School Supplies, Bus Rides, and SLEEP

Well, Week 1 of Institute here in Houston is over, and I think everyone is pretty excited about that. Here at Institute the weekend means a lot of sleep and a lot of work, but no sitting in sessions for 12 hours straight! Wooooo!!!! After I got done with my full day of sessions yesterday (Friday), I ate dinner, finished up two modified lesson plans due this afternoon, and passed out at like 11. This morning, waking up at 10 am, I felt like a completely new person. It's amazing what a little sleep will do after a week of 4 to 5 hours of sleep per night! After a delicious brunch in the West Servery, I headed to Target with my friend Anna and went crazy buying school supplies for my new adorable students!

Markers, pens, a stapler, and a super cute clipboard for Ms. Young...and lots of little goodies for my kiddos! My teaching team here at Institute has gone with the theme DRIVE for a classes, so students can earn "Cab Cash" throughout the week for good behavior and hard work toward our class goals. At the end of the week, they can redeem Cab Cash for a prize, which will consist of Cars pencils, Hello Kitty pencils, key chains, Spongebob notebooks, and Star Wars notebooks. I was way too excited about my purchase. This afternoon, I set to work preparing more thoroughly for Monday, my first official day of teaching. I'll do it totally on my own, after just one week of training. Isn't that crazy?!? So I'm trying to prepare as much as possible, so that I'm ready for those kids. They deserve so much and I hope I can be just half the teacher they deserve. I'm ready to put so much hard work in for these kids. Hopefully they'll be ready to do the same! Here's a picture of my posters for Day 1 of teaching!!!

That's my key points for the lesson (using text features to understand the purpose of a text) and my very first graphic organizer! I feel like a real teacher now! Obviously I need some serious improvement on poster making, but for my first attempt, I'm pretty stinking proud.

Reflecting on this first week of Institute, I can't believe how much we did. Every morning, I would get on the bus to head to the school. By day 2 I realized I was going to have a ritual of listening to my iPod on the way to get focused. My playlist every day this week consisted of Phil Wickham songs like "Divine Romance" and "You're Beautiful," as well as encouraging songs like "Your Love Never Fails." While most people probably don't think of Christian worship songs as "pump-up" music, there is absolutely no better way to get focused on the day. It reminds me that no matter how crazy things get, God is right there with me, helping along the way. He has brought me here for a purpose, and His love will not fail me!!!  

So after the bus ride in the morning, I spend all day writing lesson plans, sitting in sessions, etc. But the fun part of the day is the bus ride back to Rice University. My friend Anna and I have pretty much made a ritual out of it. We hop on the bus with our backpacks and (empty) lunch boxes, plop down in the seat together, and proceed to vent/recount crazy moments/laugh/almost cry from laughing all the way back to Rice. I think Anna realized early on in the week that when I get exhausted everything becomes hilarious. It's kind of a nice way to end such a long day, because by the time we get back to Rice, we're ready to hit the ground running again. I feel like the bus ride at 4:30 will continue to be one of my favorite parts of each day. Especially since starting Monday, we'll have hilarious stories to share about our students.   

Other cool/interesting things about my week included...

FINALLY getting some Big Orange in my system after running into Tyler and Brad from UTK for the first time!!! They're teaching in the Rio Grande Valley, and I don't see them often here at Institute, but at least someone around here will be referring to the REAL UT instead of the dumb ol' nasty fake one that Texans are always talking about.

I ran into a girl I knew my freshman year of college in Richmond in the cafeteria this week. I had absolutely NO idea she was doing Teach for America, much less that I would find her here in Houston! It was definitely a blast from the past!

The food at Rice = AMAZING! Which is good, because SMU food wasn't very good. But it's also bad, because good food means eating...a lot...we're all currently trying to find a good balance there. It's just that after a super long and stressful day, everything looks like heaven. Oh well, we'll figure it out...hopefully! haha

I am loving having a single here in the dorm. Anyone who knows me knows that I love having quiet while I'm trying to work. I also love having time to just decompress all by myself. And the weekends are nice, because I can sleep when I want! It makes me excited for my one bedroom apartment back in Dallas!!!!!

Well that's about all for this weekend! I can't wait to have some amazing stories to share next week about my new class, how my teaching is going, and all the new things God will most certainly be showing me in the coming weeks. Please be praying that I would feel a sense of peace as I enter the classroom for the very first time on Monday. And please pray that the love of Christ would be reflected in all of my actions and my words, both to the students and to my peers. Love and miss everyone back home!