I cried

in front of 20ish of my co-workers and my boss.
And all he asked me was. "Okay, Sara, how are your writing lessons going?"
I said, "Well, we all have our homerooms for writing, so...." and I was gone.

Why, you ask?
Because my children are terrible. I love them, but the suck.

I have taken away recess, ticket trade, library time, and lunch (well... not the eating part, but the part where they get to talk to and see other people.)

They came up with a contract and new consequences and I have implemented that.

I have a point system with them where they have to keep up with 20 points throughout the week to keep their privileges.
They start with 20 and they can earn bonus for Friday Free time....
we started Friday with negative two and ended with five.

I have been assured that it isn't my fault and that they are just crazy... that this group of kids is just exceptionally rough.
I don't really buy all of that.

I am tired. I am hating my job. I dread every morning I have to go to school. I am drowning in a sea of papers to grade, file, and stuff. I feel like I don't know what I am doing.

Apparently, this is normal.

Hooray for me.

It's almost 9 o'clock

and I should be almost in bed.

Yes. I am old like that.

This is short and sweet.

Friday, I almost got moved to Kindergarten. Praise the Lord for Karen Cole and how she is a more experienced and way better teacher because that was what it really came down to. My principal, Dr. Grinage, gave us a choice and we made him choose. I am staying in 4th grade and Karen is moving to Kindergarten. Not the best move... we would have preferred to BOTH stay in fourth grade.

"Sara, what does this mean for fourth grade since you are down one teacher"

I'm glad you asked.

Instead of two teams in fourth grade... we are combining the leftover teachers (myself included) and making one ginormous team with three teacher on a thrice rotating schedule. Basically, we are splitting up Karen's class into the remaining teacher's classes, then we are on a three block rotating schedule. I no longer am teaching Social Studies... but I am teaching Reading and Language Arts. Our students have to re-learn a new schedule, meet a new teacher or two, and deal with new students being put in to our class.

I'm just a tad stressed. Prayers would be nice!
We make the switch on Wednesday. I will let you know how it goes........... if I survive.

"If you have any trace of OCD in you...

being a teacher brings it right out." --The VERY wise, Nicole Cook

I had a dream last night that someone broke into our school and instead of stealing my projector, the computers, and such... they just took down all of my color coding on my shelves, on my tables, on my books... and they mixed up a bunch of stuff and took away my discipline book.... among other things. My desk was COVERED in papers and all my neatly filed papers were strewn all over the floor. Nothing expensive stolen, just everything out of place.

I woke up sweating.....

It's ridiculous, I know.

Welcome to my life. I am now about to head back up to school (on my holiday off) to organize and plan some more. Yay me.

I have been told that I won't spend as much time up there after my first year... so that's nice. Just 37 more weeks to go!

God's plans and lesson plans....

are sometimes extremely confusing.

I just finished my first week as a teacher. I. am. freaking. tired. My feet are swollen, my back hurts, I live on coffee, my students are crazy, and I love it. I really really do.

Don't get me wrong, it is not all fun all the time. (especially when all the 3rd grade teachers warned you about the group coming up.... and were right.) But I do love it. I love my kids. Even the one who was sent to the office TWICE in the first week of school... and the 10 of my 17 students sat out of recess today after all of them lost their recess privilege on Wednesday because of their behavior.... I even love the ones who disrupt my lessons just to get a laugh. They are amazing creatures and God has a special plan for each one of them. And somehow, He allowed me to be a part of that plan for one year. W.O.W.

It is really easy to focus on the negative parts of the day when you are a teacher. They are the ones that stress you out, exhaust you, help you become angry, and are fresh on your mind. But the little joys and triumphs are the things that get you through the day. Like... when my extremely low-performing SPED student (who doesn't usually look at the person who is talking to him, nor does he respond after spoken to) answered me with a "Yes, Miss Hall?" when I called his name. And then when I asked him to behave in the hallway said, "Yes, Ma'am," and walked PERFECTLY down the hallway. That filled me up with so much joy that I wanted to pick him up and spin him around until we fell over.

I love that.

I know, and have been warned multiple times, that this year is going to be really really hard. Bring it on. God is with me and I am teaching for Him. He will lead me through the sucky times and rejoice with me in the joyous times. He is good... ALL THE TIME.

Bring it on.

The kids come on MONDAY!

I have NEVER been this tired, stressed, confused, excited, and terrified before. I guess I should get used to it.
I mean, really, I had always heard that my first year would be hard... but no one prepared me for how crazy, confusing, and stressfull the three weeks before school starts would be. Good grief!
Whenever I find my camera adapter chord, I will upload pictures of my classroom. Don't hold your breath. I haven't seen it in about two years.
I really like the way it turned out. It is EXTREMELY organized. I have realized that I sweat and get really flusterd if things don't have their place. My poor students are going to think I am crazy, but it will make things flow better. Plus I will feel better when I don't have to think about a mess that has no place to be organized.
I feel pretty good about my routine and organization. The only problem I am having is lesson plans. I don't know what to do! Irving has specific things that need to be done every week... but I still don't know what to do. I think I will feel better after tomorrow when I plan with my mentor. I am such a newbie.
Even the parents noticed. Last night was meet the teacher and most of the parents asked me if it was my first year teaching. I told them that it was my first year teaching at Brown and that I had experience in teaching 5th, 7th, and 8th grades. Which is true... I just wasn't the only teacher in the room.

Basically, I am scared. I could use some prayers and some advice from my teacher friends. (Jes and Cassie.... I am talking to you) 4th graders are so little! I'm not used to it! Ah!

God is in control and all will be well. He is already there with me on my first day. I am supposed to be here. The kids in my class will know that I love them and that I wll do anything for them. This is right. Scary, but right.

Prayers!

Pierson Everette

That's my nephew's name!!!!

Pierson is Melissa's maiden name and Everette is my dad's middle name. I think it's awesome and I cannot wait to meet the little guy!
So, when I write something about Pierson, you know who I am talking about.

On Saturday, my amazing siblings and I finished (or almost finished) touching up Pierson's nursery. The colors are khaki, chocolate brown, and baby blue. The room is almost done; Nathan and Jared built his crib Saturday night, too.
(For pictures, check "The Hall Life" blog to the left. They might be up soon.)
I really cannot express how much I love hanging out with my brothers and sisters. They are amazing and I don't deserve them. God is so good. It's just a place of comfort when I am around them. Even when my brothers are beating each other with styrofoam boards, I am at peace. It's my normal.

I spent the night in Frisco with Nate and Melissa and went to The Village for the second time. I really love it there. I would love to start going there on a permanent basis, but the distance and uncertainty of my living situation in the next few months is holding me back. We'll see what happens.

I passed my exam and I am ready to finally sign a contract with Irving ISD when my grade is officially posted. I will be setting up my classroom this week! Ah! It's getting so real! I'm going to be a teacher!

My life is headed in a new direction. I am no longer the student! I will have a PAYCHECK! I will have a NEPHEW! I'm ready! Bring it on! Praise God!

"Want to hear God laugh?"

"Make some plans."

A lesson learned for sure.

Tomorrow, I take my third certification exam. Once I pass, (and I will) I will be able to sign my contract with the Irving Independent School District and officially be the new 4th grade English, Reading, and Social Studies Teacher for Otis Brown Elementary School.

4th grade was not my plan.
Taking three exams was not my plan.
Working with one of my best friends was not my plan.
Living with my parents for almost a year after graduation was not my plan.
Not having a cent to my name was not my plan.
Being a counselor at Camp of the Hills this summer was not my plan.


Trusting God has always been in my plan though... so maybe, in a round-about way, these were always my plans.

I'm excited to see what the rest of this year will bring.

By January I should:
Be somewhat solid in teachering (as Molly calls it)
Be MOVED OUT of my parent's house
Find a new church home
Have a NEPHEW
Be somewhat financially stable
Have my worrying problem improved
Understand what God has in store for me

Are you laughing?

Me too.

Planning is silly.

God's Gifts

I just had one of the best weeks of my life. Seriously.

So, I just finished my one and only week EVER as a COUNSELOR at Camp of the Hills. It was amazing. I had never been able to be a counselor because I was needed in other areas at camp. I was a staff assistant for the summer of 05 and the "nurse" for the first half of last summer. I absolutely love every moment I am out at camp, no matter what I am doing. I can't explain it. It's not like any other place on earth. You have to experience it for yourself.

For a long time I was upset because I thought I would never get the chance to be out at Camp again, and I missed out on a really amazing thing. I gained peace, through Christ, about it and knew that I was used to do His will. Thinking about that made it all okay (as it always does.) Then I found out about the shortage of counselors this summer and literally jumped at the chance to be out here. Unfortunately, I was only able to be out here for one week because of a HUGE miscommunication about certification and stuff. So, here I am.
When I was on my way out here, I thought about what this week would bring. I always knew that God kept me from being a counselor in the past for a reason. I wasn't sure if the reason was because I was needed somewhere else or if I just wasn't cut out to be a counselor and He was protecting me from it.
I was extremely nervous Sunday and Monday because I wasn't sure what God was going to tell me this week. Either this week was a Gift from Him or it was a Lesson that He knows what He is doing.

It was both.

I am praising God for the amazing Gift that was being a Counselor at Camp of the Hills. Really, you don't know what it's like until you have been so close and not really getting there.

One week is enough. I am satisfied. I would LOVE to be out here for a whole summer, but I can't. I am at peace and I am blessed.
Praise God!

I’m a Regular Girl

I have been asked by an un-named source to share a certain happening in my life on my blog that I never update. I asked said source if it was too gross and too much information for my three blog readers and they said, "No. It's just funny. If they know you well enough to read your blog, then it shouldn't matter."
It took some convincing, but here it is. I wrote this as a personal narrative for one of my education classes at A&M. And yes, my prof made me read it to the whole class.
This story is true. This really happened. You can't make this stuff up. And now you know.

I'm a Regular Girl

I knew something wasn’t quite right. But when keeping 100 screaming children together and happy, there isn’t much else I was able to pay attention to. Now I know that it was my pride that kept me from realizing it. I was so proud of myself. It almost seemed as if I was invincible.
I had made it halfway through the seven-week mission trip to Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia without getting sick. Aggies For Christ in the Orient (AFCO) is known to be one of the most amazing mission trips the Aggies For Christ take every other summer, but it is also one that has a history of minor illnesses for its travelers. The summer of 2006 was no different.
Most of the other twenty-eight people on the trip had gotten “Bangkok-belly” or some other form of stomach malady due to the abrupt change in cuisine. Not me. I had made it all the way up and down a mountain, one week eating off street vendors in Bangkok, countless numbers of bus rides to and from different cities in Thailand, and most of the way through a five-day vacation bible school in Singapore without getting some sort of illness. Our last night in Singapore was when I finally acknowledged something was really wrong. It was in the Hard Rock Café that I realized that the normal passage of food through my body had stopped somewhere along the way. I hadn’t seen the ending result of my digestive system’s function for the past seven days and it was causing some discomfort (for lack of a better word.) Still, the three words that proved to be the motto of all AFCO trips in the past, “be tough, flexible, and optimistic,” rang through my head and I pressed on.
The next day we left for Malaysia where Jason and I were to head up “Camp Shine,” a youth camp for both Malaysian and Singaporean youth. We had our work cut out for us and it was no time for one of the leaders to be preoccupied in the bathroom. However, I did express my concerns to Sara Davidson who acted the mother figure on the trip. Seeing as she was a veteran AFCOer, a resident of Bangkok, Thailand for eighteen years, and the wife of the leader of our trip, it was safe to assume she may know what to do in a situation like mine. She informed me that we would be going into town the next day with all of the campers for a nice sea-food dinner and if my condition hadn’t improved she would seek out some medicine from the local drugstore. As day nine went on with no improvement, I started finding it hard to stay standing very long due to the ache in my lower back. As we loaded the buses to go into town, I sought out Sara and informed her of the pain in my back and how my condition had worsened.
Around 10:30 that night, Sara presented me with a glass of orange flavored goop and two tiny yellow pills. After reluctantly choking down the goop and swallowing the pills, I was sent to bed with the happy thought that my little situation would be all better in the morning. I was forewarned that I might have a long night ahead of me, but I didn’t mind. What’s a little while spent in a bathroom and a little less sleep when I will feel one-hundred percent better in the morning, right? If only it were that simple.
2:00 am, I awoke with the most horrible cramp in my stomach that didn't even allow me to stand up and walk to the bathroom; I had to crawl. I knew this was it; I wasn’t expecting the pain, but I was somewhat glad to get the process of getting well started. At approximately 6:00 am I was still perched on my throne of misery. The past four hours were a blur of sweat, tears, exhaustion, pains that make me think of the words: child-birth, and lying on the cold bathroom floor next to a dead cock-roach praying that God would let me die. The most disappointing part was that all I had to show of those four hours were three flushes, one of which was for the dead cock-roach I decided to have a funeral for since not much else was happening.
Around 7:00 am I knocked on the door of a friend who was having the same problems as myself. The pains had lessened and seeing as she was in the very next hotel room, I figured I would be fine to walk over there for a quick visit to see if her night was more successful than mine. Just as I stepped in to the room, my friend emerged from the bathroom having the same downtrodden and unsuccessful look on her face that I knew I was displaying as well. The first words out of her mouth were, “If labor pains are anything close to my night last night, I am never having kids.” I replied with a hearty, “Amen,” laid down on her couch and started to doze. I woke up about 20 minutes later to knocking and a kind voice cooing, “Good morning sweet girls,” entering the hotel room. Sara Davidson to the rescue complete with toast, some fruit from breakfast, juice, eight bottles of water, and a thermometer. She managed to talk us in to sitting at the table; however, her efforts were wasted when trying to get us to eat something. Both of our temperatures were over 101 degrees and we still didn’t have much to show for our awful night before. We were given two more tiny pills and told to stay together in one room for “moral support” while we awaited the relief that seemed so far away. After instructing us to each have three bottles of water finished by lunch time, Sara left us to wait.
Around 10:00 am I awoke to my friend rising quickly from the bed and shutting the bathroom door. I never thought the bodily noises that sounded through the door would ever make jealousy rise within me, but they did. As tears of envy, pain, and exhaustion filled my eyes, it happened. I had that feeling. As I bolted to the second bathroom I prayed that it wasn’t another false alarm, that I wouldn’t have another episode equivalent to the night before, and God heard me! Sweet relief came over me and I could hear my friend yell, “Congratulations!!” The rest of the day included a lot of sleep, successful trips to the bathroom, and two friends bonding over a strange, embarrassing, and silly situation. No longer do we laugh at Metamucil ads, nor do we ignore the “good source of fiber” notices on cereal boxes.

My pride received a swift kick to the gut in Malaysia. It was one of the many lessons I learned on AFCO. Just remember, if you put yourself up on your throne of pride, you may end up on your throne of porcelain. I can’t say that this memory is a fond one; however, it is a lesson learned and makes for a really funny story.

Little Hall

Dear Niece or Nephew,

I cannot wait to meet you! You are so lucky to have parents like my brother and sister-in-law. They are amazing. Simply amazing.
Get ready, little one. You are being born into a crazy, huge, and awesome family. We already love you. We are already planning and praying for your arrival!
Before you get here, there are some things you need to know:

Uncle Jared may be tall and stuff... but he's a gentle giant. He'll teach you about basketball for sure... as will the rest of the Hall boys. He is going to spoil you rotten... just you wait. If you want candy, I would check his pockets first!

Aunt Erin is as sweet as can be! She'll definitely teach you some smokin' dance moves and be a big help when you learn your ABCs! I bet you'll learn some silly jokes from her too... she has some good ones!

Annie will also spoil you rotten. You'll learn some practical things from her too. She'll teach you about patience and sharing and all of that "important" stuff. You know, things that develop good character. It'll be great.

Grandpa Hall will also teach you about basketball... that's a given. And he will rock you to sleep while humming some sort of oldies song probably a million times. He won't talk baby talk to you, but he'll turn in to a big kid when you're around.

Mommy will probably be the sanity in your life... you know, teach you all of the important stuff and take care of you when you are sick. She'll be there for every kodak moment in your life. And she will cherish you with all of her heart. Mommy will do anything for you. You are one lucky kid.

Daddy is kind of the crazy one... not in a bad way, just in the "My dad's crazy" kind of way. He might insist on you calling him "Nate Dog" or "Natron" but don't do it. He secretly loves being called Daddy.... He, like your mommy, will teach you all of the important stuff too. Daddy is more of a "lead by example" kind of guy... so pay close attention. You wouldn't want to miss anything.

Aunt Sara will be the coolest of all! She will take you to the park, take you swimming, spoil you (not too rotten but enough to count), and love on you like there's no tomorrow. She'll teach you all the cool stuff like practical jokes to play on Daddy and Uncle Jared, how to drive with no hands, and stuff. And remember... Uncle Jared my have candy in his pocket, but when you want the long-lasting sweet flavor go see Aunt Sara... she has the chewing gum in her purse. :)

God will be your sustenance. He will be your everything. He will teach you more than any of us could ever teach you. We'll all show Him to you. That's a promise.

We may be a large and crazy family, but we are always bursting with love. You will never be without love.
I can't wait for you to get here! Get excited, Little Hall, you're in for a wild ride!
I love you already!

-Aunt Sara

enough?

Do you ever feel like what you are doing in life isn't enough?


Not that what you are doing doesn't matter or isn't a big deal... just that you could be doing something more?

Sometimes I feel like I need to go away. Not go away as in run away, but go away as in go do something productive for God. You know, like missions.

The problem is that I feel and have felt that my gift is teaching. I love it. I feel as if I am good at it. I love the crazy, puberty-stricken, hormonal, gifts that I call my students. I know that there is a huge mission field in teaching children (middle school for sure) but I can't shake the feeling that it's not enough. True, I haven't actually started REAL teaching where I make every single lesson plan for every single day, where I teach the SAME lesson 6 times a day and then repeat with a new lesson the rest of the days of the year. So maybe I will feel more useful when that time comes around... but I am nervous that if I settle down and start teaching somewhere that I won't ever have the courage to go do something different.
A perk about teaching is that I do get summers off and I fully plan on doing missions during my summer holidays. But is it enough? I have no clue.

Maybe I'm panicking because I'm about to graduate and the next "logical" step is to get a job that pertains to my degree and settle down. Maybe it's something like "pre-wedding jitters" except for me it's "pre-world jitters." Who knows.

All I can do is pray, keep my eyes and ears open, and especially keep my heart open to whatever "it" is God has in store.

I don't like this part.

I'm a big kid now!

I have entered the real world... kind of... not really... maybe a glimpse.

So, maybe I am not fully inveloped in the real world, but I am looking through a window and I don't think I like it that much. At least, I would pick college over the real world any day. I miss it and I'm technically still in it! Crazy, huh?

It's a weird limbo that I am stuck in. I am still financially relying on my parents, but I work from 7:30-4:15. I teach, plan lessons, grade, and worry about students just like a real teacher... but I'm not one.

I do know that I chose the right profession. I know that it will be hard, but I know that I can do it and that I am supposed to do it. It's a mission field, my mission field. I just don't know if I am ready to leave college behind.

It's not so much the place as it is the people. The funny thing is, they aren't all there anymore. I guess it is just a common ground that we all seem to get together at. I miss my friends and that's okay.