Oh The Places I'll Go . . . : September 2014

Well it has been about four weeks since I came back to the desert for round two. Summer vacation was much needed. I spent six days in Spain with friends before flying home. We went to Barcelona, then to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls Festival, and ended our trip in Madrid. It was such care free and relaxing trip. My friend Dan and I went to Montserrat Monastery outside of Barcelona on our second day in Barcelona. Then the guys went and ran with the bulls in Pamplona. Stephanie and I didn't want to run, but we watched them run into the arena. It was fun to watch the running, but after all the people were in the arena they kept sending out these baby bulls for the guys to "play with." They would jump in front of them, smack them, and taunt them. It got out of control several times with men tackling a small bull for not charging them. Below are some pictures of the trip.

After Spain I got to enjoy six weeks at home with family and friends. It flew by so quickly I didn't even have time to breathe. And now I am back in the desert for my second year of teaching. I am teaching 6th grade girls and 8th grade girls and have taken on quite a bit more responsibility this year. I have somehow become the 8th grade level leader this year as well as the unofficial team leader of the female campus middle school team. This means outside of my teaching I am trying to communicate information to the rest of the team, schedule and facilitate meetings, taking care of scheduling conflicts, and every other little thing in between.

The middle school principal left within the first two weeks of school, so now we are left without a principal. Luckily, we are a very strong team both on the female and male campus. Yet, this lack of administration and support has made the start of the year very difficult for many teachers. Yet, outside the administrative issues my classes are absolutely amazing! I have the same girls from last year, and our relationships are even stronger than before. And I am now teaching 6th grade girls as well. They are both such a joy to teach. My first unit with my 8th grade girls was autobiographies. I had them making autobiography books with six pages of writing! Everyone told me that it would be impossible, but I am so proud of my girls that they did it. They even wrote three drafts of it for revising! I told them on Thursday when it was due that I couldn't be more proud of them. I will post pictures of their autobiographies once I grade them and put them up for display.

Not much else to say since I got back. This second year is great because I am already settled down. Most of my weekends have been spent in Madinat Zayed trying to get stuff at school sorted out. But, hopefully by time Eid comes I will not be needing to spend extra days at work. Most of the weekends is just creating bulletin boards, word walls, and other stuff that I didn't have time to do during our professional development week.

Enjoy some pictures of Spain and my summer vacation below: