Hahaha my aunt ended up coming over and a couple other things happened so I barely got through this list. At least I know what I'm doing tomorrow! Also, I had to sus through about 60 pages of content standards so oof
Today I am trying to get ahead with my classes. My classes started this past Wednesday and it is now Saturday. I feel very disorganized because my asynchronous classes have me completing modules, but not all of the due dates are posted. It's really hard to find a schedule, but I'm going to set that up today. Today I'm working on:
1) reading curriculum guidelines on online experiences
2) making my initial discussion post about it
3) finding an old algebra or geometry textbook in my basement to help me brainstorm ideas for the 5+ hours of related internet instruction I'll be creating for a class
4) setting up an outline of my first lesson plan
5) reading 2 short chapters for another class
6) watching a presentation
7) looking at a long term assignment
8) making another initial discussion post
*I'd work at my desk but my father currently has Netflix blaring and is snoring. I can still hear literally everything but this is the quietest room in the house. If I go near him I'm probably going to end up screaming at him about how impossible it is to work in this house. My state is currently in full shut down (no indoor dining, no libraries for studying, I'm not allowed on school campus, etc). I guess my room is as good as it gets.
By an absolute miracle my gold capella schefflera bounced back from a fungal infection that it had at a grocery store. I had told my sister I wanted a yucca plant/tree whatever for my graduation/birthday gift. She panicked and grabbed my tree, which I named Ray. He's now been in my care for a little over 2.5 years 💚
Yike
Don't buy grocery store plants
My grandma is being put into a hospice. I'm not ready to lose her 💔
Any support means a lot. She's been fighting cancer for years now and the radiation and chemo caught up with her fragile body. She originally fell and cracked her hip - first admitted to the hospital. Then she was put into a rehab where they weren't taking care of her incision or giving her the physical therapy they said they were. She developed the worst level bedsore. It went all the way to her tailbone. She was then moved to this new place. They were taking great care of her, but the bedsore never healed. They recommended hospice. She fell out of bed last night. Now she's going to a new facility and they're letting visitors in (double masks, etc). I haven't been able to touch her or see her in person since maybe Novemeber or Decemeber - everything is a blur with my grandpa passing away around then. She never got to see him because of covid restrictions. I 100% agree why they're in place - it's just so hard to watch my loved one dying through a window while assholes continue to walk around without masks on and preaching complete bullshit about the virus.
Last night I ended up having another anxiety attack before bed. My heart was beating hard and fast and was uncomfortable. I had a stress rash all over my chest. I couldn't stop crying. I had a hard time breathing. I felt like I was going to throw up. It's just the stress of school + not being able to register for a vaccine + feeling pressure from work to in person sub + my grandpa dying about a month ago + my grandma being in the hospital + my mom being the bipolar and manipulative sociopath she is + the whole pandemic. I feel so inadequate sometimes :/
Officially caught up on all my sick work!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Now to tackle this week's activities that mostly accumulated on this weekend 🙃
Also, I use google docs as a planner because my online classes are hard to manage with their random postings and due dates and changes. I normally don't need to do this, but the rainbow highlighting at the top was part of a list of everything I needed to do this week (I am doing the work for this week and last week). I color coded it for each day to help break it up.
Hey I've been like incredibly swamped lately so sorry for being absent.
I actually have been working a lot, but this week I only worked on Monday (I was so incredibly off that day for no reason and I made some really bad mistakes such as saying shit in front of sheltered middle schoolers when I got locked outside of the building when the door became unpropped and I let them out to break up the weird hybrid schedule and also kinda losing 4 kids but they just twisted my directions to go for a walk around the school... those incidents shouldn't have happened). I normally have Tuesdays off because of my inconveniently timed composition class. I took Wednesday off to get ahead for school (would have gotten more done if I didn't get blown out cuz CANVAS glitched the literal second I submitted my high stakes midterm). Tomorrow, Thursday I get my second dose in the morning. I had a kinda bad reaction to the first shot (actually was like the second dose with swollen lymph nodes, low grade fever, exhausted, headache, dizzy, just overall feeling bad) for 48 hours and then still a little out of it for another 48 hours. Fingers crossed this dose goes much smoother. Just in case it doesn't, I have everything done that is due before Sunday at midnight. I also got my mom to drive me to my appointment tomorrow cuz I damn near passed out at the place and driving home (i dont do well with shots if you can tell but they're so important and I wouldn't risk not getting it).
I've been doing in person subbing, which is a big jump for me. It's a lot more stressful because I'm constantly reminding middle schoolers to pull their masks up and to give each other a little more space. Their behavior also got a lot worse because they haven't been in person for nearly a year. However, they really needed this. It just sucks that they're being put in this position. Getting the first dose made me feel a little better, although I walk in with a thing of wipes, two masks, hand sanitizer, a pack of back up masks, and no lunch (they've been shoving kids into classrooms to eat because the lunch rooms are tiny). Wish me luck!
I felt so unproductive, depressed, stressed, and distracted today. I'm overwhelmed. I dropped a stats class yesterday (first time ever doing that) because
1) I no longer want to minor in stats
2) I truly couldn't understand the lecturer
3) the course didn't closely follow a textbook.
It wasn't her accent, I had absolutely no issue with that, but her slides just didn't make any sense. There were no sample data or pictures or diagrams and even the formulas didn't make sense (instead of sub scripts she would just put random punctuation afterwards). I gave it a valid shot for two classes, but it was clear we weren't a good match. I'm now enrolled in a comp class (counts towards my degree), but I'm so incredibly anxious. Writing stresses me out so much. I also think that my university doesn't do a good job with their composition courses. I finally got a copy of the syllabus and textbook, and I'm going to be rereading and rewriting about essays I saw in 10th grade Accelerated English. I feel anxious even though I have already done this. I have a lot to improve on, which is painfully obvious, but it doesn't sound like this course will help me. Also, I'm now about 1.5 weeks behind in that course. I needed today to be productive, but my mother called and brought up some touchy stuff and I got all blown out. Anywho... here's what I got through (1/3 of what I needed to do)
• read ch. 1 for reading in the content areas
• read ch. 3 for reading in the content areas
• digested a pre-recorded presentation + took notes
• explored some cool vocabulary sites for teaching K-12 (mostly elementary if we're being honest) (it's very very important to teach literacy in all grades for all subjects but my university kind of drops the ball with high school / secondary ages)
• did 2 loads of wash
• actually put away my clothing
• saw my sis and it was a little cathartic to talk about how messed up my mom is and what we went through but also bothered me a lot
...And with that I'm gonna go to bed and hopefully tomorrow I feel a bit better and can get some more stuff done considering all the due dates coming up 🤞
Online school is really hard with 3 asynchronous classes and a mostly asynchronous class with 1/2 synchronous. It's been a challenge to manage the work load because everything has different due dates and different module lengths. Also, the due dates change a lot. Hopefully this helps (example week too far ahead to completely fill in)?
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8ish (my ancient chromebook is not really compatible with zoom + a little programming). Online learning only made these even more apparent. My heart goes out for the kids in K-12 the most though. If this were to happen when I was in K-12 I probably wouldn't have passed my classes.
I feel that in the studyblr community nobody actively talks about the study environment some of us have, so shoutout to those students that:
• live with their parents (not everyone goes to college/uni where they have dorms, and even then, not everyone can afford it)
• have to deal with parents/family members constantly arguing in the background
• work / have to worry heavily about just getting by (paying rent, groceries, medication)
• need loud music to study and drown outside noises
• can not "study prettily" at coffee shops
• take care of other family members, and thus have to be ready to drop whaterever they are doing to assist them at any time
• can not concentrate or get "in the zone" no matter what they do
• do not have a personal computer/tablet
• do not have a room of their own
• are neurodivergent and the advice of most study masterpost/tips is not applicable.
You are valid, you are seen, you are not alone. If nobody has told you already: if you are trying the best you can then the best you can is good enough.
sincerely, a student who needed to hear this.
they/them ... future high school math teacher ... junior math major + secondary math cert ... plants ... dogs
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