When You Gotta Go, You Gotta Go

Ah, another week down. My first week with kiddos has been exhausting, frustrating, exciting, entertaining, and gross all in one. Probably not in that order, though. A few highlights (and lowlights) from my week:

• One of the students told me that he hopes I get a job at Stephen Foster so I can be his teacher all the time, because I'm the best teacher. And then he gave me like 10 hugs. Yes, all the education interns experience this stuff during their internships/practicums, but I still love it. I do not, however, love it so much when I move to middle school and boys try to do that.
• My teacher may be having to move to a non-special education class due to some issues with numbers of students in classes. If this happens, I will have to get a different teacher to work with, which will set me back quite a bit in getting my assignments done. I won't be too upset either way; if I get to stay, I get to be with all the kids I've already gotten to know, and I'm well-aware of what's expected of me at this school. If I don't get to stay, I might get a placement in a school closer (e.g. not an hour of driving each day) to where I'm living, which is an area of town in which I'd prefer to work.
• I've been asked if I'm married more times than I can count this week.
• For an hour and a half each day, I have kindergarteners. On the first day of them coming to special ed, I was sitting next to a little girl at the computers when suddenly I heard a weird noise and felt my foot getting wet... I looked down, and this adorable, precious child had let loose the contents of her bladder aaaaaaall over my foot, the chair, and the floor. Reminds me of the movie Billy Madison, when Adam Sandler tells everyone that all the cool kids pee their pants. That was quite a day.
• I got my first flight home planned out! Since I have to fly back to take the OPTE, I'll be in Oklahoma from October 14 through October 17 so I can get that done. I really like Florida, but I'm glad to have a visit to Oklahoma in my sights at the moment. A month and a half till I get to feel that glorious fall weather!

I become more and more grateful every week that there's such a thing as a weekend. Around Monday or Tuesday, weekends seem to be a myth, but I have definite confirmation today that they do in fact exist. I've been trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with my special education degree when I finish student teaching-- find a teaching job for January, apply with HeadStart (an early intervention service for at-risk kids), go to grad school to get a Master's degree in something different but related (such as speech pathology), or go in a totally different direction for awhile. Some days I have a great day at the school, and other days I leave wishing I never had to go back. These feelings aren't really based on anything specific, like a certain bad event, but I don't always feel confident that this is what I want to do. I go back and forth on my career thoughts on a daily basis, and I'm trying to keep thoughts of panic out of my mind until at least toward the end of the semester.

This weekend, Tracy's dad is visiting! He'll be here tonight and Saturday, so that'll be fun. We may have to go try out a new Mexican food restaurant while he's here. Saturday night, Tracy and I are gonna hang out with friends, but not sure what we're going to do yet. Sunday will be a day of major relaxation, as well as attempting to start on some of my work for my internship. We're both staying veeeery busy and taking life as it comes, but overall that's a pretty good feeling. Hope everyone has a fun weekend!