3 Day Weekend Ahead!

Week two as a math teacher is over! It was definitely a roller coaster of a week. The good news is that it ended pretty well. I need to remember in the future to see if my students who are causing trouble are athletes. Those coaches know how to reach the kids! Sports are very important to many of the kids so if the coach says, "If you don't start behaving in class you won't play" the kids magically find a way to behave.

The real problem with dealing with disruptive students is that it is negatively affecting my health. :( I have a sensitive stomach and apparently I have been more anxious about this than I thought. I have woken up feeling sick to my stomach every day this week. What doesn't help is that I have these problem students near the end of the day so I spend the entire morning thinking, "Everything is fine now but in a few hours I have to be prepared." It's really hard to stop myself thinking that way! I need to enjoy my classes because really a majority of them are awesome! In the couple of classes where I have trouble it's just a few students who are causing the trouble and I'm working hard on finding what makes them tick so that I can motivate them to do their work and not bother others. If any of you have good ideas to reduce anxiety, let me know! Please don't suggest yoga. I've tried it a few times and I feel ridiculous and everyone else in the class seems to take it waaaaay too seriously.

I'm still not exercising as much as I would like but I'm hoping that this long weekend will help. My plan of attack is to take a nice long walk tomorrow morning and Monday morning. I want to use this weekend to get ahead in my work so that I have the time to exercise. I am still not finding much time to eat lunch which worries me a little. I didn't even realize how little I ate today until I sat down to dinner! My breakfast was just an apple, I had a granola bar for a mid-morning snack, and lunch was half of a Hot Pocket. That's got to be fewer than 500 Calories in total.

I almost forgot to talk about my husband's birthday! Yesterday he turned 30 and I had a funny little gift for him. I should preface this story by saying that my husband and I don't really buy each other gifts anymore because we like to save our money so that we can go on trips. We agree that we would rather spend money doing fun things together than on trinkets that we don't really need. If we happen to find something small that we think the other would especially enjoy we go ahead and purchase it. Well, my husband loves Fruit by the Foot. Specifically, he likes the flavor "Berry Tie Dye". Unfortunately the grocery store only sells variety packs so he ends up eating a bunch he doesn't really like just to get to the ones he enjoys. I thought he would get a kick out of receiving a few boxes of just his favorite flavor. After a lot of online shopping I found out that Walmart had the best price. About two weeks before his birthday I ordered the boxes. Well, the week before his birthday I picked up the shipment and they were all the variety packs. I contacted Walmart and they re-sent the correct items without charging me extra. It was cutting it close because it was supposed to come in the day before his birthday. On his birthday I ran up to Walmart and lo and behold they sent variety packs again. I was not happy. Luckily my husband and I have a good sense of humor because we are now stuck with 120 Fruit by the Foot (10 boxes of 12). I think we are set for after school snacks for the next couple of months.

9 of the 10 boxes we now own

-Clare G. S.