Ready or not, here we go

Though I officially started work on Aug 8, this past week was the first time I had a full 5 day work week. Monday and Wednesday I had time to get a handle on the students on my list -- or at least try to. Tuesday was another day of training for working with those in the birth to 3 age range. I won't be starting that right away, but still needed the training. And Thursday school started. I didn't really know what I was doing (and still don't) but I had been to observe and get to know the teachers and the students. It's been a long time since I've spent much time in an elementary school and here's some of the things I observed.

• Kids who were yawning and saying they were hungry at 10. They are still adjusting to the school schedule.
• Teachers who appeared to spend most of the first two days setting the tone for the year and who was in charge in the classroom. It takes a bit, but the students seemed to be slowly catching on from kindergarten to 5th grade.
• A few kids wandering the halls unsure of where the bathroom was or how to get back to their room. (I felt for them because I was in the same boat and had to ask for assistance a few times.)
• A kindergartener who sat with tears in her eyes throughout the whole time I was in her room.
• A few boys doing stellar work to include the one quiet girl in their group project.
• Teachers who knew what their daily schedule was for next week and others who knew what the plan was for today and a general idea of what is to come.
• Secretaries know everything. Really they do. They gave me teachers for everyone on my roster, directions, and opened the locked office for me. To top it off they all appeared calm in the midst of the controlled chaos.
• In a crowded classroom, an experienced teacher put the well-behaved kids in the middle and the ones with the most wiggles around the edge. 
• Teachers who addressed issues quietly and without the rest of the class being aware that there even had been an "issue." 
• By the end of day 2 I had a better idea of what questions to ask so I can nail down a schedule.

I may not know what I'm doing but I've been told that is OK and even to be expected. I'm grateful for my mentor and other fellow OTs that I see back at the office who answer my questions and assure me it will get better, even if it does take a few years.

A New Job!

I have started a new job. After working for 20 months as an OT with the geriatric population in a nursing home setting, I'm now working with AEA267 as an OT in the Waterloo, IA school district. That is a big switch in many ways. Instead of working with those who are 90 I'll be working with 9 year olds. I've gone from a small company to a state agency with around 600 employees. There is much to tell but since I've just had a few days of orientation, I'll stick to the story of how this came to be.

It started last winter with our declining and varying caseload. I was hired to work 40 hours a week but the actual hours worked depended upon the number of people who needed my services. Some days I worked 4 hours and the next I worked 10 with little advance notice. That pushed me to start looking for something else. There are few OT jobs in northwest Iowa and I didn't want to move to work with a similar company as I didn't think I would find a better one to work with. And if I was to move farther away, I wanted to work in schools so I would have vacations and in general be more available to spend time with my parents. I filled out numerous online applications and had an initial phone interview for a position in Arizona. That seemed too far away so I didn't follow through on that one. After several months of waiting, I had two more interviews for positions closer to home.

In the meantime my landlord would not let me have a month-to-month lease and I needed to give my notice before I knew if I would be offered a position. I prayed that I would know where I was going by the time I moved out. I received a call offering me the position on Friday, April 30 about 30 minutes before I left work to complete the final preparations before the moving crew showed up to load the trailer. I was very glad to know that I had a destination. My second thought was, "I'm going to France next summer!"

I continued working until the beginning of July when I moved back to my parents basement. Among other things I took an online refresher course in pediatrics where I learned the importance of tummy time and why crawling is so important for a child's development. I also went on vacation with Mom and my 13 year old niece, Elizabeth. I'll save those stories for another post. We picked Dad up in Indianapolis on July 30 after his two week bike trip from Lincoln, NE and headed home stopping through Cedar Falls to show them my new apartment. I moved in on Aug 3 and thanks to Uncle Steve and Mom and Dad's help, I felt pretty settled by the weekend even though I can't always remember where I put things.