Last Day of the Semester

Three of my classes are officially over as of today. My knees hurt from sitting in front of the computer all day... I finished the 10-15 page teaching philosophy paper (in the form of a letter), the final journals for Rick Beach, the Julius Caesar unit, and my ELL paper. I sat here, with breaks, from right after school (4:00) until 12:30. I wanted to do a little dance, but I was too cramped up! The philosophy paper and ELL paper aren't due until next week, but I wanted to get all of it out of the way so I could dedicate myself to student teaching (OK, and the big project that is The Job Search, which begins tomorrow!).

We had a good last day. A loooooooong last day. I just got home and haven't been home since eight in the morning. Had classes this morning... in the first with Amanda, we talked about the job hunt, got our stomachs roiling again and did a mock interview. We keep talking about the job search and now it's becoming the same coversation and it's freaking me out more and more... The mock interview was nice. I think, once I finally get my resume and cover letter(s) done as well as my applications in, I will try to write out answers to common interview questions. The Job Fair is a little over a month away. Oh, there goes my stomach again... In Rick's class, we talked about the units we planned and had a pot luck. Sarah, Reagan, Terry and I ended up hanging out in the room for two hours afterwards... we finally realized we weren't going to go home before the seminar, so we went to The Loring for a glass of wine/beer for half an hour, then went to Jill's house (our supervisor--she's letting us have our Thursday seminars in her house, which is awesome!).

The seminar was interesting... half of us have started teaching already and there is a different air to them... I think part of it is seeing them out of the U of MN sweatshirts and jeans and into ties and with name thingys hanging from their neck (Maple Grove has fancy name tags with maple leaves on them). I liked the question, "What's your advice for those of us who are going to the fronts on Monday?" Don't leave five minutes at the end of the hour. Make sure you anticipate answers to all of your questions. Bathroom passes are things to be careful with. Etc. I guess I'll have my own set of advice for those people who aren't starting until the beginning of April. I'm actually finally starting to get butterflies about all of this.

Jill also had us journal about what kind of teacher we want to become and how we might accomplish this. We probably could have written for the full hour and a half.

It's funny--these meetings are an hour and a half long, the cohort is divided in half (there are about twelve of us in one group and eleven in the other), and Sarah was saying that she doesn't think it's long enough for us to get everything out! Jill could sit back and say absolutely nothing and we would do just find chattering away.

After this seminar, I had to go to a meeting for work, which was nice, but kind of a complete waste of time. All stuff we could have been told individually, but I understand how sometimes they just need to sit us all down and make it absolutely clear the policies.

Afterwards, we met up at The Times (Sarah, Reagan and he boyfriend Allen, Adrien, Kate, Andrea, Terry) and had a little chat. We were all so exhausted at that point though... Tomorrow night, we have a pot luck at Terry's! I'm going to try to make hot wings. That means I'm going to have to buy some kitchen scissors and, ugh, cut them myself. Ryan doesn't arrive until tomorrow afternoon, just before we are do over, and since I slow cook them, I need to go to the store around noon-ish... blech.