Topic: Update

I want to write a book reflecting on this year, and it hasn’t even been half as intense a year as I expected.  Except that mentally, it’s been an intense year of change.  My whole view of myself has radically been altered, my awareness heightened.  I can pinpoint anxiety and depression, happiness and creativity, meanness and sensitivity in myelf throughout the day.

My job requires me to repeatedly demand kids to spit out gum, to spend my time photocopying blank clocks for kids to practice writing time on, breaking up fights, calming down crying 10-yr. olds, stressing over what I am unable to teach, smiling over a game of checkers w/ that same kid over lunch, reading Matlida, showing a random Nextflix documentary about street kids in Romania, playing therapist to other teachers in crisis, stealing ideas from the internet and veteran teachers (hoor-ay for a profession that requires copying), waking up wanting to puke and never going to school again, followed by having a relatively rewarding day, teaching dance, running after runaway students, using reverse psychology (“I don’t want you to do my work, just sit there and do nothing all period”), and constant reflection. 

It’s a damn complext profession, and I’m grateful for 3 days of professional development this week, including a trip to Portland, Maine for the Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound national conference..  Then, one more week of work, till 10 days off for vacation.  I’m off to Portland, Oregon with my new girlfriend, who is amazing in every way, and inspires me daily.

And I’ve started doing yoga, and am loving it.  Slow, and meditative, and stretching out my body.  So good.  Baseball is around the corner, I can smell the grass at Shea!

Topic: I miss an audience

I feel more confident in myself right now than perhaps at anytime in my life.  Not that I say that without caution, but it’s the truth.  I’ve been living in a great apartment in Brooklyn for almost a year now, been thrown into the gauntlet of being a New York City school teacher for a group of 5 mildly unruly 10-yr. olds, and am living a rather busy life that leaves me little time for feel concerned about the future.  Of course, my job provides a lifetimes worth of dread and anxiety every morning, and until 3:10, but even that I’m somehow growing used to.

I want to start writing more for you guys.  Not that I have all the time in the world, but I am ready to begin a new phase with Xanga.  When I first began, I was 22 and straight out of college.  It’s been 3 1/2 years now, and this post-college experience has been more exciting than I could imagine.  I’ve moved out of depression, and my idealist lone-ranger save the world head, and am now developing as a professional educator.  It’s a bit interesting to see a part of my life played out in these words. 

And now there’s a girl, and she’s amazing, and I guess I want to kind of shout it out to the world, sort of thing.  But, this is a teacher blog, so I hesitate a bit, but the thing is, she’s a teacher too!  And a wonderful one.  And I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful that makes things, to have someone who understands what it feels like to have a girl refuse to spit out her gum, and then to engage in a game of “hide the gum under the tounge,” and to actually have students complain, “you’re too nice, you don’t yell!”  Of course, when I then yell, they yell back, and when I say, “you proved my point about why I don’t yell,” they look at me like I’m an alien. 

OK…will stop hear and listen to your thoughts.