First Week

Okay, so I've made it! One down! Been a little crazy. Some good days some bad ones. Wednesday I was just pretesting. Easy for me, really boring for the kids. Yesterday was a little on the disaster side. Still adjusting to floating. I made note of the projectors in the classrooms and I had stuff ready on my laptop, but then my laptop wouldn't work with the projectors in half the classes for some reason. Kinda threw me off, and everything took longer anyway. Today was better, today was actually pretty good. I felt like I was moving along pretty good, though time still felt too much of a crunch. Overall, things feel positive, if not hectic. In a weird way, floating has a positive aspect of seeing more teachers and talking to them and it kinda lifts you up. I forgot to say in my last post that this was the first year where I actually went to sleep when I first tried to before the first day of class. I think that's definitely a good sign. And it does feel more natural. I've also retooled my mindset. I've thrown that whole "never smile before ___" addage out the window. So far it hadn't worked for me. Putting on this air of stern authority figure and then they pretty much just really hate me. I'm not going soft (though my "hard" was always suspect anyhow), but I do want to cultivate the impression that I enjoy being around them. Also, the class of seeming troublemakers I mentioned before may end up being a good class. While they definitely need some refinement overall, they're much easier to get into discussion and engaged. And they can be fun. To me, right now, my biggest struggle is the couple of classes where it's like squeezing blood from a stone to get anyone to talk at all. I know last year, while both would have given me consternation, it'd be the talkers I'd be most worried about. It's interesting to me that it's the other way around now. After work, did some shopping. I had laminated poster boards for the "white board protocol" stuff I need to carry around to multiple classes. Well, I'm a little disappointed by it as it's much shittier for erasing than I had imagined it'd be. But for now it's the best solution I've got. I got some stuff to make sticking it up easier. I need to get my floating station in order. I feel so discombobulated working out of a backpack and laptop bag. Everything being stuffed in two pockets and all together and I'm scrambling to find what I'm looking for. It'll be a bit comforting being able to know where stuff is in my little tower of drawers. Oh, we also ate Gus's. I'm full. Yay.