I feel that I am still a bit young in my career, and in fact my age to feel that I have difficulty in balancing my work and family.  I also think that as a teacher, we definitely are given the gift of being able to have a schedule that encourages raising a family.  However, I think I can relate to this whole idea of “balancing” your life beyond the classroom and work.  Currently, I am a single, mid-twenties woman who is working as a full-time teacher, studying to receive her master’s degree, and highly involved in many ministry opportunities in my church.  Balancing these three things in my life is probably the most difficult thing I have yet to face when it comes to somehow finding time to have a “social life.” I find it awfully impossible to find time to sit with a friend to catch up, go out for happy hour drinks, or enjoy a late night movie at the theaters with this crazy schedule of mine.  Not only were the last 2 years the busiest years of a teacher’s entire career (building up your lesson plans and techiniques), 24 hours is just not enough hours in a day! Aside from being at work Monday to Friday 8:30AM – 3:30PM, every day between 5:30-9:30PM I have a second schedule to follow.  This would vary between going to class for graduate school or any church ministry related meetings or study gatherings.  During the weekends, we (teachers) are left with piles and piles of work we bring home whether it be grading or planning another exciting hands-on activity to go with our lesson.  And people tell us we must love getting off of work early and not working weekends, right? I also squeeze in a workout everyday somewhere in between.

So where does my personal/social life come in you ask?

For the most part, it is hard to keep up.  But I do use the few hour gaps I have between each day to catch a meal or coffee with friends that I want to catch up with.  Sometimes I get to come home and just talk on the phone or facetime (technology is an amazing thing!) and use that time that way.  Either way, I think that at our age and day, we really need to be intentional to keep ourselves connected with our friends, and in fact, family, and my way of doing this is to use every last minute I have in between my crazy schedule.  Interestingly enough, I am by nature introverted, so this is something that requires quite the effort from me, but I guess it wont be long til I will be getting the hang of teaching, finished with school, and will be able to balance all this better on my plate!