Oh, dear…where to start!  There were so many new experiences this week…I suppose I should start with leadership, since I don’t get to write about that all that often.  This week, I was put in charge on an activity in the classroom.  I was to sit at the head of the table and lead the children in stringing beads onto shoelaces, to help develop their fine motor skills.  I was taken by surprise when I was asked to do this, and although I have been in charge of children the same again before, back when I taught Kinderkarate at my dojo, there was still a difference, especially since I was under direct supervision from the other instructors, the specialists, and the some of the parents of the children, who were watching through the one-way window.  I managed, after a couple minutes, to not appear as flustered, but I definitely hope to get in more practice in the future.

            Character development reared its head and bit me again this week – a while ago, I wrote about how difficult it was to let a child self-soothe.  This week, one of the children was constantly searching for comfort – she wanted me to cuddle her and keep her in a close embrace.  We eventually solved this problem, to a degree, by putting her in a body suit, but it was difficult for me to take her out of my arms and try to wake her up, when she seemed to be in such desperate need for comfort.  I need to develop of thick skin, I suppose, or rather learn have better control of my actions, whatever my emotions may be.

            I was proud of our teamwork this week.  The new student underwent separation for the first time on Thursday, and we had to keep on rotating positions with him – since the staff is made of a variety of specialists, each had his/her own duties to perform in the classroom, meaning that we had to keep trading the post of watching over and comforting the new child (in this case, self-soothing was not an objective, as it was the first day of separation – self-soothing with come later).

            Lastly, I had a bit of a run-in with technology this week.  I needed to make a copy, but I had a bit of a scare with the copy machine, leading me all across the office on an epic journey to find someone who could fix it.  Apparently, the copy machine had been acting up all day, so it wasn’t too hard to find someone who had fixed it before.  Thankfully, the copy machine was up and working again without a hitch, and I learned how to use it to produce double-sided copies which served to be more functional than the single-sided ones I had originally intended to produce.  Hopefully, I will be more prepared if the machine breaks down again.

            My goals, both short term and long term, haven’t changed since last week.  Short term:  find a semester project.  Long term:  make a permanent difference in the lives of the children I work with.