Back to life...back to reality

During my commute to school this morning, I kept singing one line from a late 80s/early 90s song, "Back to life...back to reality...." That's it! Those are the only lines I remember, but I thought it was fitting since today was the first day of school for me and the thousands of others up here in KC. Technically, I have been back to work for two weeks now due to new teacher meetings and then all staff meetings. I have to say that I am LOVING my new school here! No offense to KHS because I do miss that school and most of all my friends at that school. However, here's a list of the things at WCHS I do enjoy:

1. Even though we start at earlier at 7:25, I am out of school at 2:11!! I would still have 50 minutes to go at KHS.

2. *Most* of my classes are much smaller than they were last year. My largest class is 26, and my English III classes are tiny at 13 and 18.

3. Power of I--this is such a cool concept!! As a "Power of I" (Incomplete) teacher, my students do not earn Ds or Fs. If their grade is below a 70%, they have an I in the class. This I never changes to an F--it stays Incomplete until they make up the work. What does this mean for me? I don't collect pidly daily assignments--I group them together. Students are REQUIRED to do EVERY assignment for the class. There is NO such thing as NOT doing an assignment. WOW! What a concept!! These kids are well-trained! They stay after school for mandatory tutoring if their grade becomes an I, and the parents support it.

4. This school has BEAR time--Become Excited About Reading. Every M/T/F during the first 15 minutes of 5th block, the entire school stops and reads. PE, music, science, etc. They all do it! You know I am loving that!!

Now for the not-so-cool stuff:

1. I hate my parking spot. I love the idea that everyone is assigned a spot, but I have to parallel park for mine!! YIKES! I'm just hoping that I'm the first one in my line to arrive every day so I can just pull on through.

2. My room (Yes, I did get my own room!!) is BLAZING HOT!! The air is on and it's 80+ in my room. I've been told it only gets worse when the heat is turned on. Today I bought a personal fan to sit at my desk or file cabinet. We'll see if that helps.

3. I'm teaching six classes--two each of English I, III, and IV. The classes went incredibly fast today because the first day was only a half day, but I know it will take a while to adjust to this new bell schedule. I thought KHS's bells were weird--WCHS's are even weirder. M/T/F we have 7 classes, W is 1, 3, 5, 7 and R is 2, 4, Focus (like Chief Time), 6 with an early release for teacher collaboration. SO, what does this mean for me? My conference time is 4th block. Notice there is no 4th block on Wednesdays. Wednesdays will be an incredibly LONG day for me with no break at all except the 21-minute lunch!

I'll leave you will pictures of my room--both Before and After shots.

Mamma Mia!

For my final "free" day before the school meetings begin on Monday, I treated myself to a movie--"Mamma Mia!". I have not seen the musical live on stage, so I have nothing in which to compare this movie. However, if the stage version is anything like the movie version, I HAVE to see it!! The movie was so good--great characters (powerful voices), AWESOME ABBA songs, meaningful conversations, and a lesson learned by Sophie, the daughter. When I was watching the movie by myself, I just kept thinking that I needed to see this with my Mom. This would have been the perfect mother/daughter movie, and I wish I could have spent this day with her.

One of the lessons Sophie tries to learn in the movie comes from finding out who her father really is. She desperately wants to learn his identity and thinks that by finding out who her dad is, she will then learn who she really is. Towards the end of the movie, this message began to hit me--my dad lived long enough to walk me down the aisle, see me graduate from college, but he won't be around for all of the other big stuff in my life. He won't be around to witness the birth of a future grandchild, and in turn, his future grandchildren won't know him. I don't know why, but I was really missing him while I was watching Sophie up on the big screen interact with her would-be dads. I guess the pain will go away, but hopefully my memories of the good times with my dad won't.

On a COMPLETELY different note, I found out yesterday (and it was confirmed today) that I will have my own classroom for this school year! I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be sharing a room and traveling to different rooms to teach. I had even set up a mini-classroom in the garage to house all of my stuff that I will need this year but wouldn't be taking with me. NOW I have to pack all of that stuff back up, find boxes, and haul all of it to school with me next week. If I had known this, I would have done all of that this week! Yikes! It doesn't look like my room will be perfect for the first day of school--there is no way I can do all of that between now and when school actually begins. Wish me luck!!