And so it begins.

I've been waiting my whole life for this. Besides the brief moment in time that I thought riding on the back of a trash truck would be the coolest job ever, I've always known that I would grow up to be a teacher.
       I spent many summer days playing "teacher" with my stuffed animals and baby sister.
       I spent many afternoons drawing on overheads in my mom and dad's classrooms.
       I spent f i v e l o n g y e a r s in college "learning" how to be an effective teacher.
       I spent many hours listening to Norma and several other wonderful people from Grapevine pour their heart and soul into helping me be the best I could be.
       I spent many late nights scripting out detailed lesson plans.
       I spent months as a teacher intern with a group of precious third graders and sweet little first graders.


I say all this to say- I had lots of support and people to prepare me for what this first week of my education career would be like, and nothing has really been a MAJOR surprise.
I knew I would be stressed. I knew the meetings would be, well, not very exciting. I knew I would end up spending a ton of money on my classroom. And I knew I would get to meet lots of new people.


I started new teacher training on Monday. I spent all day Monday and Tuesday and half a day on Wednesday in meetings. While they weren't the most beneficial meetings I've been to in the last five years, I am very grateful for the opportunity those meetings provided for me to meet other new teachers around the district and at my campus. All of the new girls I've met really have their hearts in the right place. They are so much fun, and I'm so glad I have someone to go through all of this with me. We keep reminding each other that we'll make it one way or another. And that we'd much rather have the stress of getting our rooms together and organized than the stress of still looking for a job. (...which, God bless them, many of my fellow interns still are. Keeps your heads up ladies, one will come around!) That alone helps to keep me thinking positively and keeps me very aware of how very blessed I am to be in the position I am in at this point in my life.




Setting my room up has been a whole other challenge of its own, but like I said, I'll make it work. The teacher that had the room before me left a giant mess for me. A lot of the supplies will be very useful to me, but I needed to set aside a great deal of time to cleaning out the cabinets and organizing everything. THANK GOODNESS for family and friends that have come to help me. My parents, my sister, her friends, and Scott have all taken time out of their summer vacations to help me fufill my dream. They want to make sure that I feel ready. Many of the things they have done for me are things I could definitely do myself...if I had 3 months to get ready...but I don't, and their extra hands have been a saving grace. I couldn't be more thankful. My room already looks a thousand times better, but it stills needs some more tender, love, and care before parents and students show up to take a peek next Thursday night. Eeek.


I'm going to take a break from my classroom for the weekend so that I can be refreshed for another long week of preparation. It's still not ALL real to me yet, but it sinks in a little bit more every day. So crazy. I'm hoping to use this blog thing as a way to keep a personal journal of my first year as a teacher. It'll be tough and fun and stressful and exciting and crazy and rewarding and exhausting, and I want to remember it all. So HOPEFULLY I can find time to blog every once in a while. :)