Well, it’s been a bit since I last posted, but with good reason. The past two weeks I have been in training with Leander ISD. Apparently, all the new to the district people have an extra week of training, and then this past week they had all teachers doing some time in the school and reviewing curriculum. I can understand where the district is coming from, but I really wish they didn’t feel the need to cram loads of information into my head right before the school year starts. It hasn’t helped me prepare for the REAL reason I want to be there in the first place-working with the students!

The upside of the training is that there were a lot of other new to district teachers at Canyon Ridge, so I got to make friends with a lot of people I probably wouldn’t have been able to get to know otherwise. I also have a “mentor” as I am considered “New to Profession” (first year teacher) whose name is Carie. She’s been a lot of help in watching out for me and giving me good ideas for the beginning of the year. We’re actually going out with her and her boyfriend Mark for dinner tonight, as they both have been in Austin for a lot longer than we have and know some good places to try. 🙂

Anyways, My birthday was great, thanks to the wonderful man I married. I don’t know what I would do without him. He had to work a lot that week, but he still made the time to come home early and take me out to try sushi! I had tried cheap sushi once before a long time ago, so I was really nervous, but we went to downtown Austin and gave it a go! It was great!!! I can’t wait to go back there again. We had the Godzilla; “Salmon, Avocado and Cucumber drizzled with spicy teriyaki sauce, covered with tempura flakes.” MMMMMMMM!!!! the other one we tried wasn’t as good, but it was still a great experience.

Afterwards, we walked for about 5 minutes to Congress Bridge, which apparently is well known for housing a large colony of bats in the summertime, and the best time to see them out and flying around is in August. We thought we might be too late to see them as it was getting pretty dark, but we weren’t! there were thousands of these tiny bats swarming around under the bridge; it was really neat to see. Afterwards, we came home and ate some great Costco monstrously large chocolate cake that Jared bought. What a great guy he is!

and now, as for me, I am lesson planning. I have a fairly good outline of next week already planned, and I’m excited to get started and actually meet my students for the year. I only wish that I could get rid of these headaches.