I play this game with my adivisory girls that I learned from my elementary school cousins in Boston called High Low, where you say the good things that happened and then the bad. They aren’t great at it, as their answers are always mildly vauge and tend to the negative side (they’re 14. Life is like totally rough for them sometimes….and totally boring.), but I think I can find some specifics to highlight from my week.

Highs – My Birthday!

Low – I’m old!

High – I found out one of my students, who, yes, occasionally tires to sleep in my class, but is, on the whole, pretty well behaved, is completely horrifying in two of her other classes. This, obviously, isn’t a high for her other teachers, but it made me feel like I am doing something right.

Low – Constant. Chattering. My kids NEVER shut up! They aren’t bad kids. They aren’t disrespectful, most of the time. It’s just if I stop talking or give them ONE minute to get off-task, the talking begins. I’m working on it, though…

High – My best TFA/co-worker friend who is the resource teacher at our school invited me over Thursday for Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes. She clearly is a rock star. I honestly don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t run and fall into her giant red bean bag chair at the end of a tough day, or send completely random, whiney emails to her during class. Plus, she’s ridiculously phenomenal at her job, so she helps me out with mine.

High – When I told my kids they’d get extra credit for going to this college fair on Sunday and let them know that if they brought me a brochure back from my college, they would get extra credit, they got all excited and were like “We’re going to go tell them we have Ms. B, and that she is an awesome teacher!.” Melt.

Low – Most of my very vocal students are HATING the Steinbeck novel we are reading, which I kind of can’t blame them for. I remember going on long rants against The Pearl in 9th grade, but anyway…it’s tough to get them to look past the fact that, while there is no intense action or high school level drama, the writing is pretty ridiculous, and it’s Steinbeck for pete’s sake!

High – In an attempt to make them mildly excited about the book, I had them start making MySpace profiles for the characters, and they flipped out! Even when they got their reward of free time at the end of class to work on whatever they wanted, EVERY one of them kept working on the project. They were debating what each character would like, what they would say, searching through the book for their age and clues as to what they might write on each other’s walls…they might not write the most academic blog posts on their profiles, but they are more excited and engaged with the book, so I’m considering it a win.

So…I’m going to call this week a success, on the whole. It was definitely uplifted by my birthday, but the rest of the week didn’t suck either.

My 22nd year was, in the truest sense, a life-changing year. My life right now looks almost nothing like my life did last year:

Last year, I was in the midst of high school-like drama. This year, I’m teaching high schoolers. Last year, I was drowning in homework. This year, I’m the one giving it. Last year, I didn’t feel any older. This year, I feel about 100.

In the past year, I traveled half-way around the world. I moved back home and moved 3,000 miles from it. I graduated college. I became a real-live adult. I got my first paycheck over $1000. I partied in Vegas and fell asleep at 8:00PM from exhaustion. I went from being endlessly bored, waking up at 10:00AM regularly, to endlessly stressed, pulling myself out of bed at 5:30AM. I made some new friends, visited some old ones, and moved back in with some cool ones. I’ve cried more times than I can count, over friends, over stress, and over leaving behind an amazing city and four years of (mostly) fun.

But now, I’m entering my 23rd year. I welcomed it with a group of 32 teenagers belting out “Happy Birthday” as they ran into my classroom. I welcomed it with ridiculously large homemade cupcakes with contraband candles burning on top. (I told them not to bring fire to school!) I welcomed it with hand-made cards thanking me for “helping us with problems and being a wonderful teacher.” I welcomed it over beers with new, amazing friends who truly understand how old I feel.

While my 23rd year most likely won’t seem as life-changing on paper as  my 22nd, I’m thinking that by my 24th year, I’m going to be an entirely different person, and for today at least, I feel kind of OK with that.

I wish I had more time to do this:

Take pictures and play around in Photoshop, that is….not, you know, play by fences. Although, that is fun too….

First of all, thanks for the encouragement on my last (majorly downer) post. Last week was especially rough, and the weekend was not much better. It included breaking out in a stress rash, driving to the doctor to find it closed, driving to my school to find my key didn’t work, and driving home sobbing on the phone to my mom. After a rough start on Monday which included dropping a stack my student’s scrapbooks on my foot, this week has been….not terrible.

My students have been understanding the information this week and have been more engaged than usual. They actually started doing internet research today, and kept checking with me to make sure their sources were credible and reliable. (English teacher win!) I had someone observe my class this morning, and instead of telling me I’m completely failing at life, she basically told me to work on things I already knew I had to work on. It was less discouraging and more validating, having someone tell me that I’m not crazy in thinking there are some things I’m good at and some things I definitely need to work on. I have trouble knowing when I’m being too hard on myself and when I’m not being hard enough. Having another set of eyes helps me see what I can’t – it’s much less scary than I thought it would be.

I also somehow finally got into a grove this week of getting all my work done in such a way that I can take an hour or two at night to just sit back, kind of relax in that I’m-almost-not-able-to-keep-my-eyes-open way, and watch Bob and Jillian scream at sweaty, “Biggest Loser” contestants. Yes, I still have a lot going on, and yes, I still might have another nervous breakdown this weekend, but right now, in this moment, I feel alright, and that is definitely worth documenting.

Oh, and as an early birthday present to myself (12 days!), I bought myself Adobe Lightroom with my educator’s discount. $100 baby! Hopefully, it will motivate me to finally edit the awesome photos I took at my cousin’s bar mitzvah a few weeks ago.