#DITL Monday, October 10th, 2016

Today is Columbus Day which means we are out of school. We actually have a 3.5 day weekend. On Friday we had our Regional Teachers Institute until noon. I'm always excited for long weekends so I can catch up on the extra stuff I have to do or put off.

Nothing this weekend went as planned. I did not even touch my school stuff until today. Which was not the plan.

8:48 Wake up. Make myself go back to sleep.

11:00 Wake up again. No shame since I average 5 hours of sleep or less during the school week. Eat breakfast, scripture journal, straighten up the house.

11:45 Get to work on my laptop. Update my trig lesson on finding an angle with trig ratios to include text problems where students have to draw their own diagram, Updated notebook file that goes with it. Create solving trigonometric equations interactive notebook pages, a pong review game powerpoint, and a quiz for my senior math class. Next it's on to Geometry- I update the interactive notebook pages I already made for conditional statements with a foldable I made a few years ago since I feel like it is a better fit. Update notebook file to match. Next create new interactive notebook pages for deductive reasoning, a pong review game, and a quiz.

3:00 Eat lunch while watching Jimmy Fallon. When I'm done eating I walk around the house watching tv on my ipad so I can get steps in. My goal is 12,000 a day and when you don't go to work and spend hours on your laptop, it's hard. When my show is over I start walking around with my Bible...gotta get those steps.

5:15 Back to work. I need to make a practice activity for Algebra I inequality word problems. So I google problems and create...you guessed it- a pong review game powerpoint. It's my go to activity. Then I, you guessed it again- made a quiz. It's almost the end of the quarter so I make up a binder check 'quiz'.

6:00 I have more work to do but I'm running low on motivation so I start wasting time on e-mail and social media. Then I realize I haven't read any blogs lately so I catch up on those.

7:30 I remember I need to create and print posters for our Student Council Socktober drive. Cue google images and pinterest.

8:00 Realize I should eat dinner. Eat while watching TV and again finish my show with walking around the house. I'm only up to 7700 steps.

9:00 Spend 30 minutes doing my workout and walking around for a cool down. Pack my lunch and get my breakfast ready for tomorrow. Pick out my outfit.

10:00 Shower.

10:15 Get out the ol ipad and go for another walk. I walk until I reach my 12,000 goal which brings us to

11:15. I sit down to start this blog post and realize that I forgot about the 92 bell ringers I need to respond to plus the 9 trig quizzes, 10 Algebra 2 tests, and 8 geometry quizzes I have to grade. And I wanted to paint my fingernails.

This was an embarrassing post to write- I don't know if it's because I'm bad at managing my time or because I feel like I have to justify how I spend it. Or maybe it's because my job is like a second job on the nights and weekends. I never feel like I've done enough. Not to mention I have a painting project in my downstairs bathroom that I didn't even get to touch this weekend.

1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day. Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming. When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of? What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

Zero teacher moves today.

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows. Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher. What are you looking forward to? What has been a challenge for you lately?

I spend so much time putting together notes, practice, and quizzes from my curriculum. It's mostly formatting and copying and pasting. As soon as I feel accomplished for having everything prepared, I start questioning if it's the best way to teach it. I can't feel content.

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is. As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students. Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

I've been getting along better with a colleague at school. Although it's been unintentional, I know that it's healthier. I'm still getting better at laughing and sharing things with the students. Although I've always felt like I shared a lot with students but somehow this year seems different.

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year. What is a goal you have for the year?

Keep working on a better work/life balance. My weekends are consumed with school work in an attempt to free up my week nights but I still can't seem to leave school before 5:00. I do know that next year will be a million times better. With my curriculum, I am finally aligning things in a way I am mostly satisfied with. I'm making notes of things to change or fix for next year and even doing some now if they are quick fixes. NO MORE STARTING OVER.

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

I've been teaching trig identities for the first time. I have struggled, actually sat with the kids and worked the problems along with them, and got to the point where I could make up problems for the students to practice.

11:41 Off to do at least another hour of work!