[kcaleece]

I'm not dead, I swear!
It only feels like I am...

 

My apologies for missing the last challenge - the whole household got wiped out with a bad case of Covid, then the school year hit for real and my workload was so insane that I was crying from stress almost every day and on the verge of quitting before a friend talked me out of it (for this contract year at least). Now, granted, my workload technically hasn't changed, but my principal did give me a sub for one day to try to get on top of my insane to do list and that helped - at least for a while, the effects are starting to wear off now since it's been about two weeks ?

 

But I have started keeping 4 corn kernels in my sweater pocket to help keep me grounded. I know that sounds weird, but 2 weekends ago I took an entire day "off" (it was a Sunday, so I wasn't at school anyway, but my workload is so heavy I've been working every day anyway) to take my kids to the pumpkin patch. My daughter freaked out at the corn pit, so I sat in there with her and we had so much fun! It ended up being a really relaxing, awesome day, the kind of outing that ends up being balm for your soul.

Well the next day at work, while grumbling about a bunch of surprise meetings taking up my day and leaving me no time to do actually useful stuff instead, I put on my normal fall cardigan to discover 4 dried kernels from the corn pit had snuck into my pocket. It made me smile and think about my kids and the pumpkin patch and helped bring a tiny bit of that joy back. So I kept them in there and now I try to look at them once a day or so when I'm in need of a small mental escape hatch. I need more of that energy in my life!!

 

So my challenge is going to be designed to try to embody the lessons and feelings of those little corn kernels in other places in my life as best as I can. Quests to come in the next post because I felt like this was getting silly long - what can I say, I'm verbose ?

[Everstorm]

Welcome back!  I'm glad you're not dead ?

[kcaleece]

Quests:
Movement - As I said in my previous challenge, I have recovered physically from my pregnancy with the notable exception of stamina on non-flat surfaces. Stairs, hills, long ramps, etc. all leave me winded and panting for air in practically no time flat. Thankfully (?) I live in a very hilly neighborhood, and in fact my house is at the bottom of a hill that is much steeper than it looks so as long as I start off by walking south, I literally cannot go for a walk without hitting at least one good, long, tough hill. But schedule is still a massive issue. So my goal is at least 1 walk (with hills) a week - and if the weather gets bad or I get exceptionally busier and feel like that's simply not possible, I will replace it with 5+ stair climbs on my basement stairs, which is a pretty decent length especially if I do it without breaks. 

Nutrition - I'm still working on my water intake for pumping/breastfeeding. Baby Girl is supposed to be dropping her milk consumption at this point but no one told her that, so she's actually asking for more despite also eating table food pretty well for her age! Daycare is trying to help me though and is keeping her at 6 ounces per bottle, but even then I'm routinely not pumping enough to replace everything she drinks in a day. I've managed to keep the loss at a slow trickle though with the goal of keeping her on breastmilk until her first birthday (December 11th, getting so close!) So goal #1 here is still 96 ounces of water/day which is...ambitious, I won't lie. I'm not making that most days, especially since I was "prescribed" one beer a day (brewer's yeast helps support milk supply, according to the pediatrician) which means I drink that at dinner instead of water. But I rarely end up at less than 70, so hopefully this will help?

I'm also working on trying to support her transition to a wide variety of table foods, so goal #2 is going to be to find at least one new food (probably produce) Baby Girl and I both like. I think I'm actually pickier than her at this point! But I'm really bad at eating enough non-bread or dairy based foods anyway, and the more I eat a certain food, the more the flavor can appear in my milk, which also helps familiarize her with that flavor which then makes her more likely to accept the actual food. The hardest part here is probably that she cannot eat chewy or crunchy things yet, so there are a lot of potential foods ruled out by her lack of teeth and the fact she's still learning how to chew food anyway (I have technically been trained on the baby Heimlich, but I don't need to test it!!) 

 

Mental Health (slash work) - My mental health needs help...which is almost entirely due to overwork. This year I have the same teaching load as last year - Spanish 2, Dual Credit Spanish 2, Dual Credit Spanish 3, Dual Credit Spanish 4, French 1, and French 2 (which is technically split into DC 2 and regular 2, but the class is so small that they meet at the same time and do the same things). I am now also: combined World Languages & Fine Arts Department Chair, Seal of Biliteracy Coordinator, Study Abroad Coordinator (which will function as one way students can meet their Seal of Biliteracy requirements) and the sole K-12 ELL Support Staff (because I outright refused to directly teach the 4 ELL classes they asked me to add into my schedule!...we don't have an ELL teacher right now, despite that technically being illegal, and as much as it made me feel like a bitch, it is not my problem that I am the only person on staff in the entire district with an ELL certification. Sucks to suck, hire someone!).

Admin is also still asking me to add in all the other stuff they want - language-specific NHS opportunities, 8th grade language classes, more community engagement, more field trips, and a 3rd language entirely. Oh, and this year's sophomores are my biggest class by far but are also some of the most entitled, whiny, and frankly lazy brats I've ever had the displeasure of meeting, and I've already had 4 official student complaints, 2 parent complaints, and several meetings with admin about it, including one mom who literally cursed me out at the top of her lungs in front of the entire office over a 10 point homework assignment ? 

 

Okay, with that mini-rant out of the way (?), here are my goals: first, I want to go to bed by 10:30 (on average, a few nights here and there might be necessary). I am up at 4:15 every morning to get to work on time, and a lack of sleep due to far too many late nights is not helping in the slightest. 10:30 is probably still too late but it's more realistic than earlier, honestly. In order to help me do this, I am going to try my very best to grade at least one assignment a day (for a prep, not necessarily all 6 every day!) Grading is one thing I tend to push off and then it piles up stupid quick and I always feel like I'm under a huge mountain of it. I want to get to a point where I can take a minimum of 18 hours "off" in a row every week - a full 24 hours might not be possible at this point, but I wouldn't mind doing something for work on Saturday morning for example and then taking the rest of the day "off". I'm hoping if I enforce getting that time all in one chunk, that will help force me to de-center work rather than saying, "oh well I played with the kids for an hour, then knocked out a lesson plan, then we went for a walk, then I did grading..."

And one more...it seems counter-productive, but one thing that my husband and I have been seriously talking about is the possibility of changing jobs. One thing I know I get dinged on in interviews is my slow speech - I mix up my French and Spanish if I speak too quickly, but speaking too slowly and carefully in interviews makes high achieving schools question my skills. Also, while I will almost certainly NOT be adding a 3rd language to my current job, adding a 3rd language in general would be a fantastic feather in my cap - it is unusual to find teachers in my area who can do both French and Spanish, but someone who can cover 3 possibilities would be the golden goose for sure!! And while I waffle on which 3rd language from time to time (I have experience and resources in Japanese, but am potentially most intrigued by Arabic and then of course the most common third language taught here is German which I have family history and a tiiiiiiny amount of experience with), the extra ability to say I would only be the 2nd teacher in my entire state to certify in K-12 Japanese is huge; while it is obviously not a common language in the area, many top districts would be very tempted by the ability to offer something no one else could. And while more work right now is obviously not a great plan, the ability to feel like I can go anywhere, anytime I want and get a top job easy-peasy would be a huge stress relief. So...I'm thinking a low, low goal of 30 minutes/week in Spanish/French and 30 minutes/week in Japanese? That's honestly so low as to be barely effective at all, but I am swamped, so I don't want to feel like I'm adding tons of hours to my plate. I'm just hoping that doing *something* will make me at least feel like I'm making progress towards that goal even if I know it's teeny tiny steps.

[Everstorm]

1 hour ago, kcaleece said:

This year I have the same teaching load as last year - Spanish 2, Dual Credit Spanish 2, Dual Credit Spanish 3, Dual Credit Spanish 4, French 1, and French 2 (which is technically split into DC 2 and regular 2, but the class is so small that they meet at the same time and do the same things). I am now also: combined World Languages & Fine Arts Department Chair, Seal of Biliteracy Coordinator, Study Abroad Coordinator (which will function as one way students can meet their Seal of Biliteracy requirements) and the sole K-12 ELL Support Staff (because I outright refused to directly teach the 4 ELL classes they asked me to add into my schedule!...we don't have an ELL teacher right now, despite that technically being illegal, and as much as it made me feel like a bitch, it is not my problem that I am the only person on staff in the entire district with an ELL certification. Sucks to suck, hire someone!).

 

 

Ugh.  Our education system is so broken.  And they keep breaking the good teachers with these kinds of asks.