One Week Down..

No, mom, I'm not counting down the weeks, but if I were then I would say, "One week down!" I survived my first week of student teaching, but just barely. It was exhausting, emotional, exciting, and (for a non 'e' word) overwhelming! There is soooo much that goes into being a teacher. On the very first day, in fact, my mentor teacher received an AWARD! I'm not intimidated--much--but am definitely honored to be working with someone who is so revered by her colleges and respected by her students. She has already given me pages full of tips about teaching, students, and the school/staff in general. I will be able to learn a lot from her. Waking up early (before 6) has been interesting, but the lady who's house I'm staying at has an alarm that wakes me up at 4:30, so by the time my alarm goes off I'm already wide awake and (ready or not) out of bed. I am considering staying a few nights in the downstairs bedroom to see if that helps.. Anyway I wake up, shower/get ready, go start my car and pull it out of the garage, come back in and make a quick lunch, then leave for school (usually around 7). I'm at my desk (yes, they gave me my own desk!) by 7:15 and "ready" to work! I use work as a relative term as so far I've only been observing. I observed my mentor teacher/met all of my 145 students on Tues and Weds. On Thurs I was to go an observe other teachers/their teaching style/their classrooms throughout the day. However, during first hr (prep hour for my MT), I started getting a migraine. I went to the nurse and got aspirin, hoping to head it off, but was unsuccessful. I spent much of 2nd hour in and out of the restroom feeling nauseous. By 3rd hour I knew it was hopeless to stay--I was feeling miserable--and the nurse recommended that I go home and sleep it off. And so (is that incorrect sentence structure/grammar??), on my 3rd day of student teaching, I took .5 of my 4 allotted absence days, went home and slept for hours. Friday was much better, although I still had some migraine after-effects (those of you who've had a migraine before will know what I mean..). I was able to spend most of the day observing other teachers and getting the lay of the land so to speak as I explored the building. The day went by quickly, and that infamous "TGIF" feeling was in the air. I MADE IT THROUGH THE WEEK!
Today (Saturday) I slept in--bliss--and went to lunch with a friend from the ECEC (my blessed work place back in Laramie) and later a movie. [War Horse... truly is a remarkable horse... 5 stars!] Tomorrow I'll check out my new ward and enjoy a few more hours of R and R before I return to the grind on Monday. Hopefully starting up this little blog (journal...ish) won't turn out to be a bad idea after I become increasingly buried in  work from school!
Blogging, skyping, facebooking, texting, movie watching, chatting, eating out, (taking pics for this blog??)... The list of distractions goes on (How many more weeks do I have to keep this up? ;))