Time Warp

OK So it's been 6 months since I last blogged. Man... that's a long time. But as most of you know, teaching warps your concept of time. This year has absolutely blown by and it's hard for me to believe that it's just about 10 weeks until it's over.

HALLELUJAH!!!



Ahem, I mean... how I will miss my little ones. I have not enjoyed teaching very much this year. My days no longer consist of "WOW" days, just "Ehh" days or "#(&*%#" days. A good portion of it is because of my personal life. I avoided dealing with being abused as a middle-schooler and I basically had an emotional breakdown in December that has required quite a bit of intervention from my doctor, therapist, medicines and co-workers. It's very hard to put yourself first in healing when you are in a line of work that requires you put 125 others first.

My life is very much in the "Sink or Swim" category. I'm struggling to find a balance between my work life and my personal life. I am very much an over-achiever and am often at school til 6 or later. But given my personal struggles now, I have made the choice to do what is considered an "acceptable workload" by my administrators and take better care of myself. It sucks because I feel like I am short changing my students by not giving them my all, but I know if I did that I would possibly regress back to having daily anxiety attacks and undo the progress I've made.

I already despise the second semester of school because of all the increased responsibilities I have to take on...
- Give up conference 2x a week for TAKS tutoring
- After school TAKS tutoring til 5:30 once a week
- Benefits Committee, School Organization and CARE Team Meetings
- ARDs
- Field Trip Organization (ugggh, this year was a nightmare!)
- PLC/Benchmark and Curriculum Trainings
- TAKS

Add to the fact that this year, my team member left in February for maternity leave and basically left me in charge of making sure her student teacher knew what to do!

It has been very hard to lighten my workload with all of that extra stuff looming over me as well as my normal responsibilities. I live for the next day off... which isn't until late April, btw. By then TAKS will be about 10 days away and I'm sure I'll be ready to slit my wrists! Thankfully my students this year are just about as close as you can get to angels. I have yet to need to send a student to ISS and I rarely have to assign detention... but I am still not as strict as I should be when it comes to that. Ehh, another day, another time.

While I'm being thankful, I've got to give a shoutout to my counselor at school. She is basically the most amazing person I have ever met. My students are so lucky to have her as am I. Had she not been there for me at my time of need, I may very well not be typing this right now. I know God put me at this school for a reason. She was meant to help me. It's a very comforting feeling knowing she's there every single day just like I am! :)