The Curly Life of Kay

Hello curlies and gents!

I just wanted to share an amazing recipe that I found on Pinterest and attempted tonight! Try it yourself!

Lasagna Stuffed Shells - here's the original recipe, I adapted mine slightly.

Ingredients

• 20 jumbo shells
• 3/4 cup ricotta cheese
• 1 cup Mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup chopped spinach (drained)
• 2 cups of Ragu Sweet Italian sausage and cheese tomato sauce
• 1 lb of ground beef

Something that many on the outside wouldn't know about me is that I have a tendency to isolate myself. I'm not really sure when this came about seeing that as a child, and even in my adolescence, I was a social butterfly. Over the years, however, it seems that I'm slowly becoming a lone wolf. It's not a conscious choice that I made, but I can't say that it has been completely awful. Since this personality change, my work ethic and productivity have vastly improved. In the not so distant past, while I may have been having fun socially, professionally I was not giving my best efforts. Often times I would show up to work lethargic and absent minded after a late night of partying and fun, and I'm sure it goes without saying that those actions began to affect my work ethic. I showed no initiative and the quality of my work was steadily declining. Over time, that issue seemingly fixed itself as my personality silently changed. I had no desire to go out to clubs, and physically seemed incapable of staying up late anymore. As a result, I started growing distant from good friends and surely becoming a homebody.

Although it has been great watching myself grind and pick up the slack I had caused, I must admit that I miss having fun. Not just Netflix and blogging fun, but hanging out with friends, creating lasting memories! It sounds simple right? Just get up, and go out!  However, there's a much bigger roadblock standing in my way - my lack of trust. It's almost unavoidable for me to have my trust betrayed in some way, shape, or form. In this aspect of my personal life, I often feel like Eeyore, and that there is a storm cloud above my head permanently. It's almost easier to avoid the betrayal by limiting my friends, than to convince myself to trust a newcomer. In addition to trust, I'm at the point in my life where my peers as well as myself are coming to crossroads in life decisions, many are moving away to pursue career options or to simply start fresh in a new environment. Slowly, but surely, the last points in my circle are spreading about the country and making it harder to keep bonds anew. Yet what is this, but another reason to remain a lone wolf?

In addition, it's hard to keep like-minded friends, when as the years go by you begin to have less things in common. For instance, friends I made when single and partying may not share the same views I have now that I'm in a committed relationship. While some friendships are mature enough to look past such seemingly small differences, others may become lifeless without said connections.

I've made many points regarding why its hard to make new friends, or keep the old ones, but at the end of the day, I will inevitably be on my own if I don't try. Though trust is a large factor in my fear of making new friends, maybe I need to look into a new approach. Instead of cutting off people, I can filter the information I share and the energy I put into something. I can agree to disagree, and respect that even with misaligned perspectives people can still remain friends. That's my goal for the remainder of 2015, evaluate my current friendships, and repair and maintain the ones worth keeping. Resolution season is just around the corner and to be frank, I don't need the dead weight.

I can't be the only lone wolf out there, comment below or email me your perspective!
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @lifeascurlykay !

xoxo
Curly Kay

So I've made it to the end of the first quarter. In this time, I've created all of my lessons (some with the help of teammates), graded my own student work (as opposed to pushing it off on others), performed benchmarks, assessments, and conducted over 20 parent conferences in this last week. I spend my nights, and often times weekends, in my classroom preparing for upcoming lessons, redecorating, or brainstorming how I can close the achievement gaps my students are facing. Currently, a normal weekday for me consists of waking up at 5:45am, getting to work by 6:40am, planning/prepping lessons until 8 am, teaching from 8am-3pm, and more planning/prepping/organizing from 3pm-5pm, sometimes 6pm.

In addition to my "Netflix and Chill" hour, I now also enjoy browsing teacher resource pages, teacher blogs, and scouring through Pinterest looking for new activities/lessons to prepare. Last Friday we tracked-out for the next two weeks, and what did I spend my first weekend doing? Grading the first few assignments of 2nd quarter, organizing my grade book, and researching the topics of my next unit in social studies so I could begin putting together the resources I (as well as my students) will need. The worst part? My teammate and I were just texting about how much we miss our kids already! Do you really think our kids are thinking about us on the first few days of their 2 week break? The chances of that are highly unlikely.

Now don't get me wrong, in these 4 days off, I have had a little leisure time in-between planning and teacher blog stalking, but my original plan for balance was to swear off of school-related tasks until at least Tuesday of this week.. but I couldn't even make it through the weekend.  *sigh*

It's quite concerning if you ask me, I mean can a teacher really be addicted to their classroom? I had never heard of such a thing! Of course my friends and co-workers tell me I need to take a break, and even I sometimes think I need to take a break, but in the midst of that break, I tend to feel the need to grab my laptop and work on something. Maybe it's deeper than my role as a teacher. Maybe it's more about my addiction to planning things? Yeah...no... because in other aspects I am honestly not that pressed about planning. As strange as it is to say, it's almost therapeutic for me to be alone in my classroom, Pandora flowing, working on something on my to-do list. At this point I'm almost thinking an intervention is necessary!

What do you think? Are there any teachers/educators out there that feel this constant need to work on lessons/plans/organization? Or maybe you're in a different career, but feel the same way about your duties/tasks? Let me know! Comment below or email me at mscurlykay@gmail.com.

Don't forget to follow me on twitter @lifeascurlykay

xoxo
Curly Kay

That's right lovelies and gents, in the first few weeks of the school year, the classroom dynamics have flipped in Room 2 and Curly Kay is the current (but temporary) lead teacher! It has been quite the adjustment transforming from the instructional assistant that leads small group instruction to the lead teacher that lesson plans, assesses student growth, and manages classroom behavior. My past few weeks have be encompassed with reading educational blogs, surfing Pinterest for interactive classroom lessons, and classroom management systems, and keeping up with grading.

My classroom is full of students that earned the reputation of the unruly generation, but I must say that they are not behaving half as poorly as their reputation let on. My students are slowly but surely grasping leadership expectations and habits, and are actually beginning to exemplify these learned leadership traits in their everyday procedures. Each student has a leadership role in my classroom which gives them each a purpose throughout the day, no one feels left out, or unimportant. Seeing them transform from this bunch of kids that run chaos in their classrooms, to students that value the leadership component of our school and get excited about goal setting is surreal.

One of my favorite things that I have implemented in my classroom is our classroom economy. The students each have a "bank account" in which they can earn money for good behavior, performing well academically, and exemplifying leadership in their normal actions. They can also be fined for poor behavior, bullying, breaking rules, etc. I must say the best part of the economy in my eyes is the real-life connection - Paying Rent! That's right, I charge my students rent for their desks, storage, and textbooks! Their faces when they paid their first rent deposit yesterday was priceless, seeing their balance go from one thing to another, and realizing that they have to work to earn more money to replenish their bank accounts.

Being the lead teacher is rewarding in many ways for me; for one, any doubts I had about my abilities were quickly diffused when I had to suck it up and go for it. However, I must say there's no greater feeling for me than seeing the "aha!" moments my students have and realizing that I'm that one that helped them achieve that moment; along the many spur the moment drawings and cards I receive from my loving students. The number of positive comments I receive from my colleagues about the work I am doing in my class is truly motivating to continue bettering myself as an educator and to complete my degree and certification.

The biggest adjustment for me has hands-down been managing my time. I have had a difficult time balancing my work and personal life, as lately my time has been monopolized by preparing for the next day or the next week. As you can see, my blogging time was cut just about completely while I organized my school life, along with many other pieces of my life. I am actively trying to restore the balance in my life, because the last thing I want is to burn myself out. Making sure that I don't take on too many responsibilities and relinquish too many of my "me time" activities is a daily battle, but I am determined to keep my work ethic above the bar.

Stay tuned for more updates on my classroom and my personal challenges!

Thanks for reading lovelies and gents! I'd love to hear from you on twitter, mention me at @lifeascurlykay or comment below with suggestions on how to restore and maintain the balance in my life! :)

xoxo Curly Kay