Crazy Life

I know I've been quiet the past few weeks/month. It hasn't been intentional, believe me. Life has been CRAZY!

Never ever would I have thought I would be waking up at 5am. 5AM, PEOPLE!!!! Sleeping in for me (during the week) is waking up at 5:30; over-sleeping is waking up at 5:45. ?!?! Mind-boggling, I know. But such is my life.

This year of teaching has been the hardest thing I've ever done. I know that's a cliche, but it's true! I feel the pressure even more because my certification depends on how this year goes. Talk about stress. (sarcasm)It gets better(/sarcasm):

My school (which I'll call EEA) is an HISD charter school and the way it's run is ridiculous. For starters, I didn't have all the furniture I needed when school started - no bookshelves for my room, no teacher's desk, not even a chair for each child in class. They hadn't delivered our tables for the lunch room, so we had to eat in the classroom the first two weeks. Since the floors weren't properly cleaned, we got ants. So you can imagine what it was like for me, trying to get 22 3-year-olds to eat their lunch, even though half of them didn't have chairs. Then they would much rather look at all the ants than eat.

That leads to another rant - I have no teacher's aide! Like I said, there are 22 3-year-olds and ME. PLUS, the children arrive at our main campus in southwest Houston and then we're all bussed downtown to our school (something I didn't find out until after I signed the contract). Since there are no aides, we have to go to the first campus and ride the buses w/ the kids, leaving our cars behind. Since we ride to school w/ the kids we have no time to prep our room before or after school. That makes for some very creative mornings. The no aide thing also means we don't get breaks or a planning period. Thankfully the kids still nap, so that's our time to prep, eat and use the bathroom. At this point, once the kids fall alseep (usually around 1) we let them sleep until the buses arrive so we can leave (around 2:45). And that's what we'll keep doing until they say we can't.

There are 7 teachers and classes of 3-year-olds at our location. We have two administrators at the school as well. So nine staff total. The good thing is I get along well with my coworkers. The two I'm closest to are very strong Christians as well, so that's encouraging to have. What's also good is we're away from the main campus and all the crap that happens there. Our campus supervisor is laid back and tries to help us when she can. Of course we need TONS more help, but that's something we can probably only dream about. I'm not expecting things to change anytime soon.

I'll end my rant by explaining that all but three of my kids are Spanish speakers. So I try my best to communicate in my Spanglish, but there's still a lot that doesn't get translated. Not being able to communicate w/ some of the parents is the most frustrating.

But I'm getting used to my situation. I know I can't change it, so I'm going to try to make the best of it. That whole be faithful in the little thing. It's hard. *sigh*

My kids are still getting used to me and I'm getting used to them, but things are tons better. We're still working on staying in line, though. Especially when we arrive at the school in the afternoon. It's hard because a lot of parents are there already, waiting 'til 4 so they can get their children. So they stand around the corner and watch us get off and walk in. It's so frustrating because the kids want to turn and look at them rather than pay attention to where we're going so they can stay w/ the class. So half my kids are trying to walk into the building and the other half are outside waving at parents. Oh so frustrating. I don't blame the kids (they're only 3!); it's the parents that frustrate me sometimes.

Ok, no more griping. Sorry.

As you can so obviously read, life is CRAZY now. I need all the prayer I can get!