It is the Sunday before I go back to work. One of the benefits of being a teacher is that we get quite regular breaks and have more time off than the average job. I’m not here to complain about that at all, the past 2 weeks have been great. Unfortunately they did fly by super quickly, but what can you do, that’s just how it goes. Tomorrow (today if you’re reading this), I’m going back to work and we immediately start with an activity week. This means I don’t have to prepare any lessons because I’m not teaching any lessons. This does however mean that I’ll be doing something completely different from normal. On the first day I’ll be part of a scavenger hunt themed around Jewish buildings in the city that my school is in. On the second day I’ll be assisting my students with a project. The good thing about the activity on the second day is that there’s a complete guide with all of the instructions, which I can just follow. Makes my life a lot easier.
Monday is going to be a bit more stressful. For starters, I don’t just have to deal with classes I know, but with all the second year classes. That’s not a huge deal per se, but it does cause a little bit of anxiety to have to interact with unfamiliar kids. I’ve had to do this in the past and it’s always gone well, but no one ever claimed that anxiety followed logic, right?
The second issue is that there are several different places where I can be stationed, and it’s only decided tomorrow morning who goes where. This is probably in case someone is absent or just because they thought it would be better that way, but it definitely heightens my anxiety that I don’t know which of the six different places I need to be at tomorrow and what my actual task will be. Some of these sound more fun than others, so I hope I get a good one.
Lastly, we will be stationed somewhere outside. That means we’re dependent on the weather and if I need to go to the toilet I need to pick an opportune moment and go back to the school. I can’t just pee whenever I want and although that isn’t the biggest problem in the world, I do need to go to the toilet often when I’m nervous. On top of that it’s predicted to be quite warm tomorrow so I’ll be hydrating as well. I’m basically writing this first half of the post as I’m mentally preparing for what is to come tomorrow. I’ll close my docs now and continue tomorrow after I’m done, to let you know how it actually went. Good night!
Now then, it’s Monday and I’m exhausted. Of course things went much better than expected, but that’s just the way of things. In the morning I went to the school I work at to pick up the assignment and the stamps I needed and then I settled down in the spot I was at all day. The kids would come in groups, take a picture of the questions and I’d help them out and check if they understood it or not. All things considered it was not a big deal and it makes me feel silly for feeling anxious at all. Tomorrow is going to be a little more hands-on for me but there’s a detailed overview of all the exercises and powerpoint videos I need to handle so I’m sure it will be fine. Thanks for reading, I’m going to lay down and hope this headache goes away.
Opal Kaharis 