Breaking the Ice

I plan on doing this in two different situations. #1-Tomorrow night at Step class (my body is still sore-is that possible?) and #2 With my grade 2 class next Friday when I start my practicum. In class tonight we all received our final placements and luckily I have mine in the school where I worked last year with a teacher who is amazing. I'm looking forward to learning lots from her. My teacher tonight mentioned that we may want to start thinking of a way to introduce ourselves to the students. It may help them with the transition of having a "second" teacher and help build relaitionships. I honestly never gave any thought to it before, I was so busy focusing on lesson plans and the such. I am stumped. I am thinking of reading a book. A fun book, that is light and hopefully funny. I kinda want to focus on reading. I've always loved it and would like to pass that enthusiasm onto kids. I was thinking of doing an activity with them around the book, something oral and light also. ASk questions about it and tie it into my intro. I dunno. Anyone have any good suggestions for books or otherwise?

Stepping Into A Stalker

Thursday night was my first step class. For some reason there are tonnes of drop in step classes at the rec centre and when I tried to take a beginner drop in, I fumbled so horribly I never returned. So I decided to sign up for a beginners class. Oddly enough, I was the most co-ordinated out of our group. I had to stop myself from looking at some people or else I'D loose track of where we were suppose to be. So anyway, it's just a quickie type class, there's only four, and it was SUPER super cheap. I'm also taking another beginners spinning class (masochist yes) and a badminton class in November with Jordy. I'm really looking forward to it (except for spinning-YUCK!).

While we were warming up at our first step class, one of the participants showed up late. She looked so familiar, then I realized it was a lady who also had signed up for the same spinning class as me in the summer but was cancelled. We had gotten to talking and had found out that she also had a baby a month after me. I was very excited about this and it was all I could do to stop myself from pouncing on her and demanding that she become my friend! Anyways, she seemed friendly, blah blah and for the entire step class I was trying to remember her name. Jeanie? Joan? Jeanette! Then while I should of paid attention to the names of the moves we were learning I was divising a plan in my head on how I should talk to her. Should I just go up to her after class and re-introduce myself? Would that be weird? Would she even remember me? How do I NOT come across as a stalker? At the end of sweating (and thanks to childbirth a lot of farting) my butt of in class, I went up to her and said, "Jeanette, right?" and she responded with "You look familiar". This was a good sign. I proceeded. We chatted out to our cars. That was about it. I asked how her daughter was, she asked how mine was. Ended with a "see ya next class" and that was it. I AM SO PITIFUL. And really kinda feeling desperate also. I'm not sure where to go from here. Keep up with the small talk? Try to be chatty? But where do I draw the line? I don't want to be on her like a moth to a flame and freak her out. I suck at this so bad. I know I'm putting WAY too much thought into this but I have to be careful that I don't reek too much like desparation and scare her off. I need to devise another plan. Back to my lair.

Turn, Turn, Turn

I cannot believe Izzy will be 8 months on Wednesday. Holy crap! I can see the "child" in her, if that makes any sense. She's starting to go from looking like a baby to looking like a real person. I always wonder, what will your favourite colour be? What will you like to eat for breakfast? Will you be a morning person? What games will you enjoy playing? She already has a sense of humour, hamming it up with funny faces. She's a card. She's standing now, but not on her own yet. She can hold onto the coffee table but her tummy is wobbley and she moves back and forth a bit, trying to keep her balance. I love that she tries. Even if she falls, she'll get right back up and try again. She makes me so proud. I've noticed now that I've returned to school, she gets clingy either the day after my night class or for the rest of the afternoon on Saturdays. It's understandable. It's good to know that she at least likes me. It kills me though, everytime I leave for school, she cries. But she stops five minutes later (which is good because it tells me that she's securely attached and that's what you want) and I have to keep reminding myself. I tell you next Mat leave, I'm not doing a gosh darn thing. I'm just going to go to the park and play all day long. No school, no work, no nothing. Just fun!

Mama was a Cornflake Girl

How super excited am I that Tori is on tour and will be in Vancouver in December? How super sad am I that I can't afford to go? At least I've seen her in concert, luckily twice. I think I can let this one go....I think....
It'll just have to be Tori day in my house and I'll have to put on a rotation of her cds. And B sides. It'll be a looooong day for Jordy.

Class on Saturday was good. It was a 5km hike (what's that 3 miles?) around Burnaby Lake Park (burnaby has a lake? What?!) and I really enjoyed myself. Along the walk I tried to walk beside different people from my class to get to know them. I must admit everyone seems really nice. There's even one lady who's a bit of a know-it-all and can get on my nerves, but at least she's nice and tries to make conversation with you. I would have to say that the average age in my class is late 30's early 40's. So I'm not too sure if I'm going to be making any super close friends, but you never know, I will not judge.

We also had met up with the Burnaby module (the one I was suppose to be in) and there are 43 people in that class. There are 17 in mine. Such a difference. In the Burnaby module is a girl I worked with at a different elementary school 2 years ago, a girl I graduated from CYC with 3 years ago and another lady who looks like someone I should know. I hate that when someone looks so familiar to you but you don't know why. The really eeries part? Halfway through our walk she came up to me and said that I look really familiar also. SPOOKY! We tried to figure it out but NOTHING. I said maybe it's from a past life and she agrees. Funny that.

But after walking and talking with my peeps, I started to hear some of their fears and concerns and found out that I am not alone, which makes me feel so normal (a feeling I rarely have.)I never really realized how being rejected really affected me, I think I'm scarred. I'm afraid that maybe all those people are right and I won't be a good teacher or someone will stand up in class, point their finger at me and tell me I'm a fraud. But I have to beyond everything BELIEVE in myself, in what my teaching goals are. Maybe I scare them; I'm that good. I'll put other teachers to shame. I just keep repeating in my head the lyrics from 'Swan dive', "You can call me crazy if I fail/ all that chance that I need/ is one in a million you can call me brilliant if I succeed/ Gravity means nothing to me/ moving at the speed of sound/ Just going to get my feet wet/ until I drown."

Madness

This has not been a good past couple of days for me. I am beyond exhaustion. Even my bones are wiped. I am probably not a good person to talk to right now, nor am I really in the mood for conversations, which is probably for the best anyhow. Sorry, Urs, I won't be calling you tonight on your cell, because it wouldn't be fair to you to do that. We'll see how things are on Sunday. Maybe bitching here will get rid of some of my negative enegery.

I'm kinda at the "I've had it!" place. I'm REALLY hoping not to take the next train to "Explosive outburst" town, instead to "I need some quiet reflection time" place. I realize it's a choice, don't need to tell me, I just need a moment. I didn't get a single solitary moment at all yesterday. I was at home with Isabel ALL DAY, from dawn till dusk. Jordy was at work at a "thing" and wasn't able to come home until 7:35, which at that point, Isabel was bathed, changed and feeding. My house was clean. My house was organized. I had clean sheets to sleep on that night. Not like the night before when I came home from my first day of class (which I'll get into in a bit), where I had babyfood all over my kitchen table, counters and sink, along with bibs, a taken apart high chair and just other useless crap strewn about. Not the same scene I had left 4 hours prior and am still unsure of how it got like that. I made my husband take a note of how clean my house was, when he got home last night and made a point of adding the fact that I was all alone. Bitchy, yes I know, but I felt justified. I know that most of the time the task of cleaning my house is somewhat redundant, but I feel it still needs to get done. Other people in my home clearly don't feel the same way. Anyway, not even an hour after I put Isabel down she woke up and SCREAMED bloody murder. And nothing would stop her crying and she did this twice. So Yes, no moments yesterday. Which just added more grr-ness to my pile.

The night before last I had my first class. All I am going to say about it is, despite the fact that there are some very nice people in my program, I do not feel like I fit in. I tried calling some friends and talking to my husband about it, but either no one was home or in the mood. That made me a bit sad. I also have to say about my class that even though I am a Child and Youth Care Worker, it was even too touchy feely for me. At the end, we all held hands and gave each other blessings. Too much warm fuzziness for me. But anyway, BEFORE class I found out our text books were FINALLY in at the bookstore. Only to get an email from my prof 5 days prior stating that they were not going to be in on time and was recommended we purchase them online. Which I did, and found out that one will be two weeks late. I am so annoyed with this university.

I am also struggling with customer service at The Province. Jordy loves his papers and I signed us up last year to receive them in the morning and in June my visa expired so I phoned and gave them all the new info. Then suddenly last week we were no longer receiving our papers so I emailed them. I was told that my credit card info needed to be updated. I replied saying it was back in June and this makes me uneasy giving out credit card info and then having it misplaced and if there was a miscommunication perhaps I should've received a phone call or letter asking for the updated info instead of just stopping delivery. Then I received the oddest email back, which I still don't understand. "Actually your credit information was updated last June but was not turn on for automatic payment. I email you notifying to update your credit card assuming you have a new one that is why the one we have on file that was indeed updated was never put back to automatic payment. I apologize for the inconvenience this may have cause you but I just like to make sure that you did give us permission to continue taking payment from your credit card. " Grammatically that makes no sense, right? Anyway, wouldn't the updated info be from a NEW credit card to begin with? How can I update info with an old card? That is so odd. And if I update my info and give you my new number I am automatically giving you permission to use it for payment. Why would I give you my number and say no you can't use it? So I'm going to try to call someone today to straighten this out.
Anway, I'm just annoyed and stressed. Hopefully my second class tomorrow will change things around.