Volume 2.1

SMS= my second middle school (the new school)

FMS = my first middle school (aka the prison)

The First Day of School

The night before the first Monday, I was in a “blah” mood.  I thought for sure I would be excited or antsy or something, but I was not.  I went to bed a little too late and woke up the next day in the same mood.  “Well…here goes!”  On my drive to work, I blasted some of my favorites tunes to get me a bit more excited about the first day of school!  I mean, I was driving to SMS not FMS!!!   That in itself is a good enough reason to cut a backflip or two. LoL.

About 15 minutes into my drive, I could feel the excitement coming on.  Though, so many questions were running through my head:  Will I rock the first day like I did at FMS?  What will the teachers think of me?  Will I truly be accepted?  (The teacher I replaced was an all-time favorite of the teachers and students.)  Will the students be the same as the students at FMS?  Will I have troublemakers testing me the first day?  How will my Whole Brain Teaching work in an environment with no ceilings (literally)?  Will the other teachers complain about my noise?  Will I have to let go of WBT and basically my teaching style because we don’t have ceilings?  Will my feet start to hurt in my shoes? (At FMS, I wore tennis shoes every, single day.)Will there be a fight on day one?  Will my occasional “Memphis Heat” discipline style come off too strong and not be accepted by the students and faculty?  Will I even need to show that side of me?  Will I be able to leave the old Miss Nesbitt at FMS and fully embrace SMS, while using this as an opportunity to unlearn ALL the horrible habits and management “techniques” I picked up at FMS?  Will I have the energy to last 6 classes instead of the 3 I had at FMS?

Before I knew it, I was pulling into the school- hella early!!! (This is also a big deal for me.) :P  I went to my duty post and riiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggggg!  School began!

In addition to the typical first day agenda, we were instructed by our principal to teach “character education” for the entire first week.  He’d recently attended a conference on Quantum Learning, and came back thrilled about incorporating strategies learned at the conference at SMS.  One main topic being “The Cognitive Imperative” which focused on “THE Line.”  The Line is the threshold of a level of responsibility.  Living “above the line” or “below the line” is a personal choice, thus giving the power and freedom back to the individual.  The individual is taking control of choice and subsequently, taking control of results.  It was a great lesson in positive self-discipline, for the students and staff.  By 6^th period, the students knew all about “the line” and were aimming to live "above it"- make smarter choices, come to school prepared, show respect to teachers and peers, etc.  Over the course of the week, it was really interesting to watch the transition from typical, middle-school behavior to a sense of respect and responsibility.  IT WAS GREAT!

At the end of the day, I felt amazing!  My students were great, the noise wasn’t too bad, my WBT worked well, and my colleagues were so helpful with anything I needed.  Several times throughout the day, someone stopped by to “check on me,” give a little ‘first day of school’ advice, and see if I had everything under control.  (I think they all think this is my first year of teaching.)

I am so thankful to be where I am.

Mmmm, Mmmm, Goooood!

Hmmm… I don’t know what to write about folks.  I’ve been thinking about it all weekend, and I’m still drawing a blank. Nothing too personal, nothing too negative, nothing too anti-education… I guess I could write about my true love- COOKING! :) 

So before deciding to attend graduate school, I was strongly contemplating going to culinary school.  Not just any ol’ school, but THE French Culinary Institute in NY!  My mom frowned upon this, but I was dead serious.  I ABSOLUTELY loveeeee cooking! (Actually, prior to MTC, cake decorating was one of my main sources of income!)

Lately, cooking has been my stress reliever from all the CHA-OS at my school.  Last semester I cooked a little here and there.  Nothing too fancy, and nothing too new.  All old recipes that were tried and true. Quick, 30-minute “Rachel Ray” meals.  But with the new chaos at school (still holding classes and ish!) came a need for some variety in my cooking regimen.  So I dusted off a few cookbooks, reactivated my account on allrecipes.com, and returned to my true love.  Boy has it been a blast!  I literally sit in class, thinking about what I’m cooking that evening/weekend.  I’ve tried so many new dishes and ALL have been a huge success/hit.  Local MTCers (weekly Wed. night potlucks) are loving it and so is my new beau.  He eagerly tries each and every dish, giving me his stamp of approval.   I enjoyed every minute of it and I’ve been thinking of picking this habit back up, full-time, once I’m done with the program.  I would love to travel to Italy or Argentina and live for 12-16 months-cooking and eating.  On that “Eat, Pray, Love” tip, lmao.

For my birthday (2^nd weekend in January) my beau took me to the Viking Cooking School in Greenwood, MS for their “Southern Cookin’ ” class.  CAN YOU SAY HEAVEN?!?!  Classes have approximately 10-12 students and 2-3 professional cooks.  Each group (3-4 students) is responsible for cooking the entire menu, which is provided by the school with recipes.  Our menu included fried chicken, mashed potatoes, greens, cornbread, banana pudding, and sweet tea.  Not only did we cook all that food, at the end we sat down to eat all the food!  It was so amazing!!!  I enjoyed EVERY SINGLE minute of the class and we’ve been checking our schedules to plan another visit.  If the classes weren’t so pricey, I would definitely be making that drive to Greenwood every weekend I didn’t have class in Oxford for those classes.

Anyway.  The ONLY issue with cooking so often is…eating so often.  The best foods aren’t usually the healthiest…and let’s just say I LOVE GOOD food! LoL.  So to balance my insane new cooking, I’ve been doing some pretty insane workouts. (More on this later).  So far, so good.  We’ll see if I’m saying this in a few months.