I've been stuck inside this house all day from the snow, and I tend to stay primarily in just my bedroom when my parents are home...because I am still sixteen years old, apparently. Nonetheless, I have MAJOR cabin fever right now, which is only worsening my anxiety over my quickly approaching start date for student teaching.
It's not that I'm dreading student teaching, I'm actually looking forward to it a lot...but the anticipation of doing something that I've never done before has been basically the only thing I can think about since....well since the end of last semester. It's easy to try and over-plan and over-anticipate things like that, and I know that when I actually start I'll be hit with things that I somehow didn't manage to think about and will feel super unprepared for. I did the same thing to myself right before I started my freshman year of college, and I would find myself unable to sleep on nights before the first day of school every year of like my entire life just trying to imagine how everything will go. My go-to answer during interviews when they ask the question "what is your biggest flaw" is usually "I over-prepare", because a) it's a sneaky way of complimenting myself when I'm supposed to be criticizing myself but b.) because I've actually had to learn how to anticipate my plans going awry and just go with the flow despite the urge to stick with my already-failed-plan-of-action.
That being said, I know that there are little things that I can do to mentally prepare myself for the physical process of going to school. In the next couple of weeks I would really like to:
-Get my sleeping schedule to a realistic place. Lately, I've been going to bed later and later every night and waking up later and later every day. Considering the fact that I'm going to have to leave my apartment by 6:30 in the morning, and my morning routine is like an hour long, I know I need to at least have a realistic bed time. Eight hours of sleep a night is maybe a little ambitious, but six should be reasonable if I can get it together.
-CLEAN MY FREAKING ROOM. And everything that surrounds that chore. I have like a three page long list of things I need to organize within my hot mess of a room at school, and I could also afford to do some extra tidying and dusting in the room I currently live in. I was planning on spending all of Thursday at school just binge-cleaning, but it is still too soon to see if the snow has de-railed those plans. Fingers crossed I can get it done!
-Record some extra videos for Sisters, Not Twins, which I talked about doing yesterday. I've been thoroughly enjoying doing this channel, and it's important to me that I keep it up, but I also know that school comes first and when I get into survival mode everything but schoolwork falls to the wayside (which always happens--hence my month-long breaks from blogging). I don't want this channel to die a slow death, like this blog almost did, especially since it's not just my channel.
-Get in contact with some of the people who have student taught at my placements in the past. There are endless advantages to doing this, I just need to suck it up and get it done. I don't know why I get so much anxiety over writing messages/emails, but I really need to get over it because I'm just wasting time.
-ORGANIZE ORGANIZE ORGANIZE. Schedules and lists are going to be my best friends over the next couple of weeks. If I don't end up driving down to Delaware tomorrow, I might just end up having a list making session.
There's so much that I feel I need to do before student teaching, but I know it's going to be a really useful experience for me. I say this to my friends all the time, but I'm just excited to suck at teaching as soon as possible. Because I know for a FACT that I'm going to be at my worst for the first couple of years--teaching is one of those things that you keep getting better at the more you do it. I just want to get in the classroom and start doing things, instead of sitting here trying to imagine what it will be like.
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