Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Reflections on a Great Summer

I am a teacher. This means I've been on summer break since June and my first contract day is next Monday. Being the go-getter I am, I of course went into the building at 9:30 the day the school re-opened (Last Tuesday) and have been to my classroom 5 times since then. I can't help it- it's a sickness. And yes, I know, "You get three months off?! It isn't fair/I wish I could get paid for not working/Must be nice." Sorry if you're unhappy with your career choices, but I chose mine and it includes summer break. Deal with it.

Each year I try to really enjoy my time off and do useful things instead of staying up until 4 and sleeping until noon. This is harder than you might think, especially if you live alone. There's no real reason to get out of bed at a specific time because no one relies on me. My activities don't revolve around another person or children, so it can be hard to motivate myself to keep a schedule. This summer I made a (very loose) schedule for my days which helped me feel like a productive member of society, and is also MUCH better for the well-being of my mental health.

I find that every year I feel better about what I did over the summer. Probably related to maturing or something lame like that, I wouldn't know. Since I'm coming to the end of my break I decided to make a list of things I learned/accomplished this summer.

  • I learned a LOT about interactive whiteboards. Like, 27 hours worth of technology classes. I can create containers, reassign layers, and make my own resource packs. Don't know what I'm talking about? Good- it makes me feel even better about all those hours I spent in computer labs.
  • I finally kicked my store-bought salad dressing habit. I bought two cruets (they were actually just called "bottles" but I've never had the opportunity to type "cruet" so I thought I'd try it out), a lovely book from Half Price Books, discovered I already have all the ingredients for most of my favorite dressings, and got to shaking things up! So much more delicious than my store-bought dressings, and I know exactly what is in them.
  • I read all the Harry Potter books in Spanish. It was awesome.
  • I made it through the ENTIRE SUMMER without a single overdue book! This is a big deal for me- I should have a library named in my honor for all the money I've paid in fines. And yes, I checked and you cannot count library fines as "charitable donations."
  • I cataloged my children's books! Okay, I cataloged most of my children's books. I used a great service called Library Thing. You can input your books' info manually which is nice for those of you who hate reading and own 20 books, but for those of us with a Sick Book Obsession there is a barcode scanner available. Just use this to scan the barcode of each book, and the site automatically puts all the information into your database. It's great, and the barcode scanner is shaped like a cat!
  • I learned that many Scholastic books do not have barcodes. Not so good when you have, oh, 174 books published by Scholastic. 
  • I got my younger rabbit spayed. Her older buddy was neutered last summer, so now both of them are hump-free. Rabbits develop cancers at much higher rates without these surgeries and live much longer having had them. Basically, I made my rabbits immortal. 
  • I went through all my crap and got rid of SEVEN bags of clothes and FOURTEEN bags of other random stuff. This is a big deal for me since I love to keep everything. I've been working on getting away from so much STUFF, and preparing to move and live with another human being is a great motivator.
  • Last but not least, I started two blogs! This one, clearly, and also my school blog, A is for Manzana.
Although many of my friends and family do not have the luxury of summers off, I still believe it's important to take inventory of what we've learned and accomplished several times throughout the year. It doesn't have to be "What did I do this summer?" It could be "What have I accomplished this year/month/week?" It's hard to grow when you aren't sure where you started! 

1 comment:

  1. Wow...I feel tired just READING your blog! I've been feeling like a bum most of the summer, but I guess relocating and getting a new job makes one a little bit less of a bum.

    I love the salad dressing idea! I should try that. And you and I probably OWN a library somewhere...they just haven't told us where it is!

    ReplyDelete