Why Haven't I Posted?

"Why hasn't Stephanie posted?", you may ask yourself. The answer is simple. I am awash in responsibilities.

Apparently this semester is front loaded with craziness. I have been back at work for less than two weeks but have already had 4 meetings. The Extended Essays are due the end of this week and since I have two EE students I have to read draft after draft and give advice about them, as well as filling out supervisor forms and conducting interviews. Me, the worrier, is paranoid I am going to miss something important that will make them lose points so I have been reading all the IBO documentation about EEs that I can find.

CAS (creativity, action and service) is also winding down for the seniors. I have to have final interviews with each of my 5 CAS students by Wednesday next week, as well as reviewing their handbooks, filling in progress reports and giving final comments. I found out there was going to be another River of Hearts volunteer event this Saturday so I took the initiative to try and get some Pinghe students to go. I put up a sign up sheet, organized a meeting point and sent announcement reminders to the classroom teachers. This is the first time I am doing something like this by myself so I hope it goes well. I've got 20 students signed up already.

In the world of classes, right now I have my normal class schedule of 12 classes a week with grade 11 and 12. In about two weeks I am going to have an open class where my co-workers will observe me teaching (I get so nervous for those). After that I have about 6 weeks of TOK (basic philosophy) classes that I will be teaching on top of my normal workload. I am teaching my TOK class about Art I put together last semester for the grade 10 class 3, and doing a new section on The Power of Names for the other two grade 10 classes.

I also have a GIANT STACK of winter homework that I am trying to get through ASAP so it doesn't just sit on my desk and take up room. At least it makes for interesting reading since I tried to give them creative writing prompts that they could have fun with.

I hope all this doesn't come across as complaining. I would rather be awash in responsibilities than feel useless. I feel a lot more involved with my students and my school this year and it's nice to feel like what I am doing matters. And this craziness shouldn't last long. This is a relatively short semester (19 weeks), and once May rolls around my responsibilities with the 12th graders are pretty much over. They start their exams then and as soon as the exams are done they graduate.

In my life outside of Pinghe, I am still going to improv lab. We have a meeting on Monday to discuss some upcoming shows. I'm happy to be performing again. My Chinese classes will be starting up again next Tuesday at the same school but with a new teacher and a classmate! I hope the classmate and I get along and that the teacher is good.

I've been having fun hanging out with various people, but nothing really blog worthy. I went to a birthday dinner for a friend at a Turkish resaturant, met up with someone I haven't seen since high school who happened to be in Shanghai, as well as various dinners and nights out with coworkers. I have kept up my Sunday night baking tradition and brought some brownies in on Monday. I think next I shall make sugar cookies using a lovely heart shaped cooking cutter my friend Rose sent me.

Anyway, I am sorry for the delay and hopefully I will have something more interesting to post soon.

Much love!
Stephanie