This morning my students are quietly and dutifully taking their final exam. The first semester of my second year of teaching is coming to a close. This semester seems to have gone by so quickly. I used to get a nervous knot in my stomach as I drove to school in the mornings. I felt intimidated by the teachers who have been here for longer than I've been alive, and apprehensive of the students who would sit in the back of the room like a bomb ready to go off at any moment. Even through that, I survived my first year relatively painlessly, praying every day that God would give me the strength to make it through that day. And he always did.
I still look to the teachers who have been in this business a while, the ones who are really good at it, not just doing it because they feel stuck, and hope that someday I can be like them. I like that I have things in my room from my dad's and sister's classrooms.
This year the principal put me in charge of the spelling bee. S-U-C-K-E-R. I couldn't say no. Actually I did, but so did everyone, so he came back and said I needed to do it. So when we come back in January we will start spelling bee practice. I saw a funny skit on Saturday Night Live about a spelling bee. I wish I had recorded it to show my students.
Halfway through the year, and enough time off to take a deep breath, be with family, go to the mountains, and come back rejuvenated for the spring.
*I just did spell check and misspelled rejuvenated the first time. Rejuvenated...R-E-J-U-V-E-N-A-T-E-D...Rejuvenated. I need to P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E.
