Today

I can't explain why, but today was a very good day.  I haven't felt that good in awhile.  Sure I had a headache by the end of the day but who doesn't when you spend your days amongst the hormone driven monstrosity that is a middle school?  The lesson today I came up with late last night and hadn't written it down prior to teaching it, I grabbed materials last minute literally on the way to work, and it went amazingly well! I had 100% engagement for a good chunk of the class period!! I dunno why but it was just an on day!  I got complimented multiple times today, apparently the air was blowing just the right direction?  A few coworkers complimented my shirt, few students made small compliments, and I got a lot of "You look different today, Ms."  My first thought was, hmm, ya think?!  I was living in that school sweatshirt for like a week because it was chilly out and was nice and comfy!  But I think telling me I look different is about as close as I am going to get to a compliment from some of those students.  Tomorrow we are going to do a marshmallow challenge in class with functional text.  Should be interesting.  Been thinking about my life a lot lately.  The What if''s, the Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda beens.  I look at this new job opportunity before me and it makes me think about a lot of other things in my life and how I wonder where I would be if I had made different choices.  I love my family and wouldn't change that for the world, even when they drive me nuts.  But seeing this other job opportunity got me thinking about career choices, and settling for stuff career wise rather than continuing to chase my dreams.  Dreams sort of get put on hold when families start to expand.  I guess I never really chased my dreams because I never figured I was worth enough to have them.  Or that I wanted other dreams more, like being a wife and a mom.  I wanted to be one of your cliche 50's housewives/stay at home mom's like on the old fashion T.V. shows.  I love my girls to pieces but it wasn't until I became a mom that I realized I could never be Mrs. Brady.  If I stayed home with my girls I would either be committed for real or on trial for doing something really STUPID.  I am much more like Claire Huxtable only not black, and not making NEARLY enough money! If I'm not busy I don't know what to do with myself.  Just call me your local ADHD head case.  I always thought that diagnosis was used way to often and everyone was using it to label kids so I steered clear of it during my first few years as an educator.  And then my daughter hit 4.  And I saw things in her that I saw in myself that I remembered from my childhood and I cringe.  Could this in fact be real? Could she have it to?  How can I help her if I can't even help myself?  That was when I finally walked through the symptoms and was officially diagnosed with ADHD.  No wonder I struggled so much as a kid.  The pieces start falling into place.  I was one of those kids that slipped through the cracks.  What we used to call the dreamers.  If I was bored I couldn't sit still but when I was tired I would just check out.  My daughter does this.  It worries me a lot sometimes.  I really don't want to label her, and being an educator I know how labeling can hinder a student.  But at the same time, I want her to have more successes than me.  I don't want her to have to struggle the way I did.  Then again, I took some of them high powered drugs and it nearly did me in.  I am not too keen on giving that kind of thing to my daughter after what happened to me.  So I watch and wait...and I wonder.  And then I realize that I am babbling and way off the topic of what I was originally going to mention.  Maybe I'm having another "What if..." moment.  But how cool would it be to be able to teach a photography class and have writing very closely integrated into the course so that for every picture they have to write some kind of story, fiction, memoir, childhood memory, whatever.  And then combine them together to put up in a gallery of some kind.  The whole concept of a picture being worth a thousand words and tying creative writing into that.  I think that would be a neat elective class that would help students improve their writing abilities and express their thoughts both through photographic individuality as well as written word.  I was also thinking recently about how much fun it might be to teach ASL.  Apparently I want to be an elective teacher.  Who knows.  I wonder about so much stuff at the moment that I can't distinguish between what I really want and just the what if category.  But whatever, today was a good day.  I'm sticking to that.  Job posting for the job at the other school went down.  Hoping my boss touched base with other principal and I will hear something back soon.  I'm trying not to get my hopes up but that's difficult.