Day 2

According to Potatoes Not Prozac, I need 88 grams of protein a day right now. That will go down as I lose weight. Yesterday I just divided by 3 and tried to eat the same amount of protein at brakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have never eaten so much protein at breakfast, and a few hours later I had a whopper of a headache! But I didn't get hungry. Today I think I will go a little less at breakfast and a little more at dinner, and see how that works.
Other things I am focused on right now:
Eat 3 meals a day, at 7, 12, and 6.
Eat a good amount of protein at every meal.
No sugar or white flour.
Work out every other day at Curves.
Eat a starch before bed.
The starch before bed is supposed to help my body make and absorb my own serotonin and beta endorphins, which will relieve my withdrawal from the Effexor. We'll see if it works. I feel pretty good mentally today, much better than yesterday morning. I don't want to look at short term results because they seem unimportant, but the bottom line is if there are no short term results, I won't have any reason to find out what the long term results are.

Ch-ch-changes

The winds of change are in the air! Today I am going to join a gym. This is not something I was willing to even consider until now. What has changed? Well, quite simply, I am desperate. I can't stand the way I look or feel. I have never felt so fat, which is logical since I've never been so fat either. I am trying to wean myself off of my anti-anxiety medication. Now don't freak everyone, I am under my doctor's supervision. My psychiatrist said that if I wanted to try it, the summer after my first year teaching would be the first time she would be OK with it. Here's the thing... the medication changes my brain chemistry in order to allow serotonin and endorphins to be absorbed. That's why it works. When I take less of it, my levels of serotonin and endorphins go down and I feel yucky. Other ways to raise those levels include eating sugar and exercising. Guess which one I have been doing? Yup. Inhaling Krispy Kremes like they're going out of style. I simply cannot seem to motivate myself to exercise. The winds of change (this time around) have come in the form of a book called Potatoes Not Prozac. I can identify with a great many of the things this author says, and she has backed up her statements with research. Her numbers get a little fuzzy when it comes to the percentage of her clients who have sustained long term recovery, but at this point even some short term recovery would do me a world of good, I think. She places a lot of focus on keeping a mentality of "one choice at a time," saying that even one day at a time is much too long term for this kind of problem. I really hope that if I work out, I will be able to resist eating sugar. If I don't start to do better, I will have to give up the idea of going off the medication. And I really don't want to give that idea up just yet.

Yesterday I thought that I would relax. No kids, no work, no lesson plans to do. Instead I was stir crazy all day. I talked to another teacher and he says it's the end of the year let down. Makes sense when I think about it... anytime one invests a lot of time and energy looking forward to something, when that something actually happens, there is no way it can measure up. Kind of like Christmas. So today I'm just going to clean the house.

hey hey hey, goodbye

Well, I have survived my first year of teaching. I'm still sane, and I am still upright. The biggest deal is that I plan on teaching again next year. Saying goodbye to my principal yesterday was the best part of my day, without a doubt. He scheduled a staff meeting, on the last day of work, and kept us for an HOUR. He has such an inflated sense of his own importance, he thinks whatever he has to say is great enough that the rest of us want to hear it too. So, we sat in groups and wrote a list on chart-size post it notes about the successes of the school year. Then we had to listen to him make a speech to each person who was leaving the school. Seven people are leaving, and five of them are from the 6th grade. What is wrong with this picture?? Anyway, I got to leave after the schmooze fest and I never have to go back there again.
Hooray!!

Good Choices

Yesterday two of my students were in trouble for something or other, and were called up to the office. During my plan, I saw them up there and asked what was happening. They were both honest with me and it turns out to be a pretty serious thing, especially for sixth graders. I patted their shoulders, went back to my room, and promptly sat down for a cry. I didn't cry because of anything having to do with me or my teaching. I cried because these kids are worth so much more that what they are choosing to do. I cried because I can see them making the wrong choices, going headlong down the wrong path, and because it's their choice and I have to let them make it.
Sometimes I think, wait! I can't be in charge here, I am hardly a good decision maker! I was making those choices not too long ago. Maybe that's why I have finally found my place in life. I made it through in one piece, in spite of all my bad decisions, and maybe I have something to say to these kids that will make a difference. I struggle every day to do the right things. The difference in the past few years is that the right thing has been winning. My life has changed. I have changed.
If I can figure out a way to warn these kids in a way they will understand, in a way that will make a difference, it will all have been worth it.

Open mouth, insert foot

I did something horrible today at work and I feel shitty about it. I was at a yet another math teacher meeting in an endless chain of them during which we decide nothing but pretend we're doing something important. We say meaningful things like "When you look at the data..." and "Using formatives for that purpose is..." and "Are there any more bagels?..."
A big shot from the district office was there, and we were talking about whether or not to change the sequence in which we teach math. Test scores came up, and one of the test scores that was being discussed was from a test my youngest daughter took a few weeks ago. I had looked at her results, and they were poor. Since she is normally one of the highest scorers, I asked her about the test. She said there were things on there that she didn't recognize from anywhere, and that had never been taught. Her math teacher was also at the meeting, by the way. Someone brought up that the reason for the low test scores might be that the items they used to teach those concepts must not have matched the test. So I piped up with my little tidbit of information, not realizing until later what a huge asshole I must have sounded like! She probably thought I was saying she was doing a crappy job. So I sent her an email apologizing, to which she has not responded. I wish I could keep my goddamn mouth shut.