It’s true.

All summer the weekend was really an extension of my days off. I did work a lot over the summer though. Whether it was finishing classes so that I could get to the next step on the pay scale or STEM meetings or conferences. I’m almost to the bottom right corner of the pay scale. 5 more years and I top out. That’s exciting. Not the topping out part, but the fact that I’ve worked my tail off getting a master’s degree and then 90 credits on top of that and I’ve almost put in my 16 years (3 of my years were half-time, so it slowed down the adding up of years).

Anyway, it’s the weekend.

And even though it’s almost over…it was lovely.

 

There really is a song for most of the thoughts that pass through my head.

Thank goodness the first week of school is only 3 days. The tired is real. I took a nap after school on the first day. Beau laughed at me. His famous quote, “Some of us have to work year round”. He does not feel sorry for me.

The kids are tired too. All that talk, talk, talk about classroom expectations and procedures is exhausting for all of us.

However, there were fun moments too. I’ve compiled a list of favorites from the first “week” of school (and a list of not so favorites).

Not so favorites first:

1. Alarm clock at 5:00 am
   

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2. I had to wear a t-shirt on Thursday (our staff shirts for the year). The t-shirt is cool, but I’m not when I wear it. T-shirts make me look like a box and they stick to all the wrong areas.
   

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3. 60-ish kids in one classroom (even with 3 teachers and a para-educator). It’s just too loud, too crowded, too hectic…just too everything. We’ll keep working on it. One of the beauties of the STEM program is being able to team teach. We just have to figure out how to make it functional.
   

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4. Bathroom breaks. 4 minutes of passing between periods is a challenge. I don’t know how the kids do it. If they’ve got to go during class, I just let them go. I mean, if I have to, it’s only fair.
   

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5. I haven’t told a nerdy science joke yet. I found a funny one, but it wasn’t school appropriate.

Q: Why shouldn’t you make fun of a paleontologist?

A: Because you’ll get Jurasskicked. Get it? Jurassic…Jurasskicked. Bahahaha!

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Now for my favorites:

1. The kids. Their smiling faces (most of them are smiling). Even the scowling, “I hate school” faces make me happy. I just see it as a challenge. “You don’t love science? WHAT? Well, we shall see about that by the end of the year”.
   

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2. No fling baby swing design challenge. Yes, we had mini plastic babies (you know the ones they use for baby showers and they freeze in the ice cubes). Well, the kids had to design a swing for them that would:

a. keep the baby safe

b. swing 50 cycles in 1 minute

So the best part was that several students (on separate occasions) commented that the babies looked like a baby Donald Trump. It was the hair. We had a good laugh.

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3. Reaching my 10,000 steps is much easier when I’m at school.

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4. Signing the kids up in Google classroom. Their first task was to answer the question, “What is your current favorite song?” Many of them couldn’t think of one that was school appropriate. I just told them to think of one that could make the classroom playlist. I can’t wait to see what they came up with.

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5. Taking the 8th graders to the 9/11 memorial at the fire station. This was such a cool experience for them (and me). It is chilling to touch a piece of steel that belonged to the twin towers. It’s crazy how we all so vividly remember exactly where we were and what were doing on this day 15 years ago. The kids I teach weren’t even born yet. I also remember exactly when Bush declared war…Jaxon was 5 days old. The tv in the hospital was covering it non-stop. The media is something else. I’m glad that my dream of being a famous reporter didn’t come to fruition. Being a teacher is much more rewarding and honest.

I try not to do politics in a public forum, but I will say this:

We will get a lot further in uniting a nation with positive energy and love. Martin Luther King Jr. said it so eloquently, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Those are words to live by.

The end.

Wish me luck on the first official full week of school.

I think I can. I think I can.