Back to School

Remember on your first day of school when your mom took your picture with your new backpack and cute new outfit that you painstakingly picked out the week before (and it's possible that the outfit changed 10 times before school actually started)? And now when you look back you think you looked like a gomer pile (At least that's what I think when I see my big rockin bangs). Do you remember the anxiety of wondering if you had the nice teacher or the mean teacher? How about the fear that this year might actually be difficult (who decided an 8th grader needs to memorize the periodic table?).

Well, today was the first day back to school. Unfortunately, Nathan wouldn't wake up at 7am to take my picture in front of our door. So, I don't have a cheesy picture to post of me on my first day back. Anyway, as a teacher the feelings are different. I hope I didn't forget anything important, especially when I say the same thing to each class all day it's easy to think you already said it (i.e. how I grade, how to get extra credit, what I do if your obnoxious, etc). I also want to make sure I don't look too much like a student.

One thing that is nice is that it is my second year so I know where to find supplies, who to go to, and I have previous students to say hi to me in the hall. It was really nice because I had previous students walk by and they were excited to see me and asking if I was teaching any of their classes this year. It made me feel good. That is why I teach, because it feels good to know you have a positive influence on someone. Oh I'm sure there are students who think I'm awful and tell their friends to get out of my class (which works to my advantage because it is normally the students that cause problems that tell their friends to get out of my class), but it's the few that come to visit you that make the bad days worth it. It's so nice to be working in what I chose instead of something to get by.