10:10pm Too Excited to Sleep

Dear A,

I have such a big day tomorrow. I'm going to be meeting with the director of the school I'll be student teaching at from now until December.

I'm feeling oddly calm. Maybe it was all of the experiences I had at High Tech, but I'm not worried about starting on this journey. I'm a little nervous, but only because it's the first day and I'm more nervous about not liking my cooperating teacher than not doing a good job. I'm ready to get started! This is what I came out here for. This is the start to everything I've been working towards.

I hope that I am able to make connections with the students like I did at High Tech. I know I had a lot more time at High Tech, so I'm really going to have to make the most of the next three months. I really value connections like that. I don't want to be someone that the kids don't respect or look up to just because I'm a student teacher. I also don't want to just sit in the back of the room and watch my cooperating teacher teach. I want to be involved. I want to help plan and grade and work on projects. I want to go to staff meetings and feel like I actually belong. I guess I have a lot of high hopes.

I'm also looking forward to getting back on a more normal schedule. I've been staying up way too late and not getting out of bed early enough and I've been feeling like a slug. I was never a morning person and I remember when I was volunteering in Zoe's class and she said that teachers got to HTMMA at 8:00am everyday I was shocked. I never had 8:00am classes in college. But, once I got in the routine of falling asleep at 10:30 and waking up at 6:30, I started loving it. I never slept past 8:00 on the weekends and I felt much more like a grown up. I even remember the days that I would get up at 5:30 to run before work! Wow. So, I'm excited to get back into that routine.

Here is a list of some of my favorite things about working in a school:

1. Shit kids say and do
2. Art projects
3. Having a designated time for lunch each day
4. Being able to joke and laugh
5. Professional work clothes
6. Warm copies right out of the copier
7. The teacher's lounge
8. Watching kids learn, make mistakes and discover
9. Going to kids' performances, open houses, exhibitions etc.
10. Having a desk or office or both!

I can't believe it took me 22 years to figure out I wanted to be a teacher.

Love, M