Book Addict's Blog

I survived my first year of teaching!!!

It's been a crazy and challenging year.  Frankly, I'm not a very good teacher yet, especially in the area of classroom management.  And that led to lots of stress, tears, exhaustion, and even burnout at times.  The year was not without its high points, of course.  Teaching can be fun, and rewarding...even if you're a first year teacher who feels like she has no clue what she's doing and not enough support.  I had a not insignificant number of those happy moments.  And I certainly loved each of my kids individually. 

But I'm incredibly glad it's summer.  This summer, even with my trip to China, will be the most relaxing one I've had in probably 10 years.  I'm looking forward to the chance to relax, rejuvenate, and ready myself for next year.  Because next year will be crazy again, especially since my school is moving buildings and adding a sixth grade.  But by August, I will be rested, and will hopefully have things planned and prepared so that next year goes much more smoothly than this year did.

It's Spring Break!  One of the nice things about teaching is that I still get these breaks. I found some cheap tickets home from Dallas, so I'll be driving about five hours down there tomorrow to visit a friend and then take a flight home the next day. It'll be a lot of traveling for just a few days home, but it'll be so worth it.

Speaking of breaks, I'm already thinking about what I can do this summer.  I miss traveling internationally already, and I'm not too picky about where I go. Basically, I'd just like to go somewhere I haven't been before (i.e. not North America, Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Morocco, or Armenia), though I'd be willing to go back somewhere if I find a really good deal. I want to keep my budget to about $2000, but stay as long as I can somewhere within that budget.  And I may be traveling by myself unless I can find someone to travel with.  Other than that, though, everything is pretty open.  So I'm turning to all of you!  Where do you suggest I go?

What follows is a "quick" recap of the lase few weeks of my study abroad trip. I wrote it Saturday, but as I've been pretty internet-less, I'm only getting to posting it now! Here it is:

( Lots of text and pics under the cut... )

I was nudged to update weeks ago, and as you can see, never got around to it.  These past two months have been such a whirlwind, I haven't even kept up with my LJ reading, which I usually do even when I don't post.  My weekends have been filled with traveling, while my weekdays have been filled with schoolwork.  I'm only taking four classes this semester (and unfortunately, unlike last semester, none are all that interesting to me), but since I don't have time to do schoolwork during most weekends, and each semester-long class is squeezed into seven weeks, they keep me on my toes!

( Cut for pictures and a lengthy post... )

I've been out of school for over a month now, and things have been going pretty well!  The first couple of weeks, I mostly lazed around, though I did work occasionally.  Then, starting in June, my summer began to pick up. The first few days of the month, I visited my grandma with my mom.  It was nice to be able to spend some quality time with her, which I don't always get to do when I see her with a bunch of other family members around. 

The day after I came back from that trip, I left for orientation at the summer camp I'll be working at.  We were kept REALLY busy, being trained in all we needed to know for the rest of the summer! But I still had a chance to start to really get to know the other staff members, both the ones I'll be working directly with, and those I won't be seeing so often. It was odd, though, because all of those staff members who would be working with children had camp names. So someone would introduce themselves to me as Michelle, and I'd have to introduce myself as Azalea (the camp name I ended up choosing, after my first two choices had been rejected because they'd been recently used).  It took some getting used to! Within my specific camp area, we had a rule going on that if you said someone's real name, you had to put a quarter in a jar (we'd use the money to go see a movie sometime during the summer).  I didn't have too much of a problem, because I had never met most of the staff members before, and while I knew their real names, I had never really called them by them.  The harder part was referring to myself by my camp name! At any rate, orientation was packed, but fun.  I still don't know everything I'm supposed to be doing, but I guess there are some things we just have to figure out as we go along.

I left orientation two days early, so that I could go to New York.  I spent an afternoon packing and spending time with my family and my best friend, then left the next morning for Colorado, where I visited with some family friends.  The morning after that, I flew on to New York! I've now been here for about five days, and am having a blast.  I'm here for a history program centered on Abraham Lincoln, so we've taken tours of the city, heard lectures from some prominent scholars, and are working on a mini project. On my free time, I've also walked around the city, visited the Met, seen a free violin concert, and seen the NYC Ballet perform A Midsummer Night's Dream. 

I especially loved the ballet. While I like dancing, and watching people dance, the only full length ballet I'd seen before was The Nutcracker (which I've seen more times than I can count).  So A Midsummer Night's Dream was awesome. Not only was the story fun and the dancing spectacular (or cute, in the case of the really young dancers), but I also loved the music and costumes.  Plus, I only paid $15 for my tickets, because I'm a student!

Another thing I've loved is visiting the Strand Bookstore. I'm staying at an NYU residence hall only a block and a half away from the bookstore, so I've gone to visit it three times. They have so many new and used books, and at such great prices! I've bought 5 books so far, but if I didn't limit myself, I would probably have bought 100.

Well, I have a discussion in about 5 minutes, so I better go now. Hope you are all having as great of a summer as I am!

Ugh. I went home for the weekend, and enjoyed the fact that I got to see my family and my brother's soccer game and musical. Unfortunately, however, I ended up spending more time traveling than I spent at home. Friday was the first time I've ever had an airplane take off from one airport, and then land in that same airport. It was supposed to be a short flight into Dallas, but Dallas was experiencing really windy weather, and we'd have to circle for half an hour - which we didn't have enough fuel to do. With other delays and cancellations, my entire trip home took 12 hours instead of the expected 6. Thankfully, I didn't have to spend the night at the airport, because there are several airports in Southern California. I was able to catch a delayed flight to another airport near my house, where my poor dad picked me up from at 2am. We had to pick up my luggage the next day, though.

Then, on Sunday, my flight from DFW to the city where my school is located was canceled. Fortunately, this time the cancellation was due to mechanical reasons, and so they put me up in a hotel for the night. I finally got back in late this morning, having missed both of my classes for the day. I had an exam in one of those classes, too. But I'd e-mailed my professor, and now he's letting me take the test tomorrow.

So yeah, things could have been worse, but they were bad enough as it was!

On a different note, here's a meme from valkeakuulas: Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.
( My Five Things )

Books I've read for fun:

Persuasion by Jane Austen, Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eoin Colfer, Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, Wren to the Rescue by Sherwood Smith, Wren's Quest by Smith, Wren's War by Smith, Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold, and probably more I can't remember.

Places I've been in Spain:

Madrid, Cazorla, Toledo, Segovia (x2), Barcelona, Granada, Cordoba, El Escorial/The Valley of the Fallen

Other places I've been:

Dublin, Paris, Rome, Edinburgh, Lisbon

 

Well, it’s been almost two months since my last real update. But then, I’ve never claimed to be good at updating on a regular basis. Busyness combined with laziness just get in the way. So, here’s the first part of a rather condensed version of what I’ve been doing lately. I actually typed it up before I went to Rome this past weekend (which was amazing!), but I didn’t have a chance to put it up. Hopefully, the next couple of parts of the update will go up within the next week or so!


( Cut for length and pictures... )

I'm having an absolutely AMAZING time in Spain! I've been here for less than a week, and I'm already bemoaning the fact that I can't stay longer than a semester. Of course, we'll see if that changes once classes start tomorrow.

( Cut for detail and a few photos... )