Perhaps one of my biggest challenges here is entering the world of non-profit and all of the chaos that has a tendency to ensue. Lack of communication, ten extra steps to accomplish just about anything, mountains of paperwork that are submitted to 100 different people in order to maintain funding for just about everything. Last spring I applied and was accepted to Vanderbilt and Teachers College in order to get a second master's degree in organizational leadership. It's like business school without actually going to business school. It's all about communication, leadership, effectiveness, efficiency, and all those other things that really excite me to no end. So to enter into a world of complete chaos in those respects has been one of the biggest challenges throughout this whole experience.
My site supervisor, while a wonderful woman and really very nice, will tell you, "This is why I don't like being a supervisor..." So that in and of itself is wonderful to hear every week. She's pretty scatterbrained and not the best communicator. Also, our office looks like it should be nominated for the TV show Clean House. The physical clutter gives me anxiety. Let alone all of those other efficiency things that can make your work life bearable and even enjoyable.
I was scheduled to teach all three morning English classes and when I walked in to find the papers I had set aside for the classes no where to be found, honestly, I was in a pretty annoyed mood. But then after class started, something kind of magical happened. While I am a firm believer in training (Not just "hey watch me do this" but actually teach me how and why we do this. I just graduated from 19th grade. Formal education and training is all I know.), I found that even though I felt completely unprepared to teach anyone anything, let alone another language, I felt like I didn't do too bad.
So I'm actually kind of excited about taking it upon my self to get some training (I plan on signing up for an online Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate.) so I can feel like I actually know what I'm doing.
This whole moving to Alaska thing is character building at it's finest. :)
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