Home Stretch

Today was Home Stretch. It went from 9:15-4:30 at one of the high schools in my district. How nice to be able to get up and get out the door at a reasonable hour! People were there from all over the western side of Washington. I saw some friends there I hadn't seen in years. One in particular whose wife and b-i-l played in my wedding. It was great to see him!

My box isn't due until the end of the month (postmarked by March 31, actually), but today was a wonderful day. Two weeks ago, when I was sick for three days in a row, I sent in my really rough draft of Entry 2 to a colleague who is already certified. She read and critiqued it as much as she could within the ethics rules of NB. Her comments gave me some excellent direction for the rest of this entry as well as my other three.

The morning session today focused on the Assessment Center. I know have some really good ideas for helping myself get prepared for that in May. We went through each of the assessments I'll be doing, including doing two retired prompts. I have a better idea now of what I need to work on and what I can only touch on during my studying. That, however, won't start until spring break, which is the first week of April. I'll have homework, but it will be good stuff to do and I'm guessing I'll enjoy doing it.

What was really nice today was being in a group of other EMC Music people. I'm the only music person in my district so far who is (or has) going through the boards process. It's cool to be the trailblazer, but tough as well because noone in the district has been where I am. Things are very different between music and the other areas. For starters, people in other areas only have to video tape two of their entries, I have to do three (Entry 1 is showcasing student work. Since music is performance-based, not pencil and paper-based, my student work is shown on video.) The good thing is that I have far fewer standards to learn than others (8 as opposed to 16 or more in some areas).

My portfolio is slowly coming together. Things will be ready to go on March 28, when I'll be putting my box in the mail. There's not a choice in that. I'll be glad when this part is done. It's been a great experience, but it's really coming down to crunch time now. I will be spending most of the weekend before the 28th working really hard. I'll have a couple of big rewards for hard work, though. I have a release day (my last one) on March 21. That night, the three of us are going to see the Wiggles here in town. The next day, there is a baby shower for one of Jeff's cousins for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I'm hoping to be able to use that as a reward for hard work. I'll need a break anyway at that point. Time to lock myself in the bedroom and start pounding out entries!