Saturday, September 20, 2008

Rock gone! Ready to roll...

Can I tell you how wonderful it feels the moment after you pass a kidney stone?  It makes you feel like your formerly mundane and tedious life has turned magical.  It felt so much better teaching without the stone than with the stone that I almost felt I was high on drugs.   I just so appreciated not having to work through that added barrier of pain.

 It is too bad we can't hang on to that same state of appreciation forever.  I am really enjoying my job this year, however, and am truly grateful for the company of 120 fourteen year old girls each day.  They keep me young and  keep me thinking and definitely keep me on my toes. 

I realize how lucky I am to have a passion that so engages me now that all my children have left home.  I am staying at school later than ever as there is no reason to rush home, but I don't mind it because I enjoy percolating ideas in my room and creating all kinds of new things that I never had time to create before.

I have learned how to do power points and websites and have redone lessons, and I have even done lessons for other  members of my department because it is rewarding and creatively satisfying.  Yes, La Reina is becoming more and more a part of my life, but it is great to finally have arrived at a place in my career when I have enough experience under my belt to find my work not very stressful, and mostly  just a lot of fun.  

I was thinking today of how I always thought teaching was fun from the time I was a little girl and my favorite thing to do was to lure innocent neighborhood children  into our garage, which I had converted into a schoolroom, and give them lots of work to do. 

Today I spent the whole day grading essays, and I didn't even mind it that much, because I kept thinking how much worse it would have been trying to do them with a kidney stone.

Mainly tonight  I am really happy that I am able to go to work every day and enjoy doing what I do best.  

7 comments:

Susan Anderson said...

I remember you getting all those little kids to come over and do your "school assignments," too. I always wondered how the heck you got them to cooperate!

Glad your rock has rolled.

=)

PS. I'm excited that you have a blog now!

Jennifer Ball said...

I too am exctied at all the hope there is in teaching today. I can't tell you enough how grateful I am that God put us together in the 8th grade. I am such a better teacher becuse of our relationship. I no longer go home feeling exhausted because I was alone in all the "stuff" of teaching. This year is the ultimate!

Great blog!

Kristin said...

i'm glad that you are finally feeling better! and I am so glad that you now have a blog. hooray!

Heather Anderson said...

Fun to have you join us in the blog world")

I am glad you are enjoying teaching and those girls are lucky to have you!

Jeremiah often ask me if I can invite some of Carli's friends over so he can teach them... as he says, "like my own preschool and I can make the parents pay me"... maybe i should let him convert my garage LOL

jhofhine said...

I remember you teaching kids in the garage as well. I may have even participated. You are an awesome teacher! The kids on the reservation loved the lesson plans you had to come up with on your own. They were creative and inspiring! It must be lovely to have such a passion for your work. I like mine just fine don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't be able to say it was my passion... Glad you are feeling better. Kidney stones are not fun. I know that cuz mike used to get them occassionally and it is painful to say the least. Love to ya. I did get the 19th of October off so we could hang out.. Can't wait to see you.

NBlake said...

I'm so glad to get to see you in October. Hopefully I wont freeze as I have no warm clothes at all. Hmm... Man, those reservation days seem like a long time ago. Seems to me I remember those kids really liking your teaching as well. That was a fun time we had together sharing that experience. Sometimes I wonder how all those kids are doing now, my first real students. Now they would be pretty old with old kids of their own. I looked on Whitehorse High website the other day, but it didn't have much on it, and none of the names looked familiar.

Anonymous said...

I think that this is so sweet. You must have been so proud as a teacher to have taught such a wonderful bunch of kids.


from SeLA @Split Site PhD