First day jitters

This summer, I went on tour of Paxton Elementary School in Missoula, Montana. The wonderful librarian there read us a story that seems like an appropriate way to explain how I have been feeling the last couple of days. First Day Jitters is a picture book by Julie Danneberg about a new teacher who is afraid of going to a new school and meeting her new students.

Last weekend as I was preparing to enter the classroom for the first time this semester, I encountered some of the same warning signs as the teacher in the book: insomnia, wanting to hide in my bed all morning, a churning stomach, obsessing over course preparation, agonizing over first day clothing choices, and an incredible amount of procrastination (shower scrubbed, 20 games of suduko, an apple pie, bad television movie, grocery shopping...).

Although I really do like teaching and school, I really had a hard time getting revved to enter the classroom this year. I guess those first day impressions seem pretty important when you have to present yourself to whole groups of people for the very first time, especially when those people are all university faculty!

After three weeks of planning, meetings, class observations, and testing, I finally had three of my first course meetings on Friday, despite sweaty palms, racing (caffeine-induced) heart, sleep-deprived mental state, and wily hair (my attempts in the morning to tamp it into a presentable state were thwarted by a day that insisted on being humid, thus inducing a constantly-growing, curly, frizzy, out-of-control mass of curls).

And, as it turns out, it wasn't so bad. In fact, it might have been pretty good. Perhaps I am a drama queen, and there was nothing of substance to be scared of. Estonian professors are people, after all. Based on observations of quivering hands and voices, I suspect some of them were equally nervous.

Whew! We made it... the first day is over. Now, if only I was ready for day two!