Tomorrow is my LAST day of student teaching! I am burning the midnight oil and working really hard to wrap this experience up well. At this point I am tired, overwhelmed and stressed which makes it hard for me to effectively tackle my loooooong to-do list but I am taking things one thing at a time.
I'm so close but as of right now, not nearly close enough. Time to get to work!
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
the end is in sight!
T-minus two weeks until I am done Student Teaching! Despite the fact that the things I need to accomplish between now and the 23rd are nearly impossible to complete given this time frame, I can't stop smiling about how far I have come.
At one point in this process I expressed to my mom that I had "too many holes in my bucket" for it to retain life, hope, encouragement or energy. I was drained across my entire spectrum of resources but by the grace of God and the perseverance that comes from working for the Lord, I am standing two weeks away from the finish line, thrilled about what has been accomplished and rejoicing in the sustaining grace of the Lord.
One of the ways that I am proactively conquering my to-do list is by staying late at school Monday - Friday. I want to honor the Lord, my teacher and myself by ending this process well and that means creating lots of un-interrupted work time. I have been staying at school late for two weeks now and it's been a really positive change. The days are long because I leave my apartment before 7am and don't get home until after 7pm but I have been able to set up all of the materials I need without having to get permission from my teacher to make copies or go to the library. I leave school knowing that I am mostly ready for the next day, which has helped lower my stress levels significantly. With 7pm set as my boundary, I leave most nights with lessons still undone. Although it would be totally ideal to have the remaining three hours of my day to set student teaching aside, this process hasn't afforded me that luxury just yet. It takes a lot of time to teach under direction from someone else!
I am praying that my teacher will start taking back some of the teaching responsibilities so that I can work of the remaining two assignments I have left to do. I have permission to complete the assignments after student teaching is over but I REALLY don't want to do that. I believe that it is God who prospers me and He will make a way for all of the remaining pieces of this process to fall into place.
At one point in this process I expressed to my mom that I had "too many holes in my bucket" for it to retain life, hope, encouragement or energy. I was drained across my entire spectrum of resources but by the grace of God and the perseverance that comes from working for the Lord, I am standing two weeks away from the finish line, thrilled about what has been accomplished and rejoicing in the sustaining grace of the Lord.
One of the ways that I am proactively conquering my to-do list is by staying late at school Monday - Friday. I want to honor the Lord, my teacher and myself by ending this process well and that means creating lots of un-interrupted work time. I have been staying at school late for two weeks now and it's been a really positive change. The days are long because I leave my apartment before 7am and don't get home until after 7pm but I have been able to set up all of the materials I need without having to get permission from my teacher to make copies or go to the library. I leave school knowing that I am mostly ready for the next day, which has helped lower my stress levels significantly. With 7pm set as my boundary, I leave most nights with lessons still undone. Although it would be totally ideal to have the remaining three hours of my day to set student teaching aside, this process hasn't afforded me that luxury just yet. It takes a lot of time to teach under direction from someone else!
I am praying that my teacher will start taking back some of the teaching responsibilities so that I can work of the remaining two assignments I have left to do. I have permission to complete the assignments after student teaching is over but I REALLY don't want to do that. I believe that it is God who prospers me and He will make a way for all of the remaining pieces of this process to fall into place.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
moving on
Okay, so this week has thrown it's fair share of ups and downs into my otherwise much-needed time off but, I am ready to move on. Prior to the tragic apartment flood of 2010, I actually had a ridiculously productive Friday - Monday. Here are the stats:
Friday:
Conferences + work day at school
laundry
grocery shopping
knitting
cleaning, cleaning, cleaning
brought stuff to my storage closest that has been waiting to go up since JANUARY!
took my car in
watched the biggest loser
painted my toe-nails
went to bed
Saturday:
skyped with my friend Carrie
skyped with my sister Anna
went grocery shopping again :)
did some crock-pot cooking
worked endlessly on a very large homework assignment
spent some time browsing my cook books
finished knitting my friend Angela's Christmas blanket (finally!)
Sunday:
Took a long shower
spent the majority of the day finishing up my very large homework assignment
wrote birthday thank-yous
went to an early dinner with my friend Shannon
lead small group Bible study
went to a very late movie with my friend Shannon
went to bed!
Monday:
babysat from 7 - 3:30
went to class
turned in the very long homework assignment :)
went to a late dinner with my friend Kelli
came home to a flooding apartment. . .
And then time kind of stopped. . until now. Because it's Thursday and I am ready to get stuff done and stop mourning the loss of my time and some of my favorite stuff. Life happens. Here I sit in my favorite Panera, eating a deliciously early lunch, surrounded by stacks of folders and a crumbled to-do list. My next step is to work until I can't work anymore and then evaluate and potentially edit my spring break to-list after that. No one plans for their apartment to flood. No one intends to surrender the opportunity to successfully complete things in order to deal with yucky water in places it doesn't belong. So - this flood never made it onto my to-do list but that's okay because I'm moving on. Starting now, I am praying for focus and peace of mind as I wade through my homework and conquer stress one finished paragraph at a time.
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