The Chronicles Of Nay

I know, it has been a very long time since I have posted. Life be life-in! I am finishing my last semester of classes before I start my dissertation, I am teaching through a state take over in my district, I am playing pool again, I am trying to win the best teacher in America competition and mostly I am just trying to survive life!

Let’s start with America’s favorite teacher! So it is a competition of teachers all over America who are fighting for a cash prize, an article in readers digest, a trip to Hawaii and a school assembly from Bill Nye! It started out with who knows how many groups of like 150 teachers. The first week the groups went down to the top 20. Then the top 15, top 10, top 5 then finally the top 1 in each group moved on to the semi-finals. You can vote for free daily, and the amount of people that are doing that is amazing. There are also donations you can make to the planetary society that counts as votes. It has been so surreal to think of all the support I have had to make it this far. I am grateful for every one of you that has voted paid or free, the people that haven’t blocked me on my excessive text messages, and all the people that have just encouraged me along the journey. Thank you! The TCU college of Education has been so supportive! They have taken every opportunity to push out my information and vote for me! They even did a little write up about me. You can find that here: https://coe.tcu.edu/news/2026/naomi-gutierrez-americas-fav-teacher.php . I am hoping to let my students and their families in on it in this next round because I am going to need a lot of help to get to first place. For the rounds to come I will need to be in first in order to advance! If you have a facebook please consider voting for me! Here is the link voting starts again Monday April 27th: https://americasfavteacher.org/2026/naomi-gutierrez

Like I mentioned this has been a crazy semester. I am getting toward the end of classes then I have to do all the things that come along with a dissertation. I am working on a blog about the whole process I am going through for that, so stay tuned for that blog soon! I have a paper due this week so we will see how soon I can get that out!

I also mentioned I was playing pool again. It has been fun! I really enjoy the team I play on, they have also been some of my greatest supporters in the Americas favorite teacher race. They are mostly new people and new friends I have made since I came back to pool in the fall. I can tell that I am a bit more stressed out than I realized. I have been sick with this congestion crap three times this semester. I find myself crying for the stupidest stuff and last week I left my pool sticks at teh bar we play at. I haven’t left my sporting equipment somewhere in years… if ever! I got to pool yesterday (at a different bar than we played at the week before) and I was like “Um… Where are my sticks?” I know it is not good for them to leave them in the car but, honestly if they don’t stay in the car then I will forget them at home! Anyway, we called the place from last week and they said yes, I had left them there! I drove my happy little but to the other side of Arlington to get them!

Like I mentioned I have a paper due this week and all though I have a pretty good idea of what I am doing, and it isn’t too long, I should probably get working on that! Thank you all so much for all your support, in everything I do! I will hopefully be writing more in the weeks to come! Have a great start to your week!