full circle

I am waking up again. I can tell myself roughly when to wake up and most of the time I am pretty accurate. Actually, most of the time I am dead on, right to the minute. 6:00. That is my time. The kids don't wake till between 7 and 8. Jenny won't wake up till between 9 and 10. So this is my hour. I joined a site that is being hosted by the Western Mass Writing Project, something that a few of my fellow bloggers will most likely become familiar with this year. Its for teachers and its about their writing..... not their students. Its so nice to be treated as an individual with talent, not just a person with 100 or so teenagers hanging off of them like clothing.

I love it. I posted a journal entry and got real feedback. I actually had goosebumps reading all of the responses. Writer to writer. So nice.

Also, I just got done reading my little blog route and am so happy to see my first group of seniors become freshmen. It is special to me, because although for some reason, unlike me, most of them enjoyed high school, I found myself in college, and they are going there. Kat is going to be at Smith, and I went to Smith all the time and had lots of friends there. Phoebe is somewhat pessimistically going to UMASS. I feel like that is where I became me. I wonder if she is going to be able to sift through all of the stuff there and do the same. It is a special feeling for me and I think I am really going to be the only one that really understands what I am feeling. I am excited though.

My goals for this year are to be more in touch with myself as a writer, with my students along the way, and to be proactive in the "school"stuff that I have to do, you know, paper work and stuff as well as contacting parents. I am going to have a rule about being quiet in the beginning of class this year. I am a little scared that it will stifle some of the aspects of class that I enjoy, but sometimes the kids go too far and really waste some time in the beginning, and truth be told, I find it wicked annoying to try and calm down a bunch of talking kids. So, quiet until after the completion of the writing prompt, or, no writing prompt. That's the way it will go.

Henry becomes a student this year.

This is more frightening and exciting than you could ever imagine. He is being thrown into the centrifuge of semi-adult hood. I have seen so many kids blossom and be killed by this thing. I am scared to death for Henry and also so happy to see him take this big step. It is only kindergarten, and half day at that, but it is the step. I just hope he finds good friends.