The New Beginning...

As the new school year approaches I am beginning a new chapter in my life. For the last 4 years I have been employed by the Clarksville School District as a tutor. That is classified as an aide position. As I am finishing my masters it came apparent that it was time for me to spread my wings and fly, meaning it was time for me to get a teaching job. Where I live teaching jobs are hard to come by, but in May I started sending out applications and resume's and the beginning of June I was called for my first interview. I was scared to death, and that truly is an understatement. My friend Baskin and I loaded up on a Monday in June and drove 40 minutes for my interview. (She went to help keep me calm on that long 40 minute drive) After the interview I thought I did horrible and I just said I could use that as a learning experience for the next one. The same week on Thursday night I got a phone call from the assistant principal saying welcome to ***. I screamed, cried, smiled, and who knows what else I did, I was so excited. Since then I have worried, stressed, and been excited about what I will be doing. I will be teaching 8th grade math.
I still am so clueless about what I am supposed to be doing and since we have been back on Monday for in-service I feel even more lost. But right now the hardest thing I am having to do is my room. Good gracious, even with all my years in education, I had no idea how hard it is to decorate a classroom. I am still not even close to being finished, but here are pictures of before and middle.

When I first saw my room.

It truly needed a lot of work at this point.

This is after day 1 of working on it.

Middle of Re-Do
The theme in the room: Zebra!!

This bulletin board is going to be decorated with pictures from when I was in 8th grade. Kids really enjoy when they can see that you were their age once!

I am going to apologize now, but until I get this whole teaching thing figured out, I probably will not update as much.