So, today is my birthday. I almost forgot about it. I don't think I'm at the point where I could truly forget totally, but my week at school was such that, literally, I had no conception of time outside of 'do I have my lesson ready for tomorrow'. I really didn't have a lot of time to plan any sort of party, but a week ago the ward announced that we were going to have a big bbq at the bishop's house as well as the Philadelphia Temple Groundbreaking on that day, so I thought I was good as far as parties.  The bbq ended up being cancelled and the groundbreaking was a broadcast... so I ended up not really having a party or celebrating my birthday in traditional 'party' fashion... but hey, I decided precisely four years ago that, in an ideal world, birthdays should be a time to turn outward, not inward. So all I did that day was attend the broadcast, help someone move... and, one thing that--to me--really was a party. I cleaned my room. And organized it. In a radically different way.

Story.

The cleaning and new organization would not have been possible without the help of several people: My roommates Dan and Eric, a neighbor of our's, and God. I'll explain: I live in a room that is 7' by almost 9'. That's pretty small (it is actually a closet that happens to have a window), but I find it adequate, and I have it as my mission to save money while I'm paying for my master's degree (which is no small task in a city like Philadelphia, especially when it comes to housing). So I like my room, but it is small. SO, I bought myself a birthday present: a loft. It's a bunkbed without the bottom bunk. It puts my over 5' above the ground--saving all of that room my bed used to take up!! At least, that was my idea. The problem is that shipping here in Philly is a pain: they ship during the day and all of my roommates and I work during the day...if it doesn't fit in the mail slot (a bit thicker and wider than a VHS tape), you have to plan on picking it up. Problem is, my loft box is rather large, irregularly-shaped, and 100 pounds... and my not having a car here in Philly complicates things substantially. So, I knew it was going to be delivered on Friday, and, because of past delivery attempts, knew that I get home only about 35 minutes after it would be dropped off. So I thought I would risk it: I would leave a note for the FedEx guy to leave it at the door. I was told that leaving packages on your doorstep is not smart in Philly, but I thought the size and weight would make me safe--surely--for a mere 30 minutes until I arrived?

Well, I walk up to our row home, no package in sight.

I swallowed, and went inside, hoping that, by some chance happening, one of my roommates had come home and received it. No one home, no box anywhere in the house. I looked up the shipping info online and it said it had been delivered.
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I frantically called FedEx to tell them what had happened, and they listened unsympathetically. I had bet and lost.
...or so I thought.
This morning, right before my roommate and I left for the groundbreaking, our neighbor knocks on our door and tells us that she has my package: some people saw it delivered and began loading it in their truck when she said that the package was hers, they just delivered it to the wrong house. Cluuuuuuuuuuutch! So, end of story: that was a huge load off my mind, and my roommates helped me set it up later that day (read: did all the work), and it was a grand birthday present after all: it roughly doubled the size of my room. God is sooooooooo good to me.

The end. Except that school is still really, really, hard. But I'm telling myself to focus on the good, and, funny enough, even though some things are outrageously ridiculous, there is plenty of good to find. :)

The first week of school. It was only four days, including one shortened schedule day. But it felt like about a month of life was drained from my soul. I came to school the first day with a plan. I had a vision and a big goal for the year, I had a management plan, I had prepared procedures.  The only thing I wasn't prepared for...was high school students.  Looking back on it, I cognitively was aware that they would be radically different from the fourth graders that my summer teaching entailed... But it did really manifest itself in a concrete picture until the first day of school. And boy--what a manifestation! I can't describe it in words very readily... But picture me on my first day with a pep talk on goal-setting and elaborate, interactive get to know you games. I get past the administrative things like seat assignments and some expectations... I launch into the pep talk and then explain the first game to get to know everyone's name. 
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"i aint doin that"
"yeah, that's stupid. We're not kids, and we don't need to know everyone."
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I was a little stunned for a moment, but I was undeterred. I explained that Spanish class was going to be interactive and would require 100% participation. That got a few people on board and they began to stand up… but the rest of the class—the majority—really had no inclination to do what I said… and I have come to feel (at least so far) that anything listening to the teacher and taking notes… they really won’t do anything without significant coaxing. But I think they will come around. But please, don't think that I am depressed or start feeling sorry for me. I have only excitement for the future. I am completely dedicated to improving and to finding the right ways to engage and relate to my students. I have complete hope in the prospect that things will get better, and complete faith that things will. One great—nay, excellent—thing about Teach for America is its network of support. I have, literally, dozens of people I can reach out to (and have) who are helping me and just filling me with practical solutions to this and specific content questions. I *know* I will get better at this, and several people are helping me do so every step of the way. This is the way to become a teacher.

First day of school. Wow. The stuff of legend. The stuff of which books are written.  The stuff that makes you want to go through 6 weeks of training, read multiple books on the subject, go to hundreds of hours of workshops, call and email every expert worth their spit, and compile it all into an extravagant, far-seeing plan…

…

Teaching, in my limited experience thusfar, is not a profession that “goes according to plan”.  *Sigh*. It wasn’t terrible. It really wasn’t. I did a lot of good. I got to know names and faces, I set a tone for my expectations, and I didn’t back down when multiple kids tried testing me (I set the expectation that everyone will participate in my class—and some people went out of their way to tell me ‘how dumb’ what we were doing was). They know I will not pass them by, or give in to their whims (no bathroom unless it is an emergency—though I did lose that one once already—she played the “I’m eight months pregnant card”, what could I say to that?). But, on the other hand, they saw that I was not in control of everything—even a most basic thing like what is homeroom for, or even when does the next period start or end. It. Was. Chaos (literally, all day, I had no idea how long I would have that class—one class lasted 5 minutes, my last class lasted 60).

Don’t get me wrong, my school is great. It really is.  These people care. But I just don’t know how to react when they send me off to what I thought was my first period class, and it turns out to be a homeroom that I was told nothing about, and lasts for an unspecified amount of time. Totally threw off my groove. But, tomorrow is another day.