Twenty weeks ago, I was just another new teaching graduate, anticipating the start of the school year and hoping that the few school contacts I had made in the last term of 2014 would remember to call me if they needed a casual teacher. After months of tailoring my resume, writing job applications and receiving countless rejections, I could empathise with the thousands of other teachers in Australia who struggle to land a job in this over-saturated market. But nineteen weeks ago, a school where I had completed my final teaching internship called me, interviewed me and employed me to teach high school history this year— all within the space of about sixteen hours. I resigned from my retail job that same day and traded in customer service for lesson planning, assessment marking, new teacher induction, conflict resolution and navigating the ups and downs of adolescents.

Eighteen weeks ago, I was officially thrown into the deep, murky waters of teaching, with less than a week to collect to my thoughts and only a few days to plan my first lessons. I have officially survived my first term and am so grateful to have the opportunity to still be teaching in the next one. My emotions during the first term have been a melange of success, failure, joy, frustration, empowerment, disappointment, motivation and anxiety. Here are my ten reflections from the first ten weeks: