Hey...Anyone miss me?

Wow...what a couple of frustrating weeks it's been without internet access at home and without having access to almost everything at work because it's blocked by a web-filter.

We now have access to the internet :) yeah...and I am sitting here thinking "Hmmm...what the heck is there to write about?"

Jese...Becky and Jay had to get engaged and make it so everything anyone could write about just seems so...well...unimportant. :) I don't think I have ever been so excited for any two people to get married (well, other than me but we're not talking about me...yet)! Jay... you are the man! Beck... it is sooooo good to hear you happy! You both deserve ginormously wonderful things!

OK...now me.

And this is where I am stumped.

Let's try this...

I need to figure out how to slow down. Teaching high school senior English is a bit taxing the way I do it. Even though I don't want to be one of those teachers who goes in at 7:30 and leaves at 3:15 (contracted hours) sometimes I do wonder what it would be like. How do those teachers detach themselves? How do they leave the workplace behind them and go home to their families without the weight of 100+ other lives on their minds? How do they go and do and live without papers to grade, lessons to plan, strategies to review.

I am afraid to get old in this profession. So much of my life is defined by the school and the classroom. I don't really know who I am without it. It's not just teacher (which I can't even tell you the connotation of the word teacher and the expectations of what that means to the individual). It is all of the other hats a teacher wears and then some. If I only worked my contractual hours WHAT WOULD I DO with all that TIME?

Write a book. Go to the gym. Dance in the living room with my kid for no reason. Laugh ridiculously. Go for a walk. See a movie...

I would do all of that WITHOUT guilt! I actually feel guilty when I am doing something for myself because I could be doing something to keep myself caught up with work and the OTHER PEOPLE'S kids.

Where is the balance? How do I balance my life and the expectations of everything attached to "teacher"?

By the way... to answer the question, "anyone miss me?"...

Yeah... I do.