My new Toy

It has been a long while since I last posted here. That is because I no longer have a life. I am consumed and overwhelmed by my teaching job. I have spent numerous hours just crying and crying and stressing myself out over the frustrations of my new job. These are not the usual frustrations of a teaching career (although some of it is) but it has more to do with the students I have been given and the district's ridiculous expectations. Just to clarify a little why I'm stressed out....I was hired as a 1st grade Bilingual teacher and was NOT given a bilingual class. Rather, I have a huge class of 20 that includes 8 non English speakers and the rest are white, African American and English only speaking Hispanic students. The school district wants me to speak Spanish 67% of the time and English 33% of the time and I'm required to turn in paperwork detailing what times of the day I will be speaking each language. Would someone explain to me how I'm supposed to speak a language that is never understood by all my students at the same time. Also, I'm dealing with pissed off parents trying to get their kids out of my class because it is bilingual (which I would do the same if I were in their shoes). I'm also dealing with student's that were retained in this same class last year but who were with a teacher that didn't do shit and let them run around like crazy. Oh, and I just got another student added to my roster this past week who is 9, yes, you read correctly...9 freaking years old...let me remind you this is a class of 5 and 6 year olds. He is constantly disruptive and even gets my good students in trouble and he is HUGE compared to all the other kids. I actually had to send him to the office on Friday after he deliberately tripped a student on her way back to her desk...she fell flat on her face, then, not even 30 minutes later he began throwing things and hit another student in the eye. I'm conflicted because everything I have learned about teaching is the complete opposite of what I'm having to do. These are just a few of the things going on, there are actually a lot of other things going on, but I just don't have the time or energy to write about it. It has been challenging to say the least.

In other news, to make myself happy and give me an incentive to keep teaching all year long, I bought this car today:



It is a Dodge Charger RT with a 5.7-liter HEMI V8 engine, 340 horsepower, 390 lb-ft of torque, Five-speed AutoStick transmission, 18-inch polished aluminum wheels and XM radio. This car is sooo damn powerful, it feels amazing just riding in it. I'm sure I will enjoy my long ride to and from work everyday.

My Fist Day as a Teacher

I am EXHAUSTED. I don't even have the energy to type this right now. Today was such an experience, but in all I would say it went well. I do have two boys that keep giving me trouble. They just don't take direction very well. They don't answer back, but they just can't keep to themselves. Over the course of the day, I had to send two kids to the nurse, one who wasn't feeling well and the other who had a staple in his head from a previous injury and kept poking it. I also had to take them to a million bathroom breaks, tied about 6 pairs of shoes and repeated my rules and procedures about a thousand times. The good thing is that when our principal walked in my room in the afternoon, we were sitting in a circle on the floor and the kids were telling stories with puppets ( one who named a monkey after me and made up an interesting story)so they were all attentive and quiet.

Oh yeah, and to top it off, my conference period is first thing in the morning....so you can imagine how long my day is...it's not even funny. Other than the drive from and to home, this is the fist time I sit down so far today.

I know things can only get better from here, and I'm looking forward to the time when my kiddos have my rules and procedures down pact. I won't take anything less and nothing less is expected of me with our new principal.

1 Day down 186 to go :)

My Classroom

As promised, here is a pic of my classroom. It actually looks quite a bit different now. This picture is from last Monday.

The Verdict is In...

This afternoon I went to the doctor and found out that I will indeed need to have surgery. The doctor said that at this point, it is elective. I can choose to have the surgery asap or try and wait it out for a while. He did say that the attacks could become more frequent and that it would be better to have the surgery before that happens because the surgery is more difficult to do when the gall bladder is inflamed. In the meantime, my diet must consist of the blandest foods. Now that is hard to do when you are Mexican. Doing this will help control the gall bladder attacks. Right now I feel that I need to spend some time with my kiddos and get to know them for the first few weeks, then I can have the surgery. I'm hoping I can stick it out until the week of Thanksgiving since I will be off that week.

Well I'm off...going to go eat something boring for dinner....like a salad :(

Another Doctor Appointment

Today I had a classroom management workshop with the Seguin ISD which was a waste of time because I already had this training with Region 20. I had already seen the videos and handouts I was given today, but I was required to be there so there was no way around it. Tomorrow I have a new teacher breakfast, campus orientation and PDA's and I will be there until 5:15 :(

I was able to make an appointment to see a doctor next week about my gall bladder. I'm seeing him on Wednesday at 2:00. I'm hoping that I won't need surgery and can just take medication, so we will see.

Nothing else to report on, it's kind of a boring evening but at least I finally had a chance to come up here and use the computer.

I'm Back

I am back. I have been back for almost a week but have not been able to get up here and just sit at the computer. I am working on my post with all the details of our vacation which was FANTASTIC. Roger and I had a blast. A week ago at this time I was sitting at Harrah's gambling away at the 1 and 5 cent machines. I will post more on our trip and will include pictures.

We got in Thursday night and since then I have been spending all my time in my classroom fixing it up. I walked in Friday and there was nothing, I mean nothing and I got to work quick. Now my room looks so colorful and bright. I will post pictures of this as well.

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In other news, today I went to the doctor to find out what is going on with me. You may remember that I wrote about some attacks I was getting and I didn't know what it was. Well it's my gall bladder. I have stones in there. This is hereditary and comes from my mom's side of the family...she, my grandpa and all my uncles have had gall bladder problems and now it looks like I'm the first grandchild to get it too. Today I also had bloodwork and x-rays done and I'm still waiting to hear the details from all of those tests. I need to make another appointment to find out how bad it is (which I think is pretty bad based on how I've been feeling lately) and I will probably need surgery. I can't believe the timing of this. I have no more free time and start all my workshops and inservices tomorrow. I hate that I will most likely need to take time off from work for this surgery. It's just my luck.