Lil' Health Update..

Eh, it's probably time to get that "Why I am exhausted every minute of the day" thing looked at.
So I have a physical scheduled for this Wednesday morning before school to check all the regularly-functioning body parts and some blood work specifically for the tiredness bidness.

Those that have spent a significant amount of time with me know that I do not like to admit defeat. I do not like to admit weakness. I do not like admitting that I can't do something.

And I do NOT like going to the doctor.

I try to avoid it whenever possible. The last time I went to the doctor for an illness was when I was in kindergarten and had croup. I don't think I even went to the doctor when I got chicken pox because my brothers had it right before me and my parents knew the routine by then. Except for seasonal colds, I maintain near-perfect (or at least, passable) physical health. KEEP ME AWAY FROM THE DOCTOR.

But as much as I hate going to the doctor, I need answers. I need to figure this out.

I can't keep living like this, with no energy. Today I was operating on about 60%. On most grading scales, that's failing. I'm failing! But in the life I lead, failure is not an option. A "Body and Mind Failure" Day does not exist.

So we keep on keepin' on.

If you are a person who prays and you feel so inclined, please pray for me. It's been a rough several weeks. And I'm afraid it may be awhile before it gets better.

Op-Ed: Do You Suffer? Thank God.

"God didn't make cancer (or depression, death, poverty, etc) because cancer (depression, death, poverty, etc) is not good. So don't go blaming God for something He didn't make." (Same Kind of Different As Me, 2008)

Is your mind blown yet? Mine was after reading these sentences this morning.

And it made me think: do I blame God for the pills I have to take, for the energy I don't have, and for the demons that circle my bed and won't let me sleep at night?

To be honest, I don't blame God very often. But the reason is pretty ignoble: I'm lazy. I know in my head that the bad things in my life are not God's fault, so why waste the energy yelling at Him and laying the blame on Him for things that were never His idea in the first place? Why get all worked up and more frustrated than I already am by yelling at someone I can't see over an illness that others can't see? I know He'd hear me, so it's not for a lack of faith that I abstain from blaming God. I'm really just lazy.

Okay. So it's not God's FAULT that I suffer, He didn't do this PURPOSELY.
BUT - why does He ALLOW it to happen?

Oh, there's a question that has yet to be answered after centuries upon centuries of the world's tears.

In fact, there's an entire branch of thinking and studying  that tries to rationalize the relationship between God and suffering, and it's called theodicy. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a theologian. I'd rather know things in simple terms and be able to explain them in simple terms to people who don't speak Theologese. So here's my theodicy, in simple terms, the way I know how.

God didn't create the evil things in this world. He's INCAPABLE of creating evil. As a 100% good being, He created us to be 100% good beings to share the world with Him. Since we messed that plan up, He now pushes through the evil to be with us and share His good with us. God is certainly powerful enough to wipe out evil forever, but would we really need Him after that? We certainly proved (and continue to prove) that we think we can handle everything without God. Eve figured she could do whatever she wanted with the infinite freedom God gave to her and Adam, and that quickly became doing something God told her not to do. She figured she knew better than (or at least as well as) God when it came to her well-being. Every single one of us is guilty of this.

Without evil, we'd be immature children, dependent on no one, least of all on God. As it is, many of us only turn to God when something goes wrong, right? So if nothing went wrong, we wouldn't have to turn to Him at all. We would just frolic through sunshine-y life, waiting for God to appear when faced with evil. In fact, I think that after awhile, we wouldn't even notice God's intervention in our lives because we'd take it for granted.

Does that scene of sunshine-y perfect life even include human free will? If we don't have the opportunity to face evil and make a decision about how we handle it, where is the free will? We would be children sheltered so completely from evil that we would cease to even be human. Think about it:

If there's never anything to get upset about, the range of human emotion disappears.
If there's never any reason to mourn, there's never a reason to celebrate.
If there's never any death, we would cease to value life.
If there's never a reason for tears, there's never a reason for smiles.
If there's never any sickness, there's no reason for healing.
And if there's never any evil, we would cease to recognize good.

I think the reason that the prospect of Heaven is so absolutely breath-taking is that we know what it's like to live without Heaven. We will appreciate it so much more after knowing what suffering is. If we stayed in Heaven without ever having to experience suffering, we probably wouldn't appreciate Heaven all.

God allows us to suffer because He knows we would never need Him without it. We would cease to see His hand in the events of our life because, really: what are events? We characterize them as good or bad, and without bad, it would be an endless succession of good. And life would become meaningless.

So I guess you could say that God lets us suffer because He loves us so much.
He would rather that we live, truly deeply emotionally live, than simply exist without knowing the difference.

The Summer of 10,000 Pages

I'll be back at the Grounds for summer #5 in just a few short weeks. Okay, like 14. Regardless, I'd rather being laying on a beach than looking out at snow, even if that snow did close school today.

I start off every summer with the goal of hanging out with co-workers and campers more and around the end of June I always realize the same thing: none of the college staff EVER has off at the same time (unless we start hanging out after 11pm) and I inevitably end up sitting in the cottage alone in a weird (and not happy) mood. Don't get me wrong, it's not like we're never able to hang out outside of work, it's just that I always seem to forget how tired I get after working all day and how early I end up going to bed most nights. :)

So here's a new plan that I just came up with:

THE SUMMER OF 10,000 PAGES

I am going to attempt to read 10,000 pages between the time that student teaching ends and classes begin again in the fall. It's 123 days, or about 17 weeks. If I figure that a book has an average of 250 pages, that's 40 books to read. Oh, and Kindle pages will be equal to paper pages.
I'll use this handy-dandy blog to keep track of my progress and fill you all in on what titles I'm devouring.

I can do this, right? I guess we'll see how close I can get. :)

Tired of Being Tired

I am always tired.

Seriously. I feel tired every minute of every day. I have yawned in front of all of my six classes at least once. The funny part is that they don't really know what to do with that. They yawn in class plenty, but they're not used to the teachers doing it.

I never wake up feeling refreshed or rested. I never wake up feeling AWAKE. Some days, I feel like I don't even wake up at all.

Throughout college, I got at least 8 hours of sleep per night. I made sure of it. I can't operate properly on much less than that. It had to be exceptional circumstances (or a vacation) for me to even consider going to bed past midnight.

Since the beginning of student teaching, I've been passing out around 8, 8:30.

WHY IS IT NOT ENOUGH?!

Am I not supposed to be in the prime of my life? Past the teenage years, where you supposedly need all that extra sleep, but not yet into the adult years where your kids and your job wear you out?

22 years old and feeling like 88. I don't have the energy to do anything outside of school and/or work. And sometimes, not even that. I had a day or two last semester where I decided to skip class (usually afternoons) because I simply couldn't keep going.

Student teaching is just beating me up. It is mentally and emotionally strenuous work.
Will I ever get used to it? Is this how my life is going to be from now on?
If so, how can I even imagine adding a husband, kids, and countless other activities when I can't even stay awake past 8?

I am so frustrated with this. (Could you tell?)

I AM SO FREAKING TIRED.

And without God's promise from Matthew 11:28, I might have given up a long time ago.

Student Teaching 101 - How to Connect With Students

Okay, this one will be short because I have to go to bed soon.

In an effort to get to know my students / give them the opportunity to learn more about me, I shook hands with and handed out a slip of paper to each student in my four Spanish 1 classes as they walked through the classroom door today. Once class started, I had them rip it in half, write their name on one of the halves, and then write down something about themselves on that half. I told them it could be about the sports they play, what they like to do in their free time, what their favorite subject in school is, etc. I also mentioned that if there was anything about them that they thought I should know before I start teaching them full-time (such as how they learn or what hinders them from learning), they should write that down too. On the other half of the paper, they were free to ask me any questions regarding what they want to know about me. I promised to answer them in class later that week, provided they were appropriate. :)

Let's take a small time-out here for me to bring up a student that I shall refer to as S. S is in my 2nd hour Spanish class, does no work, does not want to be there, and is obsessed with boys. This is not just stuff that I am inferring - she has literally told me all of these things in the 11 days that I have been at GMS. My CT finds her to be one of her most frustrating students, not only for the reasons above, but also because she tends to say whatever comes to mind and is generally disruptive during class. In no uncertain terms, my CT has told me that she has pretty much given up on S passing this class, and it's easy to see why - according to her file, her mother is in jail, her dad is a truck driver and is home only about 2 days a week, she lives with her grandparents, has ADHD and Reactive Attachment Disorder (which basically means that she is social indiscriminately and often inappropriately), and has a behavior infractions file about an inch thick.

So when I passed out my little slips today, I figured the chances of S actually completing this activity were slim to none. To my surprise, however, I found this statement written on her slip:

"I have depression really bad and no one here understands how that is."

I wrote back to her on the same slip of paper underneath her statement: "I understand how that is. I've struggled with depression too. You know where to find me, okay?" I handed the slip back to her as I was returning other papers and when I turned around, she was smiling at me and had tears in her eyes.

At the least, she'll know that she's not alone.
At the best, maybe we can turn her grade (and in a small way, her life) around.

"And we know that in ALL things  (not just the good things, but the tough things too), God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

We're Not In Kansas Anymore, Part 1

And by "Kansas," I mean Christian schools.

The differences are subtle: Channel One school news instead of morning devotions. Ending the last class period with afternoon announcements instead of prayer. Teachers that eat alone at their desks instead of in the teachers' lounge.

I think it was the third of those differences that blind-sided me. At GMS, the primary function of the teachers' lounge is to house the microwaves and store the leftover treats from staff meetings. Not once in the two weeks that I've been there have I seen a single teacher actually eat their lunch in there, and I've done my microwaving during each of the three lunch periods (two thumbs up for prep hour and lunch hour back-to-back for 80 minutes of "down-time" in the middle of the day). It's weird to never see teachers in there! If the rest of them are anything like my CT, they just eat lunch by themselves in their classroom.

I find that kind of lonely. Teachers at my high school NEVER ate lunch in their classroom unless they were conducting a meeting. The lounge was their hideout. I don't know if this points to a fundamental difference between private schools and public schools or if GMS is just an exception, but it seems like a great waste of an opportunity to build community among the faculty and staff. I'll be the first to admit that I like to be alone from time to time, eating lunch while reading a good book, but certainly not every day!

It's amazing how lonely one can feel when surrounded by people all day. I see 180 students per day, spend 7 and a half hours (or more) with my CT, and am never more than 50 feet from another human being (seriously, the main office is right across the hall). Yet I still feel so lonely. The only other teacher I know by name is the long-term sub who's filling in for the other Spanish teacher. And yeah, I'm not exactly an extrovert who seeks people out in order to introduce myself, but when my CT and I pass other teachers in the hall, they often don't even acknowledge each other. Am I the only one who finds this odd?

I really really hope that this is just the way that GMS is and not all public schools in general. Any public school teachers reading this should feel free to comment on this. I just can't see myself teaching in a school where co-workers don't know each other and everyone just eats at their desk.

Bottom line/lesson learned: I need community. Also, I need to take an actual 30 minute lunch break from now on, away from my desk. Otherwise, I end up working through my break while eating. Sorry CT, I'll get to that stack of tasks after my lunch break. :)

"Guys, this is Miss Campo, please don't destroy her."

I purposely didn't post any updates on student teaching until the first week was over because I knew that it would feel obligated to update every single day, rendering my time spent updating somewhat worthless. There are only so many hours in a day, and student teaching seems to be sucking up ALL of them. So now that the week is done, I'll try to condense it all down into one update.
I experienced every single one of these emotions this week:
- Excitement
- Dread
- Anxiety
- Fear
- Intense Fear
- Glee
- Physical Exhaustion
- Mental Exhaustion
- Emotional Exhaustion
- Frustration
- Amusement
- Impatience
- Fulfillment
(Now, if I was mean, I would just leave it at that and let you all imagine the scenarios that led to those emotions. But I'm not mean, so here's a little bit more).

I'm student teaching at Grandville Middle School; 4 classes of Spanish I and 2 classes of Intro to Theatre. The Spanish I classes are open only to 8th graders and are taken for high school credit. We've been doing their first semester exam all week (they're a little bit behind the high school) and since they can only work on it during class time, it's taken 5 class periods. And some kids still aren't even done yet. As for Theatre, I came in just as they were finishing a Romeo and Juliet unit where they looked at themes in stories and how one person's decisions inevitably affect the people around them. For the last 3-4 weeks of the class (GMS is on trimesters), they will be working on their final projects - I cast them into short plays (2-3 pages or so each), and they have the responsibility of memorizing their lines, finding their costumes and props, designing their set, determining their stage movements, and performing the whole thing on the stage in the auditorium at the end of the trimester.

This is a list of things I have done in the last week:
1. Attempted to learn 176 names. Seriously. I have 176 students. I'd say I've got about 65% of them down at this point.
2. Spent the first three days using a student desk that was smaller than the tables the actual students sit at. Yesterday, though, I got my very own teacher's desk. Small successes.
3. Introduced myself as "Andrea" on Tuesday to a student that had been absent on Monday. Whoops.
4. Confiscated my first cell phone from a student who then proceeded to flip me off. I sent her to the principal's office. Much to my surprise, she actually went.
5. Told a student to return to her seat and stop terrorizing another student. She told me she hated me. I asked her what my name was. She returned to her seat.
6. Cast 51 students into 19 plays on Tuesday. Do you know how difficult that is when you only just met the students yesterday and don't really know their names? Good thing my CT gave me a list of students that should NOT work together...
7. Tag-teamed on exam makeups and retakes for at least 30 different students today. At the busiest point, I had 4 different tests/exams going on. All with listening sections that involved answering questions based on what I read to the students. Insanity.
8. Filled the vacancy of bilingual special education teacher. There will be a post on this in a few days, believe me. Basically, the special education students in my Spanish I classes can't receive the accommodations that they receive in their other classes (such as having the directions read to them, having reading sections read aloud to them, having scribes for extended writing sections, etc). Here's why: first of all, my CT can't perform all of these accommodations because she can't leave the rest of the class unattended, especially during an exam. Second of all, their regular SpEd teachers can't read or write on the tests if they don't know Spanish. Third of all, there are no bilingual SpEd teachers or paraprofessionals employed at GMS. Something's not right here, wouldn't you say? So anyway, watch for a post on this topic later on, if you're interested.
9. Listened to a student's life story after school one day. I forget how this ended up happening. But when she was done, I asked her if it was okay if I prayed for her, and she said yes. I would of course have prayed for her anyway, even if she had said no, but it helped me realize that there are ways to get around the separation of church and state. I'll admit, I was pretty disappointed when I found out I would be student teaching in a public school. I knew that it would end up being a good experience because I spent all 12 of my own school years in Christian school and I definitely needed time in a public school before heading out to look for jobs after graduation. I was mostly just upset that I'd have to suppress a part of me that I had always planned on integrating fully into my teaching. But thanks to this little episode, I'm coming to re-realize that faith = words + actions. I may not be able to use the words on school time, but I've still got my actions.

I'm sure there are several other humorous events from this week that I'm forgetting about, so I apologize for that, but you can be sure that I'll keep telling the funny stories that come my way.