moonlit princess…

He called her a moonlit princess.

And she smiled softly.

She was home.

A.G.A.I.N.

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.

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I never used to have a problem with blank screens in front of me. Now I do. Hopefully that will change with time. It takes awhile to get back in the swing of things…

You know, after teaching writing, writing for me now differs. I feel different as I write, now I spend more time looking at the writing process, less focus on content. I see my writing and notice things that would improve it. I never really spent much time noticing it before. Same thing applies with teaching too. My teaching style has changed even just between semesters. I’ve never really seen myself as over enthusiastic about anything. Last week one of my students made me realize that I was. When I had a brief minute to sit down, she came up and sat next to me and asked me what was wrong. I was depressed and tired…but didn’t really want to tell that to a student. She finally, after awhile, gave me an understanding look and said…”You know, you look like you really need a nap and don’t need to be here. Usually you are bouncing around the room and really happy but today you are not.”

I never realized that I was that way. At least teaching. In fact, in student teaching sometimes I would get counted down because I wasn’t enough like an “actress” and teachers need to be actresses.

At times I love my job. I very much love this school. I love the fact that I have technology, that I can have enough laptops for each student to have one to write an essay. The community itself I don’t like, but at times even that seems to be something I could live with if only I could keep my students and the district. I’d be a fool to give up something this good. I watch the other teachers filling out their request slips for materials for next year. I think about how to improve the school newspaper that I’m the advisor for, think about possibly getting a computer program to do it instead of regular layout. And then I realize sadly that I won’t be doing it next year. Someone else will. Part of me is happy that I will be living in a new place next year. But it’s still difficult. Will I move? Yes. Now the question is where. Part of me wants to move to the south. The more practical part thinks maybe I should stay in the north for another year, finish my half-completed MEd and then move. Time will tell.

One of the students I have this semester I had last semester too. She was in my writing class. Trying to get her to write made me want to pull out my hair and scream. She was totally unmotivated. She also had a lot of other problems–tried overdosing on drugs once just a few months ago. I could never reach her, no matter what I did. At times she frustrated me so much that I didn’t want to. More often than not though I wanted to.

I have her in English class again this semester and finally I feel like I’m making some sort of connection with her–especially when I found out that she took riding lessons and will be working at a stable. My students are doing essays now. She was supposed to write a narrative essay. After many “I don’t want to” and “I can’t do it…” she finally wrote an intro that made me laugh. She has a dry sense of humor and was able to convey that by few words. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Her characterization was really well done too. After praising her countless numbers of times for her efforts, the bell rang and she promised to work on it at home.

Today she came in and threw a crumpled up mess of a paper on my desk. With a “Read it. What I wrote. Not the comments, don’t look at them. You have to. Because I’m tired of it. I tried. I…”

I read it and it was good. After a little talk, she told me that her aunt read and it corrected it, told her it was horrible and that it wasn’t worth the effort that she put into it.

…

Sometimes I can’t understand people. I told the student to come in tomorrow and we would have a conference about her writing. She seemed a little better even just after I talked with her. At least she isn’t going to throw away the essay.

And thus the end to another day.