I Failed at Blogging This Week

I'm not really sure what happened to me keeping up with my blog this week. Oh yes, I do. It's called having 67 new students to get to know. That has consumed my life this week. By Friday, I was tired, worn out, and in desperate need of a lengthy nap. And to think, we only had school for four days. Wow.

This week, I will only be teaching for four days again because I will be attending the SCCTE conference in breathtaking Kiawah. I can't wait, but I still have a lot of preparing to do. I am an eternal procrastinator.

My fasting is still going well, though there have been days that I might have wanted a Coke so badly I wanted to validate my drinking one. I still haven't. I'm spending more time in prayer and believe in my breakthroughs.

It's late. I need sleep. School starts way too early.

Teaching

My profession has been heavy on my heart lately for a variety of reasons. For one, I am in the middle of writing up my responses to the Teacher of the Year questions. One of the first questions asks why I became a teacher. I'm supposed to write two double-spaced pages, but I can sum up my response in much less than that. I am a big believer that I didn't choose teaching, but instead, it chose me. Some are called to study law, some are called into medicine, and I was called to teach; it is as much a part of my DNA as my eye color. I honestly consider it one of the most honorable professions in the world. Sure, there are jobs I could work and get paid much more money or have much more prestige, but I'd rather sit in my classroom and shape the lives of young adults over money and titles any day of the week.

Last night in my graduate class, one of my fellow classmates (and a teacher) shared with our little 618 family that this would be her last year teaching. She's not retiring and hasn't been laid off. After three years, she's just decided teaching is not for her. I am devastated to say the very least. I've seen her presentations in class, heard her talk about her students with such passion, and now I feel like our field is losing something great. Denise Hildreth-Jones, one of my favorite Christian speakers, is also a novelist. She often tells the story of how she never believed she could be a writer until someone told her that she needed to write a book. Her response was, "I don't write," and the person said, "Yeah, you do." After publishing several novels, she tells this story to reference the power other people have to call us into our destinies. I wholeheartedly believe that teaching is mine.

When I was a little girl, I often had to be my sister's student while she played school. I desperately wanted to grow up and have either a younger sibling or a classroom of my own so I could teach real people instead of stuffed animals. My parents assured me a classroom would be the more likely of the two. I remember racing in the door from kindergarten, eager to teach my daddy the letter "J" and all the j-words we had learned that day. A love for learning had ignited even then, and it has continued to grow.

Are there bad days in teaching? Sure, there are. Do I often leave school at 5:00 exhausted and lugging home a night's worth of work to grade? Of course. Sure, I'd like a job that allows my day to end when I leave my place of employment, and there are days I'd practically kill for a decent lunch instead of whatever the cafeteria staff has dreamed up. But at the end of each and every day, there is nothing I'd rather do than teach. It is who I am.

Me with one of my favorite students on her happy graduation day.

Rising to the Challenege

If you go back through the four blogs I wrote before I abandoned this blog attempt altogether, you will see where I was being wishy-washy about graduate school--knowing I wanted my Master's, but not knowing if I was ready or able or motivated enough to do it just yet. This summer, I bit the bullet, and I have completed two classes (and made A's). I am currently enrolled in the next two; you'll have to check back to see what this monsterous research class does to my GPA. After this summer, I'll only have six classes to go, and I will be the proud owner of a Master's and recipient of a pay raise. I'm pretty excited about both! I'm also working on completing National Boards for teaching this year. I'm definitely more scared of that than I am of the Master's degree.

The husband and I are still house hunting ferociously. We found our "dream house," made an offer that was accepted, and then the house completely failed the termite inspection. And by failed, I mean the inspector said it was the worse he'd seen in years. Now we no longer refer to it as our "dream house" but the "termite house" instead. I was pretty sad, but it was great that we found out before we purchased and moved into the termites' territory. It would have likely made them very angry. We are currently looking at a house and planning on making an offer today. It's a foreclosed property that is in great shape, so we're keeping fingers crossed and sending prayers up.

Honestly, between graduate school, reading books that I think hope will be useful as I attempt National Boards, and hunting for houses that are in our price range but not in the ghetto, my summer has disappeared. In about three weeks, I will head back to the classroom and welcome 60-70 new students into the wonderful world of American literature. I hope I'm ready for that challenge in three weeks.