This Year Feels Different

Just finished my first full week of my third "real" year of teaching although I've been at my school for a total of 4 including this year. I love my classes this year. I feel more organized, confident, and such as (my new way to end a sentence that I learned from Miss Teen USA South Carolina). I haven't felt so alive or right about what I'm doing in a long time. I remember the time I almost quit during student teaching. I kept saying, "There is nothing in me that wants to pursue this anymore." My parents told me, "Just finish. You are so close." My master teacher told me that if I quit, I'd be denying many future students a gift that I have. My husband told me that I needed to finish and then decide. One of my colleagues from my cohort said, "Really?" I muscled through. I am so glad I had the support system in place to get through. Becoming a teacher is a crazy thing. You are teaching, lesson planning and grading all at the same time while 150 lives are coming at you with full force (not to mention all the other lives attachd to them). I was going through a death in the family, working in the morning, teaching, working and then going to school at night. When I got home, I had to study, write papers, lesson plan. You have to be ready. You have to have your game face on. You have to say, "I can do anything for a limited amount of time to get to my goal." Now I look back and almost can't appreciate how hard it was. I think that that person that got me to where I am today was a big baby and it wasn't so tough, and I kick myself for thinking that I almost gave up. I'm glad I didn't. And I can't wait to become better and learn more and have more challenges. So that in four years after that point in my life, I can say, "Ya big baby!" Here's to this year.