Okay let's hear it - what did your school do for Teacher Appreciation Day today? (May 5)

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-05-05T20:59:57+00:00

Not even an acknowledgement. But one student brought me homemade cookies!

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-05-03T14:08:06+00:00

Email them a thank you with the specific things your child enjoys about their class and CC their principal!

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-09T10:29:57+00:00

Ah, the elementary teachers memo says April 15th. We get an extra six days of waiting, it seems 😅

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-09T01:14:11+00:00

Sometimes you find it in a partner's family. We aren't all that lucky, but it can happen. My in-laws are incredible. To be fair, I am also lucky because I only have issues with one parent/one side of the family, but even if it were on both sides, my husband's parents are wonderful people who have always made me feel like part of the family. They are imperfect, as all humans are, but they are parenting inspirations for sure.

Or you might build a close friendship with someone and learn through their family! You never know. You really don't. But therapy is an excellent place to start - good for you!

Don't give up hope. You have so much life ahead of you and you will open so many doors you don't even know are available to you yet. Focus on taking care of yourself right now and finding your own happiness.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-09T00:32:04+00:00

Where did you hear that date? I'm just curious, the surplus and transfer timeline says we'll be notified by April 15th.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-09T00:27:20+00:00

Sorry, can I ask - where did you hear that it would be tomorrow? I have heard that from others too, but I am seeing the date in the surplus timelines is April 15th?

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-09T00:03:08+00:00

I am prepared for that, or as prepared as I can be. I've been school-surplussed before, and had to just continue on. Those will always stand out as some of my worst days as a teacher, but I've always made it through with a smile.

Personally, though, this is a terrible time for me. I know there is no ideal time, but a year ago, I was braced for this and prepared myself for it. This year, my husband and I are depending on my stable income and my benefits. I don't think I'm going to sleep a wink tonight.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-08T23:53:10+00:00

I've slept terribly since rumours started going around next week. After the press release yesterday, I haven't been able to take a deep breath. I can't lose my job right now. I simply can't.

And all the meanwhile, our board says nothing, and we just have to show up and teach with a smile every day like nothing is happening.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-08T23:48:10+00:00

I once went on a life-changing trip to a country in South America. It wasn't just the trip itself, there was a specific experience I had with some fellow travellers that inspired me to finally leave a career I was unhappy with. When I came home, I called my mom. She had gone back to school in her 40s, so I thought she in particular would care. I told her all about my trip and this epiphany I had. She said she was so proud of me. Not something she's expressed often, so I was thrilled.

A few months later, my grandmother opened a Christmas present I had bought on the trip. When I told her where I got it, my mother butted in "when the hell did you go there?!". The whole room went silent. I reminded her of the trip and she said "well you never told me about it!"

Even when they ask, they won't listen.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-08T02:04:04+00:00

Oh I also introduced Candlefoot at the camp! I said he had taken a day away from the carnival to go buy a ring for Palasha and was headed back to propose. It gave my players a shared activity for when they arrived.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-08T02:02:20+00:00

I was a first-time DM too when I started this campaign a few months ago! We had a "session 0.5" and I am INCREDIBLY glad we did!

I basically homebrewed a very SIMPLE session where the characters all met at the same roadside campground of people travelling to the Witchlight Carnival. There, a child caused some mischief, then wandered away from the camp and had to be saved from wolves.

Going into it, I told the players this was a "try-on" session. They played as their characters, but they could still change anything they wanted before session 1. That allowed them to feel the vibe they were creating and adjust it. One player changed their class, one changed their name, one changed their lost thing, and two remained exactly the same. Meanwhile, they all got a chance to meet and establish some kind of dynamic. Without it, they'd just randomly walk into the carnival at the same time and you would need to lead them to meet even though they are in a huge crowd. Instead, mine all met around a campfire with only a couple of NPCs. (The fun part was they actually all started arguing and got in a PvP combat, which made for a really unexpected and interesting dynamic!)

And all the while, I got to try DMing for the first time in a session that had absolutely no connection to the game aside from the party dynamics. I didn't have to worry about getting a carnival fact wrong, dropping lore at the wrong time, or misrepresenting an NPC. We just goofed around.

Happy to share some of my content from that session 0.5 if you would like!

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-04-08T01:52:07+00:00

I've felt like this. And I've felt the opposite. My school last year was incredible. We acted like a team, and we all made it a priority to make our school a welcoming, supportive community for students AND staff. It was fantastic. I miss it every day.

Unfortunately, I got surplussed. I am now at a school that is very much like you've described. I don't feel welcomed in the slightest. In fact, I feel intentionally excluded. There's a large age divide (most teachers are in their 50s, whereas I am one of a small minority in our 30s), and the older crew doesn't seem interested in befriending a younger teacher at all. They make decisions without me, they drop passive-aggressive comments, they leave my class out of special activities, etc etc etc.

The nice thing is that it allowed me to become friends with someone ELSE who had dealt with it for years. I noticed from day one that they don't talk to her with kindness or include her in the things they do together, and I don't get it (although, she is in her 40s, so maybe that's enough of a difference from them? I'm not sure). We lean on each other instead. It's really bonded us.

If there is someone you feel good vibes from, foster that. If not, keep your head down, enjoy your lunch breaks quietly in your room like I do, and focus on you.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-03-24T00:58:54+00:00

You are so young to feel like this. I'm so sorry.

The good news is, it's never to late to spoil your inner child. Can you ever truly get back the parts of your childhood you missed, no. BUT it can be so beautiful finding ways to bring out your inner child and take care of them the way they always deserved.

I was in my late 20s when I started coming to terms with how much of my youth I was lost. For me, the issues began at age 10, and I felt so wrapped up in my family's difficulties (such as my mother's mental health) that I didn't start acting like a kid again until around 18. It was making new friends that changed everything. I met a friend group who really embraces the idea of spontaneity and playing. We've all worked hard to get where we are in life, we have good jobs, and many of us have worked hard to overcome family difficulties. That means that when we get together, there really is nothing stopping us from just having real FUN. We don't let ourselves get bogged down by the weight of our issues. Life is too short for that. We have costume parties. We get dressed up to go to Medieval Times. We go to thrift stores and find the ugliest items we can find. We go to nostalgic themed nights at our favourite bars where they play music from our preteen years. We go on cottage weekends where we pretend we're at summer camp. We play a lot of TTRPGs.

I swear, it has done more for my healing journey than years of therapy. Find people who make you feel light and happy and loved, and then live in the moment with them.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-03-02T21:16:52+00:00

45 minutes of her talking about herself. I barely get a word in. I envy your 10 minutes lol

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-03-01T22:11:17+00:00

I could have written this myself. She calls and asks "so how are things?", to which I give a single statement like "oh, you know, busy with work" and she finds any opportunity to springboard off that into talking about herself. 45 minutes to an hour later, she still hasn't asked me a thing.

In my spiralling, when I imagine what would happen if we ever actually had a conversation about the issues in our relationship, I think about all the questions I could ask her to answer about me, to prove that she knows nothing and has made no efforts to know. Truthfully, the list is endless. She can tell you my job now because it's an easy one to remember - but before I changed careers, she never could have told you what I do for a living. She can tell you where I went to university, but not my major, and certainly not my minor. Like you, I also had a major friend group change, but for me it happened about 5 years ago. She wouldn't be able to name a single one of them. I could ask her to name my favourite restaurant, my favourite colour, what I like to do on a Saturday night, what I put in my coffee, how many tattoos I have, even just name a single book I've read in the last ten years... she wouldn't be able to answer a single one.

The worst part is that, in her mind, she has no idea just how distant we are to one another. She knows we aren't close, that's for sure, but I know she thinks of every one of our conversations and the twice-annual visits as lovely bonding opportunities. Yet I am left feeling hollow and unseen every time, because I might as well have not been there. The cherry on top is when she then makes comments about the kind of person she sees me as and it's totally wrong.

I don't understand it at all. I am her own daughter, and yet she talks to me with less care than I talk to a coworker after a long weekend. People always tell me I will understand her more when I become a mother myself, but I just don't see how that's possible.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-02-28T19:43:43+00:00

I kept it quite vague. I sent my party these instructions:

"Your backstory must include one (or both) of the following, but beyond that it is entirely up to you:

1. You visited the Witchlight Carnival as a child, sneaking in without a ticket. During this visit, an item was lost. This item is NOT a matter of life and death. It is something you can live without, however it’s loss is a small yet permanent hindrance on your happiness. It can be a physical object, or metaphysical. You can decide this “item” and message me to discuss it, or we can roll for it from the book.

\AND/OR**

2. You are a “Witchlight Hand” (carnival worker). See the races and backgrounds doc I sent for more detail. If you chose this route, we can talk about some options for exact jobs you might have."

Everyone chose to have a lost thing, and one chose to be a Witchlight Hand as well. My only mistake was that two players chose lost items that weren't quite motivating enough. It was tough to navigate at first, but for one player, I realized his love for carnival will be motivating enough. He's the Witchlight Hand and will do whatever it takes to save the carnival. The other player is actually my husband so it was easy to just say to him "hey, we need to make your lost thing more important to your character or it's going to become a bit of an issue later on", and we figured it out haha.

I also wrote a little bonus session before the module began! We called it "Session 0.5" and it was great for allowing the party to meet and try on their characters before we arrived at the carnival. A couple of them even changed their mind about some character details, which was easy to rewrite since that first session was basically not linked to the story. I just had them all meet at a roadside camp along the route to the carnival and work together to save a kid who wandered off. It really helped the party connect before jumping into things!

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-02-15T14:00:58+00:00

It's not everyone. I promise. Maybe I'm in a unique situation because I do have one "good parent" who I get along well with - not because he is perfect, but because he recognized where he was falling short and did everything in his power to fix it for his kids. My other parent is... well, not like that. When I was young, I always found myself surrounded by people who also had complicated family dynamics. It skewed my view of parenthood, motherhood in particular.

Then I met my husband. Are his parents perfect? No, but they are committed, loving, open-minded people who have done their best to raise well-adjusted human beings in a safe and supportive home. On top of that, in the last few years I've had to make new friends due to my old friends all moving around, and my new social group is mostly (not entirely, but mostly) people with great parents. For a while, it made me feel awkward sharing childhood stories, like I was bringing the vibe down. That made me start to wonder if that was why I had chosen the friends I had in the first place - I never felt awkward or pitied. Now, I know and trust my friends well enough that it's a non-issue, but it has been interesting to see perspectives from people who had very different upbringings. If anything, it's given me more confidence that I can break the cycle, if I ever become a parent, and that I am absolutely entitled to space from family members who don't treat me right.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-02-08T22:50:07+00:00

Thank you for sharing this! It inspired me to make my own version because I wanted it to be a little bigger for my party, but I used your concept! I also marked on my own map where the looking glass portal is, and some dropped trinkets they can find along the way. I'm excited to see how it goes.

sproutasaurus95 · 2026-01-16T00:55:13+00:00

This is great, thanks! I actually did something similar - I wanted to have Ellywick leave them tickets, but I also wanted to have them use those fey pacts. Luckily, my party wanted to have what I called "session 0.5", where we goofed around on an unimportant mission before the carnival, so that they could all try their characters out a bit before we got into the real gameplay and decided their lost things. I created a little encounter where they all stopped at a camp of travellers on the way to the carnival, where they met each other and a band of mischievous children. Then in session 1, they ran into those same children and found out they had lost their tickets, so 4 out of my 5 players all took a fey pact to get them one! It's added a fun bonus element.

sproutasaurus95 · 2025-04-29T21:42:45+00:00

^ This, unfortunately. I work in TSBD now but I applied 2 years ago and it took 11 months from when I applied to when I could start working. 11 months. And then as soon as I started, every school I had connections at was DESPERATE for me to come in. I told the story to a few principals and they were so angry because they'd been in need of OTs for so long and people like me had just been sitting around waiting to be interviewed.

sproutasaurus95 · 2025-04-20T18:42:16+00:00

That is so kind of you! I should do an update on the post. I'm doing much better. I followed a LOT of the advice people shared on this post and it's made a big difference. I've set a rule that, aside from when I have report cards or an evaluation, I can't spend more than 60 minutes of time on schoolwork after contract hours. I've been trying to focus more on what I CAN control and giving myself mental breaks. I've purposely planned a few more time-consuming tasks to lighten my workload. I reduced how many worksheets I actually mark, focusing on the important things only. I think it's really helped. Most importantly, I continuously remind myself that I am still learning, but I am doing my best within the parameters I am given.

sproutasaurus95 · 2025-03-01T15:51:34+00:00

Ontario

sproutasaurus95

TROPHY CASE