BTSA

BTSA stands for Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment. My support provider and I just met over Spring Break for breakfast. We are supposed to meet an hour a week and have fallen behind, so I bought breakfast for her. Part of the time was taken up with me being on the phone with the insurance adjuster for the accident I was in.

I shared with her all the crazy things that have happened in my life lately.

The key question she asked me is:
How can you deal with your personal life so that it doesn't affect your professional life?

WOW! Good question.

Sometimes you just can't deal. After my accident I did get a substitute for two days. That's what we have substitute teachers for. But on a day to day basis, most things aren't bad enough to call for a substitute. Ultimately, the show must go on. I've been through worse. I was sick as a dog, totally wiped out and trying to put a concert together with three choirs. My cheese was really sliding off my cracker then. I only had just a few days that I could call on a substitute because I had to be there to get the kids ready for the concert.

I have other outlets and hobbies. I belong to a folklorico dance group. I go to the gym alot. I have a social life, even though I slightly impaired part of it this last weekend. I'd like to get back into yoga. That might help keep me more centered. One of these days I'd like to start going to church again.

Sometimes when you can barely make it, you just have to fake it.