Well, five weeks into student teaching and I love it! I still get scared and nervous sometimes, especially when I'm being observed, but I have been having a lot of fun and I am definitely starting to feel more comfortable. I have learned, however, just how much outside work there is to teaching. Every night, I go home and grade papers and prepare for the next days lessons. I spend hours writing lessons plans (I have to write a formal plan for each lesson since I am still a student), making copies, makes charts, reading through materials and just getting myself mentally ready for another whole day of teaching. Even now, when I am supposed to be on vacation, I have been trying to get a head start on the coming weeks. It's a hectic life I've gotten myself into, but it the end it is truly all worth it.
In other news....well really there isn't much other news. I literally spend my life--eat, sleep and breathe--on student teaching. But seriously the end of the semester is coming fast and I'm not sure how I feel about that. A part of me is really and truly excited to leave school and start this new chapter of my life. The other part of me, however, is scared out of my mind to leave the comfort of my little campus community. To leave the life of a college student behind and have to deal with the realities that exist outside our perfectly manicured lawns. I have no idea what I am doing with myself next year. I am applying for jobs and a part of me still wonders if I should apply for grad-school as a back up. Not that I can afford grad-school right now, but what if I don't get a job?
All in all, the end of the year is sad for me. I don't get to be an RA anymore. I don't get to visit my professors anymore. I don't get to spend hours sitting in my bosses office just bugging and chatting with him. I don't get to have a say in the goings on around campus. I don't get to help underclassmen with their problems and guide them in the right direction. In May, I will be done with my school. I could, I suppose, become what we affectionately call a lifer. A lifer is someone who has graduated, but still seems to be on campus everyday. These are not the ones attending grad school at the college or working for the college, but the ones who come back just to hang out. The ones who are still coming to hang out even though they graduated two or three years ago. Sounds pathetic doesn't it. And yet I can almost imagine being one of them; I can understand how hard it is to let go.
