Just Keep Swimming

The past month has felt like:

(use of figurative language; simile)

• Being caught up in a stormy, salt-watery wave
• Scrambling up a mountain in flip-flops
• Digging a ditch with a teaspoon
• Having my feet tied to anchors and trying to tread water with my hands.

(pick the the simile of your choice)

This evening for the first time in a whole moon, I feel a bit like my old self. Let's hope it lasts!

I've been working 12 plus hours a day as a teacher. If I'm not teaching, I'm planning for teaching, grading, or working on my room. Along with the work I'm carrying all my insecurities about how I make mistakes every day, like misspelling works on the board, my messy handwriting, my bare-bones literacy program, and how I mispronounce words in Spanish everyday. I'm also insecure about being so young, and teaching Hispanic kids, when I am not Hispanic. I'm nervous about being judged by the parents because my Spanish is not perfect, and I speak to them in the slow, simple manner I also teach in. My students are great, and a lot of the time I wish they could have a native speaking Spanish speaker, who didn't misspell words on the board, and was an expert at every subject and wasn't late in taking them to P.E. all the time. It's hard. I need to be easier on myself.

One thing I am confident about it that the kids love me. I don't know why, but they really like me. And I like them, too. I bake them cookies and brew them rose hips tea, we Skype with my Chinese friend, and don't teach them any subjects using the text books. (Hence the late nights planning from scratch) They are wonderful 10 and 11 year olds. It's a pleasure to spend 5 days a week with all 24 of them. Really it is.

My goal for the next moon is to balance my work life with the rest of my life. I need to rework in yoga, cooking, friends, family, dating, exercise, art/writing, and finish my work for CDP this semester!

Well, at least rework in 2-3 of the above. That sounds good enough for me.