January 25th: That Was One Long Day!

Today was one incredibly long day. Mondays usually are, but add in the beginnings of a cold and the day seems doubly long. It's my own fault, of course. I had a massage client on Saturday and I actually said the following words out loud: "Well, I can't remember the last time I was sick!"

Brilliant.

I've been alternating between blaming my seventh graders who have been sick a lot lately, and blaming George who hogs all the heat around here:

Before I fall into my Nyquil-induced coma, let me share with you the highlight from today. After school today, one of the moms stopped me when I was walking back to my classroom. She asked me if I'd gone to church on Sunday; for a second I thought I was talking to my own mother! The reason she asked was so she could ascertain whether or not I'd heard our priest's sermon on Sunday. I hadn't, so she proceeded to summarize it for me. She said that Father was talking about the importance of having people in our lives that make us laugh, and the importance of laughter. She finished by saying, "You are that person for our children, and I just want to thank you for that."

It was really touching. It's not often that we teachers hear such positive feedback from parents or students or the powers that be. I know that this two- or three-minute conversation made a huge difference in my day. I wonder what a difference it could make in the educational realm if more teachers heard something positive each day. I wonder how we could make that happen.

I wonder a lot of things.

Like what happened to yesterday's post. That's easy. I didn't write one. I had a lot of work to get done on a Sunday: lesson plans, grading, progress reports, creating a wiki for an upcoming presentation, more grading. And I just decided that it was okay to skip one day. No guilt. No worry. It's okay!

And now...off to bed!