News and Notes

'News and Notes,' wasn't that the title a few posts ago? Why, yes, observant reader, it was. In my busyness and abject laziness, I've temporarily given up on writing creative titles for the seemingly endless stream of posts whining about my job and have place in their stead a consistent title. This will no doubt help you in knowing what to skip when surfing through your Google Reader feed in the mornings (or whenever it is that you have the luxury of sitting down and reading the assorted offerings of the world wide web).

Anyway, I have my first official observation tomorrow with my supervising AP. I'm understandably anxious about it. The butterflies currently setting up camp in my stomach are akin to those which took their vacations from the wide open spaces to my gastrointestinal tract on the evenings before a presentation or performance in high school. Pardon me while I go freak out for a moment. All this anxiety stems from my lack of experience (hey, that sounds familiar) with this particular situation. Although I've been teaching for 4 1/2 months, I have yet to be evaluated objectively; I don't generally count the "you suck"s and the "this class is boring"s as objective or accurate feedback.

On the upside, the Grand Poobah himself came into 6th period today, and I thanked my lucky stars that we were for once doing something in the classroom and I actually looked like I was teaching my students something. That's not to say that I don't usually teach my students things, but theatre being what it is, much of our time is spent doing things which frankly don't look very studious or teacherly, like rehearsing, or playing improv games. Anyway, I had the projector on and was writing on the board and everything. It was pretty impressive. I'm sure some of my students were bored out of their minds the moment I picked up the dry erase marker, but I had a good time today, and I think at least a few of them understood what I was trying teach them.

So, tomorrow is a big day. Big day.

Oh, we also finally finished blocking "Arsenic and Old Lace," so we move into run throughs. Let the train wreck begin.