Keeping my RAS in Check

So, since graduation I've been incredibly busy. Tons of family in town, big graduation party, Christmas, more family in town, New Years, even more family in town, and I started my volunteer teaching position. It's been utter chaos for the last month and I'm incredibly grateful that my departure date is no longer February. I can't fathom leaving the country in a mere three weeks. However, this relief does not temper my RAS (restless applicant syndrome). The only thing that's been keeping my mind off of it is not reading peacecorpsjournals and convincing myself I wouldn't hear from placement until probably March for my new June departure. However, this week I caved and started reading journals again and found some unexpected hope! It seems a few other people with June departures are hearing from their placement officers and even receiving invitations!! Now of course this coincides with a terrible RAS flare up. Luckily I've been too busy teaching and entertaining guests that I haven't been able to do much about it.

Speaking of teaching, I absolutely love the school at which I teach. They have such a unique approach to teaching and classroom management and it is incredibly effective. The school is located in one of the worst school districts in Arizona in a bad part of Phoenix, and in one year have managed to test higher in math, writing and reading than any other school within that district. They do this all without textbooks, extremely limited access to computers, and in a school that used to be some sort of thrift store. The teachers are absolutely amazing and all student work is done with pencil and paper. While I'm sure they have much better access to resources than any school I would teach at in the Peace Corps, it is nice to have some experience teaching "from scratch". Plus I'm eternally grateful that they've allowed me to not only design my own class, but teach it completely by myself.

Their last period of the day is for enrichment, since they don't have P.E. or art or music. Volunteers from the community come in and teach the last period of the day 4 days a week to a set class of anywhere from 25-30 students. I helped teach an art class last quarter, and when they approached me about teaching art again this quarter I suggested the idea of a science based enrichment. Once I got an ok from the school directors I designed the class and wrote up a lesson plan. Being a science nerd myself, I designed a class I would have died for in junior high. It's completely experiment based and very hands on. While we've only had 3 classes so far, the students seem to love it. They're involved, contribute actively in the discussions, and are genuinely excited about doing the experiments. I have 30 students, and the teacher who would normally sit in the back of the room and help manage classroom behavior stopped even coming into the room after the first day. I'm seriously excited every day I get to go in and it's completely because of my students' enthusiasm. One of my students actually told me today that I'm awesome. Talk about a self-esteem booster. Haha. I hope to have some good news about Peace Corps soon, but until then I will be reading journals and keeping myself busy!