All things well!

K... can I tell you that I love, love, love this new group?? Our corps members are trickling in, some already here, many relocating here from other states, and I love the atmosphere of the group already. I'm so glad we finally got our group page up and running so that everybody can pitch in and help each other as needed. It's so cool to see people helping others study for the Praxis, sharing study guides and resources, giving tips and info on the new area they're about to relocate their lives to, and just helping out in any way needed... I love this.

God, you really do all things well!

reading, reading, reading and more.... reading;

So, time's marching on so fast it's unbelievable. I started reading my (h-u-g-e) SPED textbook to help prepare me for the soon-coming summer institute, and I'm learning so much. This book may be gargantuan (600+ pages, PLUS an addendum...), but the contents are sooo good. Reading the information really does help make all of this make more sense to me, and concepts and things are really starting to come together for me. I've got to find a way to do my own kind of review or something before Institute starts so that it's all fresh in my mind, and I can access info easily when I need to. Just took a look at where I am in my ISG reading... I'm almost exactly half finished. Aaagggghhhh!! Considering how many freakin' pages are in this thing, I was seriously hoping I was further along... but it's all good. I'll just keep hacking away at these pages and long chapters, and before long, I'll be getting to that last page before you know it!!

We have a PT (practitioner teacher) social coming up tomorrow, and I'm really excited about that. I haven't met many of the PTs face to face yet, and it will be pretty cool to start getting to know the people I'll be spending the next six and a half weeks with. It's at a local coffee house, so it should be really comfortable and casual...perfect for getting to know each other. I'm so excited....

Induction is coming up very quickly. It's scheduled for next Saturday, and I'm really wondering what to expect. We'll be there all day... wonder what the day's schedule is? So far, the only things I've been able to access were different blogs from past TFA corps members [thanks sooo much, guys!], and I've learned alot from what they wrote of their experiences. TFA blogs have been my daily diet for months now, lol. TNTP has several blogs out there, and I've scooped them up, too... reading as many of them as I could get my hands on. In a very short while, I'll be in the midst of the fire that is Summer Institute myself... gotta get these fingers ready to fly 'cause I don't want to miss any of that - this blog is my own personal record of what this entire experience/journey into teaching is like, so those posts should be, ummm, interesting. :)

It's so funny to be at this stage of my life and have something so new beginning so shortly. I mean, I've started new jobs before, been the new kid on the block several times, know all about that stuff. But this career change into teaching has me sooo excited and giddy that I feel almost like I'm graduating from college as a twenty-something and launching out into the world brand-new and fresh, again... I have to laugh at myself with that. I'm in my mid-forties and loving every single minute of it... no regrets, I've experienced much joy and accomplishment in my life... but it's just incredible to me that this undertaking could seem at once so different, so exciting and so scary all wrapped up together. The only thing that belies the excitement I feel is the years of working experience that I have behind me, and I'm really glad about that. I had no idea that such a movement was underfoot in our country. I knew that people [myself included] were very dissatisfied with the state of our educational system, and that it was a real issue, but I had no idea that such a movement to actually c-h-a-n-g-e things was in process. Programs like TFA and TNTP (and so many others) are really doing a great work in helping to end this crazy injustice that's been running rampant in our country for so long, and how COOL is it that I actually get to be an active part of it??? Oh, man... that's da bomb, so to speak. i don't have to sit on the sidelines and wonder how things are going, whether it's working, what's being done... I'll be right in the thick of things doing my part to help change this crazy, archaic, biased system, and I'm so glad about it.

Summer Insitute, here I come!!!!

...Whew...

This reading sure is kicking my butt. I mean... for realz. As soon as I got the Special Ed guidebook, I dove right in because I knew I had over 600 pages to read and not alot of time to do it all in. I tried to stay consistent and read two and a half chapters per week until I was all done, but I think I abandoned that schedule at least a week or so ago...

Now I have to MAKE myself read this daggone book. I keep peeking at it, sitting there on the table like it's harmless and stuff, and then inevitably end up looking away from it with an unconscious shudder when I consider the number of pages I still have yet to read...

Funny thing, though. Numbers don't usually bother me. 600 pages? No problem!! Just need to break it down into smaller peices, and you'll be done before you know it. I'm that person on the long road trip that gets a kick out of being all the way down at exit 369, when you know the exit you need to get home is like... exit 25. I see that high number and I'm completely undaunted... I start singing, laughing, get happy about it and make a game out of mentally figuring out how many more exits we have to go when we get down to odd numbers like 347 and 283... I'm just weird like that. But this book is bugging me. The information is good. I mean it makes perfect sense to me. It's actually interesting. But the thing that's getting on my last nerve is that they keep making the chapters longer and longer and loooooooooonger.... They faked me out in the beginning with chapters that were oh... 16 pages long... and then slowly increased to 20... still no problem, I'm good, I'm still happy, still singing...

But when those daggone chapters start stretching to 30 and 40 pages at least (one of them was 50 pages long, at last count), I'm starting to fade. My enthusiasm is waning. My song is getting lower and lower and... well, you get the picture. I'm having to force myself to read all these pages and this is exactly where I DIDN'T want to find myself with this assignment. I've got too much dern reading to be doing to get discouraged now...

I think I just need to take a break from that book. Not look at it. No peeking. Not even turn in its general direction for a few days, and let my mind refresh itself. Because it's already May, and I've got to have this whole daggone thing read by the end of the month. So... vacation-from-the-dreaded-ridiculously-long-book... you've really got to do your thing and get me back in gear.

'Cause time's a'tickin!