Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Time flies . . .

Hello All. Don't know who is even still reading this blog.

The past year has been a challenge personally and professionally.

Maybe because I'm turning 40 in Feb or maybe I'm just starting to realize that I need to stop sweating the small stuff. . . . life is too short.

For twelve years, my life has been education. Teaching. My students. I never put my needs before my students or even colleagues. As I approach the big 40 and being alone, I realized that as much as I love my job and love my students, I need to put myself first. I just don't know how to be the educator and personal human being that I need to be in my life.

My primary goal for 2011 is to start putting myself first and work on ME as a human. To be happy. Sounds so simple. But it's not simple. At least for me.

Stay tuned . . . . . . .

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Goodness . . . is everyone else busy too???

It's been forever since I've blogged on here. Sorry. School has been VERY busy this year. Between volleyball, NEASC, Harvard Model Congress, and teaching the new AP course, I've been running around my building all day (and sometimes night) long. :-(

Updates:
* AP Euro is going well. A lot more work than what I thought but it's been good. I've been told that the first year is always tough to teach. Sources on the Internet have been a god-send. It's been nice to teach the upper-level student as well.
*Finished up my JV volleyball season 9-11. Last season we only had two wins so to go from 2 wins to 9 wins is a HUGE improvement! I'm so proud of my girls! :=) It probably helped that I coached Junior Olympic volleyball last winter (I will be doing it again starting on Dec 5th - every Sunday between now and the beginning of May).
*NEASC (accreditation for my school) has been very dramatic and A LOT of work! I am a co-chair of the curriculum strand. The visitation committee arrives in April so I will be happy when this process is over.
*Harvard Model Congress has been keeping me busy too. Added a few more fundraisers and a lot of the kids are not using the fundraising to their advantage. It sucks but I don't want to hear it when their parents have to pay the full $450 for the conference when I've offered numerous opportunities for their kids to fund raise to bring that cost down. The students that have taken advantage of the fundraising have made out like bandits. A few of them will only have to pay $100 for a $450 trip (which is a huge savings!).
*I'm also a mentor to a new teacher in our dept. It's been interesting to say the least. :=)

Good news:
*I will going to Poland over April break. The local university and Holocaust Center are doing a trip to Poland for teachers with the focus to be on the Holocaust. I am so excited about this opportunity! I also convinced three of my colleagues at my school to go on the trip. There will be three Saturday classes prior to the trip to learn about the history of what we will be seeing when we are over there. We will be going to Warsaw, Kielce, Aushcwitz, and Krakow (the heart of the Holocaust). In grad school, my research was the Holocaust namely Auschwitz so I'm very excited to be going on this trip. My students are even excited for me and told me to take a million pictures! :=) And, I'm Polish so I get to go visit my homeland! :=)
*I will be getting a student teacher for the spring semester. It's a first so I'm excited about it. It's something that I haven't really felt like I'm ready to do in my career but after 12 years of teaching, maybe it's time? The student teacher did a lot of observation hours with me the past year so he really likes my teaching style and really pushed to do his student teaching with me. Nothing like a little boost to the self-esteem!
*My sister flew out for Thanksgiving this year. Thought we would start a new tradition. We had a lovely visit. Took her to a Bruins game (a first for both of us). Ate lots of yummy seafood.
*Will be going to Phoenix, AZ again for Christmas to be with my family. Hoping it will be warmer than last Christmas.

So, what is new with you? :=)