15 Pages?!?!?!

I'm still working on my paper (I'm just taking a little break right now).  This is for the PAEMST so it's been quite the interesting experience.

For those of you that are new, I first started this adventure two and a half years ago.  When I first heard about the application process, I had to seriously think if I wanted to go through with it all.  I had an amazing group of people supporting me (and I didn't have very much going on in my day to day life) so I figured why not?  The resume wasn't too bad as I had just written one for my masters portfolio so it just needed to be tweaked a bit.  The lesson to be videoed was also tweaked from my masters portfolio, ok so a little more than just "tweaked", I took the idea and souped it up into an awesome lesson.  The guy who nominated me for the whole thing had a professional videographer with all of the special equipment come in to record it.  It was a pretty big deal.  The letters of recommendation wouldn't be too hard as one had to come from my principal (who thinks I'm awesome and pretty smart), another I got the guy who nominated me (who also thinks I'm awesome and really smart, it also may have helped that he used to work for the state office and helped to write the science core I taught), and the third I had my co-workers write together (they know I'm amazing).  The biggest issue with the application for me was the 15-page paper I would have to write about my video and my teaching.  I thought, "15 pages?!?!  How am I supposed to write that much?!!!"  It all worked out.  I even used a part of the written portion of my masters portfolio for the paper.  After writing about how good I was, I started to think, "15 pages?!?!  That's all they're giving me?!?!"

I ended up being one of two state finalists for the award.  I went to a couple of banquets and enjoyed some nice dinners.  In the end, I didn't win, but I was almost grateful for it because after attending the banquets and seeing the other finalists (some were for math, I was for science), I realized that I haven't done nearly as much as they had in their careers.  I also realized that I probably wouldn't enjoy going to the seminars and workshops for the winners even if they were in Washington DC.

That brings us to now.  The PAEMST cycles back and forth between secondary and elementary teachers and this year brought a new opportunity to try applying again.  After the last time, I figured I should wait a cycle or two before reapplying, but the dude at the state office over the whole thing and my principal had other things in mind.  I think they were working together to try and convince me to try again this year.   I told them I would if I could reuse my video from the previous application as the rules state that everything has to be from the current school year, so low and behold, the rule changed this year and I could resubmit the same video.  My principal nominated me.  I figured everything is basically done so why not?  I tweaked my resume some more, actually a lot.  I decided to just go full bore and show them what I got!  The only problem was that I only could use two pages.  Two pages?!?!  I'm too awesome for two pages!  I got it all to fit and had to decide what was the most important and most impressive.  If I ever have to find a new job, my resume is freakin' amazing!  The letters of recommendation were rewritten, mostly just the date.  The video was resubmitted.  Now I'm just working on the paper and I'm thinking, "15 pages?!?!  How am I going to rewrite 15 pages?!?!"  I've been using a lot of different color text and highlights to help me out.  I was given the scores from my last submission so I feel as though I have the inside scoop and I've been pinpointing everything they suggested I lacked discussion or examples.  I've probably read through the thing at least ten times.  The problem is that I now have 17 pages...how are you supposed to cut two entire pages?!?!  I've definitely seen the fluff I added two years ago so that's now on its way out, but I still have two pages too many.  I'm glad this paper didn't win two years ago, I mean it was pretty good and all, but I'm not just pretty good, I'm amazing!  So now, "15 pages?!?!  I'm too awesome for just 15 pages!"

If anything, I will come away from this whole process being reminded of how amazing I am and all of the great things I have done whether the nation sees it or not!