So many posts.

I have maybe 10 posts in my head right now. They come to me in moments: leaving the dining hall, watching a sports event, teaching in my classroom, visiting the dorms and I silently compose them repeating phrases and capturing words.  They then stay there. Sometimes for a long time but more often just until the next is composed.  This process used to work for me.  I would compose in my head and transcribe to the blog usually with a day.  This works perfectly with only one condition, time. My time has been eaten up with other things: I go to the dining hall, I watch sporting events, I teach, I visit the dorms.  I work from 7-7 most days and on days I go to the dorms 7-10:30 or 11.  I prioritize new friends, I prioritize sleep, I attempt to prioritize returning phone calls.  I cannot seem to prioritize the blog.

Today though, I am sick.  I have the cold.  I use an article because every girl on campus seems to have gotten “the cold.”  I am just about a week late to the party.  So I have decided to go on cold mandated blogging.  I am not doing school work I am going to blog.

First Post:  What’s it like at your school?

Here’s some numbers for you math teachers.  I teach 1 section Algebra 1, 1 Geometry, and 2 Algebra 2s.  There are seven periods (A-G) on a rotating schedule where I see all my students 4 times a week for 50 minutes each time.  So total I teach 16/28 periods.  I also sit in the Math Learning Center 2 periods a week and have 3 course level meetings and a department meeting so that 22/28 periods  a week.  I meet 2 periods a week with my advisees and end up pretty much back where I was last year with a total of 4 prep periods a week.

I don’t have to coach a sport so I make it a goal to help at one sports related event a week.  I probably go part of a game each day as they are on my walk home.  I eat  most of my meals in the dining hall meaning I spend the large majority of my time with the girls.

I have 5 girls that I advise which basically means I am their on campus parent  and I communicate with their (real) parents. I meet weekly with each of them and once a week with the whole group.

Second Post:  Athlete.

I have this student who is an athlete.  In order to be as protective as possible I am not going to talk about what sport but in this sport she is amazing (like could be nationally ranked amazing).  She is an international student and probably the best athlete I have ever known.  The thing I like most about her though is that she is a team player.  My guess is that she could play any position, that she could score all of the points, basically that she could dominate but she doesn’t.  She mostly assists. She directs her teammates and cheers them in victory and in loss.  She is also very very smart.  She is the definition of a student athlete.  I really appreciate having the opportunity to teach her. Not because she is smart or even because she is an athlete but because she’s a team player in a way I’ve never had before. (She also has this very strange sense of humor that I totally don’t get but I love when she laughs at things. Candy for example makes her laugh.)

To be fair I have lots of students that are athletes, hilarious, smart, silly, crazy, hard working students. And I really like teaching every one.

Third Post: How is it there?

It is: busy, challenging, time demanding, rewarding, exhausting, emotionally draining and filling, but overall the best thing I have ever done for myself.

 

I miss you blog.  I miss you, people who read this.  I almost miss social networks.

 

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