UCLA Lab School

Well, my last day as a 5th Grade Teaching Assistant for the UCLA Lab School has finally passed. I'm so thankful I got the opportunity to do something like this; when I applied I think there were around 80 or so applicants.. don't know how I got the job, maybe because I slipped a 5 in with my application. I LOVE working with the 5th grade age group though, to the point I hope I don't regret choosing to teach high school math. If I do, I can always go down to 5th grade, right? That's actually what one of the teachers in my class did, so it's not like it's impossible. I don't ever want to feel "stuck" in a job, so if I don't enjoy the high school level, who knows, maybe I'll be a 5th grade teacher. :) No lower than 5th grade though, then they get too young even for me. I don't know how my Grandma did Grade K for 40 something years..

Being a teaching assistant is a unique experience, because you get to know the kids so well. I think you develop a different kind of relationship with them than the teachers (I'll know this for sure after I've been teaching for a while). I definitely got to joke around with them more and just talk to them more than the teachers did though, and I'll miss that about being a TA. It's only been a couple days, but I already miss my class a lot. Hopefully I'll get to work at the school again part-time next year so I can go visit them.

Anyways, I'm back at home now, and I've become extremely jumpy because of the recent reports of waterbugs seen in my area of the house. I've been doing scans before I enter a room to make sure they're not there.. The other day I was doing a scan before I went into the bathroom, and what I think was a piece of dust moved on the floor, and I literally jumped. I need to calm down a bit.