School has started, in both ways.
As for my day job, so far, so good. After two days I haven't seen any startling occurrences, but I've been teaching enough years to know that the bad kids can sometimes stay silent. I'm pretty sure that a few of my problem children last year showed a bit of their true colors in the first week, but so far I can't find anything THAT bad. My honors kids seem much tamer than last year- they were actually silent. I have about 13 less than last year, so maybe people told people and word got around that my honors class is hard. My enriched classes, although more in number and in class size, seem better than last year... so far. A good number of them were in pre-AP and just didn't want the workload, so those kids are promising. I've had a few of my current students' siblings and/or cousins, so I'm interested to see how they do - will they be better than their bad siblings or worse than their good siblings? Only time can and will tell.
I also started grad school today, taking my fun class - European Towns and Villages. History grad students are very interesting - my class was filled with older hippies and very laid-back nerds. Me, sitting in the front of the class with a new binder filled fresh paper and a new gel pen looked out of place. I guess I need to slow down. I want the highest A possible, and some are taking these classes for fun (as am I, but I want to get into a good doctoral program upon graduation).
This one class has its fair share of work. We'll meet every week for about 6 weeks, and then off for 4 weeks to work on a research paper. During the next 6 weeks, I have to read 4 books and write three 3-5 page critiques. Luckily, I'm ahead and almost done with the first book, so my first critique will be done by the end of the weekend. Luckily also I teach English - I can easily write a critique. I've been taking notes as I read and I honestly think I can pop out a good critique within 2-3 hours. I'm thinking about not doing a critique on the second book, which not only looks dry, but the professor himself said it was a tad dry. Great.
The research paper is what I'm really looking forward to writing about. We get to write on any European city, town, village, community. I'm torn between London during the brief reign of Richard III, or perhaps Salisbury during the Protestant Reformation years of 1533-1535, or perhaps Paris (and Palais Royal specifically) in the few years prior to the French Revolution. I don't speak French and lots of primary source documents will be in French if I go the Paris route, so I'm thinking I might just stay with England. Or I can research a town torn by the English Civil War. The possibilities are endless and I'm in heaven!
Remember, I'm a nerd.
Cheers!
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