Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Greetings from Institute!

It's day two, and we'll head to our schools in Houston for the first time today. This week we observe and lesson plan before jumping into teaching a summer school class next week. It's all very daunting, but they insist that we'll manage and be better teachers in the fall for having lived through these five weeks.

They're doing a good job of indoctrinating us into the ways of TFA teaching. I found myself wishing for a stopwatch so I could time my morning routine and work on inefficiencies and contemplating printing checklists to make sure I have everything I need in my backpack. The alphabet soup of acronyms everyone keeps throwing around keeps us all baffled, but it makes for good joke fodder.

Since my parents drove with me to Houston, I haven't spent any money since Thursday night. I'm not being particularly virtuous; there just isn't anything I want to buy on campus, and I'm too busy and sleep deprived to venture off during the week. I've been making a list for a Target run this weekend, though.

I haven't figured out quite how much this summer will end up costing. TFA houses and feeds us, and the school district buses us to and from school. However, I'm paying for my own health insurance for the first time, and opting for a high deductible plan left me paying out of pocket for medication. I don't even want to think about what gas prices will be when it's time to drive to the Delta.

No comments: