Daring to Be » 2007 » September

Yes, I’m sitting at home on a Saturday night. It looks like I’ll be heading to Carrot River for Thanksgiving next weekend, and considering I start half time teaching the following week I figured it was in my best interest to have a low key weekend of planning.

I have a few little things to update about.

• The two other interns and I introduced eachother and led the entire school (300+ students and staff) in a couple of songs at a school assembly, talk about scary but it went well.
• Staff wellness day was Thursday, which meant a free book from McNally Robinson. I chose Peter Pan and Wendy, because though I love every film adaptation of Peter Pan I’ve ever seen, I’ve never actually read the book.
• The vice principal and middle years teachers invited us interns to the grade 8 camping trip next week. It’ll definitely be an interesting experience and you can bet I’ll be bundling up in sweat pants and sweaters, especially if the weather is anything like it is tonight (only 5 degrees Celsius, 41 degrees for you Fahrenheiters.)

As much as I love teaching, I really am starting to realize I need to do a better job of making time for myself. I feel like I don’t talk about anything but internship. Which, granted, I come home everyday with a fresh batch of entertaining stories but all the same I have to make more effort to remember I am not just Miss. Gentner the interning teacher but also Breanne, the 24 year old trying to figure life and love out.

This is my third week of being sick. Not cool. Started with a sore throat. That went away and was replaced last week by congestion. Now, week three, the congestion has mostly gone away but now I have this awful tickle in my throat that has me constantly coughing. This tickle stops me when I’m talking and the cough keeps me up at night. Considering I hardly ever get sick (knock on wood), I’m not the most pleased person on the face of the planet.

Oh well, I guess I should just be glad I don’t feel tired and achy.

In other news, I had a great time with Rosey this past weekend! I wish it was this weekend she was coming, because so far all I have to look forward to is a whole lot of planning. Which, don’t get me wrong I actually quite enjoy planning lessons, but after interning 5 days a week 8 AM-4 PM… I’m just sort of ready to take a break by the weekend.

My college supervisor came by to watch me teach yesterday. I was so nervous. I did a color mixing lesson and was sort of worried it would crash and burn on me. Luckily, however, it went great! Seriously! I also received really positive feedback from my supervisor, like way better than I could ever have imagined. So, despite being just a little bit sick for almost three full weeks, life is grand.

I’m having an “off” day. Not just regarding my internship, though today was definitely not one of my better teaching days, but a day in which I feel like I’m a failure at life in general.

Not a very nice feeling at all. But to cheer me up, tomorrow is Friday, I teach two fairly easy lessons that I hopefully don’t suck as terribly as I did today at (I’m teaching the color blue and gym class using balloons.) Also to cheer me up is the fact that I’m having my significant other come visit me tomorrow for the weekend! And, no, before you ask, I’m not talking about a date. I’m talking about Roseanne, and I call her my significant other because honestly? She’s held a position of higher significance than any guy I’ve ever dated! Yay for best friends!

You know the little girl that had the world’s worst temper tantrum on Friday (see previous entry) in which she hated me with a fury I didn’t think kindergartner children were capable of? Well, today she came in from recess, wrapped her arms around my legs, looked up at me and said “I love you, Miss. G!”

Let’s say it together… “Awwww!”

• A little boy gets sick and throws up all over himself, his craft, table, and art supplies. Thank goodness the custodian cleaned up…
• A little girl sheepishly pulls me aside to tell me she has had an accident of the number 1 kind.
• Another little girl has a temper tantrum that rivals all I’ve seen, and included her pointing her finger at me declaring it to be MY fault that she is never coming to school EVER AGAIN. All because I made her sit out on a game of Octopus in gym for not listening.

Fun times!

I know I was bound to have to witness all of the following, being in a kindergarten class and all, I just don’t understand why all three had to happen in the last half hour of school on a Friday.

I survived though, and I’m still lovin’ teaching.

Today S, a tiny boy with huge dark eyes and criminally long eyelashes, walked up to me and, handing me a heart made out of play dough, said “I made this for you, teacher.”

*melts*

• I found my button box.
• I still can’t find my keys.
• I have a cold.
• Nobody sends me comment lovin’ anymore.

Have you ever packed up something you thought you no longer needed only to later discover that said something would come in really handy?

I have.

Tomorrow I’m teaching a sorting lesson to kindergartners and I thought that buttons would be great for sorting because they can be sorted by size, shape, color, even how many holes the button has! But do you think I can find the button collection I had when I was a child? No. ‘Course not. That would be just too convenient! Guess I’ll have to make do without.

To top it all off, I can’t for the life of me find my keys. And I am NOT the type of person who usually misplaces her keys! Quite aggravating because I really needed to get into the ESS office to do some work today.

Needless to say, today hasn’t went well for me.

But in other, better, news… I’m a (dark) brunette again!

I’m not the most pleased person in the world right now.

For Megan’s shower gift I bought us four visits each to a new spa that opened. It was a promotion for opening, so for the both of us and four visits it only cost $100.

Well in July I called the spa to book a couple of our visits and they were booked up into August, and were not taking any new bookings until they got their new computer system. I was a bit annoyed, but figured I would call back.

I called back in the middle of August just to find out, guess what? The spa has closed. Seriously. But good news was that a former employee was honoring the packages I’d bought. So I called her today and really, got more bad news. She lives in Dalmeny, a half an hour away. A little inconvenient, but not terribly. The part that made me angry is that she is charging $5 extra for each visit to cover the cost of product and she is only open ONE evening a week, a few days a week, and NO weekends. Considering I am interning and Megan is a teacher… that would mean we’d only be able to go that single evening. Lame.

So here I am wondering… should we still go? Pay the extra $40 and make four trips out to Dalmeny or should we not go, and I just chalk this up as a learning experience and never again buy promotional packages from new businesses!?