Love

Since getting back into planning this week, and meeting my new colleagues, and saying hi to some students who have dropped by to help, I've been filled with an overwhelming sense of...love. I love my job. I am the luckiest person in the world.

For the next 6 days, anyway. I'll probably change my mind around midday Monday, on the first day of school.

But for now, it's great.

I'm ahead of schedule on my planning. I've just planned my series of lessons on calculating slope of a line on a graph, which was a huge weakness last year. This year, it'll be awesome. I've come up with a good anecdote to help remember the parts of calculating slope. It goes like this:

First, let me tell you a story to help remember how to calculate slope. One day, a South Star student was strolling along, when she came upon an apple tree. She really wanted an apple, but didn’t want to get caught stealing. (Draw this on board) She climbed up the tree trunk, then looked down to make sure no one was following her. She then crawled across the branch to reach the apple, and looked back to make sure no one saw. What we have to remember is (Students copy from Powerpoint): Go up, look down, go over, look back. Or, slope = rise/run.

And my PowerPoint is great. It really breaks down the steps, so that an absent person could look through the slides and know what is going on. I'm trying to avoid last year's 3 slope reteaches.

I also learned how to mail merge today. I can now take a spreadsheet of all my students' exam data, and easily print out a one-pager for each student that lists their total score and score in each topic, all in about 15 minutes.

Am I too excited? Maybe.

I've been pretty unexcited about running. I had a great bike ride on Saturday (10.5 miles), but when I went out for my 6-mile run, I only made it about 2.5. I did, however, manage to stop at the local farm stand and buy an avocado during those 2.5 miles. On Sunday, I tried again, and ended up jogging 1.5 miles and then walking the whole way back. I wasn't hurting, wasn't tired. I just wasn't feeling it. I'm planning on taking a few days off(-ish). Except for tonight. I really want to run tonight. Hopefully, I can maintain that feeling longer than 5 minutes into my run.

I have gone to one exercise class this week (Monday night) and lifted weights on Sunday. So, even if I'm not running, I'm still getting stronger. It'll help balance out the snacking.

Other than some snacking, I've been eating well this week. On Sunday, I made some apple cinnamon muffins (NOT healthy, but outstanding).I also made some chicken curry in my new slow cooker. It was delicious and spicy. I've learned to take the amount of curry powder I think I should use and multiply it by 5. Then add a dash more. Later on, I put together 4 days' worth of salads, which I've been eating this week. Each tupperware container gets some arugula mix, cherry tomatoes, craisins, walnuts, and goat cheese. I got some individual packs of Mandarin oranges to add on top once I get to school (if I add them sooner the whole thing gets soggy). Today, I had a quarter of an avocado to use up, so I scooped that onto the salad as well. Add a little bit of French dressing, and we're good to go. I hope I can keep up this healthy eating thing! I have to look awesome in 10 months and 2 days.