In the immortal words of Strongbad, "It's over!"

This is it. The final countdown (yes, it's intentional). I'm on my second to last day in this classroom and, truthfully, it's entirely perfunctory. Mrs. F gave me a grade, I turned in all my evaluations, my Taskstream portfolio is graded, my Gate 4 interview is over, so I'm just here to be here now.
Not that I don't absolutely love it and I'm not having the best time in the world. I am going to miss my students like crazy. All of them. Even the ones that drive me insane on a daily basis (and if you're one of my students stumbling across this, you know who you are). (Apparently, this is a parentheses day.) In all seriousness, I am legit having the best day ever today. Granted I haven't taught yet...but I'm just having fun with today. I feel like this is the first time I can relax and just be in the classroom. No evaluations, no judging who I am or how I am in the classroom, no paperwork. I can be totally myself in the classroom today. It probably won't translate any differently than how I normally am, but I know the difference.

So this is really the end. I'll probably keep up this blog for diary keeping purposes, but I'm now standing on the precipice of the gaping void that is the rest of my life. May 8th is a scary day filled with a nearly blank slate so I can begin writing my new life and be a grown-up in the real world...

Heaven help me.

It's the beginning of the end

I am in total, complete count down mode. I know this would upset Dr. Strait because he'd tell me I'm wishing away time, but still. I have 5 school days left of student teaching, 10 days til graduation, today is my Gate 4 interview, my portfolio is finished, and I'm getting married in 2 months. And as exciting and awesome as all this is, I have an ever growing ball of anxiety threatening to eat me alive.
I DON'T HAVE A JOB nor do I have an interview. I've applied at multiple schools, my classmates are getting interviews, the time frame is running out, and all I've gotten are polite emails saying they're considering all their options. Heck, I didn't even get an email back from the school I really want to work at in spite of the 24 hour mandatory response period at Fayette County.
I'm beginning to wonder if I'm doing anything right at all. People keep telling me (especially my classmates who are being interviewed) that "He has a plan for me" and "He will get me through this on His power." As much as I hate to say it, He needs to hurry up. I know that's rude and I shouldn't get upset with God about this, but if there's some master plan for my life, I'd love to know at least a small part of it now. I know I'm meant to go to Haiti...some time, but until then what do I do with my life? I've spent four years on a teaching degree only to find out that no one wants English teachers and they're not too happy with ESL teachers either, despite telling me that it's a "shortage" area. I'm going crazy here. Add that to the never ending demands that come with student teaching, trying to get any details in order for my wedding, finishing my registry, finding a job after graduation...I'm gonna drop dead from stress at this point. Poor Dave, he's putting up with so much crazy right now.

April

I have 16 school days left of student teaching. At least 2 of those (potentially 4) are taken up with KCCT testing and the last 5 are kind of unofficial since I'll have done all my Gate stuff by then. I currently have a DVD of me teaching due next week and all my portfolio stuff is due on the 23rd by midnight. Then I'll have a stressful sort of interview on the 27th and then student teaching is basically over. It's such a strange feeling. I really don't feel like I've been here that long, nor do I feel like I should be this old.
In addition to student teaching/college wrapping up (an idea I still can't get my head around) my wedding is coming up...rather quickly. I'm really, really, really enjoying the fact that my reception is in a barn. It makes everything awesome for some reason. It's totally dictated the mood and my mental image of the whole thing. It's like knowing that this barn is there, I suddenly get a picture of how everything else needs to be, like invitations, food, decorations, and music. As much as I've wanted to run away and get married, I'm almost enjoying planning everything out and mentally nesting my future home. No one is allowed to tell Dave this. It's just our little secret...unless Dave gets on here and reads it himself, then the secret is out.
On the job front...there isn't one yet. I just finished my application to Scott County this morning, sent in a substitute application for Franklin Co. yesterday, applied to Clark Co. a couple months ago, and applied for two positions in Fayette Co. a while back as well. So, thus far that's 4 teaching applications and 1 application for a job period. I've got another one for a private Christian school in Lawrenceburg that I'll work on today. *sigh* Now Jefferson Co., if I could move there, has 19 high school English positions open and just about as many ESL jobs. Unfortunately, I'm tethered here for now. I just need a job, period, and I'm starting to panic a little, just one of those in-the-back-of-my-mind panics. Hopefully schools start posting jobs soon.

Here it goes again...

So...it's been more than a month since I've been on here? That seems unreal. Time keeps passing in weird increments. Like each day feels jam packed and painstakingly slow, but one day I wake up and it's the weekend already. And thus the end of student teaching, graduation, and my wedding are that much closer. It's weird. Everything for student teaching is due in a month, graduation is like 2 weeks after that, and I'm getting married in 3 months. Goodness.
Well, since I've been neglectful let me record some of my favorite memories so far:
1) Solo week- This was a great  experience. I taught "A Modest Proposal" and created an essay prompt centered around Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Of course, then I had to read 145 5-paragraph essays...but it was more or less worth it. My observations for this went really well, which was cause for celebration.
2) Quotes from my students-
Anything to do with the first day of reading "A Modest Proposal." Watching their faces at they slowly figured out that Jonathan Swift was telling the Irish to eat babies was priceless.
As we're discussing the Holocaust and specifically some experiments that went on at Auschwitz we talked briefly about castration. Student response to finding out what castration was: "Wait...You can live like that?!"
We watched an episode of Oprah where she and Elie Wiesel were touring Auschwitz. As we're reading Night the next day one of my students stops me before I can start and says "Ms. Coburn, I really wish we hadn't watched that video." "Why is that?" "Because it ruined the book for me. I really wanted to know if Elie survived the concentration camp." Brief pause as I stand there in disbelief "He wrote the book we're reading..."
3) My experience at the bank this past weekend where the teller automatically assumed that Dave was my 14 year old son... You can laught, it's ok I do.
4) Finding and finally settling on a wedding venue and a cake person. It totally takes a load off my mind. Plus I got to spend a whole afternoon eating cake and really, what could be better than that?

All right then

So after that last outburst on here, imagine my shock when I heard about this case.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0217/Natalie-Munroe-calls-out-whiny-kids-Do-teacher-blogs-help-or-hurt-schools

Great...

My personal belief is this is a free speech issue. If a particular student is allowed to comment on a public Facebook page that their teacher is a "fat ass" and allowed to call in the ACLU because they were suspended for it (true case, look it up) or just look at the Fayette Co. Facebook page and all the crap posted on there, then I believe Ms. Munroe here deserves the same treatment. Yes, "teachers are held to a higher standard" I hear it everywhere, I've even said it myself, but dear goodness she has a point. Yes she was harsh, yes the language she used is "unprofessional," but I believe in those negative comments she was 1. venting about a particularly bad day and 2. telling it like it is. Anyone who believes that all students, especially high schoolers, are sweet, innocent, loving, hard-working mature young adults is naive. There are some, but they are the smallest of small minorities. High school wasn't that long ago for me and I would love to catergorize myself in there, but I was (and still am to some extent) rude, disrespectful, and annoying to my teachers especially if I didn't care or didn't like them. It's just how it goes.
I'm bothered by the super strong negative reactions to this story. Not because I don't agree with those comments, but because the people writing those comments seem so unaware of how difficult it is to be a teacher of any age group. I've known people who pick Education because it's an "easy major" and then the actually get into the schools and are apalled by what they see and hear. I don't enjoy the romanticized view of teachers or of student/teens and I fully support Ms. Munroe in her decisions to both post her honest comments and to be unapologetic about the situation as a whole.

Megan's Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad... umm... while?

Honestly as I type this, I'm angry. I'm mad that it took my freakin' computer almost 10 minutes to unfreeze from whatever coma it stumbled into this time, but that's standard procedure and just irks me when it happens.
As for what I'm currently stewing on, the list is as follows. I'm beginning to hate student teaching, not because of the actual teaching or students. I'm still upset about my "conference" after my first lesson. I'm frustrated that it seems like my teacher won't let me take control and therefore reports me as nervous in the classroom (a stigma that I've been battling since my first failure in Junior year). I'm irritated that I drive to Wilmore every 2 weeks for "necessary" student-teacher training but that it takes me out of the last 15-30 minutes of a class that I'm teaching.  I'm mad that every one of my "friends" forgot my birthday. I'm more upset that I got half-assed excuses why they "forgot" (read: ignored) my birthday. I know I turned 22...but still, no one likes to be forgotten.
In addition to all this we'll add any family issue that comes up that I worry about (because that's part of my nature, I had stomach ulcers in 1st grade...true story) and we'll add the stress of maintaining a stable relationship and planning a wedding on top of the rest.
All in all I'm seeing a serious recipe for disaster. (and it took me like 4 tries to spell recipe)
I want to quit. I'm done. I'm sick of jumping through hoops to fulfill a pointless requirement (like logging my time in 15 minute increments...like I honestly check the exact time that I switch between tasks and let's not forget multi-tasking) or trying to please people who already have a fixed bad impression of me that leaves no room for grace. I'm tired of trying to maintain friendships where I do all the work.
I'm in a bad mood, I don't care who knows it, and I have no solutions to fix anything except pray that time heals it all.

They say it's your Birthday...

Well, loyal followers, it's my birthday too. And I am, of course, at school. From school, I'll go to church to enjoy a Wednesday night dinner of various pastas by Chef Wayne, listen to my dad talk about a "hot button" issue that people refuse to approach any differently than they always have, then I'll go home and probably go to bed. Woohoo. I got a snow day yesterday, there's potentially one looming for tomorrow, but today is a school day and running the same as always.
I need glitter...and a tiara. For reals yo. This day needs to have something shiny to it. I can't be the only one chilling here bottling up the specialness. It's my birthday and everyone has to celebrate with me. We need an all day moving party. Guess I'll make up for it by being extra exuberant in my teaching today.