Student Teaching Days 2 and 3

Well, I've already mentioned that on Student Teaching Day 2 I had my interview at 10am. What I didn't mention was that at about 1pm during my prep period I got extremely sick.

Apparently, my cooperating teacher got sick that weekend.

At first I didn't know what was going on. I just had a stomach pain. I won't go into all the gory details but - let's just say I was miserable.

Thank goodness it was my prep period, so Teacher and I were in his classroom putting together materials for callbacks for the musical and my stomach was just not settling. I had to stop what I was doing and hold still. I then asked him, because they lock the faculty bathrooms down the the hallway, where his keys were, just in case.

He looked at me, "Really?"

Really.

He put his eyes on his desk and said if I need to - just go. About three minutes later (not kidding), I grabbed the keys and took off running. I barely made it - but I made it.

When I returned to the classroom a couple minutes later I felt so much better, but was in desperate need of gum. Teacher didn't have gum, only hard life saver candies. As stated, I was desperate.

Bad idea.

Ten minutes later -- again, I won't get into too much detail.

Needless to say, when I returned to class the second time, our prep period was almost up. Teacher looked at my sympathetically, "Why don't you just go home?"

"Oh no, I can make it one more class period." I sat down. Students started coming in, before they had even sat down I was grabbing for my things, "I'm going to go."

"Okay, if I don't see you tomorrow, I'll just assume your sick." Teacher said.

I was supposed to attend Read America with a class of mine at 4pm at the mall. This is mandatory if you want an A. So of course I went. The professor in charge of the course was not sympathetic, but an assistant professor who actually knows my family, was (thank goodness). She liked at me, all pale and sickly, and said, "Go home before you get us all sick."

I stuck it out for an hour; I even read to a couple kids from a safe distance. When that friendly teacher saw me still there, she approached me, "Reagan, what are you still doing here? Go home. You look awful" (Insert joke here).

I looked at her. "I want that A."

She smiled and told me that she would vouch for me with that hardened professor.

I left.

I slept.

I slept.

Wednesday I woke up, considering going to school. I felt okay. As a student teacher, I only get three absences before I have to make them up. I checked my phone (I get my email to my blackberry) and had an email from Teacher, "Don't come to school today. You're probably feeling better, but in about three hours you'll hit absolute bottom. It's fine. Sicknesses are excused." Relieved, I fell back to sleep.

I slept the rest of Wednesday.

Thursday I returned to school, not quite 100%, but close. I was still extremely tired and would lose my breathe easily. But my students, who had only been with me a day and half, all looked at me sincerely and asked how I was feeling.

It felt amazing to be missed - even though I just sat there Monday and that bit of Tuesday and observed. It felt like they were my students.