First Day of School

Today I had my first day of "school" or rather my New Employee Orientation.  This year I will be working full-time as a school psychologist intern.  Remember when I interviewed for this job last December?

I woke up this morning bright and early feeling excited and ready to go!  It didn't hurt that my husband got up with me to brew some coffee and fix up a veggie omelette. :)

Armed with a strong cup of coffee and some good talk radio I took on the hour commute like a champ!  Left at 7:15am and arrived at 8:15am with no problems other than a little fog on the way.  Thank you for all your comments on my post about audiobooks.  I did go ahead and join audible.com, and this afternoon on the way home I began listening to The Help.  I know I'm going to really enjoy being able to do this.

My orientation was absolutely wonderful.  I am fully aware that no career or work setting is perfect, but I feel so called to this profession.  I am THRILLED to be in the schools -- to be finally putting my passion (and hopefully knowledge!) to work.  A lot of things that were said in my orientation today really resonated with me and my personal educational philosophy.  I feel that this school district "gets" kids -- that they know schools need to be safe, warm environments for kids to feel truly cared about.  And once that happens, THEN kids can begin to learn.  I feel that this school district has a strong work ethic, a lot of knowledge and plenty of experience with doing public school education well.  It's certainly a little rural, a little small town, and a lot conservative, but that's very much the culture of Southwest Virginia.  That came as no surprise to me, and in a lot of ways I mesh very well with that friendly Southern charm. Everyone today was so nice, and I feel pleased in knowing things are very well organized and established in this district.

I came home with a new book (although slightly geared more towards teachers -- this book will help me down the road in my consultant role with teachers).

And a bag filled with new supplies -- stapler, tape dispenser, pencils, pens, ruler -- I was definitely WAY more excited about this bag then I should have been... haha! :)

I feel so encouraged right now, and I'm grateful to God for this season in my life.  Yesterday a friend quietly left a pair of new earrings on my doorstep, and I proudly wore them today.  Three other friends texted me early this morning about my first day.  I am very blessed for these friendships.  And I certainly felt encouraged by the other teachers I met this morning -- two of which are also doing the SAME commute that I am.  I was able to trade contact information with them in case I ever need to hitch a ride to North Carolina my school district.

So here we go!  The kids don't start until August 10th, but my journey has already begun.  I have no idea what this year will look like, but I know that it's exactly where I'm supposed to be.  I will do my best to keep up the blogging, and I look forward to all the new experiences that I'll be having.