~First Day
2004-01-28 - 5:46 p.m.

Well, the first day of work is over and I look back on it, and forward to the first day with kids tomorrow, with mixed feelings. Overall, I don't feel negative, but I would have liked to feel more positive. By the end of last year I really felt like I had too many people giving me "help" and deciding for me how things should be done. The advantage of that, however, was that at the start of the year I had lots of guidance and help, and things were really spelled out for me when I wasn't sure. This year, we obviously have much freer rein of our planning - it really is mostly the pair of 2/3 grades who will plan together, while our unit of 2/3 and 3/4 grades will come together to keep basically on track. It's purely up to the other teacher, Lien, and I to plan our individual lessons. For the first few weeks, I don't have a clue what to do, and it's rather frustrating. Once I get over that, however, it really is a much better set of circumstances.

I really wish that Lien was an experienced teacher! I can foresee so many things that I wish were settled, provided for and so many questions and queries for which I wish to already have answers. She seems not to worry about it too much. Maybe she's the kind of person who is just confident and quite easily comes up with ideas on the spot, but I find that things runs smoothest for me when they're well-planned and if something comes up to ruin the plan, that's alright because at least I'd planned to do something better. Even one year, like me, I think would be a bit better. As it is, she doesn't really seem to get into the planning as much as I do. I don't mean she hasn't had lots of good experience. She sounds much more confident than I was when I began. I think I'm also a little disappointed because I don't think we communicate very well and I don't think our personalities match very well. I don't mean that we clash, but Jane and I fairly quickly fell into a comfortable professional relationship where we helped each other out and liked each others' ideas and so forth. Lien and I help each other, but aren't really on the same wavelength at all. We just seem to approach things from very different angles and have different ideas about what is important. We're both very nice and amiable people, so we both make the effort and get along, but I feel I'll have to work harder with Lien to make her understand what I'm on about and therefore there won't be the same easy exchange of ideas. Jane and I, in a very normal and unexceptional way, could bounce off each other, one giving an idea and the other expanding on it and changing it to make it better. Hopefully Lien and I will get there, but I think it will take a lot longer. In the meantime, I feel a little frustrated and slightly isolated with the person I work with most closely not really able quickly follow the trend of my conversation and ideas. Of course, she could have been obnoxious and overbearing!