Very meandering life entry
Sep. 4th, 2019 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressSo it turned out to be a pretty good day after all.
I didn't sleep quite enough, and I left the house later-than-I-would-like (translation: any point after 7:00AM. Sidebar: The fact that I have arranged my life such that it's chill for me to leave at 7:00AM and still get to work on time and be ready for work is _amazing_. I don't know how long I can continue to manage to get all my prep work done the day before (including, critically, all the printing and copying) such that I don't have to do anything but show up, but it is *great* while it is lasting.).
On my commute *to* work, I got to see a train! My commute passes directly over some train tracks, and it was splendid timing such that I saw the lights flashing as I was biking up alongside a bunch of cars, but I was far enough away that I could just cruise up, appreciate the sight of the commuter rail, and then by the time I arrived at the tracks the train had gone and I could just cross. I'm not saying there's some kind of weird guarantee that if I see a train I'll have a good day, but I did manage to get a hug from my friend David like five minutes later, so that's a pretty good case.
Work was _very_ long today. Last year my schedule was Mildly Horrific, in that I always taught four or five classes in a row with no breaks. This year I'm back to the same schedule as first year, and it's so much nicer to actually have space during the middle of the day to work on things. Except, of course, on Wednesdays where I have four classes in a row with no breaks. Still though, it's not too terrible really, and it does mean I don't have to play the "constantly unplug and replug my laptop with the other teachers who teach in my room" game.
Anyways, post work-proper was the club fair, and after that I killed about a half-hour playing dumb phone games, but then spent a healthy chunk of time doing that aforementioned thing where I get ready for the following day's classes.
The frustrating thing (as a teacher) is that my lesson plans can virtually always be better. So for instance, last year around this time, I was launching directly into content with my Algebra students. Which was a good idea, that class is always tight for time, but didn't give me a lot of chance to explore who they are as people, and what level they're already at. So this year I was thinking, let's do some creative group activities, and try working together at some math adjacent things that require basically no language, because SEI1 classroom.
Of course, finding clever group activities took like 45 minutes, and then I needed to actually set up the presentation, and we're just going to ignore that I did about 75 minutes of cutting out pieces of circles tonight while watching Taskmaster. So it's been a well-over ten hours of work2 day, my first one of the year so far, and I'm feeling vaguely guilty because I haven't finished all the grading yet.
On the commute home I got to chat with Alys on the phone and saw *another* train. It is possible I scared the shit out of her by shouting "TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN" very loudly and interrupting whatever she said and making her wonder if I was about to be hit by said train (no).
Once home, there were Potential Pantry Moths (just eggs, only two things, lots of grains are now in the freezer and we took out the trash after) and then watching Taskmaster while cutting stuff out for work. A glass of wine and I would've felt extremely peak teacher, honestly. (I had ice cream instead, which was also a pretty good choice.)
Tomorrow I will keep on keeping on with my classes. It's been an astoundingly long week for only having been two days. I would like to be back into the swing of this, yes please.
Hope y'all are well.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Sheltered English Immersion. Translation: none of these kids speak English fluently yet, and some of them just stare at me panicked no matter what I'm saying because they've only been in the country for like a month.
2: Look, I have a lot of friends with fanc-ass tech jobs and the like, which allow y'all to post on Facebook in the middle of the day or wevs. I just want to be very clear that whenever I refer to the hourage of my job, I am referring specifically to time _actually spent on work-related stuff_. I love my job, it *is* the Dream Job, last year I regularly worked 12 hour days because prep work also grading.
I didn't sleep quite enough, and I left the house later-than-I-would-like (translation: any point after 7:00AM. Sidebar: The fact that I have arranged my life such that it's chill for me to leave at 7:00AM and still get to work on time and be ready for work is _amazing_. I don't know how long I can continue to manage to get all my prep work done the day before (including, critically, all the printing and copying) such that I don't have to do anything but show up, but it is *great* while it is lasting.).
On my commute *to* work, I got to see a train! My commute passes directly over some train tracks, and it was splendid timing such that I saw the lights flashing as I was biking up alongside a bunch of cars, but I was far enough away that I could just cruise up, appreciate the sight of the commuter rail, and then by the time I arrived at the tracks the train had gone and I could just cross. I'm not saying there's some kind of weird guarantee that if I see a train I'll have a good day, but I did manage to get a hug from my friend David like five minutes later, so that's a pretty good case.
Work was _very_ long today. Last year my schedule was Mildly Horrific, in that I always taught four or five classes in a row with no breaks. This year I'm back to the same schedule as first year, and it's so much nicer to actually have space during the middle of the day to work on things. Except, of course, on Wednesdays where I have four classes in a row with no breaks. Still though, it's not too terrible really, and it does mean I don't have to play the "constantly unplug and replug my laptop with the other teachers who teach in my room" game.
Anyways, post work-proper was the club fair, and after that I killed about a half-hour playing dumb phone games, but then spent a healthy chunk of time doing that aforementioned thing where I get ready for the following day's classes.
The frustrating thing (as a teacher) is that my lesson plans can virtually always be better. So for instance, last year around this time, I was launching directly into content with my Algebra students. Which was a good idea, that class is always tight for time, but didn't give me a lot of chance to explore who they are as people, and what level they're already at. So this year I was thinking, let's do some creative group activities, and try working together at some math adjacent things that require basically no language, because SEI1 classroom.
Of course, finding clever group activities took like 45 minutes, and then I needed to actually set up the presentation, and we're just going to ignore that I did about 75 minutes of cutting out pieces of circles tonight while watching Taskmaster. So it's been a well-over ten hours of work2 day, my first one of the year so far, and I'm feeling vaguely guilty because I haven't finished all the grading yet.
On the commute home I got to chat with Alys on the phone and saw *another* train. It is possible I scared the shit out of her by shouting "TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN" very loudly and interrupting whatever she said and making her wonder if I was about to be hit by said train (no).
Once home, there were Potential Pantry Moths (just eggs, only two things, lots of grains are now in the freezer and we took out the trash after) and then watching Taskmaster while cutting stuff out for work. A glass of wine and I would've felt extremely peak teacher, honestly. (I had ice cream instead, which was also a pretty good choice.)
Tomorrow I will keep on keeping on with my classes. It's been an astoundingly long week for only having been two days. I would like to be back into the swing of this, yes please.
Hope y'all are well.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Sheltered English Immersion. Translation: none of these kids speak English fluently yet, and some of them just stare at me panicked no matter what I'm saying because they've only been in the country for like a month.
2: Look, I have a lot of friends with fanc-ass tech jobs and the like, which allow y'all to post on Facebook in the middle of the day or wevs. I just want to be very clear that whenever I refer to the hourage of my job, I am referring specifically to time _actually spent on work-related stuff_. I love my job, it *is* the Dream Job, last year I regularly worked 12 hour days because prep work also grading.
no subject
on 2019-09-05 02:48 am (UTC)Also, thank you for letting me see inside what it is to be a Working Teacher.
Also, also, thank you for working with people who are new to the country, and the language, and everything.
no subject
on 2019-09-05 01:42 pm (UTC)https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/cwz5qq/little_girl_sees_train_for_the_first_time/
math for foreign speakers
on 2019-09-05 02:50 pm (UTC)One of her students had just moved from Japan. His happy time of the school day was math-worksheet-in-class period. The idea of worksheets was familiar, and the numbers looked just the same. That would require less explanation than algebra, of course.
no subject
on 2019-09-12 12:17 pm (UTC)