OMGWTF Morning Person!

Don't die of shock, but I've been waking up early lately.

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Still breathing? Anyway, I decided to do it once I started up Artist's way again. At first it was just a little bit earlier so I could rush through my morning pages. Then, I slowly started becoming more aware of how much time I wasted hitting snooze eight billion times before actually getting out of bed, and all the things I could be doing in the morning if I DID just get up. So one Saturday before work, when I woke up tn minutes before my alarm, I got up instead of going back to sleep. I've been trying to do this ever since, with only a few lapses. Now, I'm getting up between 7:00 and 8:00 every morning, and work doesn't begin until 10:30. Needless to say, I've become the dreaded morning person!

Actually, I'm still very much not a morning person, but I'm determined to continue these good habits, especially since I'll be working a lot of mornings at my new company. Because I'm not a morning person, however, I've had to devise some methods for forcing myself out of bed. I never spring bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from my futon (it's even HARDER to do than from a bed, because it takes just that much more effort to stand up), so I had to find some ways to make myself stay awake long enough I couldn't just go back to bed.

The Scribe Method

1. Always have two alarm clocks. (In my case, one alarm clock and my cell phone). Set one for fifteen minutes to half an hour before the desired waking time, and make sure this alarm clock is a little hard to get to. When it goes off, turn it off.

2. Alarm number two will go off five to ten minutes later. Hit snooze one time. At the second alarm, drag self out of bed and take cell phone into the kitchen. Now, my cell phone allows me to set several alarms, so I set the next alarm for a loud, lively tune.

3. When cell phone goes off in kitchen, stagger in and turn it off. Put on the kettle and slink back to bed.

4. When the kettle goes off, get up and turn off the stove. Pour scalding water over the coffee grounds set up the night before, inhaling fumes until eyes open at least half way. Massage face.

5. Coffee in hand, do morning pages. By the time I'm finished with morning pages, I'm usually pretty awake.

In any case, it's 8:20 now, and I've decided to get dressed and take a walk before work, so I'm going to go ahead and do that. Work is going a litte better since I started Artist's Way. I'm finding that I use my outside time better, and that I can be a little more creative at work. Parent observations are this week, and even though most schools have it so the parents observe their own children, they're observing the teachers at Amity. Most of the comments are not about the students, but are about the teachers, which I think is a little backwards. Shouldn't the parents be paying attention to how their children are participating and learning? I know the teacher is important in the classroom, but often the people who complain the most are the ones whose children make the most trouble.

That said, the parent observations are going well. I haven't really had any negative comments. In fact, just the opposite. Last time I had a lot of negative comments from the parents, but this time many of them are saying things like, "the explanation was really easy to understand!" and "my child used to speak so quietly, but she has so much more confidence in her English now." Stuff like that is nice to hear. Also, "you can control my daughter when no one else could, and she's doing really well with english." The last one is a girl who has a private lesson with me. She's either high functioning autistic or ADHD, and her brother is the same.

For some reason, I seem to do well with the problem students, and with the high-level students. It's the ones in the middle that I have trouble challenging, I think.

Anyway, enough about work. I'm going to do surgery on some shirts soon, in your honor. Since we can't do it together. ^_^