First Post

"and a golden apple for the best teacher..."

I have always known that I wanted to teach. There are stories dating back to my pre-NKOTB days of the early 1990s, when I would take over Vacation Bible School nursery classes or help my first-grade teacher with her classroom library. After a long road filled with many obstacles, I am now in my first job as a teacher. But that doesn't mean all my insecurities are gone. I have always envisioned teachers, especially the skirted females of old movies, as completely organized individuals with no room in their lives for grammatical mistakes, wrinkled shirts, or unpolished nails. But as I know, and you will soon find out, I barely know how to use an iron and my nails haven't seen a manicurist since my sister took me for my birthday last year (a gift which ultimately gave me a nail infection, but that's another story). In other words, teachers are human beings. If you cut us, we will bleed...and most likely it will be all over the monthly grading reports that were due to the office last week.

I'll never receive the golden apple, and I think I am okay with that. My only concern is that my students enjoy learning because of something that occurred within the walls of my classroom.

With that in mind, this place will become my outlet. I have a new career, a new apartment, and a new independence that I have come to enjoy quite thoroughly. I am going to learn how to cook eggplant, how to dance to Latin music, and how to make conjugating verbs moderately interesting to 7th graders. This is my life, and I expect it to be as brilliant as possible.

(Close with "That Girl" twirl and "Mary Tyler Moore" hat toss)