And so it begins...

Tomorrow I start the Fall 2011 semester and I have so many mixed feelings about it.

I love school… the new pens, pencils, folders and books; the new classmates and professors; the new schedules and syllabi. I really enjoy change so I am always excited to begin a brand new semester! It feels very refreshing to begin again, to have a fresh start. I also love school because I truly LOVE learning and I guess I kind of like math too :) I am so excited to be challenged intellectually for another 4 months.

I also love to teach and tomorrow I will begin my experience as a Math Excel Teaching Assistant. I was fortunate enough to be selected to be a teaching assistant for this special program which was developed by the math department 20ish years ago. The model for it was proposed by Uri Treisman at UC Berkley (aka a super smart guy at an awesome school), and UK has been recognized numerous times for its success in also implementing the program. Pretty much out of the 1,000 students taking Calculus this fall at UK, about 100 of them chose to sign up for 2 extra hours of class time a week. They go to lecture for 3 hours each week, and then I get to meet with 30 of them for an hour and a half three days a week. In my class they will work on supplemental worksheets (not their homework) in groups and I will simply walk around and help when needed. The idea is that they fight with mathematics themselves… try things, teach one another, and practice a lot. Programs of this type have had a ton of success in the past… i.e. the students who work together on math rather than by themselves tend to do a lot better on the exams. It is going to be a great opportunity for me to develop my teaching skills as well as build real relationships with these 30 students since I will be seeing them so often.

It is probably pretty clear now why I am in grad school… I am a huge nerd and I love to teach. However, I am also nervous for the semester to start because by the end of it WE WILL HAVE A BABY! As in our little girl’s due date is the Thursday of Finals week. Obviously we don’t know exactly when our bundle of joy will decide to show up, but it will most likely happen very quickly after the semester ends, if not before. And I know how the semesters just FLY by. So for that reason it is a bit overwhelming to think that it begins tomorrow. With the exams, studying, grading, homework, etc. I know that the weeks will just start to fly by and then all of the sudden it will be December! And we will have a baby…

Don’t get me wrong, I am obviously excited about my pregnancy journey progressing and the prospect of meeting our daughter. I can just sense that these next few months will zoom by and I really don’t want to take a second for granted. Even as I work hard as a student and as a teacher I want to make sure I am cherishing every kick and tumble inside of me, every baby shower, every day that I wake up with a BIGGER belly, every moment of peace that David and I will share together, every adventure that we will have this fall and winter.

Deep breath in….

It is going to be a good semester. In fact I think that 2011 will turn out to be a fantastic year. By the end of this calendar year I will hopefully have published a paper, taken a master’s exam, be 3 credit hours away from finishing my Masters Degree, inspired a few students, and, most importantly, grown and birthed a beautiful baby girl. It is so crazy how fast life goes by and how quickly things can change. But it is truly a beautiful ride.