Necessity is the mother of invention...

And sometimes decision, too. Decided on the Blue Burst color for the walls, so we went down to Lowes to pick up the paint. That's when we found out that the paint was $30 per gallon (so not gonna happen), so someone (thank God!) suggested we check out the returned paint rack in the back ... didn't even know there was such a thing! And there they were... two brand new gallons of Butter Cream with the primer already mixed in... just sitting there waiting for us at FIVE DOLLARS A GALLON. Favor is a wonderful thing!! So instead of spending upwards of sixty dollars in paint, brushes and rollers, we spent less than twenty and left the store with everything we needed to get that room up and running. Bless God!!

here's some pics of part three of our room transformation:

Hmmm... what color should it be...?

Okay... so I've been busy cleaning and scrubbing and disinfecting stuff, and now it's time to make a decision on what color these walls should be... I'm not sure where to start. I love a nice, bright, airy room, but I don't want it to be so light that it has no character and uniqueness to it. I love blues and have seen medium to darker blue walls (and they look beautiful), but my space is really big and I don't want to make it look smaller unnecessarily... hmmm. Solution! Went down to Lowe's and bought some paint samples (these things are great!!! Only $2-3 per container, and you can paint a swatch on your wall to see what you think... Love this!!) to see how different colors would look. Whaddaya think?

ELEMENTARY, YAY!!!

I've been praying for placement in an elementary school since this whole process started, and today, I got my wish! Yay me!! I'll be working in the Resource Room (I have my OWN ROOM, yay me again!!) with different grades. We're in one of the many mobile units behind my school, so I have my own classroom, my own space, my own key, etc.... and I love it!!! Can't wait to see how this classroom will transform over the next few weeks. It was being used for storage for a long while, so the paint is chipped  and splotchy in alot of places, the floors need some help and eeeeeverything needs to be cleaned, but it's mine, and I'm definitely up for the challenge! Here's what it looks like right now, after some tlc:

Two whiteboards in the front, with windows on either side - gonna get some great natural light this way!

Don't be fooled by these blue walls.. the paint looks like it's in much better shape than it is close up ;)

After some bleach, comet and much scrubbing, our desks and chairs are ready to be used!

My back bulletin board w/power strip for the computer center

I got a job!!!

Whew, that was close... just hours (and I do mean hours) before the rest of us still looking for jobs were to be randomly placed at schools with openings, my offer came through. O bless God. Not that the other schools were bad choices, because they weren't... but I had a really good interview with a school that I think would be a great fit for me, and I was waiting to hear back from them before things were 'official'. They called JUST as our administration was working on placing people in different slots, and right in the nick of time, too. Admin had already placed someone else in the slot I wanted and had me going somewhere else. Glad we got that fixed. Whew, that was close!!

An-ti-ci-pa-tion....Antici-pa-aa-tion... It's makin' me wait!

Well, pretty much everybody's placed in their job assignments for the school year except for a very small number of us, and today we should be getting our assigment information as well! Ah, anticipation!!!  Can't believe school starts in less than a week!!

Days till I'll be a full-fledged teacher WITH students:  7

Need a ... J-O-B...!

Time is just ticking away. School is getting close. Starts in less than two weeks, to be exact.

And I don't have a home yet.

We've been sending out cover letters and resumes, and interviewing since mid-June now. Most if not all of the Math, Science and Spanish cohorts have been hired and have homes to go to tomorrow (yes, TOMORROW) when Staff Development days for new teachers start. Yet, there are still about 20 EC cohorts that are still looking, still applying, still interviewing and still looking for homes to start our very first school year at... and it's getting close.

It was easy to say that things would work out quickly and well early on in the process, when we had weeks upon weeks to get interviews and find a school to work at. Now that we're down to less than two weeks, it's getting a little nerve-wracking. I sat up and counted all my apps the other day - over EIGHTY in total - and no offer yet. I'm getting a little concerned.

Perspective is a great thing, though. I walk by faith and this thing is a REAL test of faith right now... believing when everything you see says otherwise. I still count myself blessed, too, because there are so many in that 20-something group that haven't even gone on an interview yet, or at the very most have had one or two all summer, and then nothing. I've been on about 10 so far, maybe more, and have two more scheduled for next week. We're not 'placed' in positions with our program at all. We have to apply, interview and get the job all on our own. And it's a very real possibility for some that they may not get hired at all and may have to become permanent subs. Scary thought....

I'm walking into this interview tomorrow morning with full faith. My blessing is on the way. It's already done - I just wait for due time. Show yourself strong, Lord.

My faith is in you!

YES!!!!

Institute, Week Six and a Half  J

Ooooomg!! We have s-u-c-h a countdown going on right now it’s not even funny!! Only two more full days left this week, then final evaluations and then, at last, graduation. This week breezes by like nobody’s business. The great thing is that all we had to do pretty much during the week was proctor the EOCs for the kids (translation: just be another warm body in the room and make sure the kids don’t cheat or fall asleep), and go to the last few Framework sessions. Piece of cake. It flew by so fast that we were at graduation day before we even knew it.

I’m not really sure what I was expecting, honestly. Graduation was really informal, but it was also really FUN. Each group did presentations to their leaders, which was hilarious. This was the best part of everything, hands down. It was so nice to see everybody (those remaining, anyway) truly be able to relax and let their hair down, be themselves and have a great time. No worries about work due. No lingering thoughts about something you may have forgotten to complete or submit or email in, no work products and no more write-ups. Just having FUN. And it was great. We laughed and enjoyed ourselves, and it was great. It was a perfectly fitting way to end all the stress and craziness we’ve been going through for the past month and a half. All that stress just melted away and we became ourselves again, encouraged, empowered and now finally trained and ready to go out and help change the world.

WE MADE IT!!!!



Almost there...

Institute, Week Six

This is the week where things get, well, interesting and scary all at the same time. We’ve been through so much… learned and experienced so much together, bonded, gotten to know each other’s pet peeves and strengths and everything, and we’re kind of at a place where we feel like we have the ‘final’ group of PTs that will graduate Institute and leave the program ready to change the world. Lord knows it’s been hard seeing people we like and have established relationships with just disappear out of the program, but we’re mending and trying to bring the remaining parts of the cohort to a place where we’re cohesive and a ‘group’ again, instead of brokenhearted, disappointed fragments of … something or other.

So, we pick things up and get back in the swing… we continue student teaching at our sites, knowing that the missing people are like the big elephant in the room, but we’ve still got a job to do. We attend our Framework Sessions and don’t mention the fact that our groups are getting consistently smaller and smaller by the week. We go to all-cohort workshops and pretend not to notice the HUGE amount of empty seats that exist in the room. We even position ourselves closer to the front of the room so that the gaping sea of extra seats is not quite as obvious and disconcerting. And then comes yet another hit.

We’re in an all-cohort meeting with just days to go before the program is all over, and during the presentation, we notice some people getting small notes brought to them by administration. Honestly, I pay very little attention to this at the time because 1)I’m actually into the material being presented and 2)I just figure they’ve forgotten to hand something in or they have some group meeting afterward or something… no worries, right? When the workshop is over, we all pack up and go home, looking forward to knocking out yet another day, bringing us closer and closer to that wonderful ‘graduation day’ that will end this part of our stint in the process. We’re down to single digits now, people. We can see the end. It’s in our sights and it’s soooo close. ..

Tomorrow arrives, and we all go to our practice teaching sites, as we have so many times before. Only this time, we can’t help but notice… cars are missing out of the parking lot. MORE PEOPLE ARE GONE.   More PTs are missing. Classrooms are missing teachers, some of the CTs are upset because they actually have to teach their class today and weren’t planning to, and folks are held up in couples or trios in the hallways discussing the recent events that brought us to this point. Turns out that those ‘harmless’ sticky notes I mentioned before weren’t actually so ‘harmless’ after all. Those people got notices to stay after and meet once the training was over, and for one reason or another, they were let go. Discontinued. Kicked out of the program. We lost 10 MORE PTs yesterday. Seriously, dude. There’s only 4 more full days to go… couldn’t you have just let them stay???

Now we’re down to brass tacks, no joke. No one will give us a definitive number of how many PTs are left in the program, and we’re left to trying to frantically count the people on our own before a workshop or all-cohort meeting starts when we’re all together. We have lost so many people. So many. Talk about low morale. We’re all walking on egg shells now, for real. It seems people are being let go for the simplest of things, and none of us – NONE of us – are in a position to risk getting kicked out of the program at the home stretch, because we’re all incredibly broke after a month and a half of working without pay, and we really, really (really) need our stipends. There’s a serious air of distrust with admin right now. It just seems so cold-hearted… one can’t help but wonder about the benefit for the program and the school system – you’ve essentially gotten a full month of free labor out of a whole lot of people, and because they’ve been let go before they actually ‘graduated’, they don’t get paid for any of it. Not one little red cent. All that gas money, all that time staying up late reading tons of pages and writing lesson plans and completing work products, etc., etc., etc., all that time and effort sacrificed from your own family and household, and … nothing left to show for it. Wow. These remaining four days can’t come fast enough.