Today is an A day, which, although still busy and nerve wracking, somehow always seems to go by better than B days. Perhaps this is because, with my current schedule, I have both Mr Schmidt's hardest group of boys to work with during 6th period, and Mr Bozarth's hardest group of boys to work with during 7th period, plus, I also have Mr Schmidt's 5th period, which is also a fairly difficult group of boys. Somehow, 8th period is not quite as bad, which is nice, but hard to get through because I'm always super exhausted by the time it rolls around.

A days start and end with Principles of Ag, which is an introductory class for freshmen. At first I didn't like it because it was a bunch of unruly 8th graders. But after having worked with them more, and getting to know their names better, things have been going quite well.

Going through the directions to the enth degree is something I have a really hard time with. Probably because I, personally, know to follow the directions after reading them, and if I don't get it, I re-read them a few times. I'm a quiet person by nature (in my own classes anyway) and rarely find the need to ask a question. I find this very difficult and frustrating when part of the course grade is on discussion and participation. Just because I don't ask retarded questions doesn't mean I don't know what's going on. I can usually figure things out on my own fairly well. This in mind, it's super hard for me to remember that other students in my classes that I'm teaching probably don't process things how I do and probably need to be actively participating and discussing things in order to comprehend them, in order to proceed to the next thing. So, this in mind, I made sure to go through the instructions a bazillion times, not in a dry way, but an energetic way, engaging the students, and asking pointed questions, asking for hands and calling students by name. It went well. They knew what was going on. They knew what to do next. There was no question about what the project was going to be that class. The students knew what was going on. They were happy. I was happy they were excited about it. It was really a dry subject. I mean, seriously. The FFA timeline is boring. But with the project assigned for that day and the attitude I went into it with made a world of a difference. Add in the bonus that it was to be a competition for the best presented poster of a timeline and they were determined to put their creative juices into action.

I was literally jumping for joy (on the inside, of course), because after how low I felt from yesterday, I was basically 92% certain that I would not complete the year. But I guess there is some hope? Maybe? of things going well in some classes, on some days.