I'm Looking Forward to Work. Really.

Last Monday was my first official day to report in. I came by the school the week before for a training and the parking lot was already half full.

How do you a know a school is full of over-achieving staff? The parking lot is half full before anyone is paid to be there.

I really like my school. I feel like I work with a group of dedicated, high-quality teachers. Our custodial crew keeps earning awards for how clean they keep the school, and our admin team is probably one of the best in the county. No, things are not perfect, but by comparison there's not many schools of a similar caliber in my opinion. There was the one AP who I felt had an unwarranted low opinion of my ability last year, but I felt like that changed with my performance. Plus, she saved a kid's life with CPR at one point during the year. That warrants some respect.

I knew that I was excited about going back to work when 5:00 PM came around on Monday and it still felt like early afternoon. I love my home, but I need variety in my life. Getting up and going to work with 120 other adults and 1400 kids provides that spice of life nicely.

My friends and I used to joke that we'd be happy being house husbands married to a sugar momma. We were "a-okay with doing housework, eating bonbons, and lifting weights to make ourselves pretty!"

As I said briefly once before, being a stay-at-home parent is not the racket I once thought it was. If Shane was in school and I could work on whatever 'projects' I wanted to, it'd be one thing. For now, he requires constant supervision and play time which prevents me from doing other projects. I like to do one thing for a little while, switch to another task, and switch back as my attention wanders. Teaching is good for me in that way, because I'm constantly seeing different people or I teach one subject and switch to another afterwards.

I'm very curious what I'll think of this blog post if I reread it later in the year. Teaching always feels like a sprint to me. Before the whistle blows, you're amped up, maybe a little nervous, and ready to go. You pour your energy in as you start to accelerate and hit your stride. Your energy starts to flag towards the end of the race and you can feel the burn in your muscles until you stumble across the finish line exhausted.

Thank God for summer.

Shane's napping and I took a short break before working on some PowerPoint slides and planning. I figured I'd write this up real quick, because I don't know how frequent my posting will be once the school daze begins. From what I can tell, the population I'm going to work with this year is going to be a different breed of needs than normal. I'll probably have to modify most of my material. I won't know for sure until I really get to know the kids, though.

That's tomorrow!