Mrs. Awesome!

My summer is over. For those of you reading this who think, "what, it's only July 31st," well it's true. I GOT A TEACHING JOB! I had three interviews at different schools for English Positions. I was offered two of the positions, and decided to go with a high school position over a middle/elementary one. I'm so excited! I was unofficially hired last Friday and went in to human resources Monday to complete all my paperwork. I had new staff training with at the district Tuesday through Thursday, and was finally able to work in my classroom on Friday. The district is so awesome! The staff of the school, and district personnel are very friendly, resourceful, and helpful. I'm looking forward to working for them.

I'll be working at Stanley High School in Logansport, Louisiana. It's about a 70 minute drive from home, which isn't actually that bad. I tune into talk radio/music on the drive there and my Jillian Michaels podcasts on the way home. There is essential little to no traffic and the scenery is very calming, all woods and greenery. The school is a PreK-12 school, which is popular in the south, yet, we are still referred to as a high school. There are around 117 students in the high school grades. First semester I'll be teaching one block of Career Investigations, and two sections of English I (freshman). I also have my planning period last of the day, which is nice because I can get everything all wrapped up and planned for the next day and leave on time to make it to Sylvan for some more work. Second semester I'll have one block of English III (juniors), one block of the Bible as Literature (a new class, that no one really knows much about yet), and one block of English II (sophomores). I'm really glad to have such a large variety of classes. I'm even more glad that I can ease in with the same course first semester. Louisiana is really organized unlike Texas, in the fact that the curriculum is essentially all laid out, I just have to add or subtract my own lessons here and there.

The schools are very technologically up to date. Every classroom has at least 5 computers, a printer, and all the core classes are getting smart boards. I'm sure I'll have a whole post dedicated to that once mine is installed- they are awesome tools- so far from chalkboards. I'll have my own laptop and the school has two computer labs. People in bigger cities might not think this is all that great, but for a southern, rural school district it's really good.

Mason was nice enough to go with me on Friday to help unload all my teaching things, and help move furniture and inventory what was in the room. I got rid of a lot of junk that was left there by the previous teacher, and was able to get organized. I took some pictures, but it's the "before" pictures. We had to be back by 3:00 so Mason could go to roll call, so I didn't really get to decorating, but I'll do that Monday after school staff meetings. I have meetings at my school Monday and Tuesday, and the kiddos start Wednesday- I can't believe it! Another great perk, we have so many holidays. I'm not trying to give the impression that teachers never work, because, trust me, we work A LOT! We have several week long breaks in addition to the normal national holidays.

Other than being super excited about school, not much else is new. Mason finished academics and begins mission planning and continuing with sims this week. He's scheduled for his first flight on {Mason edits out text, because apparently it's classified information-boo mason}. The chief of staff of the Air Force will be visiting Barksdale in the next week or so to celebrate the start of Global Strike Command which is a new major command (majcom) that will be stationed here at Barksdale. It's a pretty big deal. We had a break in the weather this week, with rain, rain, rain...unfortunately the "waterbugs" aka roaches, have decided they'd like to come play in our master bathroom. TOTALLY GROSS! The exterminator has been called, and Mason and I have been spraying and caulking up and cracks and holes in the rooms. Ugh, humid climates...