Good Things to help pull me through another week

When the going gets tough, you have to find some good things to hold onto. Now I have gained back a small bit of sanity, I need to give myself something solid to hold onto so I don't fall to pieces between now and my Master's symposium.

Good Thing #1: Despite the craziness, I am still getting in 3 runs/workouts a week. This week, which has been the hardest in a while, was the highest mileage week of 2011 with 15.5 miles run (4 runs: 6mi, 2mi, 5mi, 2.5mi). Nothing compared to the miles I was logging last summer, but not bad considering limited daylight hours, overwhelming workload, and school responsibilities. I am very excited to keep upping my long run mileage and hit 10 miles tomorrow. Hooray!

Good Thing #2: I finally am getting my grad school work under control. After much anguish, i feel like my plan is clear, I know exactly what I need to get done, and how I am going to do it. This makes me feel a lot less overwhelmed, and happy I might actually be able to take a night off for Valentines Day. In two weeks everything will be submitted, in four weeks I will be completely done. Everything is happening so fast!

Good Thing #3: Some of my classroom interventions are finally starting to show positive effects. Some of my students who failed last semester are making a comeback in a great way. They are seeing the fruition of hard work and perseverance and their self-efficacy is on  the rise. There is nothing more rewarding for a teacher. I am hoping that the careful planning of polynomials and factoring unit is going to have positive effects on learning and produce lots of proficient kids. It helps that my department chair is impressed with my work and tells me that my kids are lucky to be receiving such instruction. These are all the little things that keep my going and make me consider staying in secondary education.

I can't wait to have my life back. I want to train more, cook more, and see friends more. I want to dream about making sorbet instead of have nightmares about drowning in research and forgetting to go into work. Yikes!