cause you asked for it

Whoohoo!

As of 10:20am on March 22, 2008:


What a long, strange journey this has been.


Days until Spring Break: 14
Days until my 24th birthday: 28

you could get lost in a night like this

Yesterday, I was observed by my principle. The lesson went really well, the kids were engaged and acted appropriately (always a concern), and she seemed to really enjoy what I did. As the class filed out, she stayed for a few minutes to finish her notes and one of my seniors came in for second period. Upon seeing the principle, she looked alarmed at first, then sat down next to her and said, "Miss Garcia is a great teacher!"

I almost fell over, I laughed so hard. Completely unprompted! Thanks, Dalia. :)

Then, after school, Francisco came into my room to pick up his skateboard like he does every day. As he was leaving with his friend he says:

"Oh, Miss G. I forgot to ask you - how was your soccer game last night?"

"It was alright," I told him. "We played pretty well, but just totally fell apart in the last three minutes and ended up losing-"

"Miss G doesn't play soccer," his friend (who is not one of my students) interrupted.

"Yes she does!" Francisco insisted.

"NO way."

"Dude, she totally does! She plays every Monday night. She even played in high school, right Miss G?"

"That is correct."

"Really?"

"Dude, yeah. Miss G is a savage. She's like the coolest English teacher here."

I love my job. Love, love, love it.

better put 'em in quotations

I am in editing hell. Revising and formatting the MA so that all my pages (160, at last count) and charts and tables (well over 100, but as yet not fully counted) are all in the correct order is, arguably, harder than actually writing the damn thing. If I'd known this was going to be such a chore, I would have taken a day off this week to focus on it. Instead, I must forgo my runs this week (with the weather so beautiful, too!) and force myself to format, format, format every day after school. Boo.

Brian informs me that I probably could have paid someone to do this for me, but where's the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment in that, really?

In other news, Romeo & Juliet is going swimmingly with my freshmen (better than last year - practice makes perfect!) and there is, apparently, an "unplanned" Senior Ditch Day on Friday, so I may get an extra free period. And this weekend is my last graduate class, as well as the Children's Musical Performance and Nick's fire academy fundraiser. Joy!

these last three years

Countdowns to usher in March:

Days until my MA Exit Interview: 19
Days until Spring Break: 34
Days until my birthday: 48

We were told to put a big X through February so that we could adequately focus on our thesis and to tell our friends and fmaily that we would see them again in March. Well, March has arrived and with it the beautiful weather and all sorts of free time that I can't remember having since March of 2006. Maybe I can finally focus on me again. That would be a nice change. I feel like I've climbed Everest. Or given birth. Or lived through a tsunami. Or something.

i'm going your way

Today was Symposium Day! I thought that maybe I would wake up super early and freak out all morning until it was time to go in for my presentation but instead:

1. Slept in until 10. Glorious!
2. Had coffee with Brian at Peet's and sat in the beautiful sunshine and watched puppies and talked about going camping and did not once mention my thesis
3. Photocopied my handouts and cruised onto campus 10 minutes early.
4. Presented like a pro and now I'm done!

The really, really, really cool thing is something that Steve told me when I was done with my presentation. Let me preface this by saying that I was really scared of presenting for Steve because I never had him as a professor and I have heard that he is really tough on MA candidates. Plus, Steve is like a master teacher researcher. He has done tons of his own research, he reviews research literature, and is the School of Ed's PhD. chair. When you need research, you call Steve and he's your best friend. When you present with inadequate research, Steve becomes your worst enemy.

He frightens me and I was scared he would say my research was crap.

Instead, he told me that it was a pleasure to get to know me and my work and that he thought it was so great that, get this, I had done something with vocabulary research that he had never seen before!

There's tons more, but for now... Celebrate!