Tupperware

Tupperware is going to be big for me this semester. Day one and I brought three separate containers along with me to school. I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot more of them, too. Anyway, before I move on to the things you people came for - food and exercise - I'll quickly debrief my first full day at Westwood for you guys. It's going to be great, and a ton of my fears and anxieties were relieved. Remember my New Year's Resolution to not worry as much about things that haven't happened yet? That one needs to come into effect, because as far as I can tell, I'm going to have a great semester.

I will be working with the two English II classes that I worked with in the fall, which is exactly what I was hoping to do. I was a Pre-AP student all throughout my high school career, and while it was obviously a good choice for me, I have found that I truly enjoy working with the on-level students. Though I won't actually take on any of the classes for another two or three weeks, the students will be working on a research project for much of the first six weeks, and as much as many of my fellow classmates hated our huge sophomore research project, I actually enjoyed it, so I'm excited that I will get to eventually teach that. And to make it even better, I really like the research topic: colleges. Each student will research a different college of his or her choice, and eventually prepare a PowerPoint presentation to share with the class. As someone who was very much into researching colleges at a very young age, this project would have been right up my alley, and I hope these students are interested in it too. It's never too early to be thinking about college, especially in today's ultra-competitive age. 

After the research project is over, we will jump right into reading William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. I am a big fan of Shakespeare, and this play happens to be one of my favorites. It is the classic twisted love triangle, and it has a very light tone to it. I read it for the first time in 8th grade (not understanding anything, no doubt), and again in the Shakespeare class that I took one summer at UT. Shakespeare is often very intimidating for high school (and college!) students, so I look forward to breaking that intimidation barrier.

Then comes STAAR preparation, which may not be fun, but as far as I can tell, state testing isn't going away anytime soon, so we might as well embrace it. I'm very excited for what this semester holds, and though it's going to be a lot of work, I think it will be extremely rewarding, and a lot of fun. See, what good does worrying do?

Breakfast

Thanks to a very exciting BCS National Championship game last night, I was dragging when my alarm sounded at 6:30am. I wasn't hungry right away, so I simply scrambled up my egg whites and spinach and put them in a tupperware container to eat once I got to the school.

I also enjoyed two cuties and some sliced strawberries.

Not a bad first day of school breakfast!

Lunch

I put my lunch together last night so that I wasn't rushing around this morning trying to remember everything. I'm sure glad I did because I stayed in bed for a few too many extra minutes this morning! I prepared a spring mix salad, topped with grilled chicken, cherry tomatoes, dill pickles, green olives, and my favorite La Madeleine balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

I put it all together in this extremely handy Klip-It Salad-to-Go container from The Container Store, which allows you to keep all of the toppings and dressing separate until you are ready to eat the actual salad. I love that because who is going to want to eat a soggy salad?

I enjoyed my salad alongside a personal pack of hummus and carrots, two cuties, and a Dark Chocolate Almond NuGo Organic Nutrition Bar. I know it's pretty lame, but I'm really looking forward to putting together lunches that are both nutritious and delicious this semester. It will make for some fun recipes to share with you guys, that's for sure!

Workout

Westwood gets out at 4:10pm (a far cry from Stratford's 3:00pm release time), so I beat the traffic going home and took a 5:45pm cycling class at the gym. It had been a while since I had taken a cycling class, but this one got me nice and sweaty very quickly. We did a lot of sprinting and slowing it all the way down and standing and sitting and I left feeling like I got in a great workout.

And with that, I'm off to shower, eat dinner, and get everything ready for tomorrow before taking it very easy for the night.  I hope you had a wonderful Tuesday!