School is... Around the Corner

"Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."

Name that movie. There's a clue in my post title. Gotta be one of my favorite movie lines ever. I really want to make a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils just to have one to look at. I imagine a bouquet of pencils to look something like this (just no cup and all sharp pointy ends facing up):

However, this is much prettier:

Mmmm.

School.

If you haven't been able to tell by the fact I've been missing from the blog world for weeks, my life is crazy.

I just spent two weeks going to teacher trainings every day. There's nothing more exhausting than sitting in a chair for 6 1/2 hours every day. I honestly think I've gained weight from it (None of my pants fit, anyways... I want something to blame. No, I'm not pregnant.).

I left my school today feeling pretty prepared for next week. My room looks great, if I do say so myself! It's big and beautiful and has lots of bright colors in it. I wanted it to be a place that felt fun and exciting, and I think I got there. It is so surreal to think that my room will be filled with wonderful 8th graders in just three short days.

My team is great so far. I have been bonding with several teachers and my school is finally beginning to feel like home. Last semester was... horrible, really. I remember feeling so lost and not "with it". My students were terrible and I felt like a failure as a teacher. I really hope that this year will be better. I have had quite a few people tell me that this year is going to be a great year. You know, it is really nice to hear that from people!

I am so glad that I have a super awesome mentor. She is the department head and I knew her last semester. She is so helpful and I know that I am really blessed to have her as a mentor. Plus, she's an Aggie. :-)

Really, I never expected to feel like this just days away from starting my first real teaching job. Over the summer I was a nervous wreck. I told my girls group to pray for me and so for weeks they have been praying that I would have peace. One of the girls told me a while back to meditate on the fact that God is always present with me and that I am not alone. I just love that. I can tell you that I am so comfortably chill right now as a result of that meditation. I don't feel alone and I don't feel stressed. I have so much peace right now and it is amazing! I'm not even completely prepared and I feel great!

Today I was walking down the hallway after visiting another new teacher (I just know we're going to bond), I thought about how blessed I am. I wasn't 100% sure that I was going to like it at my school, but I still trusted God. I didn't want to teach 8th grade science, but I still trusted God. Now, I am grateful that I don't know what's ahead and He does! I have an amazing new school to teach at, a wonderful group of teachers to learn from and get help from, and I'm really excited about teaching 8th grade science. TAKS scores were not great last year and so I see it as a challenge to bring up those grades.

Thank you, Lord, for everything. :-)

So I promise that this was going to be longer than this. My brain is exhausted from working for 9 hours straight today.

At least I got free lunch today.

And a $150 gift certificate to the teacher store.

Sweet.

-Katie