Real Reality Thursday

I'm about to wrap up my first week of teaching. I am soooooooooo tired! Apparently, I have been living the life of luxury for the past year (sure didn't feel like it) because this week has kicked my hiney. But it's been good. My students are cute and fun and smart. I'm really looking forward to spending the year with them.

The school is slowly coming together. The lockers and student desks arrived today. Those items will eliminate two major headaches for teachers. I'm loving how things pop up every day. It's like Christmas. Yesterday it was our clocks; any day we'll get our phones. The lounge has a fridge, coffee pot (with all the accoutrements supplied!), and a copier. All a teacher really needs.

My biggest challenge to date - and it's not just my challenge  - is our eighth grade class. It's the first year that the school has an eighth grade (7th, too, for that matter). The grade consists of seven students: 6 Hispanic students (one male; five females) and one African-American (female) student. It's a long story, but the dynamics are not ideal. The road is paved for an uphill battle in so many ways. We're committed to making it work, though. It's a great group of kiddos, and I really want to see them succeed at this school.

I'm really looking forward to the weekend! I'm already thinking about what beer or other alkie bev I'm going to drink.

Hope you had a great Thursday. Whatever you did, I hope you kept it real.

WFMAD Days 6 & 7 - Putting Pink Pen to Paper

Just finished Day 7 of the WFMAD challenge. I hope I can keep this going when my subbing starts next week and my grad class kicks in the week after that. I find that I'm really enjoying this challenge. Laurie has put forth some tough prompts that have forced me/coaxed me into reaching a little farther with my writing.

For the past two days, I've decided to go old school with my writing. Maybe it has something to do with my 20-year high school reunion being this weekend (not going). In other words, pen and paper. I won Jennifer Brown's Love List Tuesday contest (have you entered yet?) during Week Four. One of the grab bag prizes was a package of Uniball Fusion pens. Pink. Purple. Blue. I used purple yesterday; pink today. These might be my new favorite pens. I absolutely adore writing with pen on paper. It just feels so authentic, so Dickensian to me. I've wanted to use that adjective for a long, long time. The colors just add a little extra flair.

Yesterday, I worked on a physical description for one of my characters in a WIP. That was challenging because I hadn't really thought too much about the characters yet. I've been developing scenes with the intention of fleshing out the characters later. It was an interesting trip, to say the least. I learned a lot about my protagonist that I didn't know.

Today I wrote a scene from the same WIP, but from the perspective of a rat. Yes, I said a rat. This was huge for me because I have a hard time writing from someone else's point of view, let alone an animal's. I wrote for 15 minutes straight. When I finished, I realized I was excited about what I had achieved if only because I tried something new.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?