Halfway There

OOOOHhhhhhhhhhhhh We're halfway there, OOOOhhhhhhhhhhhh Livin on a prayer!!

It's officially winter break! Yay!! And that means a few things: 1. I have survived the first semester of teaching, 2. have survived the first 6 months living in a new state, 3. the children have hopefully learned something, 4. and the best part - two weeks off from work! :)

The end of the semester ended by hitting rock bottom, and then slowly building back up the last week and a half. The end was good though, with students taking exams and doing well - working hard, etc. So, I feel good leaving for the break. Had you asked me how I was feeling two weeks ago it would have been a completely different story.

We started the basketball season off slow (2-2) and then went into this tournament at England. England is a much bigger school, and apparently returning state runner-ups. So, the first game of the tournament we lost, but it was a good game. The second game was a different story, we got schooled by over 60 points. It was horrible. I felt like I had epically failed my team...like real bad. Naturally, when I got home, amongst the other pressures and happenings at school (there had been some run ins that week that we're not fun) I just started sobbing. Ridiculous.

Anyway, I woke up the next day and decided that it was just a bad day...just a bad week. And I was right - because I always briefly forget that the kids don't remember what happened to them the day before. This is absolutely to the core true. Even though I was struggling with those memories of roughness, the kids had moved on and not even thought about it.

The last few weeks have been much better. My classes have calmed down a bit, have done all of their work, follow the routines that I ask them to, and really know what to do in my classroom. It's a nice feeling to see some of these things falling into place. The kids did well on their end of term exams and the basketball team won two games. Success! Yay!