Monday, April 20, 2015

Promise to Start Blogging Again...More Often

Over the past year, I have gone through many changes.  All of them have been for the best, even though lots of stress was involved!

  • March - bought a new car and gave my paid-off car to my daughter.
  • April - my divorce was final, hence the blog name change.
  • May - was told my teaching contract wouldn't be renewed for the following year (gotta love a superintendent that's kin to everyone!)  I had been at that school for 6 years and the district had decided not to offer tenure to new teachers at 3 years of service.  BTW, I was voted Teacher of the Year during my third year!  I see where that got me!!  Of course, it was during the previous superintendent's reign.
  • June - my "baby girl" graduated from high school, moved to a town 15 minutes away, into a condo I own and I moved out of a rented home and out of my classroom in less than a month's time (It's amazing how much "stuff" we collect over years of teaching!). I started my Masters degree online through University of Florida and began job hunting.
  • July - I was offered my current job in the same town that my daughter moved to, where my parents live and I grew up.  I actually graduated from the high school I work at now.
  • August -  school started and I began teaching Algebra 2, which I have not taught in 5 years.  My teaching philosophy and style has changed tremendously, so it was like I had to start fresh.  Even though I LOVE my new school, it has been extremely stressful.  In the fall, I battled tension headaches that would frequently turn into a migraine, sometimes 6 days a week.  Now that they are under control and I have adapted to the extra work time involved in my Masters, I want to start blogging again.  
I hope to find out soon what I will be teaching next year.  I think there will be an overload of Geometry students due to the revamping of the high school math sequencing (Alg 1, Alg 2, Geom).  I hope to have all Geometry classes.  In preparation for planning for next year, this weekend, hours were dedicated to reorganizing my computer files.  I deleted so many files that I gained 7 GBs of space!  There were so many files in my downloads, many of which I had forgotten about, that it was like Christmas going through them!

In future posts, I will share many ideas I have learned during my past 6 Masters classes.  Hopefully, this will help cement the learning with me and help me to prepare for next year.  Lots of ideas are flying through my mind, so it may take a little while to start organizing them.