Time flies...

... when you're learning about AIDS.

Today I attended a training in preparation for teaching the HIV/AIDS curriculum to our 7th graders in January. It was my first day off at this school and I wasn't nearly as nervous as I was when I taught my little toughies last year. It was sort of nice to have the day off (and come home early - as tempted as I was to go to the school and check in). However, tomorrow starts 4 days of conferences and tomorrow is our late day. I'm sure it will be fine since I've been in pretty good contact with the parents so far this year. 

It's crazy that it's nearly December. This school year has been flying. I know I often mention how hard my first year of teaching was, my I am noticing so many differences in my everyday life this year. For one, there is no pit in my stomach every single night before I head to school. Sure, no one particularly wants to get up early and go to work, but it's not nearly the stressor it was before. I also am getting up refreshed and often get up early. Last year on weekends I could easily sleep until 11 but now I can't sleep in anymore and find myself being much more productive. I don't get as nervous contacting parents at work, I contribute more to my team, I don't mind having administrators coming in. I have only given out 1 detention for behavior this year, which absolutely blows my mind. Thinking back, I have no idea how I did it. This isn't to tout how great of a teacher I am or how strong I am. I just truly have no idea how I got through it. 

Every. single. day. was challenging. I don't know how I smiled in the staff room.

Was I an excellent educator? Probably not. Did I do as much as I could have? No. It probably wouldn't have been as hard if I was a better teacher, perhaps?

I am so glad it's over. I can barely think about it sometimes without crying.

And I'm a better teacher because of it. Am I probably too tolerant of some behaviors at my new school, but I think it has ultimately helped me. Do I feel like I gave up because I didn't want to deal with that demographic of student? A little bit. And maybe some day I'll go back to that, but I'm not ready to take that on again. It truly rules your life. 

Anyway, enough of a downer. The point is, I am SO happy at the school I'm at now, and I wish teachers that have been there a while could see how truly lucky they are to be there. I know they are not all naive, but it sometimes seems like they have no idea what's out there as far as student populations. 

Happy Wednesday all! Keep up on your Christmas shopping but keep things simple!