TheAndrew.net

So it’s been a long while since I’ve posted on this blog. Why?  Because I’ve been busy with Twitter.  Only so many words can be posted on it, but Tweetie, and iPhone applications makes it extremely easy to do. (There is a wordpress application which is simple, but when using Tweetie I can also view and respond to other peoples “tweets” when I post mine).

I’ve had this blog for many years, so taking it down doesn’t make sense.  Maybe I’ll have to get my tweets to post directly to this blog like they do to facebook.

Set up a website for the CHS Business Department.  Hopefully in the future our whole curriculum (or most of it at least) can be put on the web and so on…

Read the title.  Read it again.

I love my Macbook and wish I could afford a Macbook Pro and Mac Pro for home.

I’ve started playing with iWeb a little bit so a blog has been set up there (as well as an automatically updating calendar via iCal, which is completely sweet!)

http://web.me.com/areynolds/default/Blog/Blog.html

My high school FBLA advisor inspired the Centralia FBLA chapter to trick-or-treat for canned good this evening.

It was a great success and if I had her number, which I might find and call her this weekend, I’d call Gay and let her know she inspired me to try trick-or-treating with my students like she did with her students for many years.

Thanks Gay!

Parent/Teacher conferences tonight, so only a half day of school.
Swwweeeeetttt!

I’ll post some pics of apple butter day soon (by soon I mean in the next couple weeks)

“Just like the word family, community is a word that is now extensively used, perhaps because of the increasing sense of isolation that many people feel in today’s world.”
- Building Online Learning Communities (Palloff & Pratt)

I was suprised by a call from Tracy last night asking me if school was going ok after she read the last blog post I wrote…which was a while ago.  I really appreciated the call, so whenever you check my blog again, thanks Tracy!

School is going much better than my last post stated.  Graduate school is kicking my @ss now.  With cross country meets the past couple of Saturdays it’s been extremely tought to get my graduate work done.  But that’s life, and we’ll see what happens.

I would have never figured myself to be high maintaince, but this week I feel like I sure have been.  I bother Emily a lot with text messages and e-mails (so far 1 e-mail and 2 texts today) to try and make myself feel better.

I know it must put a burden on her to have to hear me complaining or being sad so often.  As I drove to school today I was thinking about how I feel like I need to get into a different mood to be able to make it through the school day.  Almost like I have a school life and a personal life.  It might not make much sense, as I try to show my personal life through my classes as much as I can, but at the same time I feel that my school life ovverruns my personal life…as in I have none other than leaning on Emily to help me get through every day.
As I write this, I have tears streaming down my face.  Mostly because I don’t know what I’d do without Em and I don’t know how long I can handle being a teacher.  I love working with kids, but it’s soooo much working coming up with things for them to do…and I spend too much time trying to find the perfect thing for them to do in each class.  BUT I CAN’T STOP.  I don’t know how to tell myself it’s ok if something stinks or not to care if students complain because they are tired of doing worksheets.

And I don’t know who to talk to other than Emily.  I don’t feel like there’s anyone I can talk to here at school about those types of feelings.

Today was a day that really made me wonder how long I can do this job.
It’s just that there is always so much going on, especially now that I’ve got cross country program to run and 2 graduate courses to work on.

I hope this feeling goes away and this is the right profession for me, as I think there us a lot I can offer these kids, but I don’t know right now.

I just got through the second day of school in my second year of teaching.  Like last year, I only get a break every other day, and I still hate it.  However, things will be a little more calm, and I stress the word little, as I have some good (and some not all that good) lessons I can use from last year.
At the same time, I’m coaching a fall sport for the first time and taking 2 graduate courses.  This means I’m at school until at least 5pm every day with XC practice and I’ve got to figure out how to manage my time so that I can complete graduate assignments and keep track of the classes I’m teaching, including 1 1/2 new classes.

I took the cross country job to make a little bit more money and right now I’m wondering if it was worth the extra time you have to put in as a head coach of a sport.  It’s very early, so we’ll see how I feel towards the end of the XC season.

Only time will tell what will happen.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, so here we are.

Had a meeting with my principal today to talk about this past year and this coming year.  It went well.  Just a couple things I need to work on, mostly not being a smart ass every once and a while.
Almost every day I’ll say something and maybe include a gesture that I shouldn’t.  About 5 seconds after I’ll wonder why the hell I did such a thing.  I don’t know if I’ve ever come up with a reason other than wanting to show how smart I am at the expense of others.
This especially happens with Em…so sorry Em!

Towards the end of last year I decided that if I could not teach without the aide of drugs I didn’t want to do it at all.  I survived the last couple of weeks without drugs and the summer of huge ups and downs (engaged to a wonderful gal vs. that wonderful gal’s father passing away) until TODAY.

After my meeting with the principal I met with the other business teacher for a little while to talk about the advisory committee we’re putting together and the upcoming business education conference.  While doing all of this I started to feel the anxiety building up like it did at the beginning of this past school year.
Thinking about: what to do in the advisory meeting, what I’ll do that day between the first practice of cross country season (and what to do for practice, and what time) and the advisory meeting, if I’m going to have clothes that will fit for the conference in a couple weeks, if I can get student aid for my Masters program at UCM, and so on.

So I did what I did at the beginning of last school year.  Came home and curled up on my bed.  Em went home yesterday so I sent her a message and talked with her a little bit.

I guess we’ll see what happens and if I can start the year off without the need of anti-anxiety medication.