Free Write (3/2/2011)

     Well, after a plethora of comments about my pants, I have finally decided that they actually are too tight around my legs and ass cheeks. I mean, I am working out two to three times a week, drinking lots of water, only eating a breakfast biscuit for breakfast, one for lunch, and one other meal for dinner. I will stop before I begin digressing, but the point is that I do not think it is a weight issue. Before I began the program, my life was much less stressful and, consequently, I did not have pent up tension that needed to be remedied by physical activity. Nowadays, I am much more active and I think my leg and butt muscles have grown to a size that now makes my school pants too tight. So, though my pants were a very nice birthday present (they are from Brooks Brothers), they do have permanent blemishes ranging from small pen and dirt marks around the pockets, ink stains from pens that have burst in my pocket, and holes in the back right pockets from my money clip. Being on my current salary, I do not really have the option to go back there and buy a few pairs of some larger pants. At this point, I’m thinking Wal Mart is my best option. That having been said, I have yet to peruse their selection of khaki pants, but I continue to remain hopeful

     Every now and then, I receive some free time other than my post-school physical activity when I can enjoy the escape of video games. I have found that my skills in Super Smash Bros have not diminished one iota. Well, at least my skills against the computer have not eroded. My skills against humans is a different story, and I might be able to write about it if my roommate, AW, hadn’t quite literally smashed our third controller in a priceless fit of rage caused by losing a very close game late one night during Christmas Break. Since I now stay away from using Pikachu due to his cheaply overpowered moves, I have become more adept at using other characters. Ness is my new jam. His movements are very unorthodox and he wields surprising strength and edge advantages, especially for his small stature. His drawbacks are that he is frustratingly slow on the ground and, if you can hit him, he flies off the screen very quickly due to his light weight. 

     Other than these two things, everything else on weekdays is school, school, and more school

Join MTC or not?

   Being a teacher with less than one whole school year under his belt, I am not sure how qualified I am to answer this question. However, since part of my grade is based on trying to answer it, I suppose I will give it a go. 

   There are certain, obvious reasons why someone should join the program: steady work with federal benefits, a masters completely paid for by the university, the chance to meet plenty of intelligent, interesting, and very talented people who enjoy teaching and run the gamut from being just as inexperienced and timid as you to more seasoned and confident than you could imagine. Oh, and how could I forget the sweet MacBook that is issued in the summer?  These are all wonderful things and great incentives, but, unfortunately, this view of how the program operates and what you will experience is simplistic, naive, and incomplete at best.

   Let’s look at the first item on the list: work. Perhaps the word “relentless” would be more apt than the word “steady”. I honestly feel consumed with school, which makes sense when I’m actually in it, but work associated with school pervades every part of my being even when I get home. Once the school day begins, I do not stop working until I go to sleep... honestly. I arrive at school at 6:50 each morning and do not stop monitoring students until 3:45. Also, since track and field is in season these days, I switch from monitoring students to monitoring athletes from 4 - 5. After a 30 minute commute back home, it is time to make the next day’s powerpoint/worksheet/lesson until it is time for bed. If I did not have certain breaks such as my 2nd period planning period, the 30 minute commute, and some physical activity that I make sure to do when I get home either before or after planning, I probably would not have made it this far. But hey, if I need a flu shot, the cost is next to nothing so I guess everything evens out in the end, right...?

   Next, we get to the masters degree. While I won’t say it is exactly free, since my soul is taxed every single day, it is nice to know that I am working towards something. However, the classes we take for it do not exactly have an inordinate impact on how good of a teacher I am. Also, it is not like we are working towards a dissertation or huge research paper. Let it be clear that I am not complaining about the seemingly small amount of work required for this degree because I more than work my ass off at school. However, I am not sure how much weight such a degree will carry on a resume.

   I can’t really complain about the people or the computer, and the details about my list are not meant to be reasons to not join. I’m still confident that I want to teach and I am glad that I am going through something like teaching at my school very early in my career when I do not know any better. Applicants, though, need not be uninformed or misinformed about what they are getting into.