spent probably 5-6 hours working on a day-by-day schedule of what I will be teaching in math for the whole school year! My team and I had already created a skeleton, but I was still a bit unclear and feeling a tad overwhelmed, so I just sat down and did it and I feel much better now. If only I could figure out how to do that with the other subjects. It's kind of hard to do it with anything other than math, because with math there is a textbook that you teach from but with things like reading and writing, you just go with the flow and figure it out based on what your kids need.

I am going to meet most of my students tomorrow because I am testing them in reading. I'm excited to meet them but I'm nervous about administering the test. I've never done it before and even though it looks pretty self-explanatory, I'm afraid it will take me awhile to learn, which is hard because the students will be sitting right there waiting for me. Plus, the parents are probably not going to just drop their kids off and leave, so I have to let them stay in my room which is just a little awkward. But, if I have time, I'll have to share how it goes.

Oh, before I end, I have to tell the funniest story that happened the other day. I was calling the parents to schedule these testing appointments, and I phoned a mom who only spoke Spanish. Now, for those who don't know, I took three years of Spanish in high school, and Derek is pretty fluent so I practice with him every now and then. So, I call this mom and I tell her who I am and I begin to ask about the appointment when she tells me she doesn't speak English. I totally froze. I should have known because her last name was Martinez or something, but I just didn't think about it. After several long silent moments, I finally said, "OK, yo Marcos maestra." For those that don't speak Spanish, the literal translation of that is, "I Marcos teacher." Excuse me! Did I really say that to this woman. Yes. Yes, I did...Then I told her, "Lo siento! No hablo espanol!" ("Sorry, I don't speak Spanish). She just laughed hysterically! It is funny now but I was dying then. So, I was so flustered that I couldn't think of anything in Spanish to say so I finally told her in plain English, "Well, I was going to make an appointment to meet with your son to do some testing, but I'll just wait until school starts." She obviously didn't understand a word so she just said, "OK, bye" and hung up as fast as she could! Holy Awkward! I called Derek later and he asked me if I knew how to say "I'm Marcos' teacher" and of course, once I was out of the terrible situation, I was able to form a perfectly coherent sentence in Spanish, but jeez. So, that's my funny story of the day. I sure hope I'll be able to talk to this woman throughout the year...